When the need for action was seen, one Missouri Southern student decided to make her mark in her hometown community.

Rachel Oglesby, freshman speech communication and art major, worked on two community projects during her senior year in Lamar high school.

“She was a very diligent girl,” said Barbara Nichols, fifth grade teacher at Lamar.

Nichols worked with Oglesby to bring slippers to senior citizens during the winter season.

Nichols was Oglesby’s fourth grade teacher and both felt like they could work with each other.

The plan was to work with the students in Nichols’ class to find donations and wrap the slippers.

“I managed to get over $1,500 in donations,” Oglesby said.

Nichols said due to absences and snow days, the classroom had trouble helping Oglesby.

“She pretty much did it all by herself,” Nichol said.

When the snow days occurred, Oglesby and her family went door-to-door around the town square gathering donations.

The fifth-grade students then wrapped the slippers which Oglesby gathered through the donations or bought with donated money.

“It was very interesting watching fifth graders try to wrap slippers,” Oglesby said.

Nichols said the students enjoyed the work.

“It was wonderful,” she said.

The other community project which Oglesby set up was a fingerprint drive.

The fingerprint drive allowed community members to have their children come in and get fingerprinted in case a kidnapping should ever happen.

Oglesby said she saw a need to raise awareness in the community after she heard about a kidnapping in Florida.

The events took two to three weeks to prepare and develop respectively.

Nichols said the Lamar school will try to continue the work Oglesby started.

The community service did not go unnoticed.

Oglesby was nominated by the Lamar community to be their state candidate for the Missouri Community Betterment 2004 youth leadership award. The Lamar community betterment organization contacted Oglesby during the summer to notify her that she should come to their meeting.

“I knew when it was, but I didn’t know if I had won or not,” she said.

In October, the Missouri Community Betterment program made their selections for the 2004 winners.

Oglesby was among the winners.

“I was surprised,” she said. “When I started the project, that wasn’t my goal.”

The grand prize winner was from Houston, Mo., but Oglesby still appreciates the award.

“I was honored,” she said. “I got to shake hands with the Governor. Coming from Lamar, that’s not something you do everyday.”