Social media

With all that's going on I think it's time for some reasonable measures be taken on social media usage. Something like a minimum age of 21, government approval of all of your posts, or maybe a permit showing you have the training on proper social media usage? We all know a great deal of bullying goes on there and how many commit suicide because of it? We all know the internet was created for military communication, and who really needs that kind of speed in communications anyway? Why not just write a letter like we did in the old days?

(Video) Heavyweight match goes to B-B-E

Shown is footage from the heavyweight match in the Section 5A semifinals this past Friday night at the B-B-E high school:


It has been a long weekend. While researching childhood suicide, I stumbled across the story of a 12-year old girl who died on January 10 of this year after committing suicide. She had been tormented in vicious, unspeakable ways via the Internet by multiple similar-aged lowlifes whose parents clearly raised them wrong. It has made me ill. Here is her obituary: http://www.heritagefhllc.com/obituaries/Gabriella-Peyton-Green?obId=2874082#/obituaryInfo.

I have much more to say about this topic!

Here's a list of area wrestling playoff scores this past weekend:
In Section 8AA at Thief River Falls, No. 10-seeded Sauk Centre-Melrose lost 37-25 in a pigtail match to No. 7-seeded United Clay-Becker. SC-M finishes the season 4-19 overall. They went 11-11 overall a year ago and competed in the Section 8AA quarterfinals. They went 15-8 two years ago and competed in the Section 8AA Final Four.

Also in Section 8AA, No. 3-seeded Pierz won 55-21 in their opener; in the semifinals, the Pioneers lost 51-18 to No. 2-seeded Detroit Lakes.

In Section 6A, state-ranked West Central Area/Ashby/Brandon-Evansville won two matches to get into the finals for the fourth year in a row. In the Section 6A finals, they suffered a 30-27 loss to No. 2-seeded Ottertail Central to finish 17-4 overall.

In Section 7A, No. 3-seeded Royalton/Upsala won 54-21 over Crosby-Ironton in their playoff opener; in the semifinals, the Royals won 42-20 over No. 2-seeded Aitkin. In the finals, the Royals lost 46-28 to No. 1-seeded Blackduck/Cass Lake-Bena.

Willmar won 31-30 in the Section 8AAA finals over Bemidji to advance to the state tournament.

Section 3A playoff scores:
Tracy-Milroy-Balaton/Westbrooke-Walnut Grove 35, Canby 22
Minneota 36, Jackson County Central 33
TMB-WWG 36, Minneota 22 (Vikings finish 18-9; Panthers take a 28-2 record into the state tournament)

Snuff out the bullying

Mr. Vos: we still miss you very much in Jaguar Country!

On the eve of the opening day of school at B-B-E for the 2016-17 year, I'd be thrilled if every parent had a conversation with their children about bullying - whether it's in the classroom, the hallways, the bus rides, the locker rooms, the phy. ed. class or any off-school setting for that matter.

While I wouldn't stand behind this statement: "Bullying is a serious problem at B-B-E" I would stand behind this comment = "Bullying is a problem at B-B-E."

I've already had personal conversations in recent days with two families whose children have experienced bullying during last school year at B-B-E. I have heard of two other situations of bullying with two other families, but that was all second-hand.

Bullying is UNACCEPTABLE behavior! 

We all need to be vigilant at rooting out this type of behavior and work daily towards making B-B-E a bullying-free school. If you are a parent of a student who is not a victim of bullying, it is WAY TOO EASY to become complacent and ignore the issue. Remind your children that they need to either step in and become involved in ending the bullying, or they need to quickly report it to a staff member at the school. (Janitor, para, teacher, principal, cook, etc.!) In today's age, where all 5th-12th graders have a school-issued computer in their hands, it's very simple to compose an e-mail and shoot it off to a staff member and report improper behavior!!!!!

Look at it another way: do you want your son or daughter to be in the center of a bullying incident, one that likely would involve the cops? One of the above-mentioned bullying stories involved cyber-bullying and social media AND the police. It took place this summer. Do you want that in your family's life?

I would say our schools are in a tough spot in the Internet age. The cyber-bullying appears like a runaway train in this country. These things often happen outside school time, yet often schools have to deal with it front and center. I have personally seen how staff at Sauk Centre and also B-B-E preach and preach until they're blue in the face pleading with kids to keep their online behavior in check. It's a constant battle.

• The photo above is a throw-back to the fall of 2012, when the late Mr. Vos (math teacher and wrestling coach) was killed in an accident. Vos was very proactive about helping students with their problems, and in many cases helped kids through difficult situations they had with other students. Let's continue honoring the memory of that great man who once blessed our hallways at B-B-E with his presence by taking steps to eliminate bullying at our school.

And parents of teenage drivers at B-B-E...while you're at it, could you talk to your son/daughter about distracted driving and/or texting while driving?

What I have below was printed on page one of the September 1 issue of the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper:

A few friendly reminders as school is set to restart in the Bonanza Valley area:

1.  Talk to your children about bullying and what to do if it happens to them or to others around them. BE PROACTIVE! Bullying should never be tolerated or condoned!

2. Talk to your children about the importance of being friendly, warm & welcoming to new students at B-B-E. Whether they’ve moved here or are open-enrolled in, their presence is vital to the health of B-B-E schools!

3. At home during the week, stress to your children the importance of “taking a break” from screen time! They get plenty of it during school.

4. Encourage your children to respect all staff members at school all day, every day! It’s just  common sense!

(Video) Critters & Company at B-B-E

Here's part of an anti-bullying presentation at the B-B-E elementary on Thursday this week:

Game notes

More is coming from tonight's important sub-section and conference win, including video and photos. Right now I'm a little busy.

I truly appreciate the perspective and point of view that others have who understand how important it is that we stand behind our school district not just with the athletic teams but with ALL aspects of the school...academic, non-academic, extracurriculars, etc. We, the citizens of Jaguar Country, should look at the big picture. If we have, for example, a bullying problem in the school that affects enrollment, how does that help our athletic programs? I'm not saying we have a bullying problem, because in my opinion, we don't...I'm actually just starting to dig into that issue and hear what students have to say about it...but if we have X, Y, Z problems in the school perhaps they should be resolved? We all want this school to be here 10, 20 and yes, 50 years from now.

And a big component of a school district is anti-bullying programs. Part of fighting bullying is the fight against baseless gossip. Hurtful gossip. Gossip that hurts the less powerful in our world. We see baseless gossip running rampant in small towns all the time. It's nothing new, and honestly it's nothing to get excited about. However, when gossip hurts people (like the gossip of "It will cost $127,000 to run a police department in Brooten") that's when others have to intervene and put an end to it. Adults need to teach children that if they hear gossip that is hurtful to another student ("Did you hear about XXXX? Yeah, I hear she XXXXXX and that he XXXXXX and ....." ok you get my point) then other students need to intervene and put an end to it!

Just five days ago I heard gossip about Chief Bjork from a citizen of Belgrade who also happens to fervently wish that he was still one of their cops. It was related to his work as a police officer. The rumor was not as ugly as that November 3 text message that set the world on fire, but the rumor was based on pure lies. I snuffed it out. And I am hopeful the person I told the true record to will turn around and tell others in Belgrade the same thing. If you are wondering, the rumor was related to an incident at the Brooten airport in the summer of 2013 where the Department of Agriculture intervened on a chemical spill incident after Chief Bjork reported what happened. The MDA did their standard investigation, and the civil penalty was applied. Chief Bjork's work was conducted by the book.

To folks with evil intent in Belgrade or anywhere else: spreading lies or rumors with the intent to hurt someone is BULLYING (and my friend was not saying it to hurt Chief Bjork but rather to get the record straightened out). Last I checked, people of all walks of life are working very hard to snuff out bullying, whether it's in the workplace or in our schools.

I have much, much more to say about this bullying issue. Stay tuned.

By the way, I was thrilled to see Officer Klingfus on duty tonight at the girls' basketball game. If you haven't had a chance to visit with him, you are missing out. He is extremely friendly. (Assuming you are not breaking the law.) No one knows how long he and his fellow co-workers will be employees of the Belgrade police department. For now, they are filling in and doing the very Christian duty of helping out their neighbors. The entire B-B-E community should tip their collective hats to them.

By now you probably know that I am extremely in favor of police coverage in our small towns and our school district. I am guessing there are people out there who are sick of hearing me talk about that. Knowing how pro-cop I am, that's not to suggest I am a perfect person. I am anything but that. I have traffic tickets on my record. Nothing to be proud of. At the same time, I don't drink. And therefore, I don't drink and drive. Ask anyone who knows me. I literally don't know when I would find time to drink alcohol if I really wanted to. The last time I was truly "drunk" was a Tuesday night in January 2005 just one day after a Holstein bull killed my dad. That was a pretty crappy time in my life. Because I don't drink, I don't have to worry about driving around town or between towns while drunk trying to avoid the cops. I wish we had less drinking and driving in this world, but that's another crusade for another day. Personally, I'd rather see a cop and know they are keeping drivers in check and remaining close by in that rare moment where a medical call goes out for a person (usually elderly) who is in distress.

I could literally spend the rest of the night writing about how an adequate police presence in our small town of Brooten is important to me. It is VERY, very important to me. Before my newspaper prints this week I will try to properly explain how important it is for my editor's column.

Getting to my main point of all this: please take a chance to say "Hello" or give a friendly wave to any police officer you see patrolling the area. They are performing an extremely difficult job. Sure, bullets aren't flying every day in our towns...it's mostly pretty quiet and perhaps at times the biggest challenge for a small town police officer is the boredom. Nevertheless, I have to emphatically state that I appreciate their work in many, many ways. Please teach your children to respect and appreciate the work of police officers (regardless of how much you like them). I truly wish we saw more of that in our country today. What would it hurt for you to show some kindness towards a cop? You never know: maybe they may happen to have a bad day that could be turned around by a random member of the public saying a warm greeting, striking up small talk or just waving like you were waving to anyone else in a small town.

Another point: watching over small-town government is rarely enjoyable. It's either extremely boring or filled with extreme small-town drama / politics. It leads to many sleepless nights. So in case anyone was getting the wrong idea, no I do not enjoy this type of drama. I literally went close to four years seeing next to nothing for "drama" while covering Sauk Centre city council matters. Then I throw myself into this. Right now my challenge is to remember that I have to get my rest. I have an obligation to the Bonanza Valley-area and my subscribers to not get burnt out, which would lead to trouble for my newspaper.

What some forget about newspapers is that when they share an opinion (through blogging or in an opinion page column) that opinion is not endorsed by other employees of the newspaper and certainly not by the newspaper's advertisers. The opinion is from the person writing it. That's it. Sure, a co-worker or the owner of that newspaper may happen to agree with it. They may disagree with it.

I remember when I wrote a large column in 2010 telling how unfit I felt Mark Dayton was for governor, the owner of the Herman-Hoffman Tribune stressed that I label the column as my own editorial and not as an editorial that would be connected to him. He didn't edit what I said. He simply wanted to make sure it was viewed as my opinion and my opinion only.

It's time to relax and reflect on God's Word and ask Him for peace and guidance:

http://www.openbible.info/topics/evil_and_wicked_people