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Sartell Newsleader • www.thenewsleaders.com
Citizen from front page
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Pastor Doug Vagle’s family includes wife Peggy and children (left to right) Sophia, Abby and Nathaniel.
our passion and kids are our priority.” “That’s our driving force,” Vagle said. That commitment inspires Vagle, his family and congregation to extend that caring beyond the church and its members, to all who live in the Sartell area. “The mission of our church is to love God, love people and love life,” Vagle said. “So part of that mission is to live, love and serve others.” Born in Hancock, Mich., Vagle’s family moved to Minnesota when he was 2 years old. He grew up in
various places, such as Paynesville and Hutchinson and then graduated from Bloomington’s Kennedy High School. He then went on to flight school and became a commercial pilot of the Merry Maids Corp. Still later, he decided to study at North Central University in Minneapolis, where he earned a degree in Christian studies. For 10 years he was a youth pastor in Brainerd, and then he and his family moved to Sartell in 2007, where he and his wife, Peggy, founded The Waters church, an affiliate of Assemblies of God. The Vagles have three young children: Abby, Nathaniel and Sophia. About 750 to 800 people regularly attend The Waters church for weekend services, and up to 2,000 people in the area call it
Friday, April 12, 2013 their home church. In keeping with its dedication to families and children, the church offers a preschool, a nursery and a separate children’s worship service during the regular adult services. In addition, there are four youth pastors for The Waters for the teenagers and the more than 250 children ages 12 and under who attend church with their families. The church is now expanding its sanctuary area, from a 300-seat capacity to 600. The addition is expected to be completed by this September. The Waters church is located at 1227 Pinecone Road N. To learn more about The Waters, go to its website at www.thewaterschurch. net.
Knowledge Bowl team competes at state level by Dennis Dalman news@thenewsleaders.com
A Sartell High School team of five students is at Cragun’s Resort near Brainerd this week, vying for the state Knowledge Bowl championship. As of press time Wednesday, the team was expected to compete Thursday and Friday, April 11 and 12. Readers can check the results of the state meet in the April 19 edition of the Newsleader. The team and its coach left together for the meet Thursday
morning in a school van. The five competitors are Bailey Evenson, senior; Curt Koopmeiners, junior; Gopi Ramanathan, ninth-grader; Quinn Skoog, junior; and Laura Somppi, senior. Those students won Knowledge Bowl competitions at the sub-region and regional levels, which qualified them for the state tournament. Their coach is Luke Walker, who teaches ninth-grade physical science and forensic science at Sartell High School. This is his second year as Knowledge Bowl coach.
“They’re great kids,” Walker said before leaving for Brainerd. “They’re fun to be around; they’re responsible; and they’re interested in competing as well as in being knowledgeable.” In recent months, the team members and Walker did a lot of practicing, using boxes of questions from previous Knowledge Bowl competitions. The team also participated in a pre-state-competition “scrimmage” last week at St. John’s University. This is the third year Evenson and Somppi have been in state competition. As part of the previ-
ous teams, they took ninth place in those two state events. Koopmeiners, Ramanathan and Skoog are newer members of the team. The state competition involves 60 written questions for the teams on Thursday, and on Friday there are five oral rounds, with 45 questions each. Based on results of the Thursday written tests, the teams are ranked and then compete with others in various rooms at the resort. Then, according to those results, they are re-ranked as competition progresses. In competition this year are 24 teams in the large-school division,
one of which is Sartell; and there are 24 teams competing in the small-school division. The Sartell Knowledge Bowl team eked out St. Cloud Tech for first place in the Class AA Knowledge Bowl during the regional tournament held recently at Celebration Lutheran Church to earn a chance for the state championship. Sartell earned 134.5 points, just 1.5 points ahead of the St. Cloud Tech team’s 133 points. In the Class A divsion, the top winner was the St. John’s Prep School team with 112.5 points, followed by Albany with 104.