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Congrats to Marching Band [UPDATED]
Published 9:47am Wednesday, January 9, 2013 Updated 11:51am Wednesday, January 9, 2013Congratulations to the FFHS Marching Band!
It is a tremendous honor and achievement to have our high school marching band selected — not only once, but twice — to perform in a Presidential Inaugural Parade.
The Fergus Falls Public Schools and community are very proud of our students and directors for their hard work, dedication and excellence. I believe our marching band will be the only parade entry from Minnesota again this year.
With very little time to raise funds for this unexpected trip, the marching band students need your help. The cost for the trip is $450 per student. If you are able to sponsor all or part of a student, please send a check made out to FFHS Marching Band to — ATTN: FFHS Marching Band, 601 Randolph Avenue, Fergus Falls, MN 56537.
As of Friday, Jan. 4, the Marching Band raised $22,000 of the $60,000 needed for the trip.
There are also three fundraising opportunities coming for the band. Papa Murphy’s Pizza is scheduled from 4 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 9. where they will donate $2 for every large pizza and $3 for every family-sized pizza sold.
You must use a band coupon for this, which is available on the school’s Web site at www.isd544.org. Applebee’s is sponsoring a pancake breakfast for the band from 8-10 am Saturday, Jan. 12.
Taco John’s will be giving 25 percent of all its sales to the band from 11 a.m.. to 7 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 12.
The FFHS Marching Band will give a live performance on Tuesday, Jan. 15 during halftime at the Varsity Girls Basketball game.
The band is scheduled to depart from the high school on Thursday, Jan. 17 around 3 p.m.
They will travel from the Kennedy Secondary School to Shopko and then down Lincoln Avenue to Perkins before heading to DC. You are invited to stand along Lincoln Avenue and wave as the busses pass by.
Newtown visit
Like every superintendent in the nation, I shuddered when I heard the news of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. Many questions ran through our minds — What do we do to stop this from happening again? Was it the access to the guns or video games? Was it mental illness? Was it a combination of all these factors or something completely different? I’m sure much discussion and debate will be heard from this recent tragedy regarding policy and procedure changes.
Our son, Jacob, lives in Hamden, Conn. Months before the horrible events had transpired in Newtown, my wife, Karen, and I had planned to visit him for Christmas. Knowing that we would be so close, only 35 miles, we felt compelled to visit the community and pay our respects.
Connecticut is a beautiful state with heavily treed areas and winding rivers and roads. Traveling Highway 34 from Hamden to Newtown would have been one those serene journeys at a different time.
The communities, including Newtown, are full of colonial-style houses with white picket fences. Within 20 miles of Newtown, we started to notice signage and items left in remembrance of the victims.
When we reached Newtown, there was no access to the school as it was being boarded up. It had a chain link fence surrounding it, due to the ongoing investigation of the crime scene. Despite the tragedy, it was wonderful to hear the community rallied to open an old middle school in a neighboring town so that Sandy Hook students could return to school on Jan. 3.
I delivered money and cards collected from our community and schools to the Newtown Savings Bank.
From around the country, people were pouring their hearts out to the community through signs, luminaries and displays. Mailboxes were wrapped in school colors of green and white. Messages included: “Music heals all;” “We are Sandy Hook, we are united;” and “There is no footprint so tiny that it cannot make an imprint on this world.”
At the town hall a sign displayed, “Together We Birth a Culture of Peace.”
But, there was one sign that said it all for me — “WHY?”
