Mid-American Wine Competition awards medals to Buzzed Bee Meadery

ANKENY — Buzzed Bee Meadery, Inc., of Melbourne, received a Gold Medal, two Silver medals and a Bronze medal at the 11th Annual Mid-American Wine Competition held at the Des Moines Area Community College campus in Ankeny.

“The quality of our regional wines continues to improve,” said Bob Foster, director of the Mid-American Wine Competition. These are high quality wines that wine lovers should seek out and try.”

The competition was held July 14-16 and included wines from 15 Midwestern states. Veteran wine judges from throughout the United States awarded 68 Gold medals, 227 Silver medals and 174 Bronze medals. Full results can be found at www.midamericanwine.org.

“This marks the 11th consecutive year of the MAWC and we celebrated by judging more than 500 entries this year,” said Chief Judge Doug Frost of Kansas City. “The wine industry throughout the region has evolved into tourist destinations, where wine enthusiasts visit local wineries. This helps the local economy and area wine industry.”

McCue attends Rock and Roll Forever Foundation workshop

Lenihan Intermediate School vocal music teacher Sara McCue attended a workshop with the Rock and Roll Forever Foundation at New York University.

The workshop was held July 17-20 and featured teachers from all over the country who came together to talk about school curriculum the foundation has provided, offer input on an upcoming “Soundtracks” show for CNN and hear from various speakers including teachers and those representing the music industry.

“I plan to incorporate even more lessons from TeachRock (curriculum) into my classroom, and I am hopeful to pursue the creation of a Sonic Highways video, which is something that will be a student led look into the history of music and musicians in Marshalltown,” McCue said. “I also would love to see more Marshalltown teachers taking a look into this curriculum.”

McCue also took part in a walking tour of Greenwich Village led by actress Maureen Van Zandt and also talked with Maureen’s husband, Steven Van Zandt, the founder of the Rock and Roll Forever Foundation.

McCue is a member of the Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band and was an actor on “The Sopranos.”

“He expressed his passion for education and using rock and roll to engage students and keep them in school,” McCue said. “I was able to talk with him about ways to get artists into classrooms to teach students directly.”

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