The School, a Skunk, the Woodpile, and Dynamite

Loonfoot Falls schools, like the small town they live in, are quite up-to-date. They've got motivational posters on the walls, and the ‘no guns allowed’ sign at the doors.

It wasn't always that way.

A few generations back, it wasn't unusual to see a hunting rifle or three sitting in the corner of classrooms. This is a rural area, and bringing a rifle in the morning saved time if they planned to hunt after school.

There wasn't any trouble with the guns.

Dynamite, though: That was a problem, once.

This was back when the school was heated with wood stoves, which meant having a wood pile outside, against the back wall.

A skunk had wandered into the grounds behind the school. Trying to shoo it away, they chased the skunk into the wood pile.

The kids weren't able to dislodge the critter.

One of the youngsters had an idea. His family had been removing stumps: So he ran home, returning with dynamite, blasting cap, and a fuse.

He alerted the other students, who withdrew to a sensible distance, set the charge, lit the fuse, and backed off.

Less than a minute later, the skunk was gone. As well as the wood pile and the paint from that side of the school. The student had slightly over-estimated the size of the charge needed.

Nobody was hurt, but the young demolitions expert and several other students were put to work, painting the back of the school. Which might violate today's child-labor laws.

Back to School: Waking and Sleeping

I wasn't one of those students who seem to live for exams and who react to pop quizzes like most of us react to snow days. On the other hand, by and large I enjoyed being a student.

By and large.

I went to college right after high school. It seemed like a good idea at the time: Maybe it was, maybe not.

The biggest change for me was the new set of routines. Or, rather, lack of routines. Like having huge blocks of time between classes - and being able to plan how I'd fit a job, classroom sessions, and homework around my free time. Or maybe it was the other way around. Learning about priorities took me a while.

I still get dreams about being in college. Generally, it's a day after the deadline for changing or dropping classes. I realize that I've forgotten about one of the classes I signed up for; it's too late to drop the class; I can't even remember which building it was in.

Or I can't find the instructor's office. That actually happened to me once.

Yes, there are worse fates than forgetting your locker combination.

Mysteries of the High School Senior School Supply List

Classes start the day after Labor Day here in Sauk Centre. That gives families with seniors one week to stock up on everything from a dozen #2 pencils to one package of mechanical pencil leads.

The pencil leads I understand, since mechanical pencils are on the list. Why three mechanical pencils, I've no idea.

Maybe, in principle, a student could take twice as many notes by holding one pencil in each hand. But three?!

Another minor mystery on the list is item 15: one package of pencil crayons. I checked in Valderrama: and they've got three sorts of packages in stock: with 12; 16; and another with a different set of 12 colors. A little more research, and I discovered that the first 12-count package was the one for school use.

Maybe which sort of pencils the school wanted is obvious to shoppers: it wasn't to me.

One thing that even a bachelor like me understands is part of the sixth item on the list: one package of washable felt markers.

I may be the reason they added the word 'washable' to that item. During my senior year, I had a second-period class at one end of the school, with my third-period class at the other end. One day, I stuck the markers in my pocket without capping one.

Which of the four available sorts of washable felt markers the school wants seniors to get? I suggest asking someone at the store: They'll probably have figured that out by now.

Loonfoot Falls Graduation Day: 2010 - and an Informal Poll

It's graduation day: Families of the graduating seniors have been stocking up on helium-filled Mylar balloons and plastic plates at the Valderrama, down by the Interstate; Graduates are renting or borrowing graduation gowns - and, in some cases, learning the school song; the school's custodial staff is lining up rows and columns of folding chairs; and everybody has Memorial Day weekend on their minds.

Last week I wrote about the unique method Loonfoot Falls High School has for determining the day of its graduation ceremony. I've wondered if part of the idea was to give the graduating seniors a three-day weekend to celebrate in.

But that's speculation.

Folks who aren't involved in the High School's graduation are getting their fishing tackle ready, making sure their boat is seaworthy (or, in our case lakeworthy), or getting a rummage sale ready.

Rummage sales are a fairly important part of the Loonfoot Falls cultural scene. I haven't read any serious study of them, but I've seen the social and economic value of the institution. Which is a fancy way of saying that Loonfoot Fallers enjoy getting together on someone's driveway, or in the garage, to talk and get a little shopping done.

By the way, there's been some debate over what people who live in Loonfoot Falls should be called. I've used "Loonfoot Fallers" most of my life: but we're called everything from Loonies to Loonfeet. The Loonfoot Falls Chronicle-Gazette is conducting an informal, unscientific, poll to determine which names are most popular.

Graduation Ceremonies, History, Ducks, and a Rock

For generations, Loonfoot Falls High School has had its commencement exercise on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, or the next Wednesday. Each year the day is determined by an equation that fills two pages of the superintendent's manual.

The real mystery, though, is why the LFHS graduation ceremony is so late: long after classes are over and paperwork filed for the school year.

One story is that the ceremony was tied to the Memorial Day Weekend during the Great Depression, as a way to give people with strapped finances an excuse for not taking a trip. It's a good story, but there's no evidence to back it up.

Another account, first published in the 1920s when this paper was the Gazette, tells that the school principle, Mr. Herschel Thornton, lost his wife to pneumonia in May of 1919, and accompanied her body to Boston for burial.

As a mark of respect, the Class of 1919 delayed their graduation ceremony until Mr. Thornton returned. I checked: there was a Mr. Herschel Thornton serving as principal in 1919, and school records show that the spring 1919 graduation ceremony was delayed to late May.

But that doesn't explain why, generations later, Loonfoot Falls High School graduates wait to receive their diplomas until late May or early June: or why the date of the ceremony depends on such things as how many ducks are seen on Mosquito Flats and the date on which a five-pound rock breaks through the ice on Loonfoot Lake.

Daring Derik Dragon Returns?

You've probably already read about the statue that's been proposed for the school. Or maybe Railroad Park. Or the fairgrounds. Or someplace else.

Or Loonfoot Falls may not get its dragon at all. The City Council will talk about it, again, next week.

I hope it's built.

Loonfoot Falls is a bit remarkable for being a Minnesota town without its own oversize sculpture of a crow, otter, prairie chicken, walleye, lumberjack, bear, pike, or muskie. There's even one showing a grasshopper the size of a terrier, shishkabobbed on somebody's pitchfork. And yes: I know. Muskies are a kind of pike.

That punctured grasshopper, I understand, dates back to a gag made up in the fifties: and doesn't have much to do with the nineteenth century grasshopper plague. Which was no joke at all.

I've gotten off track. Back to that dragon statue.

Folks in town have been talking about building another Loonfoot Dragon, ever since Daring Derik Dragon burned down, back in 1986. Derik was made of fiberglass, steel, and cardboard. Quite a lot of cardboard, apparently.

It's been a sore point with some folks here that Frazee rebuilt their turkey statue: but we're still dragonless.

The statue Albert Graff showed the council this week is small enough to fit on a trailer: a design requirement since be on the road from time to time as a high school mascot, or appear in parades.



Mr. Graff assured the council that his Derik wouldn't have a shred of cardboard in him.

Frankie and the Ferret Whisperer

First grader Jamie Johnson thought it'd be a fine idea to bring Frankie the Ferret to show and tell last week. Jamie's teacher, Frances Robinson, had brought her dog, Mr. Frizz, to class earlier in the year, and Jamie figured that if they liked an Affenpinscher, his classmates would love a ferret.

Jamie was right. About two dozen first-graders mobbed Frankie before Mrs. Robinson restored order.

And discovered that Frankie wasn't in his carrier.

And, apparently, wasn't in the classroom, either.

Mrs. Robinson, partly out of consideration for Jamie, and partly because the school had a zero-tolerance policy for unsupervised animals, called the office.

About two hours later a ferret whisperer arrived. By helicopter.

Actually, it was a wildlife specialist from the Minnesota DNR. He was under the impression that we had spotted a black-footed ferret.

I think I see how the false alarm happened. The DNR wanted, and got, a description of Frankie. Frankie's color pattern is the usual 'sable:' whitish muzzle, a sort of dark mask, and dark paws.

The black-footed ferret's an endangered species. Minnesota wasn't part of its old range. No wonder the DNR got excited.

And had asked that the school be evacuated. Which it was.

George Winters (he's the DNR ferret man) was a good sport about the false alarm, after he realized that they were looking for the sort of ferret you can get at a pet store.

He finally found Frankie: on Mrs. Robinson's desk, eating her corned beef on rye lunch.

Loonfoot Falls Schools: Yes, the Students Get a Map

School's starting soon. From the Valderrama down by the Interstate to Coalworth's, stores have shelves full of pencils, pens, paper, and all the rest. The school building's wall hides final preparations for fall classes.

I don't know if a town's school building tells you something about the town, but I do know that towns have different sorts of schools.

Watab's school, for example, was planned and built as a unified whole: two-story lobby and all.

Loonfoot Falls' school buildings grew in a more impromptu manner.

Work started on the oldest part of the present school complex in the summer of 1908.

The old Chester A. Arthur building still looks about the same as it did a hundred years ago: from the outside. Inside, it's gone through a major remodeling twice: once in the forties, adding a new heating system and insulation; and again in 1999, mostly to remove asbestos.

Until the fifties, elementary students used the first floor and high schoolers had the second: a simple, neat arrangement. Then elementary classes were moved to a new building, an auto shop grew out of the back of the old school, and the Polk Middle School went up next door.

The latest development is the new JFK high school building, more or less behind the middle school.

If you think that sounds complicated, you're not alone. The student manual has a map of the school inside: and I've heard that a few students get lost around the start of each school year.

The Class of Bent Twigs

Graduation week's over, here in Loonfoot Falls. The high school graduation was a week ago, the elementary school had their commencement exercise Wednesday, and families are settling back into a routine.

So are stores in town: Finkle's Jewelry's 'class ring alternatives' catalog is gone for the year; Deuce Hardware has fishing tackle where the 'Congratulations Graduate' party supplies were; and Coalworth's swapped out their graduation paraphernalia for an array of sun hats, bagged charcoal, and insect repellent.

The school's quieter, now, but not quite empty. There's summer school, an adult education program and community events like toy shows, and craft fairs.

This year's high school graduation ceremony was covered elsewhere in the Loonfoot Falls Chronicle-Gazette. I think it's safe to say, though, that it doesn't match the ceremony that showed the Class of 1969 out the door.

The valedictorian that year was David Schmidt. Reminiscences by his classmates showed that he had a less-than-somber attitude toward ceremony and protocol. He had, for the crowning of the homecoming queen, sailed an envelope containing the judge's decision a clear twenty feet. Accidentally, he insists to this day.

That graduation day, standing at the podium, in academic cap and gown, young Mr. Schmidt intoned a familiar quote from "The works of Alexander Pope," 1822:

" 'Tis education forms the common mind;
Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclin'd."

He bowed his head briefly: moved, perhaps. Then he ran his eyes over the audience and began his address: "My fellow bent twigs...."

Manda LaFleur: Retiring Art Teacher Looking Forward With a "Quiet Country Sunrise"

Manda LaFleur, art teacher at Loonfoot Falls schools for over thirty years, is retiring this spring. Although her lava lamp and dreamcatcher will be gone from the old art room, she'll be remembered.

Every art class she taught saw a short video that showed 3,000 years of art set to music, at twelve images per second. It was called, reasonably enough, "3,000 Years of Art." Manda LaFleur explained, "a fully conscious, linear, ideation of the creative gestalt is unnecessary if imagery and sound combine to form a visceral appreciation."

I'm not quite sure what she meant, but I left her class more excited about art than I was when I started: and that film helped.

Manda believed that there was more to art class than helping students learn how to make melting letters and brightly-colored paisley patterns. "I wanted students to open their minds to new experiences, new images, new ways of looking at the world," she explained. "It doesn't matter if society labels them as artists, as long as they can reach inside themselves and draw out some of what they find."

Even so, some of her students did get labeled as artists, including interior designer Dillon Johnson and sculptor Andrea Nelson. About Nelson's four-foot mosquito, Manda would only say, "it's quite an appropriate display for that setting."

Manda LaFleur looks forward to an active retirement, becoming a more active member of the Asclepias Society and devoting more time to her own art, like this work: "Quiet Country Sunrise."

Congratulations, Class of 2008: We'll Never Forget You

Congratulations to the Loonfoot Falls seniors who form the graduating class of 2008. After the graduation ceremony at 7 p.m. tonight in the High School gym, this class will make their mark in the world, as they have already made their mark in Loonfoot High School.

This class is outstanding in academics, art, and athletics. But, more importantly, they are good people and fine citizens. Thanks to their efforts, the back wall of Loonfoot High’s auto shop has been completely repaired. The leaders, movers, and doers of the Class of 2008 made the 2007-2008 school year a memorable and exciting year for everyone who knew and worked with them.

The Loonfoot Falls School District has a long tradition of naming its buildings and sites after presidents: from the old Arthur Athletic Field, to Polk Middle School. This tradition continues, as Loonfoot Falls prepares to open an expanded high school building next fall.

After appealing to the public for a name, the Loonfoot Falls School Board asked elementary students who had participated in History Week for ideas. There were two rules: the president had to be deceased, and the name could not have been used before in the Loonfoot School District.

Loonfoot Falls’ young scholars provided four names: James Buchanan, Rutherford B. Hayes, John F. Kennedy, and Herbert Hoover. Students in grades five through 12 voted, and selected John F. Kennedy.

Shop instructor Einar Johnson expects to make a full recovery, and plans to return to teaching next year.