BPHS Baseball Team Backed Into Corner
BPHS Graduate Photos and Plans Pages 7-10
Many Tigers Qualify for State Track Meet Page 17
Page 17
ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FOURTH YEAR
BELLE PLAINE, MINNESOTA, JUNE 3, 2015
75¢ SINGLE COPY
NUMBER 23
Class of 2015 Set to Commence
Peter and Allison Jacobson and their family are leaving their jobs with the Belle Plaine School District to teach in an American school in India.
B.P.’s Jacobsons Headed to a Different World to Teach, Learn Teachers, Parents Prepare for Life in India
They are at a point in their lives when it’s time to put their children and each other first. The next performance will be on the other side of the world. But for Allison and Peter Jacobson, they aren’t telling their friends goodbye, but rather, they’ll see them later.
The Jacobsons are leaving Belle Plaine for teaching positions at an American International School in Chennai, India. Allison will teach English as an additional language to elementary-schoolers. Peter will teach media science. Earlier this year, the Belle Plaine School Board OK’d a five-year leave of absence for the couple. They are required to notify the school district early in the calendar year if they plan to return for the following year. The Jacobsons have been in Belle Plaine since the 2004-05
school year. They came from Blooming Prairie, Minn. and needed little time fitting in to the community. Allison is a high school English teacher. Peter taught English and media studies for most of his tenure in Belle Plaine and until last year worked with the school’s budding technology initiative. He is, in the words of Superintendent Kelly Smith, one of the district’s “early adopters.” Allison Jacobson is well
Jacobsons
(continued on page 12)
Engineer Reports to Council That Overpass Plans Are Progressing In the Belle Plaine City Council’s packet Monday night was an update from City Engineer Joe Duncan on the planning process for the proposed start of construction this fall of the bridge over Highway 169 near the intersection of Country Road 3/Meridian Street. Duncan stated that the final design work is nearing completion and the layout drawing has been reviewed and approved by the Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT). Duncan added that Mn/DOT has concluded that the there be a full removal of the left turnins on Highway 169, while the right turn-ins will remain mostly as they currently exist with only a few modifications to coincide with the removal of the left turn-ins. Duncan said the overpass plans will also be submitted to
Scott County for the approval of the components associated with County Road 3. In other business Monday night, the council unanimously awarded the contract for site preparation at 702 South Meridian Street to Chard Tiling and Excavating at the low bid of $7,800. In November, the council okayed a purchase agreement with Eric and Lisa May for the acquisition of their home at 702 South Meridian Street for $277,000 for replacement housing and relocation costs. The property is part of the right-ofway for the bridge project. The city has opted to let the fire department burn down the home as part of a training exercise, which is scheduled to occur in September. Once the house is burned, the debris and basement will have to be re-
Belle Plaine Girl Scouts Hosting Hair Donation Event The Belle Plaine Girl Scout Service Unit is hosting a hair donation event at Oak Crest Elementary School Saturday, June 6, to benefit the non-profit organization, Children With Hair Loss (CWHL). The event will run from 3 to 5 p.m. Organizers are hoping for 100 or more people to donate eight inches or more of hair. Stylists are donating their time for the event. Photographers will be available to take beforeand-after pictures, a face painter, balloon animals, and other fun activities will be available. Belle Plaine Girl Scouts lead-
ers selected CWHL because they don’t charge families for wigs. However, they also provide wigs for children up to the age of 21, they treat all childhood hair loss; whether its due to an illness, or other life altering disease, they accept a minimum of eight inches of hair, and they accept color treated, permed, highlighted, or grey hair. CWHL opened in September of 2000. CWHL’s mission and goals are to never charge a fam-
Girl Scouts
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moved and backfilled in order to prepare the site for the bridge project. *Unanimously awarded the bid for the South Creek Drainage Way project to Schneider Excavating and Grading for $156,730, which is well below the city’s engineer’s estimate of $200,000. City Administrator Holly Kreft reported that following the floods of last June, the South Creek Drainage Way project was identified as a mitigation project to minimize future flooding and impacts to private property. Kreft added that a small portion of the pond north of Orchard Street was found to have slightly elevated levels of arsenic, requiring the dredged material (about 200 cubic yards) to be placed in a landfill. FEMA has awarded the city the necessary funding for the project and will also reimburse engineering costs. *Unanimously accepted the resignation of part-time police officer Allison Barrineau, who has accepted a full-time position with a private company in Vancouver, Wash. *Unanimously accepted the donation of an automated external defibrillator valued at $1,900 from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community to be used by the BPPD. *Unanimously approved large assembly and street closure permits for the Belle Plaine
Overpass
(continued on page 4)
by Dan Ruud Just weeks after the first day of kindergarten in 2002, the Belle Plaine High School class of 2015 would be forever impacted by the results of what was Belle Plaine’s largest voter turnout ever up to that time, which included a $36 millionplus school building bond referendum. Despite a long and hard campaign by the school district and members of the Facilities Improvement Task Force, all three questions of the referendum failed, the biggest being what would have provided $36 million to build and equip a new grades 7-12 high school. It failed by a vote of 1,478 yes to 1,654 no. Eventually, voters did approve a revamped referendum that provided the district with the funding to “expand” the existing high school and build a “second” elementary school to house grades 3-6. The school would become known as Oak Crest Elementary School and the class of 2015 occupied the school (as fifth-graders) when it opened in 2007. So, the class of 2015 did benefit from a spacious new building for its final two years of elementary school and an expanded building for its junior and senior high years. On the first day of school in 2002 (Sept. 3), the BPHS volleyball team, led by Cassie Wolpern and Anna Huls, swept Waconia in the season opener at the BPHS gym. Wolpern went on to break the “national” high school volleyball record for career kills later that month in Apple Valley. Not that many class of 2015 members stayed up to watch, or cared to, but the second night of their first week in kindergarten was when Kelly Clarkson won the First American Idol contest
to become known as The Original American Idol. Over 90 members of the class of 2015 are set to receive their diplomas at Sunday’s 2 p.m. ceremony in the school’s south gymnasium. Principal Dave Kreft will welcome the class and the choir will perform “Homegrown” by the Zac Brown Band. Rylee Pumper will be the student speaker. Her speech is called “Class of 2015: Writing Our Stories.” Allison Jacobson will be the staff speaker with the title of her speech being “The Things They Carried.” Belle Plaine Dollars for Scholars President Tricia Ruud will recognize this year’s scholarship recipients. School Super-
intendent Dr. Kelly Smith will present the class and School Board Chair Mike Ludvik will hand out the diplomas. The ceremony will close with the song “Anchors Aweigh.” The school had not yet publicly announced who this year’s high honor and honor students are when this edition of the Herald went to press Tuesday. The class officers for 2014-15 are President Maxwell Hughes, Vice President Alyssa Meierbachtol, Treasurer Anthony Lovejoy and Secretary Katelyn Schmit. The class song is “I Lived” by
Class of 2015
(continued on page 4)
B.P. School Board, Teacher’s Union Open Contract Talks With the level of its funding from the state during the next two years still uncertain and the board strongly considering an excess levy referendum this fall, the Belle Plaine School Board and the school district’s teacher’s union opened talks on a new two-year contract Monday (June 1) evening. The brief meeting gave both sides the opportunity to get together and exchange preliminary issues for discussion. They addressed some technical language details of the existing contract. Once ratified by the union’s rank-and-file and approved by the school board, the two-year contract (2015-16 and 2016-17) will address working conditions, the number of days teach-
ers will work, compensation and other “terms and conditions of employment,” said Superintendent Kelly Smith. Compensation (salary and benefits) for the BPEA amounts to 52 percent of the district’s $15.3 million general fund budget this year. Support staff union members earn 10.8 percent of the money in the general fund, Smith said. Talks between the school board (represented by directors Matt Lenz, Mike Ludvik, Dan Giesen and Smith) and the teachers (represented by negotiators Luke Audette, Mary Beth Rauh and Rose Simones) will continue Mondays June 29
School Board
(continued on page 18)
Sun About to Set on Meuleners’ Long High School Career, But Will Soon Rise in North Dakota by Dan Ruud Janessa Meuleners has covered a lot of ground in her six years as a Belle Plaine junior and senior high school student. That ground has included long gallops through golf courses, fields, prairies, woods and paved oval tracks, in conditions ranging from frosty to sultry. Meuleners, who graduates this Sunday, has been a member of the BPHS “varsity” girls’ cross country and track and field teams since seventh grade. In the process, she has become one of the school’s most decorated athletes of all time, earning all-conference honors in cross country all six years, including three conference championships, and qualifying for the state meet each year. She’s also qualified for state multiple times in track and field. Meuleners’ runs through the years have taken her from the ponds and agricultural fields of serene courses such as Ney Nature Center in Henderson to a stone throw away from the hustle and bustle of St. Paul’s Snelling Avenue. It will be the latter that Meuleners will wrap up her long high school running career at this Friday’s and Saturday’s state Class 1A track and field meet at Klas Field on the campus of Hamline University (next to Snelling). At this past Saturday’s section meet in Mankato, Meuleners qualified for state in three events. She won the 800-meter run and anchored the victori-
ous 4x800-meter relay team. in the Blakeley area, said her She will also compete at state most memorable cross country in the 4x400-meter relay, which Meuleners placed second at section. (continued on page 2) Meuleners, who lives on a farm
Belle Plaine High School senior Janessa Meuleners signed a letter of intent last fall to run cross country and track and field at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. Meuleners is pictured with her parents, Rob and Renee Meuleners.
Swimming Pool Opens Friday The Belle Plaine Community Swimming Pool is scheduled to open this Friday at 1 p.m. Season pool passes can be purchased for $60 ($125 for the family) at Belle Plaine City Hall, which is open extended hours through Thursday this week to accommodate buyers (see pool add inside this edition
of the Herald). There will be 2015 Pool Kick-Off Party, sponsored by Belle Plaine Festivals and Events, this Thursday from 5-7:30 p.m. There will be an inflatable water slide and more. The pool itself will not be open for this event, which is open to the public.