The Grundy Register Serving Grundy County since 1928
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Grundy Center, Iowa
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Volume 89 – Number 36
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Community comes out in support of stricken teen By JOHN JENSEN The Grundy Register HOLLAND — Your senior year of high school is supposed to be one of the happiest, most care free times of your life. Yet for one Grundy Center High School senior, it has become anything but. The world was Hillary Samo’s oyster. An outstanding student, popular with others and a key player on the Spartans’ state championship golf team, she was looking forward to seeing her friends at school again, enjoying her final homecoming and getting ready for college next year. Then her world changed. Having been treated the previous week for bronchitis that her mother, Rhonda, feared had become pneumonia, Hillary returned to the doctor July 30. It was there that they found a mass in her chest … a mass that had not been there when she had an x-ray last spring. Less than 24 hours later, Hillary and her parents were on their way to Iowa City for testing. “They found that it was a large mass, which they told us about in Grundy, and broke it down to being lymphoma,” Rhonda said. “They pretty much told us that’s what they expected.” The official diagnosis came five days later. Less than a week after going to the doctor, Hillary was staring face-to-face with Stage 2 Hodgkins Lymphoma, a curable form of cancer that often afflicts teens and young adults.
‘Nobody should have to go through something like this, especially somebody that I’m really good friends with.’ — Hillary’s friend and teammate Lindsay Freeman “That was very difficult to learn,” Rhonda said. Doctors placed Hillary on chemotherapy to attempt to destroy the diseased cells. She spends three days at a time at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and then is able to come home. The first of four cycles of chemotherapy ended Monday, with the second starting immediately. After two cycles are complete, doctors will run another series of tests to determine how the cancer is reacting to treatment and whether or not radiation therapy is needed in addition to the chemotherapy. “They would rather not do radiation,” Rhonda said. “If they can get it with the chemo, they’ll do that.” Upon returning home from the hospital that first time, Hillary found those she knows best, her family and friends, waiting to wish her well. Among her first visitors were her coach and teammates from the Spartan golf team, the same group of girls that was celebrating together just two months before. “When we went out there as a team to help support her and her
family, she told us how important we were to her and told us how important her faith in God was to her,” Golf Coach Rick Schupbach said. “She looked at all of us and said ‘I’m glad it’s me - I wouldn’t want it to be any of you. I’m strong enough to get through this.’ That was powerful.” Schupbach said what was supposed to be a meeting where Hillary’s friends and teammates made her feel better had a very different effect. “What was powerful to me was that Hillary actually witnessed to her teammates,” he said. “We went out to show support and love to her family, yet I really feel that we were strengthened by her attitude and her faith.” “Nobody should have to go through something like this, especially somebody that I’m really good friends with,” Hillary’s friend and teammate, Lindsay Freeman, said. “Once you get hit with something like this it’s always hard.” Freeman said that first meeting with Hillary was difficult because of how fresh in their minds their friend’s diagnosis was.
ing from a period when it was averaging about 40 students per grade level to nearly 60. With more students has come the need for more sections of students and with more sections of students comes the need for more space to put them. The growth began in earnest five years ago when the District expanded to three sections of kindergarten for the first time. Those students are in fifth-grade now, and every class behind them has also needed three sections. “This is a trend,” Murra said. “As we look at our projections, we’re looking to stay right around the 60 students in a grade level.” In fact, the smallest classes in the school district are currently the 11th- and 12th-graders at the high school. As the need arose for more space at the elementary school, something had to give to make space for those students. Early childhood education suddenly needed a new home, and that new home was the upper elementary building, which had been used for storage. “The first year it was the preschool that moved over there and then two years later we moved the before- and after-school programs, which had been using space in the
(elementary) cafeteria,” Murra said. The District’s original plan was to utilize and renovate the upper elementary for use by those programs, as well as for a third district gymnasium. That was until a major mechanical issue changed plans for the 80-year-old building. “We brought in specialists, engineers and architects to make sure the building was sound and were kind of making a plan for ‘How do we make it usable,’” Murra said. “And then the boiler went out. In order to replace the boiler you were going to have to take out part of a foundational wall. And beside that wall set some empty cisterns.” That created (potential cost) risk, Knaack said, that the School Board was uncomfortable taking. “I think that’s what the Board looked at it — let’s consider what’s this going to cost and what potential risk there’s going to be as we move forward in our facilities plan,” she said. “Is it going to need new windows? Is it going to need new doors? Is it going to need new plumbing along with the heating?” With concern about potential unknown, the District began to formulate a plan to move out of the upper
“It was a little confusing because not everybody knew what was going to happen and what it was going to be like,” she said. “We’re a pretty close team, so that helped, and everybody just kind of treated her like a normal person. We just kind of let her know that we would always be there for her.” “That was a difficult emotional time, but a very powerful time,” Schupbach said. “The most powerful moment that I’ve had as a coach was just to be in that room and feel that room, that intimacy, that closeness. There’s nothing better than to feel that. It’s there, it’s real and I’m glad to be a part of it. And I think Hillary is too.” Schupbach said one of the most powerful moments in the meeting came not from Hillary or one of the girls, but from Hillary’s father, Shawn. “Shawn said to the team, ‘Hillary’s mother and I consider the golf team a group of angels for our daughter,’” Schupbach recalled. “That was an incredible statement. When you have a parent saying that her teammates are a group of angels for her …” Support for Hillary has come from far more than just her family and those who know her best. Grundy Center’s junior high volleyball team put a violet hodgkin’s disease ribbon on the sleeve of their t-shirts in honor of Hillary, and the football See SAMO page 7
Expansion project would bring new classrooms, gymnasium Part two of a two-part series. As Grundy Center Community School District voters prepare to go to the polls next Tuesday (Sept. 10) and decide whether or not to pass a bond issue that will allow the District to add on to both its Elementary and Secondary buildings, many questions have been raised. This week’s story explores the District’s proposed construction project in detail, focusing on its need for each area of expansion that has been proposed. Other topics include what will be done with the Upper Elementary building and, finally, what the District will do if the bond issue fails. Last week’s story explored the financial side of the issue. By JOHN JENSEN The Grundy Register GRUNDY CENTER — What exactly will Grundy Center Community School District voters be voting on next Tuesday when they go to the polls to decide the fate of a proposed bond issue? According to District Superintendent Cassi Murra and School Board President Vicki Knaack, they’ll be voting on space the district needs to accommodate a growing student population. The District has seen rapid growth over the past five years, go-
See BOND ISSUE page 7
What’s Happening Thursday, Sept. 5 Grundy Center Farmer’s Market Courthouse Square 4:30 - 6:30 p.m. Grundy County Memorial Hospital Open House • 4:30 - 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 7 Two Coats Night of Prayer Farm Bureau Building, Grundy Cntr 6 p.m. meal, 6:30 p.m. worship
Monday, Sept. 9 Grundy County Supervisors County Courthouse • 9 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 10 School Elections Polls open Noon to 8 p.m.
A benefit for Hillary Samo will be held Sunday, Sept. 29 at the Town and Country Golf Club. In addition to golf, the benefit will include a bags tournament and dinner.
Taste of Grundy Center
Grundy Center hosted its second annual Taste of Grundy Center event Thursday with a good crowd on hand. The event featured food and drink tasting from vendors throughout Grundy County and beyond. Above, patrons taste test food made from growers at the Grundy Community Gardens. Right, Pizza Hut provided dessert samples for those at the event. (John Jensen/The Grundy Register photos)
The Grundy Register, P.O. Box 245, Grundy Center, IA 50638 Phone: (319) 824-6958 • Fax: (319) 824-6288 • E-mail: publisher@gcmuni.net, registerads@gcmuni.net, editor@gcmuni.net