The latest local news, weather and high school sports from the Heartland

OTTUMWA, IOWA -- Pekin Elementary School received an award last week that goes right along with Iowa becoming the healthiest state.

The school received the State Champion Fitness Award.

In order to receive the award, students have to score a certain percentage on five fitness tests which put Pekin Elementary in to the top 85 percentile in the country.

“One of my terms or a slogan here is ‘movement is essential to learning.’ We talk a lot about movement, helping at Pekin helps the kids get better in academics and I hope that happens. When our reading and math scores come out each spring I’m hoping they're higher, a little in part to good healthy movement,” said Luann Swanson, Pekin PE Teacher.

31.9% of students in grades three, four and five last year made the fitness award which is 77 out of 147 of its students.