news@westfargopioneer.com
Contact Email
History
- Member for
- 11 months 2 weeks
Author Content
A crew from Industrial Builders, Inc. volunteered manpower and the use of their equipment to help lower the barrel of the water tower located at Bonanzaville's Pioneer Village to the ground as preservation of the water tower got underway last week. As part of the preservation process, the water barrel will be scraped down and painted, and the stays encircling the barrel will be tightened. The roof will be redone in cedar shake shingles to match the water tower's original shingles. Rich Asleson, Bonanzaville's facilities manager, is excited about getting started on the project.
Over the past several months, the West Fargo School Board's Planning and Development Committee has been holding brainstorming sessions to find solutions to ease overcrowding in our schools. Board members and administrators have been carefully analyzing enrollment projections and collecting data to help the district develop short-term and long-term plans to provide more space to meet the needs of the district's ever-growing student population. The challenge to find a solution that will address growth at all levels is a complicated task.
It might have been cold outside last Saturday morning, but students and families attending the F-M Scholastic Chess Tournament on January 10, at Cheney Middle School, spent the day warm and comfortable indoors. Sixty-four students from the Fargo-Moorhead metro area, Grand Forks, and Bismarck competed in the tournament. This was the first time the tournament has been held in West Fargo. Organizers would like to see more clubs forming in West Fargo. Right now, there are chess clubs meeting regularly at South Elementary and Cheney Middle School.
The West Fargo School Board heard the first reading of proposed revisions to the district's policy on suspension and expulsion of students during the January 10 meeting held at Horace Elementary School. If approved, the policy revisions will move the responsibility of expelling students from the school board to the superintendent, with the exception of firearms violations, which would still be heard by the whole board. Under the new guidelines, the superintendent would notify the board president whenever incidents arise.
We have been getting requests from some of our readers asking us to run the agenda for school board meetings in the Pioneer before meetings so that people will know when issues will be addressed by the board. Unfortunately, the agendas are not released until Thursdays, too late to meet our deadlines. However, we will begin posting the school board agendas on our Web site at www.westfargopioneer.com prior to each meeting, and encourage residents to check for them there.
Fifth grade students at Westside Elementary School in Holly Erickson's class learned the spirit of giving recently as they made blankets to give to hospitalized children. The students made 11 blankets in cheerful red and green holiday fabrics, tying the quilts and adding finishing touches after volunteers sewed the quilt edges together with sewing machines in their homes. On the last day of school before Christmas break, the blankets were folded neatly and tied with colorful ribbons and heartwarming handwritten notes from the students.
Call them Christmas wishes, predictions or New Year's resolutions, but what could be in store for Packer fans in 2009 should be interesting. There will be plenty of storylines to keep followers of high school sports in their seats and keep Packer Backers watching Larry Lubben's generous broadcasts. There's not one Packer winter sports team that doesn't have a chance to do something special this new year. The boys basketball team has always been a great source of pride for West Fargo High.
Expect to see more from the Farkas brothers in college basketball, and I'm not just talking about current Packer hoops player Chase Farkas' prospects. Older brother Tanner Farkas, WFHS class of 2008, plays for Jamestown College as a freshman. Tanner is the fourth son of Jay and Coralie Farkas to play multi-sports for West Fargo High and move on to compete collegiately. Justin (class of 1999), Tyler ('01) and Seth ('05) all took their athletic talents to the next level. Tanner was last year's leading scorer for the Packers and was named first team all-state.
Every ten years, the United States Census Bureau is required by the U.S. Constitution to count every person residing in the United States. The count includes both residents and non-residents, and provides a snapshot look at the U.S. population, documenting how many people reside within the nation's borders, who they are, and where they live. The data collected during the census will be used to determine how many seats each state will have in the U.S. House of Representatives, and to determine how federal dollars are allocated for states and communities.
West Fargo High School students in Ruth Dockter's math classes volunteered at Great Plains Food Bank in Fargo on Thursday, Dec. 18. The students took time out from their algebra classes to lend a hand helping box groceries and re-packaging food items to be shipped to local food banks throughout the state. The two classes also held a Penny War throughout the month of December, competing against each other to raise money for an organization called Feeding America.