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Steeke, Sanford named to state bowl team
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FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016
Bowman Co. NDSU sees new face
Scranton school takes aim at student writing skills with unique new program: Step Up to
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Writing
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REVOLUTION By BRYCE MARTIN
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2016 Election coverage on our website. Visit The Pioneer’s website at www. bowmanextra.com/ election.
Your vote, their words
Q&A with candidates for Bowman city commission
Pioneer Editor
Scranton is burgeoning a revolution. Karyn Chiapella is helping to lead students and teachers down a path towards successful writing skills with a unique approach to ultimately encompass much of southwest North Dakota. At its foundation, Step Up to Writing has a simple concept — but as students progress through grade levels, they learn additional components that make their writing and organizational skills more complete and functional. Chiapella, who has a PhD from Wayne State University in Michigan, is a certified trainer of the approach to teaching writing, which was created in 1999 by Maureen Auman. The Scranton students were struggling with writing and one day Chiapella, a paraprofessional at Scranton Public School, overheard a fellow teacher explaining that she was beginning to implement a program called Step Up to Writing. She was floored, having become a trainer of the program. Last August the school held a two-hour introductory course to the program — and it received a 100 percent buy-in from the teachers and administrators, thus
Election 2016
By BRYCE MARTIN Pioneer Editor
can be used with any curriculum. “Our kids have struggled with going from class to class and ev-
The following questions and answers mark the first part of The Pioneer’s engagement with the candidates for public office across the county. There are four candidates for the Bowman City Commission, with two seats left vacant by Mike Sondeland, who’s not seeking re-election, and Chuck Whitney, who is vacating his seat to run for commission president. The four candidates, Sonia Campbell, Ryan Shear, Dan Peterson and Myron Vail, were each asked to respond to the same questions.
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Gretchen Flatz, left, a science teacher at Scranton School, was a self-proclaimed poor writer until she learned the concepts of Step Up to Writing. She displays some of her students work using Step Up to Writing. (Pioneer Photo by Bryce Martin) began Scranton’s writing “revolution.” Step Up to Writing is a multisensory writing process that uses a common object as its founda-
tion: a stoplight. It uses sticky notes, graphic organizers and word lists to help students focus more clearly on what they’re writing and the subject matter. And it
Bowman museum welcomes new administrator By BRYCE MARTIN Pioneer Editor
Hettinger native Jean Nudell has recently become the new face of the Pioneer Trails Regional Museum. The Bowman museum welcomed Nudell as its replacement for Lori Nohner, who left late last year for another position in Minnesota, but tweaked the position’s title. Serving now as museum administrator, Nudell is picking up where Nohner left off in her pursuits to make the museum a stand out in the state. Voted one of the best historical
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Pioneer Trails Regional Museum Administrator Jean Nudell, who was hired in April, stands in her favorite space of the museum, the archives room. (Pioneer Photo by Bryce Martin)
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attractions in North Dakota, the Pioneer Trails Regional Museum has become a hidden gem for tourists and the local community. Realizing this, Nudell has made her current focus to bring the museum’s gift shop into the present, even adding some branded products like sweatshirts, water bottles and candy bars. She will also be giving a big push on social media to promote the museum, with constant engagement with the public through the museum’s Facebook page. There’s also a new Instagram account. “We’ve got a lot of Instagram followers ... it will spread to grab people who are hopefully traveling
SOLA: Music is a gift that lasts a lifetime
through,” she said. Nudell, 26, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business and English from Jamestown College. She received her master’s in library and information science from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. After her education, she discovered she wasn’t much of a “city girl,” and moved back to southwest North Dakota. She found out through her aunt that the position at the museum was available. She previously worked at Dakota Buttes Museum in her hometown of Hettinger, which she called her favorite summer job.
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