By Pauline Engelby
During my first years as a Mini-School teacher, I was working in the trip room and I came across a box of t-shirts. Printed on them was the quotation, “We, the unwilling led by the unqualified, have been doing the unbelievable for so long with so little, we now attempt the impossible with nothing”. I was proud to be part of Mini-School the strong sense of history and pride in achieving important things for kids. I saw the same pride in the kids’ faces whenever they returned from a particularly strenuous trip or accomplished their graduation goals. This pride is the thing that makes Mini-School unique. Anyone that has been involved with the program as a student, parent, secretary, teacher, or supportive friend understands this pride. As another year comes to an end I find myself taking inventory and I see that same pride in the faces of our graduating seniors. Mini-School pride is as strong today as it was thirty-two years ago.
Soon we will be acknowledging these accomplishments as well as many others at our annual recognition ceremony. Many of our seniors are especially looking forward in anticipation to the upcoming graduation events, including the pomp and circumstance at Northrop Auditorium. Others will struggle through the final days facing physical and mental challenges of summer school classes, or trips such as the Wilderness challenge and the Superior Hiking Trip. I sincerely hope these final days are remembered fondly in the years to come.
Mini-School staffers have been hard at work these past few months making final plans for this year and preparing for next year. I am sorry to report our secretary Kim Wiemer will be leaving us at the end of the year. Kim has been part of the staff for the past two years and has been a dream come true. The kids know her as the lady in the office always with the friendly smile and an ear to lend. The staff will find it difficult to replace her efficiency, insight, and friendship. She will be missed by all of us as she goes on to her new life across the border in Wisconsin. We wish you good luck on your new adventure.
Paul Gerten “the new trip guy” has reportedly been in the wilderness with students for a total of forty days (and forty nights) this year with many of Mini-School’s brightest and bravest. He most recently returned from the annual spring Boundary Waters Trip with eight students including Megan Burns, Jake Stumme, Jake Rutstien, Tom Mason, Mark Lewis, John Shannon, Tyler Rouse, and Kate Muir, oh yeah and Jackson the dog. Shortly before the trip to the BWCA Paul led a group of twelve students along with Doug Berg “the old trip guy” down the Green River in Utah. The group of eleven included Andrew Beddor, Joe Morseth, Carl Poulsen, Monica Duperre, Dustin Mencel, Tamara Roberts, Andrew Bernstien, April Brown, Marc Cohen, Lindsay Klug, Jared Yount. The group was out for eighteen days seeing the sights of the southwest including a study of the Pueblo and Anasazi Indians, and ending with an eight-day canoe trip through Canyonlands National Park. When Paul isn’t out on trips you can find him in the classroom, teaching students about American History or in the gym playing an animated game of dodgeball.
To add to the Mini-School itinerary of spring trips Merlin “Mer” Zimmerman was experiencing the Badlands of the Dakotas with Jenny Blankenship, Megan Burns, Jake Rutstien, Chris Korolchuk, Kate Muir, Jennifer Pettit, Jake Stumme, and Monica Duperre. Some highlights of the trip included numerous buffalo sightings, and the visiting with the sculpture guy Wayne Porter they met somewhere along the freeway in South Dakota.
Merlin has also been hard at work this year drumming with the Minnesota Pipes and Drums in numerous pipe band competitions around the US and Canada. Merlin was also sighted in the St. Patrick’s Day parade in St. Paul and at the Macalester College Highland Fair sporting the latest in kilt fashion.
Ramona has been diligently working with her math students trying to complete their graduation standards in what we fondly call “the pool room” (which, by the way has nothing to do with leisure swimming). Nathan Schwartz, Jenna Bergman, Shane Pelino, and Jennifer Pettit have been spotted building their final projects to the precise scale. She has also been hard at work leading us through the maze of state sanctioned ALC rules along with numerous other coordination responsibilities. She also helps the Mini-School staff keep on track with a combination of new ideas and old traditions.
Much of my year has been spent working with kids on their graduation plans and goals. I have picked up where Randy Nelson left off by guiding students through their graduation requirements. Keeping track of students’ standards has certainly added an element of complexity to the process. What I enjoy the most about this part of my job is that I get an opportunity several times a year to sit down with kids and talk to them one to one about their goals and desires for the future. When I’m not meeting with students I am in the classroom teaching things like the physics of motion to kids like the Sass brothers Rob and Bill, Ryan Sterns, Dan Johnson, or Nikki Huddleston and Monica Williams.
I also am facilitating the newly reorganized Teen Issues Group, formerly known as Women’s Issues. Mini-School has a long tradition of providing support groups for its students and last year the Mini-Women decided that it was discriminatory to not include both genders in our group. We have adopted new members Tyler Rouse, Brett Bauman, Josh Zelazny, and Shane Pelino. Congratulations boys and breaking through the glass ceiling.
Looking forward into the coming year we are anticipating the return of many of our veteran students as well as thirty-some new students. Graduates will enter into colleges, and jobs, creative educational plans are in the works for returning seniors, new curriculum will be developed, trips will be planned. I know that we will have some successes, make some mistakes, wipe some tears, but most of all we will continue the tradition of developing pride in young Mini-School men and women.