Daily Five: Corporate Sponsorships, Blevins Bids Farwell [VIDEO]

1. Today it is expected to rain, with a high of 60, according to the National Weather Service. The rain should end around 4 p.m., and then be cloudy with a low of 41 for the rest of the night, according to the service.

2. Tuesday night, Board of Education chairman Donald Blevins and member Jessica McLaughlin . At the meeting, Superintendent Jerome Belair honored both of them with certificates. McLaughlin has been on the board since 2007, and Blevins has been on the board since 1999, and has been chairman since 2007.

3. Monday, Patch sat down with Superintendent Jerome Belair and Assistant Superintendent Craig Powers to understand more about corporate sponsorships,

In the spring of 2010, the Board of Education passed a policy that would allow it to accept gifts from corporate donors, who can be recognized “in newsletters, programs, or displays in building lobbies,” according to district documents.

The policy clearly reads though that no advertising is allowed. For corporate sponsorships, the corporation generally seeks some sort of advertising, Powers said.

Powers said, in his time in Waterford, there has never been the opportunity to turn down a corporate sponsorship, and he said there is a chance there would not be much of a market for it. When the board passed the policy in 2010 to allow gifts, the only donations received were from JCJ Architecture and O & G Industries (both of whom are part of the school construction project) and from the Waterford Youth Services Bureau, all totaling $10,500.

Belair added that whatever company wanted to do a corporate sponsorship would need to be vetted. Package stores or smoke shops would not make good partners, and a company that had an embarrassing scandal would reflect on the district, Belair said.

Finally, both said the Board of Education would have to be very clear about how far they want to go with corporate sponsorships, as an extreme example of putting corporate names all over school sport jerseys. How much advertising the board was going to allow that still made it worth it to the corporate sponsor is a tough line to draw, Belair said.

Overall, both agreed looking into corporate sponsorships was worth doing, but both were skeptical it would provide much revenue. It is currently in the policy committee, Powers said.

The pool is a few weeks away from completion, and the artificial football field could be done as soon as Friday, Project Manager Gus Kotait said Tuesday.

5. On this date in 1938, Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann first creates LSD. Hofmann would argue for the rest of his career that LSD could be used for psychoanalysis, calling it “medicine for the soul.” And on this date in 1914, the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States opens.

Quote of the Day

“In the absence of orders, go find something and kill it.”

-Erwin Rommel

Trivia of the Day

Who said, “I think, therefore I am”?

Yesterday’s Answer: Georgetown was the first Catholic college to open in the United States.