JOY JOHNSON Panasonic (r) with Carter High Senior Class President Colleen Cruze. Colleen was one of last year's Panasonic Tennessee-Japan Cultural Exchange Foundation students.
	News Release

Knox County students travel to Japan

Four students from Knox County high schools have been selected to participate in a cultural exchange  trip to Japan this summer. 

They are

• Brandi Ashburn, a junior at Fulton High School
• Andrew Hahn, a junior at Bearden High School
• Jennifer Harber, a junior at Halls High School and
• Jonathan Haskew, a junior at Powell High School.

  Shannon Jackson, an English Teacher at West High School, will accompany the students as the chaperone. 

These students will spend 12 days experiencing the people, cities, food, entertainment, and lifestyle of Japan.  While in Japan, the travelers will visit historical and cultural sites in Osaka, Kyoto, and Nara, attend Senri High School in Osaka for a day, spend the week-end at a Senri student’s home, experience Peace Park in Hiroshima, tour a Japanese manufacturing company, and spend a night in a traditional Japanese hotel on beautiful Miyajima Island. 

This is the fifteenth year for the trip which is sponsored by the Panasonic Tennessee-Japan Cultural Exchange Foundation a non-profit organization established by the local manufacturing company, Panasonic Electronic Devices Corporation of America. 

"We have a unique opportunity to offer high school students a chance to see and learn first hand another culture,” says Foundation executive director Joy Johnson. "Our hope is that the trip will expand the students’ knowledge of other people and places in the world and that such knowledge will inspire them to thirst for learning throughout their education and their lives.  We encourage the students when they return to tell about their experiences to their friends and the community organizations to which they belong."

The program is open annually to all Knox County high school freshman, sophomore, and junior class students.  Selection of the travelers was made through evaluations by the high schools and by a selection committee appointed by the Foundation.  The committee based final selection on an essay, leadership, community involvement, international understanding, and social maturity. 

The Foundation has a goal of giving Knoxville's future leaders an early opportunity to travel overseas and begin understanding the opportunities for Knoxville and the East Tennessee area in the context of a global market place.

Panasonic Electronic Devices Corporation of America is a wholly owned subsidiary of Panasonic Corporation of North America and is part of the Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. group based in Osaka, Japan.  Panasonic Electronic Devices Corporation of America is located in the Forks-of-the-River Industrial Park, in Knox County, and has been manufacturing electronic devices since 1982.