MOOSEHEART, IL Jan. 8 -- When he returned from holiday break with his guardians in Colorado, Mooseheart junior Jordan Holler had a unique piece of carry-on luggage: a balsawood bridge--which needed to make it back to Mooseheart intact.

On Friday, Holler and eight Physics classmates in took turns seeing how much weight those bridges would hold before breaking. Holler's lasted the longest - withstanding 29 pounds of various-sized weights suspended in a bucket that hung from a block-and-tackle at the bridge's midpoint before finally breaking.

That made Holler, a Mooseheart junior, the victor in the 24th annual Mooseheart Bridge Breaking contest.

"I didn't think necessarily I'd get first place," Holler said. "But I knew it would hold a pretty good amount because of the way I'd designed it."

Holler's bridge started like every of the Physics class students' bridges - a set number of pieces of balsawood handed out by class teacher Curt Schlinkmann. Students worked on the projects over holiday break and then during the first week back on campus. Ten students were to have participated but one bridge broke in transit from home to campus.

Holler said that without hanging a block-and-tackle and bucket from the bridge, he was able to give it a bit of a stress test before the contest.

"After I let it dry, I would press down on it to make sure it would hold," Holler said. "If my hands are going to break it, then obviously the weights are."

The contest highlighted the variety of ideas the students had in constructing their bridges. Holler's was a somewhat standard design with two side supports leading to a deck and to a top series of supports. The deck was doubly reinforced in the area where the block-and-tackle was attached to the bridge. A bucket was then attached to that device and weights were added to the bucket until the bridges snapped.

"Mr. Schlinkmann hands us out a packet that has different bridge truss designs," Holler said. "So I picked the simple design, to do triangle crosses. I laid it out on a piece of paper and designed it and tried to be imaginative."

Martin Gutierrez's design held 11.4 pounds and finished second. None of the bridges approached Lathe Helms' 49-pound record from 1999. Adrianna Tezanos-Pinto built a bridge for the 2007 contest that held 71 pounds before breaking--but that bridge was held together with Super Glue. This year, the glue Schlinkmann handed to the students was ineffective, so he allowed them to use whatever adhesive short of rubber cement that they wanted. For Holler, the choice was Gorilla Glue.

Every year, Schlinkmann is asked if he knows what makes a bridge hold the most weight, and he always says he doesn't know.

"Sometimes the look is deceiving," Schlinkmann said. "Sometimes the nice-looking bridges aren't the strongest."

The goal of the exercise isn't necessarily to turn out future architectural engineers. Holler said he has hopes of heading into a medical field on graduation from Mooseheart in 2011.

"I want them to get an idea,' Schlinkmann said. "It's a creative thing, to put things together. And you get a little achievement because your bridge holds up."

Founded in 1913, Mooseheart is supported completely through private donations - the great majority of which come from the 1.1 million men and women of the Moose fraternal organization, in more than 1,800 Lodges and 1,600 Chapters located throughout the U.S. , Canada , Great Britain and Bermuda . Moose International headquarters is located on the Mooseheart campus.

Since its founding, Mooseheart has operated a complete, accredited kindergarten-through-high-school academic program, plus art, music, vocational training and interscholastic sports. It is an extremely nurturing and student-tailored program, with an average student-teacher ratio of 12-1.

Mooseheart students who complete their studies with a 3.0 GPA or better (4.0=A) are eligible for up to five years of annually renewable scholarship funding, covering tuition, room and board in an amount comparable to that required for an in-state student at an Illinois public university.

Mooseheart is currently home to nearly 230 students, ranging in age from preschoolers to high school seniors. Applications for admission to Mooseheart are considered from any family whose children are, for whatever reason, lacking a stable home environment. Mooseheart boasts its own U.S. Post Office and a fully functioning branch of Fifth Third Bank.

In addition to Mooseheart, Moose International also supports Moosehaven, a 70-acre retirement community near Jacksonville , FL founded in 1922; and conducts more than $90 million worth of community service programs annually.

Founded in 1888, the Moose organization has long offered its members an opportunity to do good for others while celebrating life, with family, social, and sporting activities. For more information on the Moose organization, visit www.mooseintl.org, www.mooseheart.org, www.moosehaven.org, or call 630-966-2229.