High school students are celebrating the last day of school and the start of summer, but the work isn't over for three freshman from Shadle Park. They are preparing to head to the MESA USA National Engineering Design Competition in Portland on June 21st.

MESA students, Kelopatra Deltchev, Hailey Guyette and Jessica Lim, started the year with a goal to win the state competition, and now they are preparing to compete at the national level.

“Sure, we're hoping to win; but even if we don't, we know we'll have a great experience,” said Deltchev. “Our goal was to win state and we've done that.”

With roughly 13,000 volunteers assisting the Spokane Public Schools community, choosing the year’s Outstanding Volunteers is a challenge. We appreciate the efforts of all our volunteers who give so freely of their time to help struggling readers, assist busy teachers and make our schools better and richer places for students to learn.

Many volunteers truly do go the extra mile, and so are singled out as Outstanding Volunteers. Thank you to sponsor Luigi’s Italian Restaurant for making this program possible, and congratulations to the honorees for the 2012-13 school year:

Julia Roberts, Logan Elementary: Nearly every school day for 13 years, Julia has spent an hour and a half helping in the health room. She seems to have magical ways of healing children and is never too busy to listen to them, even as she is applying band-aids, handing out ice packs and taking temperatures.

We first told you about Chris Desborough last May as he prepared to ride his bike from Seattle to Spokane to raise money for the hospital that saved his life. This year, Desborough is riding to Canada and back to thank to firefighters that got him to the hospital just in time.

On June 1st, 2010, Desborough collapsed at home just three hours after undergoing an operation on his wrist. His heart stopped. It wasn't a heart attack though, Desborough says “it just turned off like a light switch.”

Desborough woke up in the hospital four days later sporting a brand new pace maker. Last year, two years after his heart stopped, he completed a bike ride from Seattle to Spokane to raise money for Sacred Heart Hospital to thank the nurses and doctors who saved his life.