Nelson earns Sub-Section speech title (VIDEO)

The B-B-E Speech team hosted the Sub-Section 5A-West meet tonight at the high school. A total of 9 team members competed for spots in the upcoming Section 5A meet. Four members of B-B-E's team earned individual spots at the Section 5A meet by placing in 6th place or better.

B-B-E senior Tia Nelson won the subsection title in Great Speeches. In Drama, Eliana Funes earned third place. In Prose, Kora Martinez earned fourth place. In Poetry, Marlie Schlangen earned fourth place.

Here's a video featuring the post-meet group photo at Olson Auditorium:


The Section 5A meet is at Annandale high school on Saturday, April 12.

Tomorrow! It's a big, BIG day for the B-B-E Resistance Robotics team, as they are set for Day II of the Granite City Regional in St. Cloud. Their first qualification match is set for around 9:30 a.m.

Remember! Here's the livestream link that you can use to watch the action remotely if you cannot attend and cheer in person: https://www.twitch.tv/firstinspires5.

GAME DAY! For Robotics and Speech - and big sports news

A big day is in store for fans in Jaguar Country, with two playoff-style events taking place at home and on the road.

During the day, the B-B-E Resistance Robotics team is competing in 7 qualification matches at the Granite City Regional in St. Cloud.

For action at home, which fans are invited to, the B-B-E speech team hosts the Sub-Section 5A-West meet at the high school. The first rounds begin at 4:15 p.m.

Updates from St. Cloud...
In the first qualification match, B-B-E's Red Alliance lost a heartbreaker by a 70-66 score. It was a grueling loss. Their alliance held a 60-44 lead at the conclusion of the action, but the ranking points tipped the scales in favor of the Blue Alliance. A very tough loss to start the region tournament! Ouch.

In B-B-E's second qualification match at 10:33 a.m., their Blue Alliance won 128-54. This puts B-B-E's region record in St. Cloud at 1-1. Their alliance led 20-9 after the autonomous period, and when the clock ran to zeroes, the score was 102-50. This match's Blue Alliance included B-B-E, New London-Spicer and Detroit Lakes.

B-B-E's third match of the day is tentatively set to begin at 11:18 a.m.

FRIDAY night update from St. Cloud!
The B-B-E Resistance Robotics team had a remarkable afternoon to finish out the first day of competition at the Granite City Regional in St. Cloud. After suffering two very close losses and sitting with a 1-3 record earlier this afternoon, they picked up three straight alliance wins and have climbed from 34th place out of 48 teams up to 17th! Outstanding!

Robotics UPDATE ON FRIDAY morning...click over to the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website with this link: https://shorturl.at/ooaVT...and there you can follow more updates on the team's progress today in St. Cloud. For the newspaper's sports department, we have "wheels up" at noon to head to River's Edge and take in the last 4 matches of the day in person. It's going to be a fund day!

**Friday afternoon: B-B-E's fifth match was terrific as they earned a 103-46 win. More to come.

In breaking sports news...playoff maps are set to change in Minnesota...
There's more to digest over the weekend, but I can share this right away...the B-B-E Jaguars football team has a revamped playoff map starting next fall. With new MSHSL classifications released this week, our football team has been placed in a new Section 5A for the postseason. The 2025 season will be their first as members of Section 5A since the fall of 2008.

Section 5A football teams for the fall of 2025 and 2026:
1. Benson
2. Long Prairie/Grey Eagle
3. Upsala/Swanville Area
4. Ashby/Brandon-Evansville
5. B-B-E
6. West Central Area
7. Browerville

For the B-B-E Jaguars volleyball team, they remain in Section 6A for the playoffs. In basketball, the sections remain largely unchanged for our teams. I don't see any new additions for either of our winter basketball teams. The boys' squad remains in Section 6A, and the girls' team continues their quest for state tournaments in Section 5A. For the wrestling team, it's the same story: no major changes in Section 5A.

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.

B-B-E schools two hours late on Wednesday (VIDEO)

Due to the impending snowstorm that this area is currently experiencing, B-B-E schools are set to open 2 hours late on Wednesday, April 2. No fooling around out there! As of 9 p.m. tonight (Tuesday), we have 32 degrees and snow falling in Brooten.

Let's go back about a week...here's more from the health speaker's presentation at Olson Auditorium on March 24.

Creating a proper diet for student athletes:


Part II for the story on Danielle Rancourt's presentation will be published in this week's Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper.

Some things are just too outlandish to believe! Here's a nugget I found in the Brooten Review newspaper archives while researching Brooten high school football history. This was published in the November 9, 1939 issue of The Review.

"Not all drivers are blind: many just act that way"
Re-printed from the Grand Rapids newspaper
It is estimated that a third of the automobiles upon the highways are unsafe for many causes. Sometimes the trouble results from defective tires or brakes, but many times the difficulty is with the driver. A citizen of Grand Rapids tells the case where a car was being driven by a man, upon whose lap sat his child, about 12 years old. The man was blind or virtually so. He worked the clutch, brakes and throttle. The child steered the car, and right into an accident.

Wednesday afternoon update: B-B-E schools is closing at 2 p.m. today. The snow is becoming relentless! This was after I saw "1 to 3 inches" in the forecast earlier today.

At the Belgrade Library this Saturday afternoon...
A puzzle tournament is taking place! Gather a group of friends to form a team and get signed up! (You need to select a team name, too.) Each team receives the same puzzle, and the goal is to put the puzzle together in the shortest amount of time. This is coming on Saturday, April 5 from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Belgrade Library. Six team limit, and participants can be from ages 12 to adult. Register your team by calling the library at 320-254-8842.

Such GREAT entertainment! (VIDEO)

A rodeo is SO worth the price of admission! Tonight's show at Smilin' D Arena was NO exception to that rule!

Here's a couple tries at the Lucky Buck Bull Riding show tonight:


Smilin' D Arena in Colfax Township hosted a packed house for their second bull riding show of 2025.

Do you want to know what's coming up at the arena? Click here for their events page: https://smilindarena.com/events.

Monday afternoon update...
The B-B-E speech team will host the Sub-Section 5A-1 meet this Friday, April 4 at the high school. Round One begins at 3:45 p.m.

In other scheduling news, the varsity events for the fastpitch team have been cancelled/postponed for this week. The home game with Swanville has been rescheduled to April 25.

I'll get more in a new blog post coming on Tuesday. It looks like we'll have wind and snow creating miserable conditions on Tuesday evening by sundown.

This has been an interesting week!

We've seen some nice glimpses of spring this week. For the most part, it's been seasonable weather for late March with temperatures during the day in the 40s and 50s. The most pleasant day was Thursday, when Coach Matt Goodwin had the golf teams directed to Prairie View Community Golf Course in Brooten, where they spent time on the driving range. It was a rare feat to have the golfers on the outdoor range in March! The golf teams have also spent practice time at Lucky Shots Bowling Alley on the golf simulators.

At the elementary fastpitch facilities, the B-B-E Jaguars fastpitch team held outdoor practices all week. For the B-B-E Jaguars baseball team, they've been able to hold a large portion of their preseason practices so far on the high school JV diamond.

As it stands, it appears that the first outdoor meet for the B-B-E Jaguars track and field teams will be on Tuesday, April 8 at the home facilities in Belgrade.

Here's Coach Funk working with fly ball practice today:


As it stands, the fastpitch team's season opener for next Thursday, April 3 is "questionable" - it all depends what amounts of snow we get early next week. Snow is dominating the forecast for April 1 and April 2. Yikes!

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.

Busy Saturday includes speech in Melrose

The B-B-E speech team is in their final regular season competition of the season today at Melrose Area high school. The awards ceremony is set to begin at about 3:30 p.m. at the Marit Elliott Performing Arts Center.

Update: the high finisher for the speech team was senior Tia Nelson, who took fifth place in Storytelling.

Before it becomes too distant of a memory...here's some boys' basketball coverage. Their postseason awards will be published next week.

Here's action late in the 1st half in the playoff game on March 6 in Brandon:


With under 4 minutes to go, Luke Illies knocked down a three-pointer to extend the lead for the Jaguars to 15-6. Illies had scored 10 points by that point. His team was on fire, but the Chargers fought back to cut the deficit to 15-12. At halftime, the Jaguars led 21-15.

In other news...
Today! The Elrosa Bar and Lounge holds their Grand Opening with a complimentary lunch from 4 to 9 p.m. They have a Deejay playing music from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Smilin' D Arena in Colfax Township has a full day of action going on as well with the Wild Henky Youth Show. Busy, busy, busy!!!

On top of all that, Lucky Shots Bowling Alley in Brooten is hosting the annual Rick Thonvold Memorial Battle of the Businesses. They actually began their bowling competitions yesterday, and it continues today. Main Street in Brooten is jam packed with cars! Rick, a Brooten high school 1987 graduate. would be proud. It's been over 9 years since he passed away. His presence in the Brooten and Sunburg areas continues to be greatly missed. He passed away on March 1, 2016 at the young age of 47.

The Brooten city council's meeting agenda has been posted to the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper's editor's blog, which you can find by clicking here: https://shorturl.at/7PaOI.