Budget cuts

No, not at B-B-E...as this is the third year in a row where cuts haven't been made...but down the road at Paynesville Area their school board recently approved $310,000 in budget cuts for 2014-15.

To the north, Sauk Centre will cut $298,000 from their budget for 2014-15. One change at Sauk Centre is that admission for athletic contests will cost $7 for adults and $5 for students. They're also searching for a new high school principal while also preparing to deal with the cut to their Dean of Students position in the high school.

At B-B-E, we're actually adding staff for 2014-15 with the position of Technology Integrationist. While reading newspapers from other parts of Minnesota, I ran across the same thing happening at Rushford-Peterson. (Remember the R-P Trojans...state championship game?)

The R-P school board created a .65 FTE "Technology integrationist" position and assigned it to current AD/middle school phy ed teacher Dan Bieberdorf. He trades his middle school phy ed position for the tech. integrationist job.

Currently, the district uses a consultant one day per month to work with staff to integrate technology into the classroom, but with R-P schools continuing to integrate technology into the classroom, but with R-P schools continuing to introduce new tools into the classroom, such as iPads, SmartBoards and Google software platforms, the one-day-per-month consultation system has not been meeting the district's needs.

Prom!

Here's some footage from the end of the 25th annual B-B-E Prom Grand March, held this past Saturday.

Competitions nixed

Today will include no after-school athletic competitions for the Jaguars...too wet, too cold.

Wanted: spring

The outfield fence line at Elrosa's Saints Field still had snow piles stretching from corner to corner as of April 23.

We in Jaguar Country are in a desperate search for spring. It's currently 39 degrees outside with a light rain...we will have a low of 33 degrees tonight!!! Crazy.

Saints store!

This is awesome: the Elrosa Saints baseball team's online clothing store is open!

www.rambow.com

The store code is Elrosa.

Order deadline is May 4!

Girls' golf!!

Holy moly! The Jaguars girls' golf team took third place in a field of 10 teams today at New London-Spicer. They shot a 418 behind runner-up Willmar's 416. Albany won the meet with a 408.

Peyton Miller's score of 85 was good for the medalist title! Bravo!

Meanwhile, here's a clip from Holdingford today:


More to follow later tonight!

Track and field notes

Kinlee Swanson, now in her fourth year of varsity track and field action, won the long jump event at the Maple Lake Lions Invitational on Tuesday. Her best jump was good for 14-feet, 8 inches.

As a team, the Jaguars girls' track and field team took fourth place with 70 points.

By the way, it's been raining all day. It's bad news for sports teams, but good news for farmers as the rain will definitely pull more frost out of the ground.

Getting motivated

It's been difficult this week to get motivated. This weather has been an incredible downer!!! Sheesh!

I have photos to add from Tuesday's JV fastpitch doubleheader against Holdingford. The Jaguars won 10-9 and 11-7 to start their season 2-0. Cool!!!

In other news, I have been buried under the weight of covering Sauk Centre school board meetings in the last 3 weeks as they have had to cut $300,000 from their budget. The current K-12 enrollment is 963. They've actually picked up 14 students since opening day. In recent years they've seen a big slide on enrollment, but it appears that slide is leveling out.

One of the cuts was what I label a huge "slash" to the Agriculture department in the high school. It illustrates the tough position they're in to balance their budget. Their current agriculture position will be cut from full time to half-time starting in 2014-15. It essentially decimates that program at SCHS.

Tough news indeed.

At B-B-E, we are extremely fortunate and blessed to have a full-time agriculture program with a flourishing FFA chapter that has over 80 members. That doesn't happen by accident, and we owe a great deal of gratitude to current B-B-E ag teacher and FFA advisor Gary Rodgers from the work he's put into keeping this program operating at a high level.

Also, good luck in Thursday action for: the Jaguars girls' golf team at Pierz, the Jaguars boys' golf team at Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted's ShadowBrooke golf course, the JV fastpitch team at home against Melrose Area and the Jaguars baseball team in a Central Minnesota Conference double-header at Maple Lake.

The Jaguars track and field teams practice today and Thursday and then head to Holdingford on Friday for a meet with the host Huskers, Long Prairie-Grey Eagle, Rocori, Saint Cloud Apollo, Saint Cloud Christian, Sauk Rapids - Rice and Annandale.

Go Jaguars!

Baseball suffers first loss

At Pierz the Jaguars baseball team lost 9-1 in the Central Minnesota Conference opener.

The Junior Varsity Jaguars fastpitch team won game one of a double header at home against Holdingford. The final score was 10-9, with Karlee Kern scoring the game-winner in the top of the 5th.

No word yet on the golf teams.

DMac is in Pierz

Catch the game on Smooth Magic 107.

Youth baseball starts tonight

It's the opening of 'Spring Training' for the 5th-6th grade B-B-E baseball teams. The organizational meeting and first practice starts tonight at 6:30pm at Quisberg Park in Brooten.

In other news, the Jaguars baseball team travels to Pierz for their Central Minnesota Conference opener.

The golf teams are both at 18-hole invitationals: the girls in Willmar and boys in Benson.

The Junior High Jaguars fastpitch team hosts the Holdingford C-squad at the elementary diamond at 4:30pm. They'll play two five-inning games.

Happy Easter

Have a safe weekend.

I'm taking off the next 2 days to be with family.

(Photo gallery) CMC boys' golf

Here's the photo album from the meet on April 11:
http://saukherald.smugmug.com/2014-Sports/2014-BelgradeBrootenElrosa-spr/BBE-Jaguar-boys-golf-hosts-CMC

Two hours late 4-17-14

B-B-E schools are 2 hours late on Thursday, April 17.

Snow in April

The students were pretty excited to get out of school early once again...we've skated by a few weeks now without any early outs, two-hour lates or entire days closed at B-B-E. That ended today.

Elementary maintenance workers were busy clearing sidewalks and areas of the parking lot ahead of the arrival of the school buses to bring the kids home at 1:00.

While it's not unprecedented to have a big snow fall in the middle of April...it's definitely not welcomed!


Meanwhile...in Golden Valley today:

B-B-E National Honor Society members volunteered at Second Harvest Heartland in Golden Valley.  The group packed over 10,000 pounds of potatoes for families in need of help.

What a day! And the snow keeps coming down. It's gotten pretty bad in the Sauk Centre area.

And the photo gallery from yesterday's game:
http://saukherald.smugmug.com/2014-Sports/2014-BelgradeBrootenElrosa-spr/BBE-Jaguars-baseball-vs-USA-65

Closing early

B-B-E schools are closing at 12:50 today, April 16. The buses will depart at 1:00. It's getting very winter-like outside!

Season opener!!

Brian Goodwin (5) runs back to the dugout with Justin Schmitz at his side, after Goodwin scored the game-winning run in the bottom of the 7th inning tonight.

The Jaguars baseball team won 6-5 over Upsala/Swanville Area to open the season today in Regal. The Patriots led 5-0 after 6 1/2 innings, but the Jaguars rallied with 6 runs in the bottom of the 7th. Trailing 5-4, Alex Schumann knocked a two-out base hit into center field to plate two runs to end the game. Justin Schmitz and Brian Goodwin were walked on two outs, and James Kuefler was hit by a pitch to load the bases and push across runs for a 5-4 score. Schmitz then tied the game on Schumann's base hit, and Goodwin slid safely home just ahead of the throw from center field for B-B-E's 6th run. (Check out video of that sequence below.)

Here's some video from the end of the game...I ran out of memory a little too soon unfortunately, and missed the post-game celebration.


Up next is another home game in Regal on Thursday at 4:30 against Holdingford. Hopefully the snow holds off!! We could get 3-5 inches on Wednesday.

The Patriots fell to 1-2 on the season with the loss. The Huskers are 1-0 and beat USA 13-3 in their season opener last Friday in Holdingford.

Here's the photo gallery:
http://saukherald.smugmug.com/2014-Sports/2014-BelgradeBrootenElrosa-spr/BBE-Jaguars-baseball-vs-USA-65

Track meet postponed

No track and field meet at home today.

The Jaguars baseball team's game against section rival Upsala-Swanville Area is still on as of 1:00pm. It will be played in Regal. They're also scheduled to host Holdingford on Thursday.

(Photo gallery) Theater Department Improv show

Here's 40 photos from Friday night's performance:
http://saukherald.smugmug.com/2014-Events/BBE-Theater-Depmt-Improv-show

Here's a video clip from Friday night:


Thank you to all those who made it in to see one of the two shows!! Your support is greatly appreciated by the B-B-E Theater Department.

Cold all week!

It's going to be a rough week in Jaguar Country...the baseball game scheduled today in Regal against Eden Valley-Watkins has been postponed.

State speech success!

Tiras Dotson, Katie Hieserich and Molly Tengwall, all underclassmen, earned medals at the Class A state speech tournament on Saturday in Blaine.

Boys' golf hosts CMC opener

Jacob Steinhofer had the third-best score of his team with a 48.

At Prairie View Community golf course, the Jaguars boys' golf team placed fourth in the first Central Minnesota Conference meet of the season. They shot a 190, while first-place Rockford Area scored a 170. Jackson Gregory led the Jaguars with a 45.

Jacob Tensen and the rest of the Jaguars baseball team held an inter-squad scrimmage on Friday at the high school baseball diamond.

On Monday the Jaguars baseball team hosts Eden Valley-Watkins in Regal at 4:30pm for their season and CMC opener.

The Jaguars girls' golf team travels to Rockford on Tuesday for their season opener.

Also Tuesday, the Jaguars track and field teams host their season opening meet with 9 total teams at 4:00pm. Other teams coming are Browerville, Melrose Area, New London-Spicer, Paynesville Area, Rockford Area, St. Cloud Christian, St. John`s Prep and Long Prairie-Grey Eagle.

By the way, I was really impressed with the Improv show on Friday. Great job, B-B-E Theater Company! I will try to get video posted on Sunday afternoon from last night's show.

Busy busy!!

Spring is starting with a bang tonight in the sports department. I enjoyed time at the conference golf meet at Prairie View in Brooten.

The course is in fabulous shape!!

Improv shows coming!

The B-B-E high school theater company is presenting a spring play called "Wingin' It!" this Thursday and Friday, April 10-11 at the high school theater stage. It's an improvisation show, where students create the show and make it up as they go. It's similar to the TV show "Whose line is it anyway?"

The cast includes 11 B-B-E theater members. Tickets are $6 for adults and $4 for students. Come out and support this awesome program!

Signing day!

Brian Goodwin just signed with North Dakota State College of Science. The Division I Junior College Wildcats were runners-up in their playoff region this past season and finished 29-4.

First track and field meet

It appears that the Jaguars track and field teams won't see their first competition until Tuesday, April 15 when they host a 7-team meet at the high school athletic complex.

Terrific!

The B-B-E Jaguars elementary wrestling team finished in 10th place out of 32 teams at the NYWA state tournament in Rochester this weekend.

It's a terrific finish for the team after they got into state by placing 6th in the Region IV meet.

Making an impact

This was terrific! At the Pope County Expo this afternoon at Minnewaska Area high school:

Speechers headed to state!!!

Seven heading to the state meet!!!

A terrific group of B-B-E speech team members are heading to the Class A state speech meet after earning top-three finishes in their respective categories in today's Section 5A meet in Melrose. Overall the speech team got into the top-four in the final standings despite being severely short-handed out of the 24 team members who earned spots in the section meet. B-B-E finished as Section 5A runners-up, while St. Cloud Cathedral won the meet by a mere 6-point margin. Sauk Centre was third, and Eden Valley-Watkins was fourth.

Co-head coach Lucy Lloyd provided the following list of state-bound speech team members:
Joe Reller/Riley Schumann, Duo 
Courtney Brandt, Ex Reading 
Adrian Laage, Humor 
Tiras Dotson, Humor 
Katie Hieserich, OO 
Molly Tengwall, Storytelling

And how cool is THIS! None of the above-mentioned speech team members are seniors. Also VERY cool (but a little heartbreaking)...Click on the following link to read more at the Sauk Centre Herald website:
http://saukherald.com/articles/2014/04/05/sauk-centre-b-b-e-speech-sends-13-state

Round one of the state speech meet for all events starts on Saturday, April 12 at 10:15am at Blaine high school.

Speech!

Good luck at the section meet today!

State wrestling update

B-B-E elementary wrestlers Miguel Lopez and Canon Swanson each took second place in there individual divisions at the NYWA state meet in Rochester.

Basketball announcement

An important announcement on the Jaguars boys' basketball program was released today. Stay tuned!

I just realized I haven't uploaded the basketball welcome-home celebration photos the night of the state championship game.

Anyway, here's the announcement! Share away:
http://saukherald.com/articles/2014/04/03/end-era

Here's some never-before-seen video from the basketball banquet last week:

Wrestling state tournament

Eight of 21 Jaguar elementary wrestlers earned individual trips to the upcoming NYWA state tournament that will be held this weekend in Rochester. The elementary Jaguar wrestling team is competing in the team state tournament also in Rochester on Saturday and Sunday.

Spring?

So when will spring arrive?

The first scheduled athletic event on the schedule is next Tuesday. That day the Jaguars girls' golf team is scheduled to go to Albion Ridges golf course in rural Annandale for a Central Minnesota Conference meet.

The first home event for any sport is on Friday, April 11 when the Jaguars boys' golf team hosts a CMC meet at Prairie View Community golf course. We'll need a lot of heat before that happens, though.

And check this out!
http://www.olddutchfoods.com/community-happenings/TeamoftheWeek/13-14Winners/BelgradeBrootenElrosaHS