“Personally, I’m ready for summer. I’m ready to relax and get away from all the drama,” says sophomore, Delany Nord.

” I hate the end of the school year because I have to scramble to get all my work done, but I like the summer,” says freshman Ben Rodelius.

Junior Emily Vogt says, “I’m so ready for summer, because I’m going to Haiti in July, and I just want to go now.”

“I love summer, and I’m glad there’s no homework. But, I’m gonna miss people. Especially the seniors,” says Anonymous.

“I’m ready to travel, and relax. No more school. Yay!” says Senior Sherie Seppola.

Most of us will go back to school in the fall. A new grade. New classes………. Wait, it’s summer. I’ll quit talking about school.

Enjoy your summer and be safe!

“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.

“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.

“So where do they all come from? Well, they started from Mr. Fieldler who is retired, and he was a a biology teacher until 1990 something. Some of these have been here I guess since the 70’s,” Hygrell says. “A lot of them have been hit by cars and flown into windows and some of the legal ones have been shot and brought in by students over the years. Yes,  I know all of their names. I tell kids that they are all my friends, and some of them get a little weirded out,” he says. “I have never actually counted how many animals there is. I have a huge list of all of them, but I’ve never actually numbered it.”

Many of the animals in Mr. Hygrell’s room are ducks.  And in one of his wildlife classes you have to take a test about all the kinds of ducks. “My infamous Duck Test? I give that test so when you are driving down the road you don’t just say, ‘Hey! There’s a duck!’ So you can know what kind it is. Like when you are walking down the hallway, you don’t just say, ‘Hey,’ to your friends. You say their name. It’s so you can actually care about them. ‘Hey there’s this one kid that just fell down and passed out in the hallway!’ No, if you know them then you say that Susie fell over in the hallway. When they have a name you have more of a connection and you actually care more.”

Students are constantly leaving and coming from the counselors offices. Many seem stressed out. They need their classes changed.  “We get it,”says student counselor Mark Jones, “We get our audience. We know we work with teenagers who change their minds 50 times a day.”

Even though schedule changing is not that hard, it’s stressful. Especially for the counselors. “If students make a bigger effort to check and change their schedules and get in there early, its easier for everyone.” “It’s a balancing act for us. We want to make sure we are available for every kid.” Jones says, “Its hard to balance the pressure because kids’ regular lives don’t stop for the end of a term. Our regular job doesn’t stop.”

“It’s gotten a lot better over the years, it’s not as hectic as it used to be. With technology, and kids being on the same page as us with how important their schedule is, helps.” Even though it’s a struggle for the first couple of weeks for most everyone, it all gets settled and flows into the normal rhythm of school life.