January school menus are now available. To view the Bluffton High School menu click here.

To view the middle school and elementary menu click here.

Kim Reese has been promoted to assistant vice president/operations manager at First National Bank, according to the bank's board of directors.

Mrs. Reese has over 24 years of banking experience with First National. She has worked as a teller, proof operator, loan servicer, deposit operations specialist, and ATM coordinator and has attended numerous financial courses throughout her career.

She currently serves on the Technology and Compliance Committees at First National Bank. She and her husband, Dave, live near Pandora and attend Pandora United Methodist Church.

Bluffton High School and Middle School students have an opportunity for a real deal Friday. Students will be able to purchase a pre-sale ticket to Friday night's BHS boys' versus Spencerville at a reduced rate.

Pre-sale tickets for students will be only $1 when the student donated a canned or boxed food item. Donations go to the West Ohio Food Bank.

Otherwise, student pre-sale tickets will be sold for $3. All tickets at the door are $5 each.

Toy Story 3 is the feature of a Saturday, Jan. 8, family movie night sponsored by the Bluffton Community Preschool.

The event will be held in the Bluffton Middle School cafetorium. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the movie starts at 6:30 p.m.

Admission is by donation. Popcorn and drinks will be available for sale during the movie. All proceeds benefit the Bluffton Community Preschool.

Dr. Starr Keyes, assistant professor of education at Bluffton University, will discuss her dissertation research into improving elementary students' reading skills at a colloquium on Friday, Jan. 14. Free and open to the public, the event will begin at 4 p.m. in Stutzman Lecture Hall in Bluffton's Centennial Hall.

Focusing on research she completed at an elementary school in Columbus, Ohio, while working on her doctorate at The Ohio State University, Keyes will present data on a technique that aids students' reading skills.

"Etudes in Liberation on Paper: Hands, Heart, Mind and Rhythm," an exhibition of oil paintings by Andre' Martinez Reed, will open Monday, Jan. 10, in the Grace Albrecht Gallery of Bluffton University's Sauder Visual Arts Center. Free and open to the public, the exhibition will continue through Jan. 28, when the gallery will host a reception for the artist from 4-6 p.m.

Reed is director of the Henry Gregg Gallery in Brooklyn, N.Y. His artwork, done on 300-pound watercolor paper, is influenced by jazz music and mysticism of the Hopi and other animistic beliefs.

Bluffton University's first spring-semester forum features Tobin Miller Shearer, who will address "Prayer, Guns and the Civil Rights Movement: Disrupting the Grassroots/Elite Leadership Debate" at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 11, in Yoder Recital Hall. The forum is free and open to the public.

Make a Valentine's Day card for your sweetheart at the Bluffton Public Library's Handmade Card Workshop. The workshop will take place in the lower level of the library on Thursday, Feb. 10, from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., and will be presented by Lois Benham of Scrapbooks in Lima.

Participants will learn how to make three handmade cards. The cost of the workshop is $12 per person and participants should bring their own glue stick and scissors.