Governor announces “HealthyTip” contest grand prize winner
Goddard Middle-School student selected in drawing

A Goddard middle-school student’s entry has been selected in a random drawing to receive the Grand Prize in Governor Kathleen Sebelius’ “HealthyTip” postcard contest.

The contest was part of Sebelius’ HealthyKansas initiative.  It encouraged Kansans to submit postcards promoting healthy choices.

Katie Shurtleff, 13, is an eighth-grader at Eisenhower Middle School in Goddard. Her postcard entry was titled “5 Servings are ‘grape’ for you!” to emphasize the importance of getting the recommended five daily servings of fruits and vegetables.

“Congratulations to Katie for her winning entry, and thank you to all of the contest participants who submitted their ideas,” she said. “We’ve already had several thousand Kansans take the HealthyKansas pledge, vowing to increase physical activity, eat healthy and avoid tobacco use.  I encourage everyone to join us by making choices that will lead to healthier lives and lower health care costs.”

Shurtleff will receive the Grand Prize of a ProForm 495 Treadmill from Dick’s Sporting Goods during a ceremony at the store Wednesday, December 6 at 4:30 p.m. The store is located at 4600 W. Kellogg in the Townwest Mall.  Dick’s is a participating sponsor of the postcard contest.

Also, two runner-up prizes of a GARMIN Forerunner 101 GPS pedometer were awarded earlier to Ann Parcel of Meade and Teresa Lueth of Salina. 

The HealthyTip postcard contest was created to invite Kansans of all ages to share their tips on how they make healthy choices. Weekly winners were selected and posted to the HealthyKansas Web site. Each weekly winner received a HealthyKansas t-shirt and $20 gift card from Payless Shoes in Topeka to purchase activity shoes.

HealthyKansas is about encouraging children in schools, adults in the workplace and seniors in their community to make simple, but powerful lifestyle changes, including:

• Increasing physical activity to 30 minutes a day, five to six times each week;
• Eating healthy, including eating five or more servings of fruits and vegetables daily; and
• Avoiding tobacco use.

Governor Sebelius launched the HealthyKansas initiative in November 2004 as a comprehensive effort to control health care costs, improve the quality of health care and raise awareness of the dangers of obesity in children and adults.

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