Hard to describe today's weather

When I left Belgrade this morning for an errand to Elrosa, the temperature on the minivan said 30 degrees. It was also raining. Less than 15 minutes later, the van's thermometer said 24 degrees...but it was still raining. The van's defroster had to remain on high to keep the windshield from icing over.

About 1 hour after that, the word went out at 10:19 a.m. saying that B-B-E schools is dismissing at noon today. No after school activities.

Gosh, dang it!

Odd and strange is the best way I can say how the day's weather is shaping up! Multiple evening activities for tonight have been scrubbed and/or postponed. It wreaks havoc on the activities office. The home dance competition will likely be sometime in January.

Now, I can get caught up on multiple other tasks such as office cleaning and photo/video editing.

In case you weren't there, the Elrosa Santa Day event brought over 100 kids to town. The organizers there should be proud of the response by families in and around Elrosa!

Here's Amy Zenzen of Elrosa reading to children that morning...click on the following link to see more: ElrosaSantaDay2025.

Looking ahead briefly to tomorrow...the B-B-E Jaguars girls' basketball game at Melrose has a unique schedule. The C-squad Jaguars face the Dutchmen at 4:15 p.m., and the varsity game is set to begin at about 5:45 p.m. Please spread the word! I am seeing a "ticket link" at the school website, which makes me wonder if Melrose accepts cash at the door when paying for your ticket to watch the game.

ALSO tomorrow! The Bonanza Valley State Bank and Kensington Bank will both hold Christmas-season customer appreciation events. They advertised in the December 11 and 18 issues of the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper. The support of these two banks is vital to the survival of the newspaper and its sports department. I can't repeat that enough.

And back to coverage of Tuesday's concert...
Click over to the newspaper's website to watch the senior high choir singing at Olson Auditorium: SeniorHighChoirCarolBells.

In other news...
In the Clara City Herald newspaper this week, they reported on the MACCRAY's school budget. I noticed their property tax levy was set at $5.283 million for the 2026-2027 school year. For comparison, B-B-E recently set their tax levy for the same period at $2.861 million. That's a massive difference. It should also be noted that B-B-E and MACCRAY have very similar K-12 enrollment figures.

At Renville County West school, their 2026-27 levy was set at $2.591 million. Their school is a bit smaller than B-B-E, so that levy amount seems more in line from my perspective.