“It’s extremely stressful, we re-did our whole house for my graduation party. New hardwood floors all around, new carpet, painted, opened up our living room by taking out a wall. It stresses me out because my mom invites all these people I don’t even know and I have to make my car and garden look presentable.” said Senior Jordon Carlson.

“It’s all coming up really fast. Just sending out the invites we had to find everyone we needed to send them to, get the invites printed, stamps. You have to figure out all the food for everyone. Mine’s not going to be at my house but, I’m still going to have to set up everything for it. It’s a little less stressful to not have it at my house because we don’t have to clean.” said Senior Alyssa Baldwin.

“I’m not stressed at all. My mom has it all under control.” claims Senior Garrett Grage.

“My grad party isn’t until August. It makes more sense because usually everyone is sick of grad parties by the end of June. Mine is going to be the grand finale.” said Senior Jay Mason.

“I always am feeling I’m forgetting something for it. I even have a list but I still constantly feel like I’m missing something. I’m really excited for it because it’s such a positive thing… just so much work.” said Senior Megan Metz.

On May 19th, Senior Kylee Zumach created a Twitter page (@Buffalo_Nerf), starting the Buffalo Nerf War. All of the rules are posted in the tweets and this is where students will send in their teams and have notice of who else is participating. Teams will consist of 6 students, the kids get to pick the name of their group and who will be in it. The time to send in your teams will close Friday, May 23. There will be a cost of $1.00 per person to enter. Also, there are certain restrictions as to where you can shoot someone. School, work, sport events, church and experience fitness will be off limits for shooting.

Once every team has entered, Zumach and Senior Wilson Anderle will be drawing teams from a hat to set up a bracket system. Each team will be assigned a team that they must target. They have to hit every player on the opposing team to move on to the next round.

The war will start Monday, May 26th after school. Good luck!

“We have posted that we are looking for a new assistant principal for the past 10 days,” said Principal Mark Mischke, “and the posting was removed Tuesday night (May 14). After the 10 days we had 105 applicants. We would like to employ someone by July 1 for the 2014-2015 school year.”

The process of hiring a new assistant principal is long and somewhat complicated.

Mischke outlined the extensive process, explaining, “After all of the applicants have applied and we close the posting. I begin going through the applications with Pam Miller (Director of teaching and learning) and Moreen Martell (Human Resource director) and narrow it down to 25 people to begin interviewing. Out of those 25 we do phone interviews and then narrow it down even more to 6-8 people. With those people we then do in person interviews. Pam Miller, Moreen Martell, Mrs. Thompson, one elementary principal, one middle school principal and myself do the interviewing. After that we do more in depth phone interviews with around 6 of the applicants to learn more about them and really get all the information we can about that person. Usually every applicant gets to continue on with the process by having a large group interview, consisting of, two parents, two students (Junior Kirsten Olson and Junior Ryan Bunting), teachers, admin team, a cook, a para and, a custodian. I then sit down with Mrs. Miller and Mrs. Martell to discuss who the two finalists should be. After we pick the two finalists we then travel to their school where they will have picked students, teachers and parents for us to interview about them and get to know how they really are in a school environment. We should be done with this whole process around June 3rd.”

“The students that were chosen for the position of interviewing the applicants, were chosen due their involvement and positive impact on the school. I felt that they would take this seriously and share their honest opinion and not be afraid to talk or ask questions” said Mischke.

After seeing middle school assistant principal John Hayden and High Potential Services Coordinator Ed Cox around the school, rumors have started that one of those two will be taking the position of the next assistant principal. Mischke addressed these rumors.
“This is not the case at all. These two have been helping around the school because of the shortage of staff now that Mr. Prell is no longer employed here. It has been extremely helpful and I’m very thankful for the extra help.” said Mischke.          

“I was expecting to have way more homework and the classes to be extremely hard but they made the transition from 8th to 9th grade really easy and not much is different,” said freshman Gabbie Przekurat.

“I was petrified the first day walking into the school,” said freshman Blake Gleason.

“I really thought that classes were going to be really hard but it doesn’t really differ from the way they worked us at St. Francis, if anything they worked us harder at St. Francis to prepare us. It was hard though to come from a class of 16 to a class of 500,” said freshman Allie Swearingen.

“I wasn’t nervous at all,” claimed freshman Andrew Zeiss.

The intimidation of the upperclassmen can also play a role in being nervous to start at the high school.

“I thought that the seniors were going to be super rude and scary but, they aren’t at all,” said freshman Avery Sonju.

“I thought that all the upperclassmen were going to be like “oh, you’re just a little freshman” but, they really leave me alone except I get harassed by Dallas Perkins and Jake Huston a lot,” said freshman Alyssa Englund.

“On class color day I was so scared to be wearing yellow! The seniors were especially scary that day,” said freshman Becky Barter

Tv shows and movies can give an unrealistic expectation as well.

“I thought that there was going to be fights in every hall everyday. It seems to happen in other schools just not here at Buffalo,” said freshman Noah Evans.

“I had a really weird feeling I was going to lose all my friends!” said freshman Lauren Farniok.

Sydney Warehime

“I was with my friend one night and my mom pulled the board out, so we lit candles and turned off all the lights and started asking it questions. At first you’re supposed to ask for all good spirits to come but we didn’t ask for good spirits (you’re supposed too), so when a spirit started talking to us and we asked it if it was a nice spirit it said “No.” My friend and I kept asking it questions and we found out that it was a 10 year old boy named, Landon. My friend asked him how he died and you’re not supposed to ask a spirit that because they get really offended so the spirit got upset with us and when we asked if he would ever forgive us he said “No.”  We asked if he was following one of us and he said “Yes.” It was really scary and I hate talking about it.”

Clayton Schuster

“In middle school I did one and there were about 20 or so people in the room, it was pitch black and everyone was in their PJs. We asked the board “Is there anyone with us?” and the board told us that there were two girls and one was named Nicole but I can’t remember the other ones name. I’m pretty sure they were lesbian. We asked them to prove that they were actually there and then a lamp fell off a table. Then throughout the night all the drawers in the house kept opening. I thought it was really scary but it could have someone that was there messing with us.”

Tommy Gaughan

“My sister got a ouija board and we would do it a lot and mess around with it for about a year. At the beginning of 8th grade I was doing homework in my room and I turned around and there was a little boy around 7 years old just staring at me. It only lasted for about three seconds and I couldn’t move the whole time. I was the only one home at my house. I have talked to a 7 year old boy on the ouija board before.

Another time at Dallas Perkins’ house we had candles out and the lights off. We were talking to a spirit and we asked it to do something to prove itself that it was there and a door slammed shut really hard. We also asked it to move the candle left and right and it did it. Dallas was talking to a 19 year old girl who said she was from Texas and he asked her how she died. She told him that she died in a car accident. She gave us a number to call and we called it, it was disconnected and the number did have a Texas area code. I haven’t touched my ouija board since I saw that little boy and I even switched rooms in my house because it freaked me out so much.”

(Featured photo credit: Flikr)

“Body language. The eyes give everything away” Brainard explains.

“I have to take every child’s word for what it is. It’s not up to me to say whether or not they are faking. But when I see the same kids everyday, I get suspicious,” Brainard said laughingly .

The first step Brainard takes when students come in “sick” is take their temperature, and let them take a short rest.

“We have snores in here everyday!” Brainard said with a chuckle.

After their brief 15 minute rest, she visits with that student and determines whether or not they should get more rest at home.

In the past, students have called home using their personal devices, while a friend was on the other end giving them false permission to leave school.

“Now I look up the parents’ number on the Portal and call them myself,”

Kids have been ‘cheating the system’ for years, and Mrs. Brainard has been doing her best to recognize the fakers while treating every student equally. Ill or not.

Freshman Kyle Lindberg said “I like snowmobiling because I get to ride with my friends.“

Some kids prefer to be out on the lake ice fishing,

“I like it when I catch a big northern.” said Senior John Weisbeck.

Others like to ski and snowboard Freshman Mitch Bunting said “I like the wind in my face as I go down the hills.”

Pond hockey is also a popular winter activity. “I like being outdoors on the ice with my friends.” said Junior Dylan Alexander.

The chart below shows the result of a survey of 100 kids on their favorite outdoor winter activities.

The class that I found that was most selected for an elective class was woods 1 and 2. In this class you build a coffee table out of red oak wood. In woods 2 you get to build two end tables of red oak as well, this class is a hands on class and not much book/homework is required.

“I liked that you were able to work on your own and not be guided along the whole time.” said Junior Reed Morehouse

The second most chosen class is competitive team sports. In this class you play games in the gym such as, volleyball, basketball, floor hockey, and more. At the end of the term you get to create a game of your own and make up the rules.

“I like that kids are competitive in the class that is what makes the class fun.” said Senior Josh Robinson.

The third class that I found was taken most was Journalism 1 and 2. In this class you get write stories for the Hoofprint and Hoofprint.net. You also learn about journalism, journalists and how to be one.

Freshman Mitch Bunting said “In Journalism 1 I liked how we liked at things from different angles and got different perspectives. .”

 Some students are just staying in Minnesota for the week vacation and others are going to somewhere a little warmer.

On a poll of 100 students that attend BHS the hottest places to be traveling this break are:

Activities director Tom Bauman said, “We are getting a [trap shooting] team this year because we have a lot of good shooters in the school, and [because] a lot of other schools are starting to pick it up.”

Mark and Sally Stevens who were a driving force behind the effort to make a trap team also happen to be coaches. They travel around the U.S.A. and talk and teach at coaching seminars and gun shows.

“We will do our best to make you a better shooter,” said Stevens.

There are also junior coaches Patrick Macnab , Spencer Wilson , Kurt Potter , and Max Hartman on the team. All junior coaches have passed Level One coaching classes that require sixteen hours to complete.

All students planning on shooting for the Buffalo High school trap team must attend BHS and have obtained their Minnesota Firearms Safety Certificate.

To sign up to be on the BHS trapshooting team, you need to go to the Buffalo Gun Club (South East of Target in Buffalo on Highway 55) and register before March 16. A maximum of forty five students can be on the team.