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Ross students to manage international Chia meet

The advanced computer s and IT class has done well in other national competitions.

The Ross High School Chia Art! Contest team includes Jake Sefton, Megan Groat, Joey Squires, Craig Tumblison, Logan Aday, Brian Kathman and Matthew Kathman. They have been enlisted to manage the competition that has a goal of attracting a million entries.

Staff photo by Richard O Jones The Ross High School Chia Art! Contest team includes Jake Sefton, Megan Groat, Joey Squires, Craig Tumblison, Logan Aday, Brian Kathman and Matthew Kathman. They have been enlisted to manage the competition that has a goal of attracting a million entries.

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By Richard O Jones, Staff Writer 12:38 AM Thursday, March 31, 2011

ROSS TWP. — Ross High School is about to become the center of the Chia universe, and likely to earn a tidy profit from the effort.

Ross High School’s advanced Computers and Information Technology class is as much a cluster of businesses as it is a classroom.

The students operate Web development and design, computer repair and recycling, and other businesses under the guidance of instructor Tom O’Neill. They are members of an international organization Students for the Advancement of Global Entrepreneurship, whose mission is to “help create the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders whose innovations and social enterprises address the major unmet needs of our global community.”

The Ross team has done well enough in national competitions that it has drawn the attention of California attorney Van Ajemian, who is a member of the SAGE board of directors along with Joe Perdott, founder of Joseph Industries, creator of the Chia Pet and the Clapper.

Ajemian said he was looking for a SAGE group to participate in a “social entrepreneurship” project designed to raise money for different organizations and to promote environmentalism and local sustainable agriculture, using the Chia Pets as a stepping off point.

The Chia plant, Salvia hispanica, is not only the green part of the famous terra cotta “pets,” but is edible both as a seed and as a green plant, Ajemian said. It grows quickly and is high in fiber, more nutritious than flax seed.

So he enlisted the Ross team to manage the Chia Art! Contest in which anyone from around the world can either create a Chia display or draw one to compete for cash prizes and the opportunity to have Joseph Enterprises use the design to manufacture the next Chia product.

“It doesn’t have to be a pet,” O’Neill said. “It can also be a display, like a garden. We’re not limiting anyone’s creativity.”

The goal, he said, is to attract 1 million entries. The contest starts Friday.

To enter a drawing, the fee is $5, and to enter a photograph of an actual Chia creation is $7.50, and the seeds will be provided. The Ross team has enlisted One Way Farm home for disadvantaged children to package and supply the seeds to earn a portion of the proceeds.

For more information and complete contest rules, visit www.chiaart.com on the Internet.

A portion of the proceeds will also go to local artists who will serve as judges, to SAGE Global, various charities and 50 cents for every entry will be funneled back to O’Neill’s classroom to fund future projects and to provide college scholarships to CIT students.

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.

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