Diving into another week of crazy in the Bonanza Valley area with more STATE news!

From the top! As best as I can summarize.

The Belgrade city council meets tonight with a robust agenda ahead of their annual August Fest celebration (which is August 7,8,9 and 10). The council meeting agenda can be found at the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper's editor's blog: https://shorturl.at/fxgOE.

The B-B-E 14-U fastpitch playoffs will be held at the Long Prairie-Grey Eagle softball complex on Tuesday this week beginning at 5 p.m.

The B-B-E American Legion 17-U fastpitch playoffs will be held on Thursday, July 24 this week at Minnewaska Area. This is the Sub-Region tournament, and the champion of the 5 teams will advance to the state tournament. The Jaguars are the No. 2 seed behind Melrose Area. B-B-E's first game is at 5 p.m. in the semifinals against No. 3-seeded Albany.

BIG news!
The B-B-E Babe Ruth 16-U baseball team has earned a spot in their state tournament. They open on Thursday this week at New York Mills. I'm guessing it's a similar format to the 14-U state tournament that was held last week. (Update! I've got the full brackets now, and the Jaguars 16-U team opens state on Thursday this week, July 24, at 5 p.m. against Detroit Lakes Red. The entire 8-team tournament is held in New York Mills.

Also! The Pope County Fair begins next week. It will be featured in a full page advertisement in this week's (July 24) issue and the July 31 issue. You can see other information on the fair at their website: https://www.popecountyfair.org.

This is crazy...on Sunday, July 13, I took over 400 pictures across the waffle feed, Mass at St. Donatus Church and the grand parade for Bonanza Valley Days.

Today is prom day in Jaguar Country (VIDEOS*)

The grand march begins at 3:30 p.m. at the high school. I'm in a mad dash to get ready for that!

Here's the link to read the obituary for Eric Segaar, age 46, who passed away from injuries suffered in a farm accident in North Fork Township on Tuesday, April 29. At the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website: https://shorturl.at/5XoF3.

Let's pray for the safety of all children and adults who are involved with B-B-E's prom today and tonight.

Here's a short video recorded today at the very end of grand march and afterwards:


Update on Saturday night: the grand march lasted 70 minutes! It was far and away the longest grand march held in at least 15 years. The outdoor conditions were the best in at least 20 years! Picture perfect weather.

And the prom dance had great attendance. All families involved should be proud!

Here's a glimpse of the dance that shows how much fun they were having:


Sunday is a big, big day of outdoor work! The temperatures are finally climbing into the upper 70s! Also, the Elrosa Saints host Greenwald on Sunday at 1:30 p.m. in a division contest

Coming tonight! Spring concert (VIDEO)

Late on Tuesday night, a video was added to this blog post from the concert.

The B-B-E grades 6-12 choirs and bands will perform their spring concert tonight starting at 7 p.m. at Olson Auditorium. I'm currently looking for the live player web link for online streaming of the concert.

AND! Here's the link that you can share. I will try utilzing the "embed code" and post it to the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website. That link will also be posted here.

Direct YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/live/uBvaAXzygDU?si=M3Blb00uPP73x5tZ.

AND! Here's a link that you can click on to view a live video player during the concert: https://shorturl.at/OB0ge. This is posted at the newspaper's website. Please spread the word if you know of anyone who is unable to attend in person!

Slowly but surely, more albums are being added to the "news/events" folder for 2025 at the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper's SmugMug gallery. You can see all the 2025 albums by clicking here: https://bonanzavalley.smugmug.com/2025-B-B-EBonanza-Valley-area-events.

And in sports news...
Baseball practice, like all spring sports, has been conducted indoors and outdoors this spring. Last Friday, they had light pitching practice indoors and then outdoors as a team. While I was attending a track and field meeting after school on Friday, it was terrific to see senior Hayden Sobiech at pitching practice with Coach Klaphake. Fellow senior Ethan Mueller was catching for him in the gym.

Here's Hayden Sobiech practicing in the gym last Friday:


The B-B-E Jaguars baseball team makes up their doubleheader at Maple Lake on Thursday at 4 p.m. at Irish Stadium. It is great that they can pull this off this week, because starting next Monday...wait for it! Starting next Monday, Highway 55 gets blown up (figuratively speaking) with road construction and one-way traffic east of Kimball.

Let's revisit tonight's concert!
The spring concert held tonight at Olson Auditorium featured superb performances by the choirs and bands. The students and teachers should be proud of what they accomplished! I've got a mountain of material to work with across two newspaper issues.

Here's a short video recorded early in the concert...


In this video, the middle school choir ("Day 2 choir") is performing the song Flooding Rains by Harley Mead. Time to get back to the newspaper.

More from 'Fueling for Performance, Fueling for Life' at BBE's Olson Auditorium

The Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website features another web article posted with video from the "Fueling for Performance, Fueling for Life" presentation at Olson Auditorium on March 24.

You can find it by clicking here: https://shorturl.at/HzzWY.

I've also reposted the jigsaw puzzle information at The Voice website: https://shorturl.at/Fcb0o. Earlier this week, they only had one confirmed team signed up. We need more! They would love to have 3 or 4 teams competing on Saturday.

Coming on Friday and Saturday...robotics is back in action!
This was just released tonight by F.I.R.S.T. Robotics. The Granite City Robotics Regional begins on Friday morning at the River's Edge Convention Center, and the times for qualification matches have been set. For the B-B-E Resistance Robotics team, their first qualification match in St. Cloud is set for 9:31 a.m., and a livestream via Twitch will be active. B-B-E's team will be in the Red Alliance in that first match, with their other alliance teams coming from Devils Lake, ND and from Hutchinson.

Today, B-B-E's robotics team participated in three practice matches in St. Cloud. Altogether, the Granite City Regional includes 48 teams. The official Granite City Regional website is https://frcnorthland.org/granite-city.

Here's the tentative schedule for B-B-E's team on Friday:
Match 1:at 09:31 (Red Alliance)
Match 2: at 10:34 (Blue Alliance)
Match 3: at 11:18 (Blue Alliance)
Match 4: at 1:41 p.m. (Blue Alliance)
Match 5: at 3:16 p.m. (Red Alliance)
Match 6: at 4:18 p.m. (Red Alliance)
Match 7: at 5:32 p.m. (Red Alliance)

On Friday, I'll get a more detailed web article posted at the newspaper's website that will also include information about Saturday's robotics action, which is set to feature 3 qualification matches.

Here's the live stream link! https://www.twitch.tv/firstinspires5. *UPDATES in a new blog post on Friday morning.

Speaker gives harsh assessment of energy drinks (VIDEO)

This was updated with another video link on Thursday.

At B-B-E high school's Olson Auditorium tonight, B-B-E Community Education hosted Danielle Rancourt of Grand Forks, who is a Registered Dietician and Certified Sports Dietician. She is also a former Division I athlete. Rancourt gave a presentation to the community and the student body and parents called "Fueling Performance: Fueling For Life" which also included a Q and A session at the end. One question was posed to her (by me) was about energy drinks and the dangers they bring for youth who consume these types of beverages.

I didn't quite start "recording" soon enough, but in her first comment, she stated that the daily recommended intake for caffeine for high school-age youth is 100 milligrams (and no more!)...this was confirmed by a simple search online with The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), who recommends caffeine limits for adolescent children (ages 12 to 18) of 100 milligrams.

VIDEO of her response:


Rancourt's professional website, which features a host of information and opportunities to learn more from her, is http://www.pivotnutritioncoaching.com.

More to come in the morning. It is time to sleep!

Update on Thursday afternoon:
To view another video clip from that evening, click over to the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website: https://shorturl.at/HFZul. A feature story from the evening was published in this week's newspaper issue. Part II is coming next week.

Another web article featuring coverage from the Thrills and Spills dirt bike racing show on March 20 has been posted to the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website. You can find that by clicking here: https://shorturl.at/P3JUx.

A new blog post will be finally posted this week on Thursday night.

B-B-E High School Sno-Daze coronation (VIDEO)

The 35th annual B-B-E Sno-Daze King and Queen are Jack Lundberg and Emery Halvorson. The video of the crowning can be seen at the following link, which redirects you to the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website: https://shorturl.at/8hyfJ. Additional Sno-Daze coverage is posted to that web article and will also appear in the February 13 and February 20 issues of The Voice.

In spite of the cold weather, we are going to have a terrific Sno-Daze week in Jaguar Country!

To the previous blog post about basketball last night...I added a video clip from the Paynesville game last Friday. More to follow much later tonight. I still have a mountain of work to do on the February 13 issue of the Bonanza Valley Voice print edition.

Winter Sports Show No. 2 and more Christmas music (VIDEOS, *UPDATES)

The B-B-E high school choirs and bands performed their Holiday Christmas concert on December 16 at Olson Auditorium. This week's Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper featured articles highlighting both the choir and band's performances that night.

Here's the last song performed by the choir at the Christmas concert:


Two videos from the high school winter concert have been posted at the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website in a web article. You can find that one by clicking on the following link: https://www.bonanzavalleyvoice.com/section/bbe. In the next web article after that, you can watch the K-3 elementary Christmas concert from December 4.

Here's another link that directs to the high school choir and jazz band performing at Olson Auditorium on December 16: https://shorturl.at/vfcT9.

Also, I recorded a podcast tonight, and it is uploading now.

And here it is! My second sports show of the winter season:


As usual for these sports podcast recordings, it's entirely off the top of my head with no notes to speak of. While talking about the dance team, I forgot to mention an important point. At this juncture of the winter sports season, the Pirouettes dance team are far and away having the most success out of our winter sports programs. By a mile! Good for them, too, they have earned it. I hope to bring them dramatically better sports coverage in the newspaper in January.

Fingers crossed!

Thursday night, December 26 updates:
Getting back to basketball...the B-B-E Jaguars girls' basketball team will have their hands full in a major way when they take on state-ranked Cass Lake-Bena on Friday this week at Sartell-St. Stephen. The Jaguars (4-5) will face the CL-B Panthers (8-1) in the first day of the Granite City Classic. CL-B's team is built around senior Gabby Fineday, who surpassed 2,000 career points this past February. Her Panthers started the season with 8 straight wins before they took a recent loss to Class 2A powerhouse Minnehaha Academy by a 101-35 score this past Saturday in Minneapolis.

In last year's meeting between our Jaguars and CL-B, which was also on the first day of the Granite City Classic, the Panthers won 71-45.

The Jaguars face another strong team in Saturday's game, when they take on Walker-Hackensack-Akeley at 10 a.m. at St. Cloud Tech high school. The W-H-A Wolves (8-0) are one of the favorites in Section 5A while currently being the top-ranked team in Sub-Section 5A-West. The Jaguars compete in Sub-Section 5A-East, where Braham (8-1) is the current top-ranked team (by QRF).

A few recent Fine Arts events have been uploaded to the newspaper's online gallery: https://bonanzavalley.smugmug.com/BBEBonanza-Valley-Area-Fine-Arts-2024.

A new web article from the Brooten Santa Day has been added to the newspaper website, and you can find it by clicking here: https://shorturl.at/pNA3j.

Merry Christmas to Jaguar Country! (VIDEO)

Today is Christmas in Jaguar Country!

I had the good fortune of having actual "free time" (whatever that is) to edit some video from the past few weeks. Some of it is uploading, but I'll post the embed code here for one video that should be viewable after noon today (Wednesday).

Here's the Middle School Choir singing "I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas" at the winter concert a week-and-a-half ago:


Altogether, the band and choir numbers in grades 6-12 are on the rise at B-B-E. This is a good thing. Not only is it is GOOD thing, but it is also a NECESSARY change! Parents need to get their children out of the terrible habit of quitting music when they get past the middle school grades. I go back to Christmas of 1938, and the Brooten high school band and choir numbers approached 120. That was little Brooten High School during the tail end of the Great Depression.

Update:...late Wednesday night, I'll get a second blog post up that will feature new videos, including my next installment of a Winter Sports Show.

High school band and choir Christmas concert is tonight (VIDEOS*)

Music students in grades 6-12 will hold their band and choir Christmas concert tonight (Monday) at 7 p.m. at Olson Auditorium. The middle school and senior high choir will perform first. The band concert is set to begin at about 7:45 p.m. starting with the 6th grade band. I am grateful and extremely appreciative that nothing gets in the way at B-B-E of our band or choir concerts! This is not the case at other schools, which is sad and pathetic. No athletic activities are scheduled for tonight - which is how it should be on music concert night!!!

You are welcome to tune in via the video player posted below. It should be "live" by 6:45 p.m. or about then.

LIVE video courtesy of B-B-E Broadcasting:


Further coverage to follow later tonight and also in the December 19 and 26 issues of the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper. We'll see what I come up with this week! As of now, we are set to publish a 16-page issue!

Here's a very, very rough video featuring the final song performed tonight...


I shot the video on my big Nikon camera, which was very difficult to hold steady. I have a mountain of content from tonight to go through and prepare for publishing this week and next week. The concert was outstanding! Our high school musicians and their teachers have much to be proud of!

Theater career concludes for 5 seniors today (VIDEOS)

The final show of "Lucky Stiff" was held this afternoon in front of an "okay" crowd which was probably just fine considering how nice the weather has been this weekend. (I still don't rate that as an excuse for not spending 2 hours in Olson Auditorium supporting our musical students...but that's for another day.)

My estimate is that about 120 attended today's musical, which was the official end of the theater career of 5 members of B-B-E's Class of 2026.

Here's Savannah Finken leading a high-energy dance during a scene in Act I this afternoon:


The five seniors who "held down the fort" this fall to anchor the fall musical are Coby DenHartog, Savannah Finken, ReAnn Stalboerger, Kora Martinez and Tia Nelson. They will be terribly missed on that stage. For Tia Nelson, this was her sixth musical performance. If the COVID drama would have never taken place, she would have been in 7 fall musicals at B-B-E. Incredible!

Fortunately, the well is not dry, and ample talent is coming up the ranks. The musical cast has 11 returning for next year who they can add to. They are good!

Here's two of the seventh graders in the "Monte Carlo" scene during Act I this afternoon:


More to come tomorrow. I'm taking the rest of tonight "off" and watching a Christmas movie with family. I have two difficult days ahead of me trying to assemble a large Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper that will lean very, very heavily on musical coverage. Just about all other news coverage has been set aside while throwing everything at promoting "Lucky Stiff". It was worth it! It always is.

Well, now it's Tuesday...
Last night, at Olson Auditorium, the B-B-E Jaguars volleyball team held their season awards banquet. I'll have coverage from that coming up...

To watch the Voice of Democracy first place winner, Macey Roering, give her speech, you can click here: https://shorturl.at/rVvQ9. The video was from the high school's Veterans Day program on November 8.

Fall musical's opening night was incredible (VIDEOS*)

The musical students did an outstanding job tonight performing the opening show of "Lucky Stiff" at Olson Auditorium tonight. The two-act show lasted a total of 1 hour, 50 minutes including a 15-minute intermission.

**Hot off the computer! Here's an iMovie creation featuring images and video from the musical opener:


Here's a four-minute long video featuring the cast and crew greeting fans after the show concluded tonight:


Now begins the backbreaking work on my part of combing over all the video and photos!

I'll go back and post this video which was recorded near the end of rehearsal on Wednesday this week:


Tonight's crowd was "okay" and I am estimating we had about 120 to 130 in the seats. I'll get a firm number tomorrow from Director Steph DenHartog. Seating capacity at Olson Auditorium is around 270. What this means is that the total weekend had the ability to draw in over 800 people. Many seats went unsold tonight.

Click here to see my web article that highlights tonight's show: https://shorturl.at/BJm6v. As of late Friday night, just 49 tickets have been sold for the Saturday night show. We need to double that! And then bring in another 100 at the door to purchase tickets...there's no reason we can't get 200 or more in the auditorium on Saturday night.

The final show is at 2 p.m. on Sunday. As of Friday night, just 40 tickets have been sold for Sunday.

Here's a video clip featuring the first 50 seconds or so of the opening scene on Friday night:


Saturday morning update...
no additional tickets have been sold since last night. As of 11 a.m., 49 tickets have been sold out of a possible 270 for the Saturday night show. Disappointing! Also, for Sunday's afternoon show (2 p.m.), ticket sales stand at 40 as they were last night. This makes for just 89 tickets sold out of a possible 520 for the final two shows.

Saturday afternoon...tickets sold for tonight's show have increased to 60. That is good!

More musical coverage! The show is really, really coming along! (VIDEO)

This week's Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper contains ample coverage of the upcoming fall musical at B-B-E high school's Olson Auditorium. If memory serves me correct - and it does not always do that! ...this week's Voice contains Q and A profiles of 8 cast members of 'Lucky Stiff'.

To see additional musical coverage, and to read about what the musical is about, you can click over to the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website: https://www.bonanzavalleyvoice.com/section/bbe. I hope to do a quick count of the current number of presale ticket sold for the three nights of the musical. (Ticket link is below)

Here's a video recorded at tonight's rehearsal:


This show is VERY good! They are REALLY coming together! You do NOT want to miss it!

***Here's the link you need for tickets!
Click here to order musical tickets! https://our.show/bbeluckystiff.

UPDATE on ticket sales: as of Wednesday night, 138 presale tickets have been sold. I find this encouraging. I badly want more sold, however, as we need to show a great response for the musical and give our Fine Arts students the support they've earned. The Olson Auditorium seating can comfortably hold over 800 across three shows. We have many, MANY seats to fill this weekend!!

Thursday night update...
The show had 143 seats sold as of this evening!! This is terrific! You can catch another update with a new rehearsal video from this evening by clicking here to redirect to the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper: https://shorturl.at/LBktv. I also have a small photo album that feature photos taken at tonight's rehearsal. They are from both Act I and Act II, and a link to click on and find that photo gallery is here: https://shorturl.at/S9WmC.

The musical is coming! the Musical is coming! (VIDEO)

This blog post will be expanded out tonight and tomorrow (Tuesday) to promote B-B-E's fall musical called 'Lucky Stiff' - coming to the Olson Auditorium theater stage at B-B-E high school on Friday, Saturday and Sunday - November 15, 16 and 17. You can purchase tickets and read more on the musical by clicking over to the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website: https://shorturl.at/x1LQC.

The easiest response to someone asking, "What's the musical about?" is to tell them that it's a high school musical version of the hit 1989 movie "Weekend at Bernie's" that grossed a whopping $30 million that year on a $15 million production budget.

Here's a video clip featuring a glimpse of musical rehearsal back on Friday, October 25:


I strongly encourage you to come out and watch at least one of their shows! If you don't take in any of the musical nights, you are cheating yourself and the musical students! Don't be that person!!

Tuesday updates...ELECTION DAY!
My Bonanza Valley Voice SmugMug events albums are being updated this week. I'm getting mostly caught up through a couple weekends ago...you can see local events (community and school-related) photo albums by clicking here: https://bonanzavalley.smugmug.com/2024-B-B-EBonanza-Valley-area-events.

I have a whopping 12 event folders of separate, distinct events that have taken place across the past couple of weeks that I want to get included in this week's issue. That's about as high as I've ever seen it. October included a crazy number of local events. We are lucky to live in an area with such a high level of activities that we can participate in!

TUESDAY NIGHT election results...
You can follow local election results at the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website...click on this short link to redirect your web browser to my election night article: https://rb.gy/99srez.

Beautiful, incredible fall day (VIDEO)

The Bonanza Valley area is experiencing an incredible day of fall weather today. It appears that we've reached a high of 68 degrees with full sunshine...as of 4 o'clock this afternoon, there's not a puff of cloud in the sky. Blue sky for everyone! The low tonight is supposed to plummet to 37 degrees.

In this blog post, I'll add a video from tonight's Sonic Escape concert at Olson Auditorium. I hope you can attend in person! Remember: it's FREE!

...added Monday night...here's the final minute of the final song performed tonight at Olson Auditorium:


As you can see and hear for yourself in the video, they are both incredible musicians! Additional coverage will follow in this week's Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper.

Over 370 Color FUND Run photos have been uploaded at the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper SmugMug gallery. You can find the two albums by clicking over to the 2024 events folder at this direct link: https://bonanzavalley.smugmug.com/2024-B-B-EBonanza-Valley-area-events.

I'm finally basically caught up on adding sports photos from Homecoming week to the newspaper's Fall 2024 sports galleries. You can find them at this direct link: https://bonanzavalley.smugmug.com/BBE-Fall-Sports-2024.

Day II of B-B-E's Homecoming (VIDEOS!!)

We are having another marvelous day of Homecoming in Jaguar Country! FULL sunshine and very little wind to speak of! The current temperature in the early afternoon hours hovers around 70 degrees! How about that! The predicted high is 71 degrees, although I think we'll get a little past that.

You can see the coronation video clip from the end of the program when the King and Queen received their crowns. Click over to the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website: https://shorturl.at/cD2kB. That web article has the video included in the slideshow with the photo.

At the high school, grades 6-12 students enjoyed a grill-out for lunch, which was pretty neat to take in! Shop teacher Reed Adrian and math teacher Jack Mueller handled most of the grilling duties for hamburgers and hot dogs. This is such a wonderful day! Outstanding to be a part of Homecoming week!

Here's a video from lunch time today:


Today is a crazy busy day. Wicked busy! I'll get back to blogging later tonight. I do need a full night's rest in order to be at 120% for the Color FUND Run tomorrow!

In sports news from today...
The B-B-E Jaguars girls' tennis team lost a very close battle against Parkers Prairie by a 4-3 margin today on the home courts. It was also a Prairie Conference match. They were in the running for a third straight win, but it was not meant to be. Additional coverage is forthcoming in this week's Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper.

Here's a video from No. 2 singles tonight with Bree Thieschafer...


Let's get more football video out the door...the next game is coming fast!

Here's late second quarter action at Grove City last week:


Upsala/Swanville Area, B-B-E's next opponent, is a fellow Top 10-ranked team. This makes our 36th Homecoming football game the first time in school history that two Top 10 teams will do battle on our football field! It's going to be one hell of a game!

Musical draws outstanding crowd for final show (VIDEO)

The B-B-E high school's Olson Auditorium had a terrific crowd for the final show of The Addams Family - School Edition today. With a large chunk of the Sauk Centre theater students in attendance, the crowd surpassed 200!

Here's Tia Nelson doing her thing!


More to come! The cast and crew are partying at the high school tonight in an exciting after party!!! If your son or daughter isn't in theater, they should be! It's tremendous to have a front row seat to how valuable the experience is for high school kids.

Glowing success for Musical's second night! Don't miss the final show!!!

It never gets old to write about when our local students do well in their school activities.

The second night of B-B-E's fall musical The Addams Family - School Edition was once again terrific! To read about the opening night, click over to the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website: https://tinyurl.com/5x8u4bn3. Information is included in that web article about purchasing advance tickets online. You can also purchase at the door, although try to arrive by 1:30 p.m. today to select your seat(s)...the final show is today at 2 p.m. at Olson Auditorium!!

Here's senior Maddy Carroll during one of her feature moments as her character, Uncle Fester, sings a love song to the moon


Maddy was outstanding in her role as Uncle Fester during her first time on stage. She was part of the musical's cast in 2021 and 2022. Maddy also fulfilled the role of the grim reaper, and she put an enormous level of energy and personality into that role as well.

What these musical/theater students have pulled off is truly amazing to witness first hand. The musical's cast is the youngest and most inexperienced we've ever had on stage at B-B-E. You would never realize that by watching it.

The entire show, including a 15-minute intermission, lasts about 2 hours, 10 minutes. As I stated in large, bold print on page one of the November 16 Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper: you can support our Fine Arts programming to the same extent we support our sports teams!! The musical cast and crew have worked hard this entire fall, since the first week of school, and they deserve your support. As of 11 a.m. today, roughly 200 seats remained unsold for today's final musical show. I counted 78 presold tickets. Let's fill up the rest of those seats!!!

Sunday afternoon intermission update! we have over 200 here at Olson Auditorium watching the final show!!! Terrific turnout!

OPENING NIGHT in Jaguar Country! (VIDEOS)

Excitement fills the air across Jaguar Country as the musical students prepare for the opening night of The Addams Family - School Edition which will grace the stage of the Phil and Lucille Olson Auditorium at B-B-E high school.

Click over to the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website and watch a video interview of Maddy Carroll, standing next to the honorary plaque for the late Phil Olson, Belgrade school music director from 1947 to 1983. Link: https://tinyurl.com/yyc426v3. In 2021, the remodeled auditorium at the high school was named in honor of him and his wife, Lucille.

We are immensely proud of all our theater students. The two seniors, Carroll and Jeffrey Cihlar, have been outstanding!! We are extremely grateful for their contributions and their abilities to help bring new students into the theater this fall.

**Here's one of B-B-E's great theater student! Now graduated, here is Dylan Hirman being interviewed outside Olson Auditorium late this afternoon:


Don't miss this show! They have worked hard and deserve your support. It won't hurt people to support the Fine Arts at B-B-E as much as we support our sports teams. Trust me: you can do it! It will be good for you.

**And after the show, I'm thrilled to announce that the opening night was a marvelous success!! This very young cast was absolutely amazing!! I hope you can see one of the next two shows. Ticket sales were what I will rate "STRONG!" which is outstanding. Unofficially, they had at least 170 seats filled in the auditorium that has a capacity of about 265.

*Here's a video featuring the scene outside Olson Auditorium after the musical concluded:


Altogether on the night, I took over 400 pictures. It has been an exciting night!

Time for bed! We have wheels up at 8 a.m. to drive to U.S. Bank Stadium.

https://www.onthestage.tickets/show/bbe-theatre/6503a2558db5900e3d2ca6b7

Facing stiff head winds

This will be the heaviest lift of the year since May.

For the first time since the May 26 issue was published, the Bonanza Valley Voice will expand to 16 pages this week. It's sort of a nightmare right now. We'll see how the night goes.

The nerves and anxiety of that combined with other anxiousness about the upcoming fall musical and the state semifinal football game have created a difficult week. I continue to plead with and encourage everyone to purchase your musical tickets! Get them now! Learn how by clicking here: https://tinyurl.com/2kztc3fa.

The list of college athletes from B-B-E who are excelling at the next level is too numerous to really properly cover. However, currently, two members of the Class of 2023 are making an impact on their college teams early in their respective freshmen seasons. Tiyana Schwinghammer, who I wrote about on Saturday, had another strong game tonight in the Northland Community and Technical College's women's basketball home opener, which they won 83-56 against a North Dakota team from Bottineau. At MSU-Moorhead, Abby Berge has averaged 17 minutes per game while scoring 15 points overall in two contests for the Dragons. MSU-M just lost a heartbreaker 63-57 in overtime to No. 10-ranked University of Central Missouri in Claremore, Oklahoma on Saturday afternoon.

Here's a pick-me-up: Superintendent Walsh recently spoke with one of his former student-athletes he coached earlier in his career. This person is now a high school game official, and he told Walsh specifically that the B-B-E football team displayed exceptional sportsmanship during the game he officiated. This was either in Swanville in the regular season or at Fargo, because it involved Upsala/Swanville Area. I may clarify that with Walsh if I remember to. Regardless of which game it was, it was terrific to hear this at tonight's school board meeting. This type of good news is what helps power me through tough days and nights like tonight.

Cranking up fall musical coverage

The heat is on! Pressure, pressure, pressure! The pressure is coming from the need to dramatically increase coverage for B-B-E's upcoming fall musical!

You can read more and order tickets by clicking here: https://tinyurl.com/434j7e75. At that web article at the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website, you can order tickets in advance and select your own seats! Let's show our support and fill up Olson Auditorium for all three shows!!!

The student cast numbers 17 strong, and so far the newspaper has only provided coverage of four of them. The next 2 weeks will be loaded with musical coverage including interviews of the remaining 13 cast members. Oh Boy!

My Monday night became consumed by an incredible police standoff in Belgrade after 7 p.m. tonight. You can read more about that on The Voice website: https://tinyurl.com/2k7kms4d. So much for ramping up musical coverage tonight! Yikes! That will have to wait until tomorrow.

NOTICE to the community:
The B-B-E Jaguar Wrestling Club is seeking another community group or organization to take on the community can trailer responsibilities in Belgrade, Brooten, and Elrosa starting in January of 2024. Can trailers will be discontinued at the end of 2023 if nobody is willing or able to take on this responsibility. To inquire or if you have any questions, please contact 320-250-4166.