The 14th annual Wolf River Area Junior Achievement Business Challenge was held Feb. 21 in Shawano. Ten high school teams representing Bonduel, Gresham and Shawano schools competed for scholarships, prizes and the opportunity to advance to the statewide competition.

Using an online business simulator, student teams were required to manufacture and market a product. They competed against other teams for profits, sales and market shares in the daylong event, which was hosted by AgSource/Genex. Chad Kary from The Launching Pad was the emcee, and Butch Hesse from Butch’s Archery was the guest speaker.

The first-place blue industry team from Gresham was Justice Paiser, Sydney Mohawk and Andrew Galland. They were awarded $500 scholarships.

The second-place blue industry team from Shawano was Collin Buerman, Eli Magee and Charlie Kuhn. They were awarded $250 scholarships and will join the first-place team at the state Junior Achievement Business Challenge, which will be held May 2 at Acuity in Sheboygan.

The first-place red industry team from Bonduel — Dylan Springborn, Skylar Sexton and Colin Hanus — received $25 Kwik Trip and $5 Walmart gift cards. The second-place red industry team from Shawano — Bryce Stomberg, Steven Hoffmann, Nathan Krizan — received $10 Shell and $5 Walmart gift cards.

Winners of a Facebook marketing challenge won $10 gift certificates to John’s One Stop. That team, from Shawano, included Lindsey Roloff, Isabella Burr and Matthew Schwitzer, mentored by Paul Black. Eli Magee, also of Shawano, won the drawing for a $500 Northeastern Wisconsin Technical College scholarship, which was donated by the NWTC Educational Foundation.

This event would not have been possible without the following sponsors: Little Rapids Corporation/Egan Family Foundation, Walmart, BMO Financial, TransCanada Charitable Foundation, Shawano Optimist Club, AgSource/Genex, CoVantage Credit Union, Premier Community Bank, Premier Investment Services, State Bank, MSA Professional Services Inc., Shawano Lake Lions Club and the Karla Hoffman family. Meal sponsors included: Farm Inn’ on Main, AgSource/Genex, Walmart, Old Glory Candy and Frito Lay.

Scott Marohl and the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade classrooms at Sacred Heart Catholic School presented a Black History Month wax museum in the school’s gymnasium on March 4.

The event had originally been planned to take place in February but had to be postponed due to a number of school closures due to weather.

Each student had to research and then create a presentation board that shared major life events, achievements and characteristics of an African-American who is noted in the country’s history as being influential. They had the option to choose an athlete, politician, musician or trailblazer, and students chose individuals that ranged from Jesse Owens, Barack Obama and Muhammad Ali to Frederick Douglass and Maya Angelou.

During the museum students were dressed up and remained as still as a wax figure, until their push button was pressed by a visitor. They then had to share important facts while remaining in character.

Students from all grades visited the museum, and enjoyed this fresh take on a traditional historical report. Students were able to appreciate each person that was researched in a more in-depth way, and they gained further insight into the struggles and the achievements during their lifetime.

“After seeing the event, I am so happy with the effort and results that these Sacred Heart students put forward,” Marohl said. “They were able to research and find a strong idea of their famous African-American and share their research with students of all ages. As I reflect on this assignment, I am happy and proud. I am proud of these students and their accomplishments. All of the students worked very hard on this project and the results show.”

Sacred Heart Catholic School’s four-year-old class tripled its Llamas of Love service project by raising enough funds to purchase three llamas for families living in Bolivia.

Teacher Michelle Powers had discussed with her students in early February what they could do to serve others and after viewing the Catholic Foundation’s World Mission Services Project booklet, the class knew that the purchasing llamas was going to be its mission. The llamas purchased will provide much needed milk and wool for the three families.

For Powers, the project was a way to teach her students that the needs of others extend far beyond their own community. The lesson was also aimed at teaching an important lesson of global service.

“The students were able to help people they would never meet, which is truly just an act of love,” Powers said.

The students also viewed and learned about Bolivia, using maps and a globe.

The goal was to raise enough funds to purchase one llama, but to triple that goal was such a heartwarming feeling for the class and the entire school community, according to Powers.

“We never expected this type of response, and I just want to take a minute to express my gratitude to the many people it took to get three llamas,” Powers said. “What a great example of how wonderful this community can be.”

The students seemed to gain a good understanding of the great work they did for others and shared their teacher’s excitement.

“I like to help people,” Hyla Pozorski said.

When asked why this service project was a good idea, Livvy Grignon said: “It makes Jesus feel good.”

Lane Brunker said he knows that God’s love is for all His people, all over the world.

“God loves all of us,” Brunker said. “Those people needed clothes and milk.”

“The children found a passion for helping others,” Powers said. “Hopefully this inspires them for years to come. They are learning what it takes to be productive members of society.”

Powers said was never worried about trying to get 4-year-olds to participate in a large-scale service project and encourages others to consider getting children of all ages involved in service work.

“Just go for it,” Powers said. “They may be little, but community service is about one thing, helping. That’s a lesson that you are never too young to learn.”

Last week, the Bonduel School District had to cancel school and its monthly Senior Breakfast because of a water main break in the village of Bonduel and an immediate boil water order.

Yet an incredible thing happened.

Working together with the village, the school district was able to make lemonade out of lemons, deciding to make the breakfast anyway.

School district personnel including administration, teachers and their children, staff, and even a school board member and his wife were still able to set up a calling station in the district office, make the breakfast, package the breakfast using to go boxes donated by a local business, and use their own vehicles to deliver the breakfast to senior citizens, village employees, and others in need, complete with a carnation donated by a local flower shop.

According to Superintendent Joe Dawidziak, when the call went out asking for volunteers, he was hoping for six to eight people to respond. He stated that he stopped counting volunteers at 30, and that the actual amount of volunteers was staggering. Members of Bonduel High School’s boys basketball team also went to shovel a driveway and clear off the roof of a senior citizen concerned that the delivery crew might not be able to make it to their front door due to the snow in the way. All in all, 105 breakfasts were delivered to various addresses around the school district.

The school district and the village were able to work together in using the school district’s messaging system to notify residents of the boil water order and by sharing contact information in a confidential manner to make sure everyone in need got a breakfast delivered, with donated water.

St. James Lutheran School is pleased to announce that St. James Destination Imagination (DI) team placed first in the regional competition this year, David Kaiser, principal of St. James Lutheran School, announced.

The team is composed of students from third through eighth grades.

The purpose of Destination Imagination is to inspire and equip students to become the next generation of innovators and leaders. Annually, DI offers seven new standards-based challenges in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math), improvisation, visual arts, service learning, and early learning, Kaiser explained.

Each challenge is open-ended and enables student teams to learn and experience the creative process from imagination to innovation. Academic tournaments take place around the world where teams have the opportunity to present their solutions to trained appraisers.

Students have fun and gain confidence in their ability to solve any challenge. In working to solve these challenges, teams learn 21st century skills (creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, communication, citizenship and courage) to build on their unique strengths.

Out of the seven challenges offered this year, the St. James DI team chose to explore the STEM challenge for this year. The year’s theme was Medical Mystery. The team had eight minutes to create a skit about an illness that affects the human body.

The students choose the swine flu. They had to integrate medical research into their skit. At least one human character had to have one symptom. The students also had to make a Sympt-O-Matic which showed one symptom of the swine flu. The team chose to use chemistry to make vomit. The skit also had to include “Double Vision,” staging and blocking. That means props or people move around during the skit, or are used for other purposes.

“We often to see that the newspapers show the highlights of school students who are athletically gifted. I am proud of St. James and our ‘cerebral athletes’ as they were scored for their critical-thinking, team work, and communication. We thank Coach Walker and the other parents who have helped work with the students as they have prepared for the competition. This is another way to help students foster their creativity and higher-level thinking as they complete these challenges. St. James is proud of the hard work and effort that our DI team demonstrated this past weekend,” Kaiser said.

On March 11, 1959, the groundbreaking play, “A Raisin in the Sun,” debuted at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York. It was the first Broadway play written by an African-American woman, Lorraine Hansberry. That play came from a place deep within her soul.

Hansberry was evoking her own harsh experience as part of a black family moving into an all-white Chicago neighborhood. She was raised in a culture of activism — her father pushed back against restrictive covenants that spawned segregated housing areas until a Supreme Court ruling led to an end to such practices.

Hansberry majored in art when she first enrolled at the University of Wisconsin, but her desire to speak out never wavered. A classmate remembered her as “the only girl I knew who could whip together a fresh picket sign with her own hands, at a moment’s notice, for any cause or occasion.” She thrived in her humanities classes but struggled with the sciences, and she left Madison for New York City after two years. She worked for a progressive African-American newspaper and contributed letters to a lesbian magazine, although, fearing a backlash, she signed them using only her initials.

Not content to be a lone voice in the fight for equality, Hansberry once said, “The acceptance of our present condition is the only form of extremism which discredits us before our children.”

Hansberry’s play is named for a line in a Langston Hughes poem: “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” It sparked attention on opening night — and long after.

“Never before, in the entire history of the American theater, had so much of the truth of black people’s lives been seen on the stage,” James Baldwin wrote.

“Raisin” reached broader audiences in 1961 when a film version starring Sidney Poitier hit theaters. It was produced twice for television, and it had two runs on Broadway.

Hansberry died of cancer at age 34. She is among the UW-Madison alumni highlighted in the more than 50 exhibits in the Wisconsin Alumni Association’s Alumni Park, which opened Oct. 6, 2017. The park is located between Memorial Union and the Red Gym on the UW-Madison campus and is open year-round. For information and a virtual tour of the park, please visit alumnipark.com.

Burton Warrington has achieved success in a number of ways, in his view, but the former College of Menominee Nation student told about 30 attendees Friday that success is best defined by the individual, not an entire society.

“I haven’t had her experience, and I haven’t had his experience, so we’re all going to view the world a little differently, and that’s all right,” Warrington said. “Somebody says that John’s a janitor, so he’s not successful, but if John thinks he’s successful, then so be it.”

For Warrington, his success has included helping Native Americans in need. Warrington, who has Menominee, Ho-Chunk and Potawatomi blood in him is president and CEO of Indian Avenue Group, LLC, a law group that has provided legal services for Native Americans, including help during the Standing Rock protests where a number of tribes opposed the Dakota Access Pipeline. He also served as a counselor for the Department of the Interior during President Barack Obama’s administration.

Warrington’s path to success started on the Menominee reservation as he attended public and tribal schools there and graduated from Menominee Indian High School in 2000.

“People often introduce me (at speaking engagements) through my professional life, but that’s only a small part of who I am,” Warrington said as he spoke at CMN’s Cultural Learning Center. “I grew up about five miles from here on Legend Lake. I was born and grew up here on the rez.”

Warrington recalled that he worked during high school as a clerk at a grocery store, and he took great pride in making sure that his job was done as quickly and efficiently as possible, even if his co-workers didn’t like it.

“This older guy said, ‘Hey, you’ve got to slow down. You’re making the rest of us look bad,’” Warrington said. “Well, I took pride in that. I wanted to be the best stockboy I could be at 16. Success to me is being the best at whatever I do.”

He noted that he is not an enrolled member of the Menominee tribe, but he considers himself to be Menominee because of his early beginnings on the reservation.

“To me, it doesn’t matter if I’m enrolled; that’s superficial to me,” Warrington said, saying that who he is can’t be defined on a piece of paper. “Culturally, who I am is Menominee, and that’s what matters to me.”

Defining success by social media is not a good thing, according to Warrington. He pointed out that Facebook and other social media sites weren’t around when he was growing up, so he didn’t fall under the influence of them growing up.

“Facebook tries to control how you feel. They control what you see,” Warrington said. “They run social experiments on you.”

Even without social media, Warrington recalled having to stay disciplined on his path to becoming a lawyer. For two months, every free hour was spent studying for the Bar exam so he would pass the first time, even as friends tried to coax him out for fun and recreation.

“Discipline is about short-term sacrifice for long-term gain,” Warrington said. “People that are successful have the ability to discipline themselves.”

Warrington grew up in an environment where tribal members were fighting for what they believed was right. He heard stories from his father about the Novitiate takeover and saw in the 1990s when tribal members fought to stop the mine in Crandon. It was those influences that made Warrington want to fight for a just cause.

Warrington was on a boat trip looking for wild rice beds when he received a text message asking for legal help during the protests at Standing Rock. He’d originally packed for a couple of days, but he wound up helping for five months.

“Activism has always been a part of my life,” Warrington said. “I want this world to be better.”

Warrington’s presentation was sponsored by the CMN Student Government.

“The Great Gatsby,” as a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, did not initially receive rave reviews when it was published in 1925, and the author thought the book had been a failure.

However, the book has become one of the more popular pieces of literature in America today following a revival of the book in the 1940s — after Fitzgerald passed — and the stage version of the story about 1920s culture in New York will hit the stage at Shawano Community High School next week.

The show’s director, Maddie Stuewer, recalled reading the book during her high school years, and once she read the script, she knew it would be ideal for local students to present to the community.

“I was like, ‘Oh, this would be so much fun to do on stage,’” Stuewer said. “I love the story, and I love the costumes, the music — just all of it.”

The book, and the show, are narrated by a young man named Nick Carraway, who has just moved into a house next door to Jay Gatsby, a man known for throwing lavish parties in the fictional village of West Egg. Carraway is eventually invited to one of the parties and soon realizes there is more to his neighbor’s past than meets the eye.

Gatsby served in World War I and had fallen in love with a debutante named Daisy, but she had eventually married another man, Tom Buchanan. However, Buchanan is not very kind to Daisy and is having an affair with Myrtle Wilson, who married a garage owner and mechanic.

Gatsby asks Carraway, who is Daisy’s cousin, to arrange a meeting between himself and the lonely wife of Buchanan in the hopes of rekindling the flame that burned before he had to go to war. As it turns out, the parties that Gatsby throws had all been done with the hopes that Daisy might attend, but when the familial connection is discovered, Gatsby decides to capitalize on it.

The show continues on to present the seduction, glamor and ultimately tragedy of the Roaring Twenties lifestyle.

“All kinds of drama ensues,” Stuewer said. “(Gatsby) doesn’t do things in a simple way.”

Stuewer had a number of students who hadn’t performed in previous SCHS productions audition for “The Great Gatsby.” Among them was C.J. Henning, who plays Gatsby himself.

“I wasn’t expecting at first to get the role,” Henning said. “I was just auditioning because I wanted to try out acting. It’s really fun to be in one of the big roles, especially for my first time acting.”

Henning’s high school years have been highlighted mostly by sports, but he helped with the tech work for “The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night-time” last fall and then served as stage manager for “The Little Mermaid” in January. Working behind the scenes inspired him to step out on the stage in an acting capacity.

Henning watched the latest film adaptation of the book, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and read the novel a number of times to get some insight to his character.

“He’s rather obsessive,” Henning said about the character he plays. “He kind of pines after Daisy. He works her up so much in his mind after he’s left for the war and has this huge idea of her, and when he meets her, she just doesn’t reach (expectations), but he’s still so happy she’s here. It’s quite fun to figure all that out.”

Henning said the challenge for him is understanding the meaning of some of the lines, as the way people spoke in the 1920s is worlds away from today’s speech.

Henning still plans to keep some sports in his life as he goes into his senior year next year, but the acting bug has definitely left its mark on him.

“I’m definitely going to try out for the fall play,” Henning said. “I’m thinking of trying out for the musical, as well. I’ve enjoyed this so much, what I’m doing.”

The play is expected to be about as much a showstopper as the high school’s musicals, with Stuewer implementing moments where the actors are dancing and having a live band perform at the “party.”

“I feel like this is a good show to bring people together, teamwork-wise,” Stuewer said, noting that the main set for Gatsby’s home was built by the students in the cast and crew in just two days. “I think a big show like this really forces people to step up into roles they might not have stepped into.”

Jasmine Neosh has been named the College of Menominee Nation’s American Indian College Fund Student of the Year for 2019.

Neosh, who earned an associate degree in natural resources from CMN in May 2018, is continuing her studies at the Keshena campus for a Bachelor of Arts in public administration.

CMN President Dr. Paul Trebian praised Neosh for both her academic and service work at the college.

“Jasmine is an outstanding student scholar who would deserve the Student of the Year recognition on that basis alone,” Trebian said. “Her commitment to her tribe, the global community, and critical environmental issues are bonus points in her favor. She is an asset to the college, and we know she will be doing exceptional work wherever her future career takes her.”

An honors student through her time at CMN, Neosh has earned scholarships including the Land Tenure Foundation’s Spirit of Sovereignty Scholarship and the Nation Builders Scholarship sponsored by Menominee Tribal Enterprises. She has been active with student-sponsored projects on recycling and led efforts to enact a campus-wide policy against the use of disposable polystyrene products.

Other recent activities include service as a research assistant for professor Dennis Vickers on planning for a new baccalaureate degree program. In early spring semester, Neosh joined Trebian and leaders from other tribal colleges in Washington, D.C., for meetings with Wisconsin and other legislators.

Most recently, she participated on the college’s Knowledge Bowl team that took first place in the national student conference of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium.

Neosh graduated from high school in Chicago and attended Loyola University and Columbia College before transferring to CMN. An enrolled member of the Menominee tribe, she is the daughter of Luane Neosh and Arthur Barrios.

College of Menominee Nation student teams brought home a first place and other honors from the 2019 American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) Student Competition held March 16-19 in Billings, Montana.

The annual program invited students from all 38 tribal colleges and universities affiliated with AIHEC.

CMN took first place in the Knowledge Bowl. Team members included captain Brandon Boyd, Jasmine Neosh, Marissa Vele and Curtis Wilhelmi. The team was coached by Vicki Besaw.

The college finished third in the Business Bowl. Team members included Franny Kitson, Christa Lyons, Adam Schulz and Catherine Walter. The team was coached by Ann Walenski.

CMN came back with a fifth place in the Science Bowl. Team members included Gavin Braun, Ethan Fregien and Tyrell Hesse. The team was coached by Lucy Fenzl.

Fregien and Evelynn Grignon took home a second place for a serious speech and a third place for a humorous speech. The students were coached by Ryan Winn.

Lexxus Liebe was a winner for AIHEC’s Fiction Writing Contest. Liebe was coached by Dennis Vickers.

Also taking place at the conference was the election of CMN student Adam Schulz to the post of vice president of the AIHEC Student Congress. The Congress includes representatives of all tribal colleges chosen for leadership, cultural knowledge and social responsibility. Congress members represent their colleges and the tribal college movement as advocates and by doing community service work.

The Shawano Community High School wind ensemble is going to perform music from a number of different points in history when it performs its spring concert at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Shawano Community High School auditorium.

While the school’s musical groups perform a number of concerts and events all year long, this one is particularly meaningful for the seniors, who helped plan this concert. The seniors picked the theme “Back in Time and Around the World,” according to senior Lindsey Roloff.

“We’re starting with music from ancient Egypt,” Roloff said. “Every continent, we’re trying to hit music from all around the world, and then we’re working our way through modern America.”

Senior Isabella Burr said the ensemble’s American repertoire will include “National Emblem,” a marching tune composed by Edwin Eugene Bagley in 1902, as well as “Shenandoah,” a traditional folk song from the 19th century of unknown origin. The seniors in the ensemble will also be playing a polka tune, Burr said.

In addition to the songs, the seniors crafted videos to play in the background as the ensemble performs, according to Burr.

The wind ensemble is mainly composed of juniors and seniors, according to Burr. Many of the songs will be performed by the entire group, but there will be some performed by smaller ensembles.

“We have our brass choir performing, and our woodwind ensemble will be performing,” Burr said. “We have a clarinet trio and a percussion ensemble. We have different smaller ensembles performing. There are a lot of different solos in each of the songs.”

This concert has involved a quicker turnaround time than most in terms of preparation, according to Burr. The wind ensemble has only been working on the songs for about a month, since many of the students were busy preparing for solo and ensemble competitions.

“We’ve only had three weeks to prepare this music,” Burr said.

“However, some of it is music that we’ve played in the past, which is nice,” Roloff added.

Roloff and Burr agree that it’ll be interesting to see how audiences react to an event that’s been developed by students.

“It’s nice to be able to do something ourselves and be able to tell people that we’re running it and be in charge,” Roloff said.

“It’s kind of our last hurrah, all this work we’ve done (in music) over the last four years playing here,” Burr said.

The steam enveloped a group of students Friday morning at Pulaski Community Middle School as they observed a batch of sap from a maple tree boiling on top of a wood-fired cook stove.

Group by group poured out of the school to observe in person how maple syrup makers get what they need from the trees to create the topping for countless pancakes, waffles and slices of French toast.

The outside class was the culmination of several weeks of work that started with students and staff tapping trees outside the school and within the nearby school forest. It is a project that PCMS teachers Jon Wood and Dave Landers have spearheaded for four years. Before that, Wood conducted the education for a decade at Fairview Elementary School, the Pulaski Community School District’s northernmost school.

“We have kids involved in the entire process,” Landers said. “We start when we see a run of temperatures that are below freezing at night and above freezing during the day. We have about 30 trees out front and a school forest nearby with maple trees there, as well.”

The school has collected almost 200 gallons of sap, and with 40 gallons of sap making one gallon of maple syrup, there will be about five gallons once all is done. The processed syrup will be used at the school’s end-of-the-year celebration to top ice cream and other goodies, according to Landers.

The wood that fires up the stove comes from the school’s forest, and the stove and pans were built by the technology education department at Pulaski High School.

“This is special about where we live,” Landers said. “The climate lends itself to maple syruping, and that doesn’t happen all over the United States. This is a way for people to connect their learning to the outdoors.”

Wood said when he started teaching about maple syrup, he hadn’t had any hands-on experience but refined his teaching with the help of other maple syrup producers in the area.

“Parents kind of noticed and gave me pointers, and as the years went on, I learned more and was able to get better at it,” Wood said.

Cole Gorecki, a seventh-grade PCMS student, first learned about the maple syrup process when he was in sixth grade, and now he’s helping Wood and Landers with tapping the trees, stirring the sap and doing anything else he can to help other students learn.

“I like it because I like being outside, and this is just another reason to get outside during school,” Gorecki said. “You get life lessons and learn how to make your own maple syrup.”

Cade Willer, another seventh-grade student, said he’s eager to take what he’s learning and utilize it later in life. He noted that he has an uncle with 40 acres of mostly maple trees, and he’s hoping to see about tapping them for sap and trying to make his own syrup.

“It’s a great opportunity to expand your learning outside,” Willer said. “I’ve got a couple of maple trees at my house, and I want to try it out just to see how much sap I get, because my maple trees aren’t tremendously big.”

The middle school hopes to expand its syrup making process, as there are plans to build a sugar shack that provides an enclosed area for cooking the syrup. A recent timber sale has helped to raise some funds, but Wood estimates it will take about a year before the school breaks ground on the structure.

“The timber harvest was unpredictable, and it all depended on if the ground was frozen,” Wood said. “We had the idea that we would be in a shack this year, and it just didn’t happen.”

While the current outdoor setup isn’t hindering the syruping process, Wood believes that having the shack in the school forest will add to the authenticity of the hands-on learning. He noted that the shack could be used as an outdoor classroom during other times of the year, as well.

“This is experiential learning,” Wood said. “We just supervise, and by the eighth grade, they can show those other kids what to do. It’s just such a great process, and that type of learning sticks with them for life.”

The College of Menominee Nation will celebrate Earth Day on April 26.

With events centered on the theme “Netāēnawemākanak: All Our Relatives,” participants will explore how each of us can be a better relative to the plants and animals with whom we share this planet.

From 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., community members and local school groups can participate in the Earth Day Activity Trail on the Keshena campus, N172 State Highway 47-55. The trail begins by the Menominee water tower and goes throughout the campus with interactive and informational stops along the way.

Visitors will explore greenhouses, soil health and composting near the Sustainable Development Institute; create a mural out of recycled bottle caps; hear about invasive species and plant phenology; and learn about forest conservation and animal species in the Cultural Learning Center. Along the trail, participants can collect Earth Day trading cards featuring some of our non-human relatives.

The evening’s events will begin at 4:30 p.m. in the Cultural Learning Center with the wild rice cooking contest and community feast. The college’s Department of Continuing Education and University of Wisconsin-Extension will provide one cup of wild rice to participants registered by April 19, while supplies last. Judging of the wild rice-centered dishes and the accompanying community feast will begin at 5 p.m. For contest rules and registration, contact Brian Kowalkowski at bkowalkowski@menominee.edu or 715-799-6226, ext. 3007.

A panel discussion on the impact that humans have on our ecological communities will follow the cooking contest. The college’s annual Earth Day celebration highlights CMN’s commitment to sustainability and community engagement.

Bonduel Elementary School’s Early Childhood Education Program will be offering 3K (Preschool) class for the 2019 - 2020 school year. Because a limited number of students are allowed, registration is on a first come, first serve basis. Children must be 3 years old by September 1, 2019. Children from families in all communities are welcome. No open enrollment is necessary.

3K classes will be held on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 8-11 a.m. The yearly cost for this program is $500. The fee must be paid in advance ($500 for the school year, due September 1; or $250 per semester, due September 1 and January 15, 2020). Classes will run on the same schedule as the public school calendar.

This class is for 3 year-old children who may have not had any previous experience with a school setting. The 3K class will offer instruction for school readiness, play-based learning, and incorporate a lot of fun into the program.

The 3K classroom is located inside of Bonduel Elementary School. The certified staff is experienced in providing early childhood education in a safe and nurturing environment. Children must be potty trained prior to attending.

The 4K classes will be held five days a week for both morning and afternoon sessions. Parents should contact the Bonduel Elementary School Office to register and to indicate their preference for a session.

For more information, to enroll a child, or to schedule a school tour call the Bonduel Elementary School Office at 715-758-4850 Ext. 820 or go to www.bonduel.k12.wi.us

Pulaski High School senior Brock Gracyalny is one of four finalists of the Cousins Subs and Make It Better Foundation’s seventh annual Wisconsin Sports Awards Scholarship Contest.

The son of Gary and Jenny Gracyalny was awarded a $7,500 college scholarship during a surprise presentation at Pulaski High School on April 15.

Gracyalny was selected as a finalist due to his academic acumen, community involvement and success in three Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association-sanctioned sports — football (four years), wrestling (four years) and baseball (one year), according to a news release from Cousins.

He will be recognized at the Wisconsin Sports Award event at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee on June 6. The Wisconsin Sports Award is an exclusive VIP event celebrating Wisconsin’s finest athletes in the high school, collegiate and professional arenas.

“Brock Gracyalny is a young man who has committed himself to the #RaiderStrong way for many years. It is very common for me to be here at PHS very early in the morning doing work, but most mornings Brock is also here,” said PHS principal Jeremy Pach. “He made some strong commitments to his work ethic by regularly being in the weight room. Brock also works hard in the classroom and in his volunteerism.”

Gracyalny has earned a 4.07 grade point average at PHS that includes Project Lead the Way and advanced placement courses. Through his academic, athletic and Maple Grove 4-H involvement, Brock has worked on projects to support the Wounded Warrior Project, Salvation Army, beautification projects at Memorial Park, Leaders Read program for elementary students, Adopt-a-Highway, the Pulaski Wrestling Booster Club and more. He was a 4-H officer while in middle school and junior and senior class officer and varsity wrestling captain at PHS.

He plans to attend the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, North Dakota, to study commercial aviation and join the Air Force ROTC. He plans to either work as a pilot for an airline or accept a commission into the U.S. Air Force after graduation.

“Brock is a young man that puts the right amount of passion and effort into being a young man of character. I appreciate all he has contributed to making PHS better and I look forward to watching him as he works on becoming a pilot,” Pach said.

The Tigerton FFA Alumni sponsored a donkey basketball game Sunday at Tigerton High School.

The Tigerton FFA held the concession stand, which raised funds to help send FFA member Allen Jobe to the Washington Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C., this year. Jobe is currently a junior.

There were FFA teams at the event from Marion, Bowler and Tigerton, and a local team from Tigerton’s own Anita Haircut, a beauty salon, also participated. The donkeys were provided by Dairyland Donkeyball, and rules included no pulling, and you had to be on the donkey to pass, block and shoot the ball.

The donkeys had names such as Elvis, Earthquake and Widow-maker. One had a trick of bucking, and then dipping its head down so the rider fell off, and another enjoyed bucking when a rider tried to get on. Another simply could not be bothered and didn’t choose to move.

During intermission, the younger children were allowed to ride the donkeys, as long as a parent or grandparent was with them. From under 1 year on up to a few years old, many took their turn.

When the competition was over, it was the Bowler FFA with the donkey basketball championship, with Anita Haircut coming in second.

A moment of distraction can cause a lifetime of pain and regret.

Tigerton High School made that message loud and clear Wednesday as it hosted a mock crash with the help of local law enforcement and emergency services, along with other presentations pointing out the dangers of texting while driving.

Umbrellas dotted a grassy hill behind the school as about 350 students from its school and neighboring Bowler, Gresham and Marion saw three colored tarps on the ground below. The clicking sounds of someone texting were followed up by screeching tires and the thump of a vehicle colliding with something.

Moments later, the tarps were removed to reveal two beat up cars, one tan and the other maroon, with shattered windshields, as well as a female teen lying motionless on the ground. A loud scream from Megan Suehring, playing the role of a passer-by who first came upon the grisly scene, echoed throughout the school yard.

As she frantically checked on the occupants of both vehicles, she made an emergency call on her phone. In less than three minutes, a squad car from the Tigerton Police Department arrived on the scene. This was quickly followed up by vehicles from Tigerton’s fire department and EMS, and personnel moved to assess the four teens in the crash.

The female on the ground and the female driver in the maroon car were declared dead by Shawano County’s coroner, Brian Westphal, while paramedics loaded the female passenger in the tan car into an ambulance. The male driver of the tan car, the texter in the scenario, was able to walk to the ambulance, assisted by a medic, to be examined, blood dripping all over his face.

It was an accident that shouldn’t have happened, but it was one that happens all too frequently on roads throughout the United States. Someone receives a text while driving, and instead of waiting until arriving at the destination to reply, the driver will compose a message while still traveling at various speeds.

Benjamin Rayome, district superintendent and high school principal, hopes the visual message sticks with teens better than any text message could.

“We see kids on phones, parents on phones, everybody on phones. One in four accidents is due to distracted driving, and specifically cellphone use,” Rayome said. “We wanted to impact our four communities because we’re so close. We play each other for sports. We see each other when we go to work, where we play, so it makes sense for all of us to be together in this and realize everything we do impacts somebody else.”

In addition to the mock crash, students got to attempt texting and driving via a simulator to see what happens. Nearby in Tigerton’s gymnasium, a video was shown featuring those affected by an accident where a driver was texting while driving or was otherwise distracted. Later in the day, a mock funeral was held to illustrate the aftermath for family members and friends of people killed by distracted drivers.

The hardest message, aside from the mock crash, came from Lori Miller, a nursing director for a hospital in Marathon County and a grandmother of four. On July 13, 2015, Miller became another distracted driving statistic when she texted someone about whether a ball game was still happening even with bad weather coming when her vehicle struck and killed a bicyclist.

In 2010, a National Safety Council study stated that driving distractions were the cause of 3,092 deaths and over 416,000 injuries.

“The statistics are rising,” Miller said. “Drunk drivers have a better braking reaction than those texting.”

Miller was charged in 2016 could have been sentenced to up to 25 years for vehicular homicide by negligent operation of a vehicle, a Class G felony, but the judge opted to sentence her to a year in the county jail and five years of probation. Part of the conditions of her probation was to present her story to schools and adult groups in the hopes that what she went through would deter others from following others in her footsteps.

The presentation in Tigerton was her first presentation, and she told the students that, even though her incarceration was light, she will be haunted by what she’s done for life.

“My family was right there for me, but all I could think about was the victim and her family,” Miller said. “I felt horrible. I took another woman’s life.”

Ben Henninger, high school principal for Gresham Community School, said it was important for his students to get the message that no text requires risking life and limb to reply right away.

“Giving our students the opportunity to see the consequences for destructive behaviors is critical to understanding how much responsibility they’re taking on when they get behind the wheel of a car — the decisions they make before they get behind the wheel of a car and what they do when they get in a car,” Henninger said. “I think it’s great that they get to see how some of the consequences can affect so many lives besides just their own.”

Rayome said that Tigerton School District had hosted a mock crash a few years ago, before he took over as superintendent, and he was approached by parent Barb Block about doing it again. He acknowledged the message won’t hit home for everybody, but he hopes it has for at least some of the students, and they’ll think twice before answering a text while operating a vehicle.

“We just want our kids to be safe and for our community to be safe,” Rayome said. “We only get so much from hearing it. They see the message all the time, ‘Don’t text and drive.’ If we can see somebody else who has made the ultimate sacrifice with it, maybe we can make a better choice ourselves.”

Tyler Wegner made history this month when he became the first three-time champion representing Shawano Community High School in a SkillsUSA competition.

The senior took first place in the collision repair technology competition during the SkillsUSA leadership conference held April 30 and May 1 in Madison. Normally, Wegner would represent Wisconsin at the national SkillsUSA conference the last week of June in Kentucky, but the champ has opted not to compete further.

“I decided not to, but the national competition was different in previous years,” Wegner said, noting that he had to take five Automotive Service Excellence certification tests, analyze frames and perform other activities when he’d previously competed at the national level.

There is the skills application process, where Wegner had to repair a fender and demonstrate his abilities with different kinds of welding. He also had to fix a cracked plastic bumper.

Wegner said the judging goes beyond just his hands-on skills. He also had to prepare a resume and dress appropriately for making repairs, he said.

“They also judge you on your attitude in the shop,” Wegner said.

Wegner has an added edge when it comes to knowing collision repair; his father, Todd Wegner, owns Quality Auto Body in the town of Richmond.

“I’ve been around there ever since I’ve been a little kid,” Tyler Wegner said. “Him and the workers there have taught me a lot of stuff, and that is where I’ve learned and become pretty good at it.”

Wegner purchased his first truck in 2015, a wreck that needed a lot of body work. He said he had to do a full repaint, add a lift and pretty much build it from the ground up.

Being able to build a vehicle instead of just buying one outright helped Wegner appreciate the work that went into it.

“My dad got to teach me a lot of the steps along the way,” Wegner said. “It’s a lot more fun at the end of the progress to see what you’ve built instead of going out and buying one.”

That truck has recently been sold, and Wegner has purchased another truck for his latest repair project with his father.

Wegner will be attending UTI Technical College in Illinois in the fall, hoping to continue the family business by getting a diesel automotive degree. Winning at the state SkillsUSA competitions have given Wegner enough scholarship funding for a full ride at the school.

Jeremy Hodkiewicz, Shawano’s advisor for SkillsUSA, considers Wegner’s achievement to be a real feather in the cap for the SCHS program.

“Hopefully, we can get some other students to see what that is like,” Hodkiewicz said, noting that he only had a few students from the high school and Shawano Community Middle School competing at this year’s conference. “We’ve had a couple of other state champs the last couple of years, but Tyler is the only multiple state champ we’ve had.”

Editor’s Note: NEW Media recently chatted with Wittenberg-Birnamwood High School Principal Jill Sharp about a new community service project called R2 — Respectfully Remembering.

Q: How did the project come about and how did it get named?

A: It was part of a brainstorming session with several teachers when we were looking for community service projects for our students that are meaningful and connected to our community.

Q: What kind of project is it and who manages it?

A: The students are building memorial crosses for people in our community that have served or are serving in the armed forces. The project is for the community in collaboration with our local Legions and VFW. It’s a project that can involve all the high school students. The National Honor Society is responsible for the overseeing of the project as a leadership group.

Q: How does the National Honor Society work?

A: It’s open to junior and senior students who maintain a 3.5 cumulative GPA and adhere to the bylaws set forth by the local and national NHS. Students must complete an individual service project and be part of the group project as well. This year, the NHS consider it an honor to be part of the R2 project.

Q: How long will the R2 project take to complete, and how many will work on it?

A: This project will be something we do each year as we add to the list. We are asking all students to participate; those who choose to help are welcome from both school and community.

Q: Who delivers and distributes the crosses?

A: The NHS and our local Legions and VFW will deliver and distribute based on their individual plans or celebrations throughout the year, particularly on Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

Q: How does someone apply for R2?

A: R2 information was distributed in newsletters, is on Facebook and forms can also be picked up in the high school office. Community members interested in painting their own memorial cross for family members are invited to come to the WBHS commons area from 6-7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Q: Who covers the cost?

A: Donations from the Legions and VFW are currently covering the cost. We are asking for folks who would like to donate to do so through their local Legion or VFW.

Q: Where are you getting the names and information for the crosses?

A: The list of veterans we currently are working off of has come from community members and the Schmidt & Schulta honor list, as well as The Shawano Leader list being sent to us upon completion.

Q: What kind of response have you had so far?

A: Many people are excited about this project and are looking forward to continuing it each year. Veteran Kerry Staehler from American Legion Post 502 mentioned that it’s great to see kids involved in these kinds of projects. He is a retired teacher from WBSD and also noted that there has been a trend of showing more respect and patriotism from the students when they’re attending the Memorial Day services held at the middle schools and at the high school.

A highly honored nurse practitioner from Marion will receive this year’s distinguished Alumnus Honoris Award at the Clintonville High School graduation ceremonies. Tina Bettin, a 1981 graduate of Clintonville High School, will be recognized for her contributions to the field of nursing at the commencement exercises June 2.

Bettin is a nurse practitioner at ThedaCare Physicians in New London and Manawa. She has worked for ThedaCare since 2000.

After receiving her bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in 1984, she went on to receive her master’s at the same school in 1988. In 2008, she received her Doctor of Nursing Practice degree from the University of Minnesota and is a certified family nurse practitioner.

Besides working in a clinic setting, Bettin has kept a focus on local health care throughout her career. She has spoken politically to both local and state audiences on the importance of quality health care initiatives. She has also been involved with furthering rural health care initiatives and teaching medical students.

Bettin has held leadership roles with the Wisconsin Nurses Association and the Fox Valley Health Professionals group, and she is one of four nurse practitioners from Wisconsin to be inducted in the Fellows of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners.

Last October, Bettin was recognized as one of seven Wisconsin Nurses Association Advance Practice Nurses of the Year.

Bettin is the daughter of Kendal and the late Gert Kempf. She and husband Chris were married in 1985. Their daughter, Briana, is completing her doctorate in computer science at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Michigan.

To be nominated for the Alumnus Honoris Award, the individual must have distinguished himself or herself in an area of honorable endeavor, whether it be professional, vocational, business or military. The selection is made by a committee of community representatives, high school faculty members and officers of the senior class.

The award is given only on the years that the committee feels a worthy candidate has been nominated.