Allen STEM's world KidWind champions honored at the Kansas Capitol

The Allen STEM Magnet School students who engineered their way to a world wind-energy title were honored at the Kansas State Capitol on Tuesday, Sept. 15, meeting Gov. Laura Kelly on Governor Recognition Day. Hutchinson Public Schools, which announced the honor in a social media post Friday morning, said the team, the Mavericks, is the 2026 World KidWind Champion — a title the students banked last spring.

KidWind teams design, build and test small wind turbines, advancing through regional and state challenges to a world competition. Citizen Journal reported at the time that all four Allen STEM teams advanced out of regionals to the Kansas KidWind State Challenge in February, and the school's teams claimed two state championships in April and earned a berth at the world competition. According to Kansas State University, that competition was held May 17-20, 2026, in Madison, Wisconsin, with an awards ceremony at 2 p.m. on May 20, 2026. Neither the district's post nor the Kansas Energy Program's post says whether the second Allen team competed there.

The Kansas Energy Program — the Kansas State University Engineering Extension unit that runs the state challenge with the Kansas Corporation Commission — published a photograph Thursday evening of teams, coaches, sponsors and program staff with Kelly. The program listed Allen STEM Magnet School, Burlington USD #244 and Nemaha Central Elementary & Middle School among the groups recognized Tuesday, without saying whether the other schools' teams won world titles in their own divisions. It thanked the Kansas Corporation Commission and sponsors Enel North America, Vestas, ITC Holdings Corp. and NextEra Energy. Neither post says what the trips to Madison or Topeka cost, or how much of that the sponsors covered.

In its post, the district tied the season to USD 308's core values: "From Regionals → State → Worlds, these students lived out USD 308's core values every step of the way — the perseverance to keep refining their turbine designs, the compassion and teamwork to support one another as a team, the integrity to compete with honesty and sportsmanship, and the innovation that pushed their engineering to a world championship." Neither post lists dates or registration deadlines for the 2026-27 KidWind season. Schools and families looking to enter can get regional and state challenge information from the Kansas Energy Program at K-State Engineering Extension.

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