ROLLA – Athletes at Missouri S&T offered a helping hand to those in need in the Rolla community, and a Dexter student was part of the effort.

Dexter’s Katelyn Heil was a part of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee that challenged Missouri S&T's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee  and held a canned food drive this spring. The effort was a  challenge competition among the university's athletic teams – which resulted in the collection of 1,100 food items which will be donated locally.



Heil is a senior at Missouri S&T and the daughter of Dan and Connie Heil of Dexter. Katelyn and her sister Katherine were standout athletes at Dexter High School and have played basketball at the Rolla university.

The donated items will be donated to GRACE, a local agency in Phelps County, who in turn will make them available for those who need them.

The food drive conducted by the S&T SAAC was part of the Great Lakes Valley Conference's challenge, an annual contest encouraging student-athletes from the league's 16 institutions to be active in their local communities.
Missouri S&T's swimming team collected the most items with over 300 non-perishable food items brought in for donation.  The teams were compared by the ratio of food items to the number of team members.



Photo Above: Pictured above are some of the members of Missouri S&T's SAAC that assisted with the food drive. From the left are Clint Wobbe (baseball), Kim Ekholm (women's soccer), Kassie Osborne (women's track & field), Hayley Wright (volleyball), Filmore Bouldes (men's basketball), Lindsey DeForest (softball), Drew Pyles (baseball), Courtney Kemp (women's basketball), Spencer Brinkmeyer (men's soccer), Jennifer Costello (volleyball), Aaron Viets (men's track/cross country), Katelyn Heil (women's basketball), Andrew Simek (swimming), Mindy Lake (women's track/cross country) and Hayden Price (swimming).