“The town's FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team, the Robocpti, is very excited to send off one of their longest and hardest-working mentors Brian Morningstar to the FRC world championships as a Pacific Northwest district finalist of the prestigious Woodie Flowers Award,” wrote Halsey Emery to The Leader.

The award is named after one of the original developers of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), Woodie Flowers.

“Dr. Flowers is part of the foundation of FIRST and one of the main reasons FIRST exists and is as big as it is," Emery wrote. "Brian Morningstar first got hooked on robotics when two of his kids started asking if they could join. As they grew with the Roboctpi, Brian became more and more involved eventually becoming a mentor and now what he is today, lead mentor.”

He spent around five hours a day, every day, Emery added, in the shop making sure kids could come in and learn, grow and have fun.

“He worked tirelessly to help the team which soon became a family. Brian has been honored with being nominated for the Woodie Flowers award, being a finalist at district championships and now going on to Houston, Texas to be a World Woodie Flowers finalist.

“The team would not know where they would be without Brian and are super proud of him for this accomplishment,” Emery wrote.

As the team moves forward in their off-season, interested parties may catch them at the Rhodie Parade, Jefferson County Fair and other competitions as they get ready for next season.