Another breeze with a school referendum?

Our heart and soul, right?

Next week is when we send our MAHS seniors beyond their local public school experience. It is such an abrupt transition. After years and years of being beholden to the public school rules and standards, it simply ends. 

How often in your life have you been asked if you have a high school diploma? Or to prove you have one? Do you even have the physical document in a place you'd remember? 

There is another school referendum on the horizon. Shall we assume it will breeze right through? That has been typical in recent decades. So automatic. The whole landscape for such things must be profoundly different from when I was young. I have been in Morris since the start of the '60s, and it was nothing short of agonizing for a long time to get a school referendum passed. There was the notorious proposal that included a pool. 

KCMT TV sent a reporter here to interview some students. I believe they were seated cross-legged in the grass outside. Sad to reflect on the sense of division that arose in our otherwise peaceful community. I remember one of the kids telling the TV person "people just don't know what they are doing when they vote no." 

I experienced "split shifts" here in Motown. That term alien for you? Morrissites of my vintage will readily remember, I presume. The "shifts" scheme was to accommodate a shortage of space and facilities to handle us all. Such were the student numbers, we had the grades 1-3 elementary school in west Morris. It was let go for school purposes long ago. The name "Longfellow" is still on the front. I am reminded on those Sundays when I attend Faith Lutheran which is across the street. 

Imagine a schoolyard there full of kids. I don't even have to close my eyes to remember. I was in Mrs. Peterson's third grade class when word came of JFK's assassination. I remember her being called into the commons area briefly. She returned with the grim demeanor of having learned of tragedy. I don't remember if we were excused immediately. 

I do remember that for the next several days, "TV news" really came at us as a major institution. It found its legs. My father and I were watching live when Oswald was shot. Dad was seated on a hassock very close to the TV, me on the davenport. 

The image of Longfellow with its burgeoning youth population surely fades. We have been through a lot since then. Whereas conflict over school referendums has almost disappeared, this isn't to say there cannot be conflict. In fact my first ten years of being a full-time employee of the newspaper seemed almost a nightmare. That time period concluded with a mess of controversy and conflicts. 

Why the intensity of the conflict? You might say it was a philosophical conflict and these can be nasty by their nature. A well-known local citizen and sports parent informed me of the surrounding small towns having an "unbelievably negative" view of the Morris school. I won't type his name here but he was a respected person. I'm not talking about Morris' periodic mayor of that era, a fine person but who grated on many within the school system. 

The source who I cite said the perception of Morris extracurricular was that it was being managed "like an extension of phy ed class." Nothing terribly disastrous about phy ed class I suppose. But when you sign up to be in extracurricular sports, there is a model you have to accept. Like it or not, the system is set up to reward winners and to leave losers feeling disconsolate. Lose in the post-season and you're done. Win and you get showered with attention and trophies. 

That's pretty graphic. And real. 

At present things look basically fine. Little issues inevitably arise now and then. I think that with all the attention showered on women's basketball now, standards for judging teams will get nudged higher. I feel our girls basketball team has been under-performing but we'll see with the new coach next year. 

I have expressed skepticism about the softball complex as a facility. I feel its accommodations for fans are grossly insufficient. Just an opinion. Maybe the idea is to just watch on YouTube. 

I wonder if our newspaper gets pressure to try to upgrade what it does on its website. I mean for sports updates. I'll eat my hat if they don't get complaints about this. The print version comes out only once a week. Check the website and it's almost devoid of MACA sports updates. Plenty of UMM, that's for sure. If I was still at the paper and had to answer for this, I'm certain I would be dealing with explosive anger. 

A former MAHS administrator was known to vent quite badly over alleged shortcomings. He insisted that a Tuesday game absolutely had to be covered in full in Thursday's paper. It's harder than you think. We were trying to cover a lot of ground. 

How much do people care now? 

Well there's another school referendum upcoming. The magic date is August 13. Hey, right around fair time! That puts everyone in a good mood? A mood for spending? Are y'all getting more concerned about inflation? I realize that virtually any referendum is a slam dunk for passage here these days. 

You must remember that school representatives can always cite a list of reasons for needing more money. They act incredulous if you try to challenge any of this. It won't matter for August 13 because I'm sure this will be another vote that passes routinely. It has been the norm in Morris for a long time. Fewer people are around who remember the '60s. We can theorize that back then, too much money had to be provided locally as opposed to getting boosts from the state. 

Didn't Wendell Anderson's "Minnesota Miracle" do the turnaround on this? Poor Wendell, his political career suddenly crashed and burned when he appointed himself to the Senate. No redemption after that. He became such a total has-been, he had to settle for accepting a spot on the U of M board of regents. A similar scenario happened with long-time high-profile legislator Dean Johnson who got in trouble with the state's supreme court. Who was telling the truth in that matter? I actually think it's a good bet that Johnson was telling the whole truth. But one of the robed people had apparently said something out of school that wasn't meant to go public. So the court had no choice but to "deny." 

The rest is history with Johnson landing on the regents. An "island of misfit toys?" Well that's an exaggeration I guess. 

I personally would like to see the Minnesota legislature do more hands-on supervision of the state's higher education. Instead they delegate to people who can be "glory hounds." Remember Jesse Ventura going back and forth with Yudof when Yudof was U president? There is nothing wrong with playing a little hardball with the education types. 

I once read that your typical resident of an outstate Minnesota community views the local public school as a "money pit." 

So our school at present wants to improve various things. Well of course they do. So we'll vote yes. At the same time, we have an aggrieved faculty. Pay and benefits not good enough, they assert. 

We hardly knew ye, Blake

We have lost our activities director to rival Minnewaska. Huh? Sharon Martin has resigned. I heard the Hancock band director is leaving for BBE. I hear the C-A band director resigned even though she has tenure. I don't know the entire backstory but the situation seems unsettled. 

We have a rock with our Morris band program, Ms. Dagen. I think she'll want to continue directing here for as long as she can stand on the podium. I'm sorry I missed her ice cream concert on Monday. Sometimes I worry about being present at school activities as an older man (getting older continually) with no known family connection to the school. I'm not a grandparent. Maybe I was just in a bad mood. I'm sure the concert was wonderful. 

I remember photographing Principal Bill Kehoe when he was a C-A Spartan.

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