MENDOTA – Mendota High School has announced the winners of the 2021-22 DAR and SAR Good Citizens program, sponsored by the Illini Chapter of NSDAR. Alex Stremlau was chosen to receive the DAR award and Andrew Stamberger was the recipient of the SAR award.

These awards are open to all seniors. The recipients are nominated by fellow senior classmates and the faculty at MHS. Criteria for the DAR and SAR awards include dependability, cooperation, leadership and patriotism.

DAR Award

Stremlau is the daughter of Nick and Tracie Stremlau. While in high school, her activities and achievements have included basketball for one year, tennis for four years, Interact Club for two years (vice president), band, choir (secretary), Pep Band, Show Choir, Marching Band, Madrigals, Drama Club, school plays (“Clue,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “Steel Magnolias” and “Little Women”) and National Honor Society (vice president).

She has also been involved in community service and volunteer activities including Lions Club corn sales, Junior Rhythm Express Camp leader, National Anthem singer at Relay for Life and at Mendota High School sporting events, caroling for Heritage Health, ditch clean-up, bell ringing for the Salvation Army, volunteer at Trunk or Treat, musician at Veteran’s Day ceremony and Memorial Day ceremony, and tutoring for National Honor Society.

After high school, Stremlau plans to attend Illinois Valley Community College for two years and then transfer for a four-year university, where she will major in psychology.

In her free time, Stremlau enjoys spending time with her friends and family.

SAR Award

Stamberger is the son of Jayson and Rebecca Stamberger. While in high school, his activities and achievements have included FFA, Drama Club, fall play, spring play tech crew, Concert Choir, Show Choir, Madrigals, Concert Band, Pep Band, Marching Band, cross country, tennis, 4-H Clarion Comets (president), Solo and Ensemble, MHS Technology Team, Math Team and National Honor Society.

His involvement in church has allowed him many opportunities to help others. As a member of his church maintenance team the past 10 years, he participated in church work days in the spring and fall. On these days, he helped with many maintenance jobs such as cleaning up the grounds, landscaping, and even cleaning up after birds that had gotten into the tall steeple. (Nobody else wanted to climb up that high!) Being a member of his church also allowed him to participate regularly in playing his euphonium during church services and Christmas programs, and he volunteered to do the readings during church services on a monthly basis. Most recently, he volunteered to play the Grinch in the church’s Christmas program.

Before COVID, he was able to participate in a food-packing experience at church called Feed My Starving Children. His church applied to be a Mobile Pack site, and he worked with others to pack thousands of meals for needy families. He also attended a Youth Works mission trip with a neighboring church. During this trip, he traveled to St. Louis with 15 other high school students and worked on various projects to help others including visiting elderly people in retirement homes, leading church activities for local youth, and helping clean up a neighborhood park. All these experiences allowed him to share his gifts with others, which he looks forward to continuing.

After graduation, Stamberger would like to pursue a career in mechanical engineering, and during college, hopes to have opportunities for internships in that field. He plans to use his education and understanding of how things work to improve the efficiency of agricultural equipment and implements. Through his involvement in the family farm, he knows how important it is for equipment to work well and for farmers to be able to depend on this equipment to work efficiently. He also understands that the production and maintenance of this equipment must be cost-effective. Using his agricultural background and technical experiences, he would like to help improve the tools that farmers use each day.

Although involvement in school activities kept him busy during high school, he still found time to pursue his own interests. He was always interested in learning how things work and fixing them and enjoys spending time in his family’s farm shop working on machinery and fixing anything he can. He specializes in small motors, which he spends a lot of time rebuilding. By purchasing items such as jet skis, four-wheelers, and mopeds that are not running, then rebuilding them and learning as much as possible, he is able to sell them for a profit. He also likes to fly airplanes and has been involved with aviation at a small, local airport. He enjoys spending time outdoors and in his spare time, he can be found waterskiing or riding his jet ski on the river.