Our public school "nomenclature"

The new high school sports season always requires a little re-orientation. Get the cobwebs out, pay attention. For example, remember that MACA tennis is actually "MACA/WCA tennis." So it all stands for "Morris Area Chokio Alberta West Central Area." Which is not the way people would want to identify it as a routine matter. 

IMHO some of these strung-out school names or abbreviations should maybe be put aside? A new approach for terminology?

I have suggested in the past that maybe the area-wide schools just be identified with the name of the town where the high school is located. I suppose that many years ago there were town pride issues that would bubble up. In an earlier time there were more mom and pop businesses. That lent itself to greater provincialism. Actually I think the contrast with today is marked. 

Today I don't think anyone would much care. Today so many businesses merely have "managers" - e.g. bank branch managers - who answer to people elsewhere, maybe a long ways away. Compare that to when the local bank presidents were such paternalistic local icons! I have heard people say the new way is better. 

Let's simply refer to our local tennis team as "MACA/WCA." Some people will need a reminder what "WCA" stands for. Actually "West Central Area" is kind of a presumptious name because that school certainly does not cover all of West Central Minnesota! Far from it. But life goes on - we adapt as we always must. 

My newspaper career extends back to when I wrote about the Hoffman-Kensington Patriots who did great things in football. I interviewed their coach Keith Swanson some. Quite exciting times. But times change. Rural Minnesoa became depopulated to an extent. It used to be that every little town had its own football and basketball teams. Nothing stays the same. 

I heard someone at a public forum say once that "UMM would not be created today," based on the depopulation trend. Isn't it true that when UMM first came into existence, it was primarily to serve this immediate area of the state? 

I'm happy with UMM students from wherever they come from. Chicago suburbs? Fine with me. But this was not how UMM was minted. 

 

Echoes of PPD

The welcome picnic for the new UMM year was held Monday night at East Side Park. Reminded me of how the park looked during the old Prairie Pioner Days. Why do we have to say "old?" Talk about times changing. 

Morris was not even able to save face as it retreated from the old midsummer festival. I still can't believe that it happened. I openly promoted PPD at the start, was thus guilty of some "media bias." I had that tag placed on me at times. Our public school went through spasms of mediocrity in the 1980s, and I was not a patient soul about it. Crucify me? Eventually that probably happened. It happened long after the school problems were essentially solved. 

I had picked up baggage. So when certain people saw an opening to criticize me, it was full-throttle. This becomes relevant when looking back at the UMM goalpost incident of 2005. If you need reminding, a student was killed. Various people thought afterward that I was the issue. That was a red herring. I would argue that I was faultless anyway. 

But when political-type biases enter the picture, people can get so crazy. I found that local people who were associated with the so-called "academia" could be like wild dogs going on the attack. When people are that defensive, I think it should tell you something. And my God, they could be mean.

The public school teachers union was a catalyst in the profound discomfort. You had to bend over backward and kiss their whatever just to be considered as objective or unbiased. I could not do that. 

My newspaper career lasted 27 years anyway. Unfortunate that it had to end when it did. The company that owned the paper when I left gave up on this community anyway. A very well-placed source informed me that Forum Communications was going to close the Morris paper. It's so easy to believe that. An unfeeling non-local business at least, with non-local ownership. The ownership is always the key - they hold all the cards. 

Sue Dieter

I have a theory that the paper's manager - I won't say "publisher" - at the time, Sue Dieter, knew about the closure intentions and kept it to herself. Then the word may have spread among Morris community leaders about what was afoot. And then, resentment may have built toward Sue. 

Someone told me that after I left the paper, Sue told the staff that things would be better with me gone. So after years of putting aside commitments that I might have made in my private or personal life, so as to fulfill obligations for the paper, everything just crashed and burned. I'm sure many of us can tell sob stores from our lives. Largely we keep this stuff under wraps. 

Sue was at the UMM welcome picnic. Seems she gets larger every time I see her. Her hiring at UMM just added to the bureaucracy out there IMHO. The institution should invest in programs and people and not in administration, bureaucracy or PR. The institution ought to be able to sell itself. Maybe it can't. 

I will say the food was good at the picnic. I commented to Erin Christensen that there ought to be some entertainment from the Killoran stage. My mind is way too busy for this town, isn't it? The city should tear that thing down - it costs the city $ to maintain it, and it gets almost zero use. Look at the aluminum bleachers around it too. What is all that there for? The Morris Community Church used to have services there in the warm weather months. That was nice. Then the Morris Community church went kaput. 

Will the overall town of Morris fare better? Will UMM fare better? I'm not sure.

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com