Winning a trip to Florida is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and for 11 Litchfield Middle Schoolers, they plan to take full advantage of the beaches, ocean and, of course, Disney World.

The middle school students will travel to Orlando, Fla., in July to participate in the national Family, Career and Community Leaders of America convention. The students received bids to the competition after earning the top scores at the state convention two weeks ago.

“We’re pumped. It’s really exciting,” eighth-grader Kaitlyn Johnson said.

The Eden Valley-Watkins School Board appointed Julie Meyer to a vacant seat at its regular meeting Monday.

Meyer, who ran for School Board in November, will fill the position held by Dave Ruhland, who resigned from the board in April after purchasing a home in another school district, according to EV-W Superintendent Larry Peterson.

There are few people who can admit one of the greatest influences in their life is a cartoon character, but Litchfield High School senior artist Mackenzie Lopez gives all the credit to a hedgehog with supersonic speed.

In 1991, a Japanese video software company, known as Sega, released its video game console, making its mascot, Sonic The Hedgehog, an overnight phenomena.

Enamored by the character, Lopez drew Sonic everywhere and anywhere.

“He was my idol at the time,” Lopez said. “Without him I probably would never have drawn.”

The Litchfield School Board approved another rounds of cuts Monday.

Board members authorized $150,000 in cuts to balance the 2008-09 budget. While the reductions will not affect class sizes or programming, Superintendent Bill Wold suggested the time for cutting teacher positions might not be so far away.

“My speculation is this is the last time I could recommend something like this without increasing class size,” he said. “We’re to the point there we’ve squeezed quite a bit.”

The Litchfield School Board will be asked to make several cuts for the 2008-09 school year at tonight’s meeting.

The recommended reductions total $150,000 and include eliminating a high school/middle media specialist, as well as a building custodian. The other savings should come from reducing a high school special education teacher to half time and eliminating a district paraprofessional position.