“I would like to say ‘thank you’ and that I will miss you guys.  I think these few words capture as well as I can possibly say without rambling.” -Principal Mark Mischke

“Good luck, be kind, and next year you’re freshman again.” – Social Studies teacher Devin Davidson

“Muy buenas suerte.” -Spanish teacher Daryl Boeckers.

Then comes graduation on Friday.  That will be the last day that all of us seniors are in one place together.  After Friday our lives will start.  We will be done with high school and ready to move on to college.  But as far as goodbyes go, our senior class has some things they would like to say before they are done with Buffalo High School.

“Do something meaningful with your life.” -Presley Rumsey

“Its been a fun and good ride, but it will be weird not being in an environment where you know everyone.”- Henry Harris

“I’ll miss seeing you guys everyday.” -Alyssa Baldwin

“We have been through a lot as a class and because of that we will still be close with everyone in a few years.  We will always be 2014.” -Megan Mets

“Eat enough fiber and good luck or something… good luck to you all.” -James Remer

“Make your life successful and have no regrets.” -Taylor Simone

“Have a lot of adventures.  It’s better to say ‘remember when’ instead of not doing it.” -Hayley Downing

“One fish two fish go to college and succeed.” -Jackson Piechowski

“It has been fun being a part of the class of 2014. They were very welcoming. I made a lot of friends. Its going to be sad to go back to Spain and say good bye to all of them. It has definitely been a good experience.” -Foreign exchange student Cristina Aliu.

Good Luck Class of 2014!!!

Some schools around us start later than we do. Which include, Maple Lake, Annandale, and Monticello. They do this because studies have shown that staggering start times may not be such a bad idea if it’s going to increase academic performance. They have found that delaying start times increases standardized test scores by at least 2 percent. But what does this mean for Buffalo High School?

“We have started some preliminary exploration and discussions with the administrative team but we have not made any recommendations to our school board yet.” Says Miller.

“After reviewing some of the research this past fall on adolescent sleep and the association of factors with secondary school start times, we then formed a small subcommittee of administrators to continue the discussion and exploration. It is so early in the process that I am unable to answer any of your other more specific questions, since we haven’t even gotten to those topics. We are still reviewing research and articles and gathering information from the University of MN, who has been very involved in a comprehensive study.” Stated Miller.

First stop- Stafford Photography. Here students were shown how much work is put into creating one perfect image. Many shots need to be taken and lots of food is used. When trying to find the perfect colors for an image they gather many options of one color just to find the best one. The photographers can’t eat the food they use, but they can/do give it away to others.

The amount of food that they said they use was huge. All for just one image. It was interesting seeing all the different colors they had of things to try make the image look the best it could. If you couldn’t find a certain color dish in the room full of dishes, I don’t know where you would find that it.

“Whoa! If you need a colorful dish you know where to find it!” said Junior Paige Miller.

After Stafford Photography the next stop was Le Cordon Bleu. It is a college that deals with culinary arts. Those who want to be a chef might go here to get more training and become a professional chef, and potentially open their own restaurant.

A sweet end to a fun day, Nadia Cakes was the last stop before heading back to school. They sell many different types of cup cakes with different flavors every day.

“To enter the National Scholarship program,all you need to do is take the PSAT/ NMSQT in the fall of your junior year, meet the eligibility requirements, and score high enough on the test,” says junior Jon Thielen, “there is a full process that comes after it in order to actually become a National Merit Scholar.”

There are 1.5 million entrants each year. 50,000 of the 1.5 million who have some of the highest PSAT/ NMSQT scores will qualify for the National Merit Scholarship Program.

About 90 percent of the Semifinalists are expected to attain Finalist standing and more than half of the Finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship award, earning the Merit Scholar title.

“It is a U.S wide scholarship,” said Thielen “I have currently taken the PSAT/ NMSQT and have gotten a score that should be plenty high enough to become a semifinalist in Minnesota. Ryan Bowers is in a similar position. Aaron Hamann is a senior who is currently a finalist.”

Winners of the National Merit Scholarship who are chosen from the Finalist group, are based on their abilities, skills, and accomplishments–without regard to gender, race, ethnic origin, or religious preference.

“It’s pretty much open, I mean they should probably check in with an administrator before we use it. Touch base with Mr. Mischke maybe. I think a lot of people use the courtyard for a lot of different reasons,” says Mr. Guida.  “I think we should get a little baby Buffalo and put him out there and let him roam and graze out there. Wouldn’t that be awesome if we had a real live Buffalo?”

“We have our FFA group that is growing stuff for it. You know we can raise hay right here and put hay for him, build a shelter for him. It would be awesome. I like Buffalos.”

“We’d have to train him not to run through the windows. We could have invisible fencing inside there with the Buffalo and have a huge collar for him. Just thought it’d be fun. It’d be awesome to have a real live Buffalo,” says Guida.

“Feature Teacher is one [activity] that the student council puts up.  I’ve been advising [for] 10 years of student council and that was an activity that had started before I did.” explains Social Studies teacher Evan Ronken.

“Each year we have a couple students who are the chairs of the committee; Mattie Lubben and Paul Bjork are two of the chairs right now. They always pick a department area and then we put up a list of all the teachers that are in that department. Later we ask ‘who knows these teachers’ and if we don’t [know them] then I’ll say something about…who they are, and we let the students vote on them.”

“Last month they wanted to do it a little differently. They said ‘we want to feature one of the new teachers.’ So we got a list of all the new teachers put the names on the board; where they teach and everything, and the student council voted on that. And then if anybody that we know is going to retire we try to feature them at some time during the year too.”

Becoming Feature Teacher isn’t an ‘easy’ process; there are many steps that the student body most likely doesn’t know about.  Now we have more insight as to how our ‘Feature Teachers’ are decided.

“Baseball has a five game week next week. They’ll be playing a game, so the practices are kind of going byebye, because we have to get the games rescheduled, and same thing with lacrosse,” says Activities Dierector Tom Bauman.”I have to schedule a game for lacrosse for boys, and the dates to get it played are starting to be few.”

“So is everybody’s anxiety going up? Yep. Is the activities directors’ anxiety going up? Yep. Because once that starts happening you have to get the officials, the workers, and everybody starts to put it in this little spot and sometimes there is only a certain number of people that can put on a uniform, or a referee shirt, and blow the whistle ’cause they’re qualified,” says Bauman. “So there’s just lots of little things and activities that start to get stressful when you make all these snow cancellations. But it’s supposed to be 70 next week. So that is keeping the morale a little bit higher ’cause people at least aren’t looking at next week with a forecast blizzard.”

“It’ll all come together though. I think you just have to keep saying ‘Fire Up.’ This having a little snow on the ground? It’s stressful, but really, is it?” Bauman says.

“Each secretary has different areas they handle, we just follow the rules the school gives us,” said Nancy Nelson.

But isn’t there a stereotype that comes with being a secretary? Secretaries seeming intimidating or just downright mean.

“I deal with attendance issues and whoever comes in here; parents, guests. We’re really here for the kids, we’re not mean,” said Bette Matteson.

When hearing all the things that secretaries do day to day, it sounds like there is a team of superhero secretaries helping eachother out, getting done what needs to get done.

“When it gets busy and unusual things happen down here we work together, and we really count on each other for that,”said Nelson. “Barb Macintosh has a whole different area of things she does for Mr. Bauman.”

Don’t think though that kids can’t still be annoying, even though we are great!

“I love it because the kids are so great. Even the chronic tardies… they’re fun, you know they’re good people,” said Nelson.

“The class encourages me in many different ways, it also makes me realize a lot more about our society and how women are portrayed. I definitely benefit from this Bison Time,” said sophomore Emily Mickles.

The saying ‘I wish I had this when I was in school’ has been said a couple of times in the class. You could say the class is, or has been encouraging and empowering the young women in the class. Building them confidence in themselves as young women in high school and the goal is hopefully they’ll carry that confidence with them in adulthood.

“Being a girl is just as great as being a male!” exclaimed Mickles.

“We want to train and enhance the energy system that they’re going to be competing in.” said Social Studies teacher Scott Palmer.

Some athletes run one mile, two miles, the 100, 200, or 400 meter dashes. There is a wide variety of events to choose from. Not only is there the option to do long distance running or sprinting, but there’s also the option to do events like; pole vaulting, long jump, and high jump.

“Each event area has a specific training area. There’s individual workouts for each area.” said Palmer.

“I run two miles every day during the week.” Freshmen Joey Clipson. Clipson is training to run the 1 mile, two mile, and 400 meter dash.

“I run for over an hour two or three times a week.” Sophomore Kyle Kukla. He is preparing himself for the 100 and 200 meter dashes.