Travis in the News
The Madison Courier – 5/9/2009
| 5/9/2009 9:00:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | |||
‘Minor Leagues, Major Opportunities’ With the school year winding down and warmer weather on the way, many teachers start thinking about their summer break. Thanks to a grant from the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment, one area teacher already has his summer mapped out. Travis Martin, a Madison resident and business teacher at Switzerland County High School, has been awarded an $8,000 Lilly Teacher Creativity Grant to study the marketing practices of minor league baseball. His project, titled “Minor Leagues, Major Opportunities,” will examine 20 different minor league franchises across the Midwest, Southeast, and Northeast. While visiting each team, Martin will be interviewing front office personnel and local fans. Of course, he’ll be taking in a lot of baseball, too. “I love seeing baseball at any level, but the minor leagues are really special,” Martin said. “The small ballparks, the players working towards a shot at the majors – it’s a very pure environment for watching baseball.” In addition to watching games in places like Altoona, Pa. and Asheville, N.C., Martin is looking forward to learning more about how minor league teams operate behind the scenes. “These franchises have been drawing crowds without the luxury of big name players or television exposure,” Martin said. “It will be exciting to see first-hand the business strategies they are using to be successful.” The project, which covers nearly 5,000 miles, will also include stops at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. and the Field of Dreams movie site in Iowa. Although the Lilly Teacher Creativity Grant is not designed to be a professional development program, he plans to turn his experiences on the road into lessons for his classroom. “A lot of students love sports, but they don’t necessarily realize that there are career opportunities in that industry,” Martin explained, “As part of this project, I hope to show my students that they don’t have to be able to hit a curveball or dunk a basketball in order to land a career in sports.” Martin will begin his summer sojourn shortly after school gets out in June, heading to the new minor league team in Bowling Green, Ky. You can follow Martin’s trip through the minor leagues by visiting his online blog at www.travisrmartin.com and clicking on “Minor Leagues, Major Opportunities.” On the web: www.lillyendowment.org |
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The Switzerland Democrat
EDITORIAL
To the point week of 12-18-08
If there is such a thing as a “silver lining,” perhaps it was on display at Monday night’s meeting of the Switzerland County School Board.
A little over halfway through the meeting, school board member Virgil McKay and high school teacher Travis Martin gave the board on update on the “Internal Controls Review” that they had completed with the help of the administrative staff.
The review – and more specifically the process that creates it – is a result of the embezzlement of more than $1 million by former corporation treasurer Ann Geyman. Although the Indiana State Board of Accounts sends auditors to review the books of public agencies, when the state did not catch the problem the local school board decided to enact measures to help make sure that this never happens again.
Enter Virgil McKay, who returned home to Switzerland County after retiring from his job where he handled audits and bookkeeping and other functions.
Travis Martin teaches accounting at Switzerland County High School, but has a background with audits and governmental regulations.
The school board enlisted the help of these two men to spearhead a process that created an entirely new series of checks and balances to make sure that each and every dollar can be accounted for.
The result of that work was the creation of the “Internal Controls Review” – which was completed and reported on at Monday night’s meeting.
The findings?
After completing their review, nothing was found that was out of order in any way.
Virgil McKay thanked the administrative staff and corporation treasurer Wilma Swango and her staff for providing such complete and proper work; and Travis Martin also said that the review went very smoothly.
So in the aftermath of the school corporation being taken for such a large amount of money, the “silver lining” that I spoke of is that those losses necessitated the creation of this complete and thorough internal process.
We no longer have to wait two years for the state to tell us everything’s okay – we already know it.
Furthermore, the process that has been designed here is being held up as a model for other school corporations around Indiana for use and consideration.
It is so thorough and so good that the state is telling other school corporations that they should consider adopting the same process.
We may never get back all of the money that Ann Geyman took; but the process that has been created here may just keep another school system from having to go through the same disaster that hit us here.
I think that’s truly a “silver lining” – and we should be thankful that these measures have been put in place to protect our money.
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