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VALLEY — The co-presidents of the Valley High Key Club were the guest speakers at Wednesday’s noon-hour meeting of the Kiwanis Club of Valley. Hannah Beasley and Hazel Floyd talked about how one of the school’s most active clubs keeps them plenty busy. “It hasn’t been easy, but it has been worthwhile,” Floyd said.

The club has close to 50 members, and they work hard on various fundraising projects. They raise several thousand dollars every year, some of it going to worthy causes in the local area and some to trips they take to the state convention.

Club members were extensively involved in a memorial program held Wednesday evening in the school gym. The service was in memory of tenth-grade student Antavious “Bobo” Walton, who died over the weekend in a shooting incident.

“He was a good student,” Floyd said. “It has been a really tough week at the school.”

Key Club members coordinated poster drawings in memory of Walton. Students at all schools in Valley participated. Key Club members also bought candles to light in their classmate’s memory. They arranged for Coach Chandler Fullman to speak at the ceremony.

“We have worked hard on this,” Floyd said. “We donated money to get a gift basket for the family. Everyone loved Bobo. He was such a carefree person.”

Beasley said that Key Club members were involved on a project to have a mural painted on a wall on the north end of the school campus.

“We are helping out with it,” she said. “We will be getting the supplies needed to paint it.”

Beasley added that members of the club had planted flowers all over the campus and were planning on being very active on a campus-wide cleanup day that’s planned for this spring.

“On Halloween, we gave away candy at the Sportsplex,” she said. “It was a cold and rainy evening, but we enjoyed being there.”

“One of our more memorable events of the last year was a canned food drive,” Floyd said. “We collected over 1,000 cans. We are very thankful for how hard all our members worked on this and how generous people were in responding.”

Floyd and Beasley will be among eight Key Club members to attend the state convention in late February. It will be held at the Winfrey Hotel in Birmingham, and Key Club members from all over Alabama will be there.

”We will be taking our scrapbook there to enter in a contest,” Floyd said. “It will have all kinds of clippings about what we have done as a club during the last year.”

Like most of the members on the trip, Floyd and Beasley are seniors.

“We will have some underclassmen on the trip,” Beasley said. “We want them to come back and spread the word about how nice it is being in the Key Club. That can help us build membership.”

Floyd commended school principal Montray Thompson on being very helpful to the club.

“We have been very busy, and Mr. Thompson has helped us a lot, so has our advisor, Mr. Pino,” Floyd said.

With the club bursting at the seams with members, two sessions are held on meeting days. Pino meets with one group at 7:15 a.m. and with another at 3:15 p.m. The members attend the meeting most convenient with their schedule.

“The Key Club is rocking solid at Valley High,” Chambers County’s Director of Secondary Schools Dr. Sharon Weldon said. “Key Club members are doing what they are supposed to be doing. It’s not required of them but what they do helps improve the culture and climate at Valley High. Their advisor, Mr. Pino, is phenomenal. He’s a big reason why the club is so active and does so many good things.”

Floyd and Beasley are dual enrollment students at the Valley campus of Southern Union State Community College. This allows them to earn credits for their high school graduation and to get a head start on a college education. They intend to earn associate degrees before transferring to a four-year school. Floyd wants to earn an undergraduate degree in political science and then to attend law school. Beasley wants to transfer to Auburn University to earn a degree in elementary education.

“I would like to be a kindergarten teacher,” she said.

“We are planning another fundraising drive for later on this year,” Floyd said. “We raised over $4,000 last year. When you have 50 members who are very active, you can achieve high goals.”