Two Pulaski teachers are playing important roles in the Wisconsin School Music Association’s State Honors Music Project (WSMA), program manager Victoria Donahue said.

Pulaski Community Middle School (PCMS) band teacher Tim Kozlovsky is operations manager for the second straight year and has served in other roles previously. Choir teacher Amy Wright is the accompanist for the WSMA school mixed choir.

While they are giving their expertise to talented state high schools musicians, the duo says they, too, get much back in the process. That, in turn, benefits PCMS students.

Donahue described Koslowsky’s role in the program.

“A lot of his duties happen with the schedule and being there to assist, for instance, if instruments are needed. He helps with loading and unloading of equipment in October,” she said. “It is pretty much anything that is needed at the time and it is a lot of: ‘We don’t know what is coming until somebody asks and then somebody gets up and does it.’ We are very active behind the scenes taking care of last-minute issues that comes up.”

Donahue said that Wright was highly recommended by her peers.

“We always take recommendations from other teachers on who they think would be a good fit for the honors program,” Donahue said.

Wright is at the piano for every rehearsal for the mixed honors choir. She also helps with sectionals if needed for accompanying for one of the sectionals. This is her second year in the program.

The two teachers work with students at the summer camp at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, as well as at the band and choir performances in Madison in October. All staff members also serve as chaperones during the June camp and October performances.

“All of our staff are highly recommended not only because of their talent but also because of what they do with students in the classroom,” Donahue said. “They are wonderful teachers and do great things with programs at their schools, and so we bring them together, and we contract with renowned conductors from anywhere in the United States and they come in and they get to work first-hand with those people.”

They have the chance to spend time with the renowned conductors. “It’s a great time to get to know them, as well, and not just see them on the podium,” Donahue said.

One thing that is nice about the honors program, Donahue said, is that participants can bring things back to their classrooms.

“It’s not only a great experience while you’re there, but you can get new ideas about repertoire or new ideas for warm-ups or for teaching different techniques,” Donahue said. “So, it is definitely a learning opportunity for staff as well so that they bring things back to their classrooms to their own students once they go back home. It can be a direct impact for their teaching, as well.”

Kozlovsky said participants are also able to network and build relationships with other state music educators and that helps broaden his music world perspective. Also, “I get to be part of a high-achieving group of musicians and aid in their success.”

​The knowledge he gains from observing and having conversations with world-class conductors​ comes back to his PCMS classroom.

“It inspires me to help my students reach higher standards because I become aware of what the real potential of kids their age can be,” Kozlovsky said.

Wright, too, has been able to network and learn from her peers.

“I have had the opportunity to meet many additional music colleagues that I may not cross paths with on a normal day-to-day basis,” Wright said. “The opportunity to collaborate with them and learn from them and with them has been invaluable.”

She has also had the opportunity to work with and learn from some of the most top-notch musicians from across the state of Wisconsin and hear their personal stories.

“This has further solidified my belief that music education is critical in developing 21st century skills such as collaboration, creativity, flexibility and leadership,” Wright said. “These kids are learning so much more than just note names and rhythms. Music provides them the opportunity to become some of the best problem solvers and communicators, as well as instilling in them a strong work ethic and a passion and drive for life.”

Wright has taken many things that she has learned from the students, her colleagues, and the group’s conductor back to the classroom and has used them to help her students.

“I always enjoy seeing the students take ownership over their own music experiences and watching them enjoy the rewards they reap,” Wright said. “Being a part of an experience like this allows me to see how other music directors run and organize their programs and it allows me to make sure that I am running my classroom in a comparable way in order to ensure that our students in Pulaski remain competitive and continue to benefit from musical enrichment opportunities.”

The Dollar General Literacy Foundation awarded $23,500 in youth literacy grants last month to Wisconsin schools and nonprofit organizations. The Menominee Indian School District received a $2,000 grant.

The youth literacy grants will provide financial funding to teachers, libraries and literacy organizations to support a successful academic year throughout the 44 states that Dollar General serves.

“The Dollar General Literacy Foundation is proud to be an ardent supporter of schools, libraries and nonprofit literacy organizations,” said Todd Vasos, Dollar General’s chief executive officer.

Vasos said that, since its inception in 1993, the foundation has partnered with thousands of organizations, awarding more than $159 million in grants to schools, libraries and literacy groups to help increase literacy skills for individuals of all ages.

Dollar General’s co-founder, J.L. Turner, was functionally illiterate and never completed a formal education. The Dollar General Literacy Foundation was established in his honor and has since helped more than 10 million individuals take their first steps toward literacy or continued education.

Bowler High School students Skye Breitrick and McKayla Putnam will be participating in the AMVETS Spirit of America Program from Nov. 1-4 in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

Each year, students in Patrick Curran’s social studies class participate in a local veterans organization’s essay contest. Students submit their essays in the fall and await the results. Both Breitrick and Putnam advanced to the national level and, as a reward, are going on an all-expense paid trip to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Since 1987, AMVETS and the AMVETS National Service Foundation have offered this unique educational experience at the Freedoms Foundation in Valley Forge to give young people a better appreciation of their freedoms granted by the U.S. Constitution.

The Spirit of America Program is a four-day conference centering on topics such as freedom, civil rights and civic responsibilities, citizenship, public policy, self-development and leadership, entrepreneurship and salient aspects of American history.

Programs allow students to explore within themselves their interpersonal characteristics and leadership potential through leadership skills workshops, group skills activities and discussions with fellow participants. Programs are designed to provide an opportunity for students to participate in discussions with authoritative and articulate representatives from government, industry and the academic community.

It’s harvest season in Wisconsin, and for those farmers that grow corn, there is a lot of golden color waiting to be discovered underneath the husks.

Volunteers and staff at the College of Menominee Nation found some of that gold as they harvested some of the corn at the Sustainable Development Institute but the Bear Island Flint corn had more red, orange, blue and purple tints to it. Some cobs had multiple colors, and even some of the individual kernels had more than one color.

The corn harvested from the SDI is for more than human consumption. It is the second harvest in a multi-year research project the college is engaging in through funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Dr. David Overstreet, archaeologist with the Menominee Nation, found ancient garden beds in the forest on the reservation years ago, according to Rebecca Edler, the college’s sustainability coordinator. Those garden beds found remnants of corn and additives like river muck and biochar, burnt wood that is worked into the soil. He called the soil additives “soil amendments.”

With the discovery, the college is trying to recreate the gardening techniques of Menominee ancestors. Sixteen plots were planted with four rows of corn in each plot, with one row fertilized with biochar, one row with fish emulsion (an alternative to river muck), one row with today’s synthetic fertilizer, and the final row with nothing added to the soil.

“We amended the soils and planted a corn that’s a traditional corn — the Bear Island Flint corn,” Edler said. “Once it was planted, we monitored the growth and the yield of the corn, and now we’ll see what the corn looks like.”

Dolly Potts, a SDI intern who focused on the Menominee traditional side of the project, noted that the Bear Island Flint corn was selected because it is a corn that can be grown in a colder climate and fits in well with Wisconsin’s shorter growing season. Bear Island Flint corn takes about 85-90 days to mature.

“It’s a sweet corn, but it’s not an eating corn. It’s not to roast and eat,” Potts said. “It was ground into flour and added to soups. You can make bread out of it, too.”

She added that the Menominee and other tribes ground up their corn as a way to sustain themselves during the winter months.

Besides the consumption aspect, Potts also makes dolls with the corn husks for the Menominee youth and uses some of the colorful kernels to make corn jewelry.

“Natives use every part of the plant. That’s important to us,” Potts said. “We don’t waste anything.”

Adam Schulz, another SDI intern, handled the more scientific aspects of the research this year. Once the traditional style of planting by hand took place, Schulz used current instruments to do daily tests on moisture and soil temperatures.

“We’d do one test (of temperature and moisture) at two inches and another at eight inches,” Schulz said. “We wanted to the test the soil at the higher and lower levels across all four treatments.”

The project needs to be handled over three or four years to get accurate scientific results, according to Schulz. He noted that nutrients already existing in the soil will be sapped in that time, so that is when the amendments will truly be a primary source for growing corn plants.

“We’re looking at whether the leaves are thicker and the stalks are thicker over the various amendments,” Schulz said, explaining that some evidence in 2017 pointed to the fish emulsion yielding thicker plants, but the kernels were larger in the plots with biochar.

The harvest was not without some bad cobs, ravaged by the birds during the summer. Also, the drought over the summer, combined with the late start to the growing season caused by the April blizzard, yielded some casualties. This year’s crop was planted in early June, according to Schulz.

“When the ground gets warm enough to sustain crops, that’s when this goes in,” Schulz said.

Schulz is also looking at the corn’s biomass — the husks, the stalks, the roots and the cobs once the kernels are removed. He noted there are signs that farmers are keeping more corn biomass at the fields to help with growing in following seasons.

“A lot of farmers, contemporarily, used to pull it out and they’d bundle it and sell it for holiday decorations or burn it elsewhere,” Schulz said. “Today’s agriculture is moving away from that; they’re moving toward no-till. They’ll leave some of the corn stalk and planting seeds around it because they’re starting to see and understand that the nutrients can go back into the ground if you leave some of the biomass behind.”

The grant provided by the USDA also allowed the college to set up a soils lab, and institute staff received help from the University of Wisconsin-Extension to learn how to do pH and fertility tests, according to Schulz.

Edler said she was pleased to see how well the Western style of research and study combined so well with the Menominee traditions and cultural practices.

“We’re learning from the past to move into the future,” Edler said. “The corn is beautiful.”

Students, parents and volunteers from Bonduel Elementary School will be among thousands of people celebrating International Walk to School Day on Oct. 10. The one-day event highlighting the importance of youth fitness and emphasizing traffic safety and environmental concerns is celebrated in more than 40 countries.

Parents are encouraged to walk their children to school on the morning of Oct. 10. Those students who ride the bus to school, with parental permission, will be dropped off at the Bonduel fire station and walk from there. Shawano County and Bonduel police will be on hand. Walkers are encouraged to wear school colors or Bonduel Elementary apparel and will be eligible for prizes.

The event is coordinated by the East Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, Wisconsin Department of Transportation, Shawano Pathways and the Shawano County UW-Extension office. Safety materials, handouts and educational resources can be found online at http://eastcentralsrts.org.

The fog was thick for Walk to School Day on Wednesday, but the rain stayed away just long enough for Bonduel Elementary School students to walk along Mill Street and get to classes on time.

An estimated 275 to 300 of the school’s 350 students participated in Walk to School Day, an annual fall event facilitated through local school districts and the East Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission.

Brad Grayvold, Bonduel Elementary’s principal, stood at the intersection of First and Mill streets waiting for parents to walk by with their children and school buses to drop off students participating in the event. Tyler Debruin, a planner for ECWRPC’s Safe Routes to School program, stood at the crosswalk for the school with stickers to reward those who walked the entire route.

Elementary school staff members and student volunteers from Bonduel High School escorted groups of students along the route. Most of the walk was on sidewalks, but there are no sidewalks on Mill Street between First and Second streets, so orange cones were set up to divert vehicle traffic and provide a safe walking corridor.

Grayvold noted that his previous school district in Norway, Michigan, obtained a grant to construct sidewalks leading to the school so more students would feel safe along their walk.

“Norway was a lot like Bonduel. We had two major highways and needed those sidewalks,” Grayvold said.

The principal plans to get students walking more frequently than just Walk to School Day. He said the school district planned to start Walking Wednesdays next spring for the nine Wednesdays prior to the end of the school year and the nine Wednesdays at the start of the following school year.

Debruin said the school district could get a $500 stipend from Safe Routes to School if it follows through on its plans.

ECWRPC works with 170 school districts in the region on various health programs like Walk to School Day.

Besides Bonduel, there is also participation locally from St. James and St. Paul Lutheran schools, Sacred Heart Catholic School and Shawano, Gresham, Clintonville and Menominee Indian school districts, according to Debruin. He hopes to get school districts in the western part of Shawano County to participate eventually.

“Some only do one event like Walk to School Day,” Debruin said. “Others do the Walking School Bus, and sometimes we’ll do safety audits with them, too.”

For those who don’t have the resources to have a Walk to School Day, Safe Routes to School also provides other programs like frequent walker programs that help get students up and walking within the school. Incentives like sunglasses and Subway gift cards are provided to those who walk the most during the school year, Debruin said.

“Those who participate get a little bar code,” Debruin said. “When they scan it, it’ll show how much they’re walking.”

Getting the students to walk to school not only provides much of the daily recommended exercise — a full mile covers two-thirds of the requirements — but it also has an impact on student learning and behavior, Debruin said.

“It also reduces congestion (from vehicles), too,” he said. “If you have a school where there are a lot of cars that will drop off their students, if they walk to school, it reduces congestion and safety issues.”

A big culture change in recent years has made Walk to School Day and other physical activity events necessary, according to Debruin. It’s more convenient for families to drive children directly to school or have them ride the bus, he said, and some parents fear their children’s safety could be in jeopardy by walking to school on their own.

“That’s why we do different programming where they can walk together with adult supervision,” Debruin said. “It’s getting that fun nature back into walking.”

Anyone who walks along a nature trail and wonders about how plants and trees grow can now find out for themselves through a project with the College of Menominee Nation’s Sustainable Dependability Institute.

New signs for the college’s Learning Path went up this week showing the phenology for a number of plants and trees in the forest land behind CMN. Phenology is the study of life cycles, and the signs will explain how the plants grow, leaf, flower and more.

“The Learning Path has a lot of things on it,” said Rebecca Edler, the SDI’s sustainability development coordinator. “This is the phenology part of it, where we’re looking at certain plants.”

Among the items being studied are aspens, white baneberries, bunchberries, jack in the pulpits, mayapples, milkweed, white pine and starflowers. While the signs are helpful to anyone walking the trail, they will also serve as markers for community volunteers who track the growth of the plants and trees through a research project funded through a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant.

Volunteers will be given a sheet with yes or no questions. They’ll document the time and date of the observance and determine whether plants have emerged, started leafing or needling, bearing fruit or undergone other natural changes.

“These are all the phases that people record, and the reason we do it is to see if these times are changing,” Edler said. “If we go out on May 1 and see initial growth, in 10 years will we still see that growth on May 1?”

The Menominee reservation is a unique area for natural studies, according to Jeff Grignon, a consultant with the college. The Menominee people have been unwavering stewards of the land, he said, so the forests do not have the level of damage and decay that other forests exhibit.

“Our forest is so intact that it’s different from other areas off the reservation,” Grignon said. “The diversity is so intact that any kind of measures or studies we can do in this forest can be a baseline for what you want everywhere else when you restore areas.”

Grignon noted that there has been archaeological evidence uncovered that indicates the Menominee were carefully minding the forests of much of northeast Wisconsin about 8,000 years ago.

“It’s that long community tradition — continuing with Menominee Tribal Enterprises and CMN — those principles are brought forward to modern-day situations that give us a step up in the way we think and react to things in the environment,” Grignon said.

New technologies in the modern world are disconnecting people from nature, he noted, especially younger generations. The phenology trail and research project will serve to get people involved with monitoring the natural landscapes again.

“Be it the plants, the soils or the trees, this gives us a chance to reconnect,” Grignon said. “It gets you active. We all have particular plants that jump out at us, plants that we’re more prone to want to get to know. It’s almost like they’re reaching out to us.”

Adam LeMieux, an intern for the project, said he initially enrolled at College of Menominee Nation to pursue a career in wildlife management. However, his time in his natural resources classes got LeMieux interested in the biological side of plants, and when he learned the SDI was doing the phenology research project, he was eager to participate.

“Really, it’s been a blast working here,” LeMieux said. “It’s fun. You get to be outside in the field.”

Volunteering is open to anyone with an interest in studying plants. For information about the project or to participate, contact Edler at 715-799-6226, ext. 3043.

Residents of the Clintonville School District can offer feedback on the future of the schools during a community conversation circle on Oct. 23.

The event begins with a light meal at 5 p.m. in the high school commons, 64 W. Green Tree Road, Clintonville. The session will run until 7:30 p.m.

Residents will have the opportunity to visit with the school board, administration, staff and other community members to discuss, share ideas and provide feedback on Clintonville schools.

Discussions will center on the district’s focus areas including safety, learning, communication and responsible decision making.

To attend, contact Business Manager Holly Burr at hburr@clintonville.k12.wi.us.

For information, contact David Dyb at ddyb@clintonvillle.k12.wi.us or 715-823-7215, ext. 2604.

The deadline is approaching to apply online for the 2019 Herb Kohl Educational Foundation Excellence Scholarship. A total of 100 students will be chosen to receive $10,000 scholarships from applicants throughout the state.

Applicants must be Wisconsin residents who will graduate from high school in 2019 and plan to continue their education at a college, university or vocational/technical school. Students will be evaluated on academic achievement, leadership, citizenship and school and community activities. Completed online applications are due Nov. 4 for public high school students and Nov. 25 for religious, independent and homeschooled high school students. Students should go to www.kohleducation.org/studentexcellence to learn more and apply.

Selection of scholarship recipients will be made by a state-level panel of representatives from the Wisconsin Newspaper Association Foundation, Cooperative Educational Service Agencies, Wisconsin Council of Religious and Independent Schools, several education-related associations and the Wisconsin community. Since the program was established in 1990, the Herb Kohl Educational Foundation has awarded 2,800 scholarships to graduating Wisconsin seniors for a total of $5.4 million.

Shawano Community High School is presenting an unusual mystery for its fall play.

“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time,” which debuts next week at the high school, features a protagonist rarely seen in a main role — a teen with Asperger’s Syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism. Based on the book by the same name written by Mark Haddon, “Curious Incident” follows Christopher Boone, a mathematical genius who has difficulty interacting with those around him.

“I was reading a lot of different scripts, and as is usually the case, this was the last one I read, which meant this was the one I wanted to do,” said Alex Konen, director. “I was thinking of a few other scripts initially, but this one stood out for me. It seems to me to be a tale of bravery on the part of the main character who is autistic and really struggles interacting with people.”

The difficult interactions are noticeable. From almost getting thrown into jail for hitting a police officer who was called in to investigate the dog’s death, to having difficulties getting around a train station in London, the protagonist struggles in a world where being so different is not embraced, according to Konen.

Konen had to tweak the script slightly when few boys auditioned for the show, and he had to turn Christopher into Christina. Taking on the role is Caitlyn Katchenago, a freshman participating in her first non-musical play.

“I was very careful that it wasn’t going to alter the storyline in any way,” Konen said. “There’s not going to be a love interest that has to be flipped later. I saw no major issue — it’s still the same story.”

Christina lives with her father, and when she learns that he lied about the circumstances of her mother’s death, the teen flees to a train station, where she experiences sensory overload, a not-so-unusual occurrence for those on the autism spectrum.

“She decides she can’t live at home because her father did something, and she can’t trust him because of that one thing he did,” Konen said.

Peppered throughout the show are flashbacks that include Christina’s mother when she was alive. Konen said his actors had some initial difficulty with the jarring shifts in the timeline, but now they embrace the shifts.

To prepare for playing someone with Asperger’s, Katchenago has been reading Haddon’s original novel, which was published in 2003.

“It’s very challenging because she’s autistic, and it’s hard to do some of the things that autistic people do,” Katchenago said. “I also like it, because I get to understand how she feels and how autistic people live their life.”

Konen said Katchenago’s research — along with some online research he has done — will help when “Curious Incident” debuts, as he wants to present the show in a way that’s sensitive to those who live with Asperger’s and other forms of autism.

“I looked up quite a few different videos they could watch. There are a lot of different families who post things on YouTube,” Konen said. “There are also doctors who post things out there that could be delved into for research.”

Konen noted that fans of the book will see that much of the story is intact with the play.

“I knew that it was based on a book, but I didn’t realize how closely it was until I read through the script and started looking into things a little more deeply,” Konen said. “I was pleased with that. I always like it when things match up that way.”

Shawano Community High School’s orchestra brings classical music to life several times a year for local audiences, but strings programs are dwindling among America’s schools.

Mark Wood, one of the founding members of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, is working to change that through the Electrify Your Strings program. He performs dozens of workshops every year in schools across the United States, which puts him constantly on the road.

This causes him sometimes to forget his bearings, as he had to ascertain that Shawano was in Wisconsin before proceeding with an interview with The Shawano Leader on Monday.

“I’ve just got back from California and Florida, and I don’t know where I am,” Wood said in a phone conversation from New York.

Several of his workshops over the years have been in Wisconsin schools, but this will be his first time in Shawano, something he said he looks forward to — not just because of the change in scenery, but because it gives him a chance to instill in young people the joy of music.

“I think what’s important is what we’re losing, especially in our strings programs and our orchestras,” Wood said. “The orchestra experience for 400 years has been wonderful and incredibly important.”

Wood has been classically trained at the Juilliard School, but his philosophy is that orchestras need to find a way to get a 21st-century feel if they want to survive. It was that belief that helped him to found the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, a group that uses electric instruments to provide fresh life to such classical compositions as Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

“The magic ingredient to empower a student, a school, a community with music is performance, or we put on a CD and listen to Beethoven for the 100th time,” Wood said. “We don’t need to see it live. Why do we need to see it live? Oh, they’re going to light the viola section on fire? That I’ll go see.”

Wood said he has been described as “the great disruptor” with his musical style, and he thinks that it’s necessary to disrupt the status quo to reverse the trend of schools cutting music and other performing arts programs.

“When I come into a school, we remove the music stands. We remove the barrier from the performer to the audience,” Wood said. “We are all facing the audience; it is not the traditional horseshoe of a traditional orchestra.”

In Wood’s world, there is no conductor directing the flow of the music. He prefers musicians to use their ears to keep up with the beat, and he said it can be done with any size orchestra — noting a recent workshop he did in Texas with a group of 400 students.

“I tell the kids, ‘I don’t want to see you rehearse. You look like you’re rehearsing. I want your performance face on right now,’” Wood said. “It’s pretty much the same face on both, but we need to stand up. We need to face the audience. It’s a whole new experience that fascinates me.”

Wood’s style of music performance allows for creativity and improvisation, which he feels are necessary to keep music programs relevant.

“Otherwise, we’re just going to continue to be antiquated and shrinking,” Wood said.

Less than 18 percent of schools in the United States have strings programs, Wood said, and he heard an alarming statistic that in the next 10 to 20 years, there will be no motivation among young people to master a musical instrument.

“In the 1970s, almost every school had an orchestra program,” Wood said. “We’re dealing with a very interesting moment, a paradigm shift.”

With the ability to touch a button on a computer to make a melody, there will be little reason for people to pick up the instruments themselves to make music, Wood said. But he hopes that by showing schools how to be innovative with their music programs, that trend could be curtailed.

“What motivates a kid to play music is seeing a person who is a master at it, right in front of their faces,” Wood said.

The Golden Strings concert has been a traditional fundraiser for the Shawano Community High School orchestra for decades, but that tradition is about to be electrified.

The orchestra is getting a little boost from Mark Wood, one of the founding members of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, who will be including the students in a workshop called “Electrify Your Strings.” Wood will work with the orchestras from both the high school and Shawano Community Middle School for several days next week, culminating in the annual concert Nov. 3-4.

“Mark Wood’s ‘Electrify Your Strings’ program has been around for quite a while,” said Jill Sousek, SCHS orchestra director. “I have a few friends who have worked with him before, and they suggested I get in contact with Mark to see if we could make something happen here.”

Sousek had originally planned to utilize Wood for her orchestra, but she said that Wood specifically asked to spend time working with both the high school and middle school, giving her the opportunity to get both schools together for an event.

“With him coming in, we want the most kids to work with him,” Sousek said. “Between the high school and middle school, we’ll have 160 students on stage. That’s going to make it interesting and priceless for the musicians that’ll be on stage, but also for the audience. We’ll reach out to more parents and community members than we normally would if we just had a middle school concert or a high school concert.”

Dan O’Connell, SCMS orchestra director, said he is really excited for his students to have the opportunity but admits it might be a little daunting for his beginning students who are just learning to play their instruments. Shawano’s elementary schools do not have bands or orchestras, so the first opportunity the students have, outside of private lessons, is in middle school.

“Jill and I have been talking about doing a combined concert for a number of years,” O’Connell said. “It just hadn’t gotten off the ground.”

Sousek noted that this will be a different level of commitment for all the students involved. While both schools have been working on their pieces since the beginning of the year, the game is expected to change a little once Wood arrives in Shawano.

“We’ll have a small amount of rehearsals with Mark to produce a big product,” Sousek said.

Audiences can expect a different setup for this concert. The regular horseshoe positioning of the orchestra will be gone, as will the music stands. Wood, in an interview with the Leader, said one of the first things he does is get rid of the music stands in order to get the musicians and the audience to make eye contact.

Also, Golden Strings this year will be, as Sousek described it, a rock concert. There will be more of a light show this year, and there will be some electrical violins and other instruments sent to the school from Wood’s company to be part of the concert.

“Our students, many of them, have seen Trans-Siberian Orchestra in Green Bay or Milwaukee. So when we said we’re bringing in someone from TSO, they were thrilled,” Sousek said. “Plus, he’s a professional musician. Not often do we have professional musicians in this area. They may be in Green Bay. They may be in Appleton, but they’re not willing to make the drive to Shawano.”

Heid Music, State Bank of Shawano and the SCHS Music Boosters Association have contributed to this year’s Golden Strings concert. It is the only performance fundraiser the orchestras do all year; other orchestra concerts are free to the public.

”This is an exciting opportunity for our students to perform in a way they never have before with a world-renowned artist,” O’Connell said. “It gives them the chance to see what it takes to prepare for taking the stage at a rock concert, and gets them off the pages of their sheet music.”

Both orchestras have grown in recent years, according to Sousek, and the money raised from Golden Strings will help to purchase additional instruments, as well as repair some current instruments.

Next week will be the first opportunity for both orchestras to come together for rehearsal, and Sousek said she felt some apprehension about trying to organize the “rat race” noting that the two orchestras will be comingled as one.

“There’s a specific diagram of where students are supposed to be on stage,” Sousek said. “For us to get that all together is going to be interesting. But the high school kids are eager to work with the middle school kids, and the middle school’s excited to be working with the older kids.”

Even after Wood’s departure, the two orchestras still plan on working together on future Golden Strings concerts and possibly other events.

“There will be other projects that we’re planning for either later this year or for the next school year,” Sousek said.

A musical journey based on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale characters will come to life on the Clintonville High School auditorium stage, as the drama club presents “Into the Woods” next month. The Tony Award-winning musical is being directed by choir teacher Leah Armstrong.

The show, written by Stephen Sondheim, follows well-known characters from such stories as Cinderella and Jack and the Beanstalk through new twists and predicaments that question what it means to live happily ever after.

“The soaring music and the sophisticated and clever score make this one of the best musicals of all time,” Armstrong said. “It’s a difficult show, but the students are up to the challenge.”

Main characters include: Little Red Riding Hood, played by Jetlyn Michonski; Rapunzel, played by Paige Dulavy; Jack, played by Trenton Laack; Cinderella, played by Makayla Easley; and the witch, Laurel Pingle. The show is being narrated by Garret Jahnke.

Other cast members include Daniel Torrez, Emma Zwirschitz, Samuel Wittman, Samantha Hartleben, Leigha Lundt, Nicole Kirchner, Madisen Ortner, Sophia Lamia, Caitlin Huber, Mia Peterson, Zeke Fietsch, Gerald Wood, Emma Baum, Stephanie Mueller, Samuel Arneson, Isaac Schultz, Michael Michonski, Zachary Hunter, Abby Oskey and Xenia Pleuger. Many additional students and alumni are assisting with building props, creating the set, helping with hair and makeup and working backstage.

A live orchestra will accompany the performers, directed by Josh Heyer, Clintonville High School band teacher.

Performances will be Nov. 9 and 10 at 7 p.m., with a 2 p.m. matinee Nov. 11. Tickets are available at the door 30 minutes before show time. Admission is $8 per person, or $20 for a three-performance bundle package.

Since its start in 1986, “Into The Woods” has been performed hundreds of times on Broadway and around the world. It is being presented in Clintonville through an arrangement with Music Theatre International.

For more than 25 years, Shawano Community High School’s jazz band and show choir have provided audiences with an evening of dining and entertainment comparable to the kind of experience one would get from a nightclub.

This year, the entertainment experience will be the same, but you’ll want to grab dinner before you come to this year’s music revue, as the annual Dinner Dance is now being billed as “Just Desserts.” Christopher Kent, who directs the school bands, had worked with his brother, Jonathan, who directed the choirs before his retirement in June, on the dinner shows, but there had been a desire for several years to turn the fall music fundraiser into a dessert show similar to the Last Dance event held each spring.

“We really liked the format of ‘Last Dance,’” Kent said. “We just wanted to make things consistent and something the community would recognize every time. Doing a dinner on stage is much more complex on the stage than it would be if we were at a restaurant. I think we’ve done a good job with (the dinner shows), but it was just time.”

Another new twist to this year’s revue is that the Shawano Jazz Foundation is directly sponsoring the show. The foundation had helped with a few things for previous shows, but now the foundation is fully involved, according to Kent.

This year, the music groups will be taking guests back to the days of Prohibition, when alcohol was outlawed, and speakeasies popped up all across the country for those who weren’t ready to give up their spirits. However, since this show’s done at a school, there will be no alcohol at this show, Kent pointed out.

“The decorations will be done like a speakeasy. The tickets and posters are styled that way,” he said. “We’re going to do some things at the entrance, and we’re just going to make it fun.”

Among the musical selections being done by the jazz band are several Duke Ellington tunes. “The Mooche” was written during the Prohibition-era, Kent said, while “Half the Fun” came after alcohol became legal again.

“We have some music from that time period, and then we have a huge variety from other time periods,” Kent said.

The more modern tunes the jazz band will perform include “Skyfall” by Adele, “I Dreamed a Dream” from “Les Miserables” where alto saxophonist Kori Halstead will have a solo, and current hit “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi.

The show choir will also be performing songs with some zip. Among the choir’s selection are “Dancing Queen,” “The Greatest Show,” “New Girl in Town” and “Stand by Me.”

This year’s show will also help the jazz band as it prepares for the Essentially Ellington High School Band Competition, which is held in New York. Fifteen of the top bands in the country are invited to the annual festival, and SCHS hopes to be one of those bands in 2019.

“Last year was our first year submitting or recording,” Kent said. “Kori Halstead, my lead alto, received national recognition for her solo on one of the pieces that we did, which is huge.”

Shawano Community Middle School students paid tribute to the community’s veterans during their annual Veterans Day ceremony Friday — holding their flags, singing their songs and recounting their stories.

The ceremony featured a number of student speeches that honored veterans. Many of the students spoke with veterans, and many more had someone who serves in the military today.

Tristan Tetting, a seventh-grade student, said Veterans Day should be every day.

“Veterans spend more time with their unit than they do their family,” Tetting said. “They see each other as family. They have a stronger bond than anyone can imagine.”

Shayna Daney, a sixth-grade student, told the crowd about her great-grandfather, Eugene Schultz, who joined the Army at 19 years old and served in the Vietnam War. Daney said her great-grandfather had to either serve his country or go to jail because of the draft.

“He was a unit armorer and serviced all the weapons,” Daney said. “My great-grandpa Eugene said, ‘I will never regret my decision to serve my country because it was an opportunity to change the world.’”

George Buerman, a seventh-grade student, noted that respected is earned, not given, and those who serve in the military have more than earned the country’s respect.

“Veterans must pause their own lives to protect ours,” Buerman said. “They work 24 hours a day so we can have a peaceful night’s sleep. When duty called, they didn’t complain and say ‘Five more minutes.’ Instead, they bolted out of bed to serve America. They served our country so we wouldn’t have to.”

The ceremony featured retired Army Col. Richard Kucksdorf, who was a 1972 graduate of Shawano High School, which occupied the building where the middle school is today. Kucksdorf told the crowd that it is “easier” for those who serve in the military than it is for those who remain at home.

“They never know. They just don’t know” what the service men and women are facing at any given time, Kucksdorf said.

Kucksdorf, also a retired postmaster, told the students that patriotism means many things to many people, whether it’s reciting the Pledge of Allegiance or saluting the American flag as it passes by.

“Research shows that, when we place our hands on our hearts, we’re more honest with others,” Kucksdorf said.

Associate principal Rod Watson, who serves as a lieutenant in the Wisconsin Army National Guard, told students that this year’s Veterans Day holds special meaning because it was 100 years ago this Sunday that the armistice was signed to end World War I.

“One hundred years ago today, we were fighting the worst war the world had ever known by far,” Watson said. “At 11 o’clock — the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month — we decided to stop killing each other and World War I ended all of sudden after four years of bloodshed.”

The oldest veteran in the audience was Bob Voss, a 98-year-old man who served in World War II who served as a company commander, Watson said. There were also veterans from the Korean War, Vietnam War and other conflicts that took place all over the world.

The 3-year-old preschool class at Sacred Heart Catholic School has been studying the animals that live in Wisconsin. On Monday, they invited in a couple of wildlife enthusiasts to further the lesson.

Jeff and Cathy Besaw, of Clintonville, who have two grandchildren at Sacred Heart, visited the classroom of teachers Stacey Dickmann and Melissa Marquardt. They brought with them several life-sized animal mounts, including a whitetail buck, tom turkey, black bear yearling, cow elk and raccoon. They also showed off the pelts of a coyote, red fox, beaver, otter, muskrat, mink and opossum.

Jeff Besaw demonstrated the sounds some of the animal make when communicating with their own species or when warding off predators and announcing danger. A few students even had the opportunity to try the animal sounds themselves.

“To continue to be able to share my knowledge, passion and experience for wildlife and environmental education is very rewarding,” Besaw said. “Helping these preschoolers begin to grow a love for nature and animals is crucial to the success and health of Wisconsin wildlife. If children can see it, touch it and gain an understanding of its value in their world, then they begin to see how we as people have to play a positive role in the future of nature and all its inhabitants.”

The Besaws are the parents of Autumne Gee, Sacred Heart’s director of admissions and development.

NEW Media recently chatted with Brianna Eland, a new English teacher at Wittenberg-Birnamwood High School.

Q: What is your work/education background?

A: This is my first year teaching. I graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater this past May where I studied English and math education. UW-Whitewater gave me experience teaching at Ronald Reagan High School in Milwaukee, Marshall Middle School in Janesville and East Troy High School, which is in East Troy. I also worked in the tutoring center at UW-Whitewater, where I tutored students one-on-one in math and writing, and I was a supplemental instructor for an English class designed for struggling first-year students. During these experiences, I gained a lot of knowledge about working with high-need students.

Q: Where are you from?

A: I spent my whole life until college in Green Bay. My family still lives there, while my fiance and I just moved to Pulaski. I really enjoy knitting and spending time with my family, especially my youngest brother, who is 8.

Q: What’s your basic philosophy for teaching?

A: My teaching philosophy is student-centered. I believe that people learn better if they are given choices and understand the importance of what they are doing. I also want my students to feel safe. That means safe to express themselves and safe to fail without worrying about their grades. All of these beliefs lead to me trying to be transparent with the students.

Q: Is the student/teacher population one you’ve worked with in the past or is it bigger/smaller?

A: This school is smaller than what I am used to. My high school graduating class is about the size of this school.

Q: What brought you to WBSD? Were you familiar with the area?

A: I am not familiar with the area. I did not know if this job would be the job for me until I came for the interview. I walked in nervous and left excited about the community. The building and the people have a great sense of family and community that were very important to me. I also really enjoy the small size of the school because I enjoy getting to know all the students very well.

Q: Where do you live and what do you like about the location?

A: I live in Pulaski, which is too far away for me. Pulaski is a small town and really does not have many exciting things going on. My fiance and I are hoping to move to Shawano very soon.

Q: Who was the inspiration for your becoming a teacher?

A: I’ve been helping my peers learn in class from a young age. In elementary school, I would finish my math homework very early, and my teacher would have me help other students. I was always told I would make a great teacher because I was great at helping the other students. Then, in high school, I had one really great English teacher and a not-so-great one. The really great teacher developed a love of literature in me and helped me understand how powerful writing and reading can be. I’ve always been a reader, but she really expanded my love. She was also flexible in her teaching and let us have choices in how we learned. Then, the other teacher tore my confidence and my love for English down. I know English class is not a favorite for people because of similar experiences, and my great and not-so-great teachers made me want to share my love English and build student confidence in the subject. I did not want students to lose a love of reading and writing because of a bad teacher.

The day that the Menominee Nation was terminated as a federally recognized tribe was a dark day in history for the Menominee people, while the day the tribe’s federal rights were restored was a day of joy.

Many of the elders remember the tumultuous period when the tribe wasn’t recognized and the efforts that they made to remedy the situation, but it is not something that springs to mind for the reservation’s youth.

With that in mind, the College of Menominee Nation is producing a play, “Menominee Restoration Day: Reader’s Theatre That Helps Us Remember,” to educate the next generation about how the Menominee tribe lost its status and how it was regained.

CMN is performing shows for Menominee Indian High School and Menominee Tribal School during school hours, but it is also putting on a community show Dec. 6.

Ryan Winn, who teaches English and theater, said he was asked by some of the tribal elders to write the play.

“The idea was to talk about the meaning behind restoration, especially since the tribe was restored in 1973, and so this idea of understanding what that meant and what termination was, especially for the younger generation, was important,” Winn said. “Also, it’s to appreciate what went into the restoration plan and the tribal constitution that the legislature is currently acting on.”

Winn was asked to craft the play to utilize Menominee traditional storytelling methods similar to the pageants put on by the tribe decades. There are three main characters who serve as narrators, he said, through a discussion. One is learning, while the other two are sharing the events of the past.

On another part of the stage, reenactments are going on. The reenactments use precise quotes from historical figures.

“Any quote I used for the play I found in a published source,” Winn said. “I may have a quote from Ada Deer or Sylvia Wilber or Chief Oshkosh or Dwight Eisenhower or Richard Nixon. These are the actual things they said or released in print media.”

Winn spent a lot of time on research, making sure that many of the lines in the script were specifically from real-life remarks. He said he didn’t feel comfortable making up the words for a play designed to educate about Restoration Day.

“As far as the interpretation went, there was a lot of going back and interviewing and finding out what terms were used,” Winn said. “For example, if you go back and read the pageants, they often say the Menominee were diplomats, which was a lot different than saying someone was a peacemaker. It’s a subtle but very important distinction.”

Diplomacy played a key part in many points of Menominee history, according to Winn.

“The Menominee went more with diplomacy, rather than rising up in conflict, to ensure they were able to keep their lands, keep their families safe, and to maintain as much as they could their way of life,” Winn said.

Winn noted that the Menominee had to use diplomacy in order to get the Menominee Restoration Act moving forward in Congress. U.S. Rep. Harold Froehlich, from Appleton, would not even put the act to Congress for a vote without some concessions being made on property at Legend Lake that he owned, Winn said.

Termination had been championed by lawmakers in the late 1940s. Sen. Arthur Watkins, of Utah, used the Menominee as the first example of termination after the Menominee won a lawsuit against the federal government for mismanagement of the forest, Winn said.

Winn said that, because the tribes were under federal supervision, Congress still had to approve any payout to the tribe, and Watkins stipulated he would only champion the payout if the Menominee agreed to termination.

“He believed — and this is a quote — that the Menominee were already five-sixths assimilated into modern Amercian way of life,” Winn said. “He said things like Congress had already terminated the Menominee tribe, which wasn’t true.”

The Menominee Termination Act was signed by President Dwight Eisenhower on June 17, 1954, and the tribe had to come up with its own termination plan and spend its own money to create that plan. Winn said the tribe was informed that, if it didn’t do so, the American government would do it for them.

“It’s a dizzying concept to try to wrap one’s head around,” he said. “There were more than 100 tribes and bands terminated, and more than 1.3 million acres of land removed from federal trust protection, and it was about the land.”

Because the Menominee people were the first to be terminated, there was no road map for how the tribe was to come up with a plan, Winn said. Originally slated for four years after the act was signed, the Menominee received additional one-year extensions until the place was completed in 1961.

The Menominee were also the first to get tribal status restored when President Richard Nixon signed the Restoration Act on Dec. 22, 1973. Winn noted that, even though Nixon’s status in overall history is one of disgrace because of Watergate, his signing to restore the tribes makes him one of the more honorable presidents to tribes like the Menominee.

“He was wonderful for native people,” Winn said.

All of this will be rolled into the play for audiences to learn and remember, along with the work that the Determination of Rights and Unity for Menominee Stockholders (DRUMS) group and the Menominee Restoration Committee did to create the modern Menominee society just north of Shawano.

“There were about 1,000 members in DRUMS that either publicly or secretly worked together to change Menominee history and helped the Restoration Plan,” Winn said. “All of the ones that I spoke to were very humble about their role.”

Sacred Heart Catholic School students and staff honored local veterans Nov. 16 with a special ceremony.

The all-school assembly included reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance, the singing of the national anthem, prayer and blessing from the Rev. Tom Farrell, musical videos, Biblical readings, prayer intercessions and the presence of guests from AMVETS Post 10, American Legion Post 117 and VFW Post 2723.

This year’s guest speaker was Lori Mathwich, Sacred Heart Parish’s coordinator of religion education, parish member and Sacred Heart Catholic School parent and alumna. Mathwich, a sergeant first class who spent 21 years in the U.S. Army, was deployed to Iraq in 2003 and did three tours to South America in Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama. She was a readiness non-commissioned officer and a Blackhawk crew chief.

Mathwich retired in 2016 to spend more time with her family. Her husband, Shawn Mathwich, is still an active duty officer.

Students and staff members shook the hands of visiting veterans and chatted with them after the ceremony.

Adam Schulz knows he’s never going to be able to pay back the College of Menominee Nation, but that’s not stopping him from giving it the old college try.

Schulz has helped the college to open its Helping Closet, a place where food would be available to students who might not have the time and/or money to leave campus for a bite to eat between classes. It was started with student hunger in mind but has expanded to include school supplies and personal hygiene products.

“A group of students from Inspiring Educators (a CMN student organization) and I got together to figure out how to give back to our (college) community,” said Schulz, who is a business major. “We know that food scarcity is a big issue with college students right now countrywide, and we looked at the statistics and realized we are in one of the poorer counties of the state.

Schulz noted that 31 percent of Menominee County residents deal with food scarcity, which is not having enough of all the needed foods for a balanced diet. However, CMN has students commuting from all over northeast Wisconsin, and many students have to figure out if paying for a college education is going to cut sharply into their food budgets.

“We decided it would be good to reach out to our students and provide them with some food options,” Schulz said. “They might be in class all day and didn’t bring their lunch with them and don’t have the time to run into the city to get a meal. Now there’s something available besides the vending machines.”

There are other issues as well, like emergencies cutting down the money they’d set aside that week for food, or forgetting the money at home, Schulz said. He noted it is easier for him and his peers to concentrate on their studies when their bellies are full.

“I know, with my little kids, if they don’t get fed properly, it’s hard for them to concentrate in school, and I get emails from the teachers,” Schulz said. “Full students concentrate better.”

Many of the items are canned or boxed goods, quick and easy meals for students on the go. Schulz said there is a microwave in the student atrium that students use to heat up food.

Schulz worked with Dr. Lauren Villagomez, who teaches early childhood and elementary education at the college, to get the project off the ground. The project received some initial seed money from the college’s Scott Zager Venture Fund, a memorial that provides grants for student-initiated projects, but most of the supplies in the closet came from student and staff donations.

Right now, the closet is located at Shirley Daly Hall on the Keshena campus, but Schulz is hoping to get another one started for the Green Bay campus. He noted that Green Bay students are benefitting from the Keshena closet, but the supplies are being shuttled between campuses, and a separate closet would be more convenient.

“This isn’t just about feeding students; this is about everybody getting involved,” Schulz said. “This is something that campuses across America are doing right now, and we wanted to be proactive and get ahead of the curve.”

Besides being a community service project, the Helping Closet is helping Schulz to advance his studies and manage a nonprofit program.

Assistance remains anonymous, Schulz said, and the only thing students have to do to get items is provide the last four numbers of their student identification.

“This is just another pro to the College of Menominee Nation experience,” Schulz said. “It’s another asset we can provide to the students, a little peace of mind, and let them know that students care about each other.”