The GAPP Program was started 10 years ago by BHS German Teacher Michele Strassburg and Rigina Lönenburg, who is one of the teachers in Germany.

““We started the program to give students the experience of what it’s like to do an exchange program and to give the students another way to broaden their German skills,” said Strassburg.  “So far we have done 6 partnerships and we usually try to get 15 kids to go, but this year we have 19 students going.”

This past October 2011 the German students came to America. For most it was their first time, they were here for 3 weeks and the GAPP kids had fun things planned for them to do so the German kids could get a sense of the American Lifestyle.

“When the german kids were here, we tried to go to a zoo, we took the up to Milacs Lake and we stayed in the casino hotel, but we didn’t go into the casino,” said Senior Jarrod Larson, “I took my german partner to the renaissance fair, and to MOA. I also took my german partner to Valleyscare and it was so much fun.”

“I took my German partner, Alex, to an apple orchard, MOA, the Homecoming football game and dance, sky zone and a bunch of other things,” said Junior Taylor Strege. “We also had an American vs. German soccer game and well lets just say that the American’s lost..badly.”

With just under 20 days until the BHS students leave for Germany, students are starting to realize just how real the trip is getting.

“As of right now I’m not prepared at all,” said Junior Gabrielle Thompson. “I’ve have barely started packing my stuff. It’s kind of scary how fast it’s coming up, but I’m super excited to go to Germany.”

Being a part of an exchange program the students get to learn a lot and if faced with the chance to do it again, some said they would.

“My German speaking skills have expanded so much. When the Germans were here, we got so much feedback. If our word order or whatever was wrong they would instantly correct us,” said Strege. “I’ve learned how to be very patient, but if I’m able to do an exchange program again. I’m going to do it.”

The first block Hospitality Foods class, taught by FACS teacher Julie Mundahl, is making multiple meals and baked goods for the Deneen family.

“I had found out about Abby’s situation when another FACS teacher who use to live here in buffalo, told me about a particular family, where the dad had cancer and they were having money issues and they were stressed out,” said Mundahl.

In October of 2011 Freshman Abby Deneen’s dad, Bill, was diagnosed with Neuroendocrine cancer which affects both the nervous and endocrine systems in the body.

“At first it was hard, when my dad was diagnosed with cancer,” said Abby. “My mom and dad had to live down in Rochester, and I had to help take of my little brother. My friends and I have found ways to deal with the situation. After a while I didn’t let it affect what I did at school or with my friends.”

“It’s changed how we live. We were both gone, Bill and I, for a while and there were different people staying with the kids and I would come home on the weekends, but Bill wasn’t able to. He’s getting better now, but he was very very sick before. We couldn’t really do anything and we couldn’t leave him alone. And our family is very active, the kids are in lots of sports and we get do a lot of stuff. But it’s slowly getting better,” said Katie Deneen.

Members of the class are excited to help Deneen and her family. For them it’s just another way that they can help give back to the community.

“I think it’s really nice doing something like this. It helps, for me personally, because I’m in girl scouts. So I do a lot of things like this. It feels good knowing that you’ve done something to help out. and it should definitely be included into future Hospitality Foods classes,” said senior Erin Raisanen.

For the Deneen’s receiving food and other care packages isn’t unusual for them.

“We’ve had our church, when we were gone, come to our house and they pretty much stocked our freezer,” said Katie, “and every Thursday someone brought a hot meal for the kids to have and who ever was staying here, they didn’t have to worry about what to cook.And what the Hospitality Foods class is doing it’s very nice, because I don’t sometimes don’t get home until 5 or 5:30 and so trying to make supper quick before everybody gone or off so it’s hard and this is just extremely helpful.”

As Bill Deneen slowly gets better with each passing day, Abby feels comfort in knowing that there are people out there who are willing to give a helping hand.

“I’m grateful for what the Hospitality foods class is doing. My dad is just starting to go back to work and with my mom working every night, it gets stressful sometimes. But it’s always nice to have a nice, warm actual meal that wasn’t a quick dinner that got microwaved,” said Abby.

 Story by Maggie Walstrom, Marah Moy and Kirsten Kaufman

The Clue Game returned to BHS for its third year, and this time the focus of the game revolves around The Rock being stolen. What was merely supposed to be a minor joke with the game turned out to create a huge conflict. For some students, seeing the rock  repainted took away from the memory of the everyday routine of looking at Sam’s name when they pull into the parking lot in the morning.

“I don’t like it. I nearly teared up at the thought of Sam being covered up,” said Sophomore Bryce Bishop.

“I cried when I saw it. I couldn’t believe his name was covered up,” said Sophomore Jessie McMullen.

The Clue Game, normally a popular game in the school, is being affected by the rock painting.

“I’m not the happiest about it being painted for this event. But I think that the people who were close to him, this will affect their choice if they place a guess or not. A lot of people are upset about what happened,” said Sophomore Cassie Bunkers.

“The Clue Game is a fun activity. But this year I’m not as into it, because of the rock thing,” said McMullen.

Spring sports are starting and graduation coming up. To some students, those topics seem to be more suitable causes for the rock to be painted.

“I thought that the rock would eventually be painted over, but I just expected it to last most of the year. I think I would be more ok with it if it was something to do with sports going to State or seniors 2011-2012,” said Bunkers.

As the school year goes on and draws closer to an end, the rock will be painted over for many things. And students may still be upset about it for whatever or whenever it’s repainted.

“I am in the middle of this. I agree that it should have been painted over because it’s been so long but I think it could have been painted better to show more respect. It’s stupid that people are starting drama over a rock. It’s just a rock and a few squirts of paint,” said Sophomore Jake Willmert.

by Maggie Walstrom and Kirsten Kaufman

While the students were busy decorating, Strassburg was at home celebrating her birthday with her family.

“My birthday was pretty quiet over all. My family and I went to the Science Museum and we saw the Pirate show. Then we went out to lunch, I got some presents and my husband got me an awesome cake,” said Strassburg.

When the students were done decorating, their end result was 99 red paper balloons hung on the wall, a Pooh Bear banner hung on Strassburg’s desk, a birthday sign and a coconut.

“We got the idea of the 99 red balloons from a song that we listen to in German 3, neunundneunzig luftballoons (99 red balloons). It’s such a great song and we just randomly thought of it. Erika and I came up the balloon idea. It took us a long time on Saturday to make them. Some of the balloons look like fish, but most of those are Kayla’s. Mine look pretty good,” said Strege.

“The coconut was from Emily. It’s an inside joke. Last year at Festival of Nations Emily and Mrs. Strassburg were joking around and they found these insanely decorated coconuts and Emily kept saying that she could make those. So Mrs. Strassburg challenged her to make them and Emily gave her the coconuts when they were finished, but they were just a jumbled mess. So it’s just been this joke between us that never gets old,” said Schimmle.

The students left, while the decorations were waiting for Strassburg to find Monday morning.

“I walked into the room, Monday morning and I was like NO way. I had no idea that they were doing the decorations. Right away I got the 99 red balloon joke. It was a little embarrassing, but I think that’s the point,” said Strassburg.

“Mrs. Strassburg is a wonderful person and she can have an uncomfortable day, because it’s worth it,” said Strege.

For the 13 years the Strassburg has been teaching here at Buffalo High School as a German Teacher, this isn’t the first time that stuff like this has happened.

“Over the years some of my students have done some pretty weird stuff for my birthday. I think it was last year or the year before, but my German 4 class did a princess party for me. They had piñatas, cake and a ton of other stuff. It was a little weird, but fun,” said Strassburg.

Some teachers may find decorating a teacher’s room a little annoying, but for others it may show that their students care for them.

“It’s always nice to see these kinds of things happen. I really appreciate it. It always makes my day better. No matter how weird it might be,” said Strassburg.

Junior Trevor Dahlof took top 8 in the state of Minnesota for Quick Serve Restaurant Management. Senior Reycel Christianson,  Senior Bruce Thao, Senior Esmeralda Heurta, Junior Trevor Dahlof and Junior Katelyn Jerde took top 8 in the state of Minnesota in the Marketing Product Plan Team category. Junior Fei Zheng and Senior Reycel Christianson took top 12 in the state of Minnesota for International Business Plan.

“State was awesome. I was so ecstatic that I got to go,” Senior Rachel Robinson, “I’ve never been to state except in choir. There were too many kids there though, there were like 7  floors of just kids. It was ridiculous, but awesome.”

Sophomore Austin Maffei will be advancing to DECA Nationals which will be held in Salt Lake City, Utah in May.

What is DECA?

“DECA is an association of business marketing students where you can compete in several different events such as; employment interviews, sales demos, role plays or papers, and it’s also a great place to meet a bunch of new people and make some friends,” said Junior Katelyn Jerde.

Started by Sophomore Cierra Dickhausen (pictured below), it is a way to give back to the community.

“I wanted to start a program to give back to the community and help those in need and to show that we care,” said Dickhausen.

“Basically students come in and knit scarves with their fingers and the scarves are donated to the homeless. The kids make long scarves, then Cierra would take three scarves and braid them to make a thicker scarf. Last week we had a girl come in, used a long scarf, and knitted it to make a thicker scarf. It was really cool,” said FACS teacher Julie Mundahl.

Although the club has not been around for very long, it’s becoming popular among kids here at BHS.

“I saw a slide for it on the TV monitor and I was intrigued. I asked my friend about it and she said that she was good at it, so we went to the meeting and yeah it was a lot of fun. You don’t see very many things like this at school so it’s kind of cool,” said Senior Kirsten Kaufman.

The club gets string donations from people around the district. The club records the time that someone has been there and the 20 minutes a week count as service hours for NHS, church or anything that requires service hours.

The Finger Knitting Club meets every Wednesday in room C-215. It is open for anyone at school to attend.

On Tuesday, the boys won the meet vs. St. Cloud Apollo, the first of two meets. Freshman Brian Pettit broke the 26 second mark in the 50 yard freestyle with a time of 25.9 seconds. In diving, Senior Spencer Chenoweth took Second with a personal best score of 188.55. Ending the meet with the 400 freestyle relay, Buffalo’s A relay took First with a time of 3:38.58.

Thursday the team went up against St. Michael Albertville, who were fighting for the Conference Champs title.

“I knew Thursday was going to be hard. I hoped to drop time and do well even though I knew we probably weren’t going to win,” said Sophomore Jonathon Cesarek.

Buffalo lost to St. Michael Albertville with a final score of 77 to 94.  STMA Junior Noah Dalluge broke the 50 freestyle pool record with a final time of 22.65 seconds.  In the 100 yard backstroke junior  Conor Mann, from Buffalo, just missed the school record with a final time of 59.6 seconds.  STMA also broke the 200 Free Relay pool record with a time of 1:32.85; they also broke the 400 Free Relay pool record with a time of 3:27.42.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3sakY9QayU] Diving coach Tanner Bauman reflected on the season, “It’s been a pretty good season, it has been tough though since we haven’t won a whole lot and we’ve had quite a few kids with injuries….but I hope it will be better next season.”

Up next the team starts tapering for JV Champs and Sections to wrap up their season.