By SETH HAMMES
Tiger Media Network
For the past three years, The National Student Speech Language Hearing Association has hosted the Soup Festival, each with new memories and friendly competition. The saga continued on Friday with the fourth annual “Soup Festival” fundraiser, which took place at the Herndon Clinic on Friday.
“It is a fundraiser to raise money for families who come to the clinic, so if they don’t have health insurance, then they can get scholarships to get services,” said Madalyn Morelock, a second-year graduate student in speech-language pathology. She was accompanied by Morgan Hampleton, also in the master’s program, in assisting with the fundraiser.
Before the festival could begin, a special announcement had to be made. Mayor Sandy Jacobs was not able to attend the Festival, but she sent a Hays City Declaration to the Festival to serve as her official announcement.
“I, Sandy Jacobs, Mayor of the city of Hays, Kansas, on behalf of the Hays City Commission, do hereby proclaim October 25 as Kansas Scottish Rite Foundation Day in Hays, and encourage all citizens to join together to celebrate this crucial partnership for our community.”
Hays City Declaration
The Scottish Rite Valley of Salina has been an important part of the development of the Herndon Clinic for the past 18 years. Through their national project “RiteCare,” The Scottish Rite has provided substantial financial support to the clinic.
“They have supported us for many, many years, actually 18 years, and they’ve provided over $260,000 or so of support over those 18 years,” said Carol Ellis, an associate professor in advanced communication disorders and phonetics.
Since the Soup Festival has only been established for the last three years, it has a history of short turn-outs, mainly due to other events held the same evening. That was not the case for this year, however. Jeff Marshall expressed his outlook on the festival as a participant, there to support his spouse Tara Marshall, who is an Assistant Clinic Coordinator.
“Honestly, I think it’s a pretty unique event, something that you maybe don’t see normally as a fundraiser,” he said. “Of course, it’s always better if the Soup Fest was on a cool, cloudy day in the fall, but you’ll take it for what you get and to be able to just come out and enjoy different soups and support the department and the students.
”Usually, it’s a pretty good soup event. So I think it seems like it’s grown every year since I’ve been here, it seems like it’s gotten bigger and bigger.”
John Reynolds, Personal Representative to the SGIG of Kansas, made an appearance to show support on behalf of the Scottish Rite organization.
“Scottish Rite has a national project called RiteCare. RiteCare sponsors these Speech and Hearing clinics all across the United States, in the state of Kansas, that’s supervised by the Kansas Masonic Foundation,” Reynolds said. “And we sponsor these clinics in Kansas; Fort Hays, K-State, KU, Wichita State, and Pittsburg. The money that we raise goes to these funds.”
The students and faculty of the evening made nine homemade soups and delicious desserts, to enter in the festival. The 2024 Fourth Annual Soup Festival concluded with three winners:
1st: Addison Campbell with Chicken Tortilla Soup
2nd: Haylee Hurt with Chicken and Dumpling Soup
3rd: Maegan Koch with Sausage Tortellini Soup
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