University of Arkansas Students to Bring 'Biggest Loser' Winner to Bentonville School

University of Arkansas students in the four-year elementary licensure program will bring Danny Cahill, the Season 8 winner of "The Biggest Loser" on NBC, to Sugar Creek Elementary School in Bentonville as part of a project to encourage the students to be active over spring break.

Six of the students are teaching as interns at the school this year, with four currently in kindergarten classrooms and two in third-grade classrooms. Student Dacri Wabaunsee is Cahill's sister-in-law. The Broken Arrow, Okla., man lost 239 pounds for the Season 8 finale broadcast in December, losing the most weight in the history of the show.

Karmen Bell, clinical instructor in the elementary education program, said she instructed her interns to come up with a family-school project in which they collaborated with each other and with the teachers at Sugar Creek.

"I want them to collaborate in their professional lives," she explained. "They came up with the idea for 'Exercise Your Mind and Body' to challenge students to put down video games and turn off the television and instead read and exercise during spring break."

The Bentonville school is on spring break March 22-26.

The interns composed a letter to inform parents about the challenge and will send home log books that parents will sign to record the reading and exercising done by their children. Prizes of books and extra recess time will be awarded to the winning class for each grade level.

Cahill will speak to the students on Monday, March 15, about living a healthy lifestyle.