MOOSEHEART, IL, Jan. 9 - The day Basheeba Mays was to turn in her balsawood-and-glue bridge creation prior to Mooseheart's annual Bridge Breaking Competition, she had a near tragedy.

"One of the legs broke," Mays said. "I just fixed this (Thursday)."

That repaired leg did its job very well on Friday, Jan. 9 in the school's 23rd annual Bridge Breaking. In fact, when something broke, it was the other leg that gave way.

But Friday's broken leg came with 14.5 pounds hanging from the center of the bridge, considerably more than the other bridges and plenty enough to earn Mays the 2009 contest championship.

"I had a really strong base," Mays said.

There were six bridges in this year's competition, which has been a project in Curt Schlinkmann's physics class since 1986. Three broke under the weight of the bucket and block-and-tackle device used to hold the various weights in the competition.                                 

Gabe Kendor's bridge supported 8.4 pounds before breaking while Lareece Dunn's bridge was supporting 6.6 pounds when it broke. All the competitors were high school seniors.  Three other bridges essentially disqualified themselves because they were not sufficiently stable or balanced to hold weight without tipping over.

Mays' 14.5-pound winning supported weight eclipsed the 2008 winning mark of 13 pounds recorded by both Chris Morones and Jake Stegeman, with Morones winning on a tiebreaker. Adrianna Tezanos-Pinto, whose 2007 construction supported 71 pounds, holds the record.

Mays said she took three days to build her bridge and that she got some support from her brother, 2008 Mooseheart graduate Floyd Mays, along the way.

"I stayed up until 2 o'clock trying to figure out how I was going to do it," Basheeba Mays said.

But Mays said she put plenty of time into thinking how she wanted to construct the bridge before she started working, and she felt that was one key to her bridge's success.

"Plan ahead, know what you're going to do before you start and strategize a lot," Mays said.

Mays said she plans to attend Augustana College, North Central College or Northwestern and plans to pursue a nursing degree and quickly said "no" to a career that involves future bridge building.

Schlinkmann was pleased with Mays' construction, and all bridges overall.

"It's amazing, when you think about it, that little pieces of balsawood can hold up so much weight," Schlinkmann said.

The competition took place on a new, and somewhat slippery, surface in the school gym, and he said that this might have had something to do with the tipping problems some bridges encountered.

The bridge breaking is part of the physics students' class work, and Schlinkmann said all his students learned from the experience. He said there is one remaining piece of the project still to do.

"Before we came down, we looked at the bridges and predicted which ones would do well or not," Schlinkmann said. "We'll go back up on Monday (Jan. 12) and look at those predictions and see how we could have made the bridges stronger."

Mooseheart Child City & School is a 1,000-acre community and school for children and teens in need of a secure home, located just south of Batavia, IL, between Illinois Route 31 and Randall Road.

Founded in 1913, Mooseheart is supported completely through private donations - the great majority of which come from the 1.1 million men and women of the Moose fraternal organization, in more than 1,900 Lodges and 1,600 Chapters located throughout the U.S., Canada, Great Britain and Bermuda. Moose International headquarters is located on the Mooseheart campus.

Since its founding, Mooseheart has operated a complete, accredited kindergarten-through-high-school academic program, plus art, music, vocational training and interscholastic sports. It is an extremely nurturing and student-tailored program, with an average student-teacher ratio of 12-1.

Mooseheart students who complete their studies with a 3.0 GPA or better (4.0=A) are eligible for up to five years of annually renewable scholarship funding, covering tuition, room and board in an amount comparable to that required for an in-state student at an Illinois public university.

Mooseheart is currently home to roughly 230 students, ranging in age from preschoolers to high school seniors. Applications for admission to Mooseheart are considered from any family whose children are, for whatever reason, lacking a stable home environment. Mooseheart boasts its own U.S. Post Office and a fully functioning branch of Fifth Third Bank.

In addition to Mooseheart, Moose International also supports Moosehaven, a 70-acre retirement community near Jacksonville, FL founded in 1922; and conducts more than $90 million worth of community service programs annually.

Founded in 1888, the Moose organization has long offered its members an opportunity to do good for others while celebrating life, with family, social, and sporting activities. For more information on the Moose organization, visit the websites at www.mooseheart.org, www.mooseintl.org , www.moosehaven.org, www.moosecharities.org, or call 630-966-2229.