“I will drive my golf cart if it is fixed,” said Senior Josh Robinson.

“I’m going to drive a corvette,” said Senior Willie Pecarina.

“I’m gonna drive my tractor to school. It’s pretty bad ass, and gets about 25 mph. I’ll also look pretty sexy in my overalls,” said Sophomore Jared Meyer.

“I’m riding my dirt bike,” said Junior Josh Campa.

“We’re driving a tractor with a trailer and I think we’ll be grilling on the way there and back.” said Senior Jc Carlson.

“Well I might shower or brush my hair for once,” said Sophomore Molly McMullen.

“I’m going to fish in the pond outside of school with some buddies,” said Senior Wyatt Wentland.

“I’m driving a Porsche 911 or a 4-wheeler,” said Junior Cole Princivalli.

“I’m going to be putting lights on my bike and riding it around the parking lot in the morning, blasting some music off a speaker,” said Senior Autumn Miller 

“We talked to the other schools about their past books and future ideas and came up with ideas and themes for our next years book,” said Junior Joshua Fischmann.

Guest speaker, Jeff Moffitt, came to speak about designing a yearbook and ways to sell many books. The group then had the chance to come up with their own ideas.

“We listed out a ton of ideas and themes that we want to incorporate into the book and now we’re trying to narrow it down to a few things that we want,” said Junior Jordyn Prince.

As the group started to work together as editors, they have started finding their strengths and weaknesses.

“I think we’re gonna be a really good group. We can all put in our opinion without anyone getting offended and no one gets upset if someone else doesn’t like their idea. The criticism works well in our group,” said Junior Adam Skelly.

“We all get along really well, but there’s so many of us so it’s hard to agree. We have to use talking sticks or else everyone is talking and stating their opinions at the same time,” said Prince.

In June, the group will be attending an annual Yearbook Camp at St. Johns University for 3 days to finalize their book’s details and get input from professionals. The 2014-2015 Tatanka editors have many other plans for the upcoming summer.

“We are planning to have lots of summer yearbook meetings, along with group bonding bonfires and lake days,” said Fischmann. “I’m exciting to see what the summer has in store for us.”

“They’re one of the drum corps that gets to the finals every year. They tour across the united states for the entire summer. I heard about it from my former instructor at Minnesota Brass because he teaches there. I then decided to go to the audition camp in November. I got a callback to the January camp. I went back for my final callback and I made it,” said Soden.

The Blue Knights Drum and Bugle Corps tours from west to east during the summer and is based in Colorado.

“We’ll start in Washington, Or, California, and then we’ll go through the western states like Colorado, and Wyoming, and then we’ll go to the east coast. Finals is in Indianapolis, so that’s where it finishes. We perform at really large venues, like football fields. Finals is at the Colts Stadium in Indianapolis,” said Soden.

For Soden, Drum Corps is more than just playing hours on end to get better at his instrument. It also teaches lessons that will stay with him for the rest of his life.

“It does a lot for your playing. I’m looking forward to improving my playing. I heard it kind of changes your life in a way, because you meet so many people,” said Soden.

This opportunity to play with the Blue Knights Drum and Bugle Corps comes with a price. Soden has had to fundraise throughout the year to be able to be a part of this group.

“I want to do it as much as I can, but its really expensive. I saved up through work, but at the beginning, when I auditioned, I didn’t think it would be able to do it because of the money. I decided to use a site called Go Fund Me where you just kind of post what you’re doing and people can donate to you,” said Soden.

To help Soden raise money for his summer journey, you can go to his Go Fund Me page.

“Seeing all the different monuments and memorials made historic events more alive and real,” said Senior Kailee Steen.

After riding the train to the capitol, the group was in for a huge surprise when they had the chance to eat breakfast with Al Franken and meet Amy Klobuchar.

“Getting to meet our two senators was very interesting because the stereotypical politician is just this old guy in his mid 60s, balding, with white hair, but they are people,” said Freshman Carson Reichardt. “Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar are smart people. I mean to actually talk to them about what they thought about certain topics was really interesting.”

Other than getting to learn about the government, the group got the opportunity to observe the lifestyle of a neighborhood in D.C.

“Our bus was assigned to ninth street. We were supposed to observe the neighborhood and get something to eat,” said Reichardt. “It was a gentrified neighborhood, which means white people went through it and made it better and invested money into it. It was a very poor community beforehand and there’s still reminiscences of that.”

Through this experience, Steen and Reichardt learned many lessons they will use throughout their lives.

“I learned to be more of an active citizen because everyone’s voice matters and deserves to be heard,” said Steen. “Being active is the only way things will change.”

Students decided to take this journey for various reasons, from learning more about the government to seeing monuments they had learned about for so many years.

“I like politics and I wanted to learn more about them,” said Reichardt. “I thought visiting the nation’s capital was a great way to do that, and it was.”

At State, the boys were able to cheer each other on as they competed.

“It was a great bonding time with Josh Muntifering and Jordan Dick, who came as our manager,” said Brings. “It was just a fun experience.”

In the off-season, Muntifering and Brings are planning on doing a lot of training to prepare for the next Swim and Dive season.

“I swim with the Sea Devils, which is a club in St. Michael,” said Muntifering. “We swim 6 days a week.”

Brings takes a slightly different approach to training in the off-season.

“I haven’t done anything [in the off-season] in the past couple years,” said Brings. “I’ve only played baseball. This year I’m looking into a couple clubs, one in Indiana and one in the Twin Cities.”

Something Muntifering and Brings have in common is the inspiration from their older sisters, who are 2013 graduates.

“I watched my sister for a couple years. I think is why I’m good at it,” said Brings. “As I watched her, I picked up on things that she did. It helped a lot after watching her for like four years.”

Muntifering and Brings’ goals are set high for the years to come. After not meeting their goals this year, they are determined to achieve them in the next three years. By Muntifering’s senior year, he hopes to make top eight, while Brings’ goal for senior year is to make top three.

“It was the best game I have ever seen,” said Senior Danielle Odeen, “but it was also the scariest game I have seen.”

I’ve been a hockey guy my whole life, but that game tonight was one of the top 5 games of any sport at any level I’ve witnessed, or covered.

— Rob LaPlante (@laplante71) March 7, 2014

The team entered halftime trailing by nine, 28-19. They couldn’t get all the quality shots they needed and their nerves led to some rushed possessions.

”Our team missed a lot of easy shots in the first half. That was our biggest downfall,” said Senior Sam Ortmann. “We just had to get back to how we were playing in the beginning of the year.”

“I just think we were playing a little timid and scared in the first half,” said Senior Collin Olmscheid. “Probably because everyone was kinda nervous.”

With the gym being so loud you couldn’t even hear yourself think, it pushed the boys even more to get the win. “It sounded like we had about two times more fans,” said Ortmann. “It motivated me in the beginning of the game when they just announced the teams. Our fans were a lot louder, I thought that was going to set the tone for the whole game.”

They started to come back in the second half. The team pushed it into the first of many overtimes and the crowd got louder and louder as the game went by.

In the fourth overtime, St. Cloud’s star player, who had the majority of their points, got fouled out. “Momentum changed when he fouled out,” said Olmscheid. “We had the momentum already and then we were all pretty fired up about it. It was kind of the turning point for us.”

The turning point of the game was in the middle of the fifth and final overtime. The team started to get the lead on St. Cloud Tech.

“The moment I realized this game was ours is when [Junior] Jonathan Senger got a steal and they had to foul and he made two free-throws that put us up by four and sealed the deal,” said Ortmann.

“I didn’t expect that they were going to do ‘Wrecking Ball’. It sounded pretty good! Some people were laughing and I was like ‘What are they doing?’ and then my friend told me that they were being really dramatic during the chorus part,” said Senior Michelle Lee.

Performing at the Variety Show was a last minute decision for them. Two weeks before their performance, Hage came up with a harmony to go along with the music Capps had found online.

“It all sorta started when we were talking about our drive projects for CIS writing Mickey had expressed how he wanted to play the recorder,” said Hage. “I jokingly suggested that he play ‘Wrecking Ball’. Then it actually happened.”

While practicing for the show, Capps and Hage did not only get cheered on for their “out there” performance. They were even criticized by friends.

“Digory Anderson tried to give us that ‘parent smile’, like ‘These are my friends. I’m going to be proud of them no matter what’, but he thought it was the dumbest idea ever,” said Capps.

Minutes before performing their act, Capps and Hage made up their final choreography.

“I was kind of scared that I was gonna start cracking up [during the performance], because we had never practiced without one of us breaking and I did kind of break,” said Hage.

After their performance, Hage and Capps enjoyed the reactions they received.

“Someone’s mom came up to me and asked if I was going into college for music,” said Capps. “And I said ‘No, no.’ but a lot of people came up to us and just said ‘That was so funny’ and how great it was.”

What started off as a drive project for CIS Writing, turned into an act that was talked about by many. Even days after the show, Hage and Capps are still getting compliments for their “quirky” performance at the Tri-M Variety show.