Newton Kansan
WALTON —
“It’s spinning, it’s spinning! Look, it’s spinning,” exclaimed Deb Flavin, administrative assistant at Walton Rural Life Center on Tuesday morning.
She wasn’t talking about a pinwheel held by one for the students who came by on a sun-filled summer morning — but something a little bigger and a bit more historic. The school’s wind turbine, which will provide electricity for the school greenhouse, was set in place Tuesday morning. “It will be fun to watch it go when I come to school,” fourth-grader Carson Reimer said. “It will be fun to see it go faster and faster in the wind.”The turbine, purchased with grant funds supplied by the Wind Application Center at Kansas State University, is the first to be installed at an elementary school in Kansas. It will be used not only as a source of energy but as an educational tool. It will constantly download information about wind speed, direction and how much power is being generated to school computers for further study. “It’s great,” board of education member and Walton resident John Esau said. “It’s another demonstration of how we are attempting to be pioneers and find new educational opportunities.”Ruth Douglas Miller, a member of the Wind Applications Center at K-State, said Walton Rural Life Center was an attractive site for a wind turbine because she believes wind power will provide jobs in rural settings in the future. “When there is a wind farm there is a need for people to operate them,” Douglas Miller said. “And that happens in rural areas. In fact, in big cities we really don’t want to build wind farms. Let’s get these kids excited, say ‘This is cool’ and consider careers in wind.”The turbine was lifted into place by Westar Energy Tuesday morning as students and interested adults looked on. The turbine requires wind moving at least 8 mph, which initially it did not have. Several minutes after being activated, the blades of the turbine turned a few revolutions, still waiting for the traditional stiff Kansas wind.
