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2012 IN REVIEW
February 1, 2013
2012 brought celebrations, changes in education Education is an ever-changing field. Not only do the faces of staff and students change but programs and buildings also go through transitions. Following are some of the changes and celebrations in education that occurred in Crawford County in 2012. The 75-year history of the Broadway Elementary building in Denison was celebrated on March 16. The cornerstone of the $135,000 building, then the senior high school, was put in place in July 1936. The building was first occupied in February 1937 and was dedicated in March 1937. It later served as Denison Middle School and since the fall of 2008 has been Broadway Elementary, housing fourth and fifth graders. To celebrate the anniversary, Principal Steve Meinen showed students a Biography Channel video that featured the building’s most famous student – actress Donna Reed. FDR, played by high school student Robert Lyons, made a guest appearance to the delight of the students. The connection between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the school building is that the building was one of projects of Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA). In May, eight Denison High School seniors comprised the first group of students from the district to graduate from the Learners to Leaders/Science Bound program, an educational partnership with Denison Community Schools and Iowa State University, and sponsored by Farmland Foods and its parent company, Smithfield Foods. The program’s goal is to inspire ethnically diverse students to work toward degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The Ar-We-Va School District conducted an open house on August 14 for its new school addition. The new, two-story addition in Westside houses nearly 135 pre-kindergarten through fifth grade students and allows all district students to be educated under one roof. The old elementary buildings, located in Arcadia and Vail, along with surplus items, were sold at auction on November 18. Surplus items brought in about $14,300 and the Arcadia and Vail school buildings sold for a total of $45,500. The Charter Oak-Ute School District substantially completed its building addition in Charter Oak by the time school began in the fall. The addition houses new band and vocal music rooms, new locker rooms and storage rooms. The old band and vocal music rooms were converted into regular classrooms, which allowed the district to educate all its students at the Charter Oak building. The school district is maintaining the school building in Ute through the school year and plans to auction or lease it by the summer. Private and public funds created a synergy that put more technology into the hands of students at the
Auctioneers took bids on surplus Ar-We-Va school items in the lunch room at the old Vail elementary school building on Sunday afternoon, November 18. Photo by Gordon Wolf
Schleswig Community School in the fall. A $25,000 grant from the Monsanto Fund through its America's Farmers Grow Rural Education program was used to purchase six new iPads and a math curriculum for students in grades six through eight. The school used grant money, funds from an Area Education Agency program and school finances to purchase a total of 27 new iPads, increasing the total number of iPads in the school building to about 100. The Schleswig Community School was nominated for the $25,000 America's Farmers Grow Rural Education grant by local residents Jane Smith and Larry Wiebers. At the start of the 2012-2013 school year, all teachers in the Denison Community School District received iPads for use, paid for through the school district’s sales tax. The iPads keep the teachers connected to important documents and data no matter where they are in their classrooms or in their buildings. Among other functions, teachers can use the iPads to read an internet article for students or show a lesson on a projection screen. The Denison Middle School and Denison High School mariachi bands received a lot of attention in
2012 as they are the first school-based mariachi bands to form in Iowa and also because of the quality of their performances. The bands are also providing an appreciation of mariachi music for a new generation of Latinos, as well as others, who are members of the musical groups. The high school band, Mariachi Reyes del Oeste, performed at the Iowa Music Educators Conference in Ames in November and worked with Maestro José Hernandez, an internationally known mariachi performer and Grammy award winner. The bands have performed in Ames twice and Des Moines twice and will perform at the Iowa Bandmasters Association Conference in May. Mariachi Reyes del Oeste will perform at the Cinco de Mayo festival at Washington Park in Denison in May and will also perform a concert at the high school’s Fine Arts Center in the future. Nearly 30 members of the Denison-Schleswig Monarch Band performed with the Southwest Iowa Honor Marching Band in the Chik-fil-A Bowl (formerly the Peach Bowl) in Atlanta, Georgia, on Monday, December 31.
Personnel changes Besides changes brought about by elections, Crawford County saw some personnel changes in public offices in 2012. On March 14 Crawford County Memorial Hospital in Denison announced the hiring of Bill Bruce as the chief executive officer. He took over duties from Larry Schrage, the interim CEO. Kevin Flanagan, who had been Denison’s city manager since July 2009, resigned from his position effective May 31 in order to take the city manager’s job in Fairfield. His contract with the City of Denison was due to expire on June 30, the last day of Fiscal Year 2012. On March 23 a motion to renew Flanagan’s contract with the city failed on a 3-2 vote of the city council. Terry Crawford, principal engineer and vice president of Sundquist Engineering in Denison, was hired as the new Denison city manager on July 3. He began his duties with the city on July 16. Crawford had been the city engineer. Don Luensmann, who had served as the executive director of the Chamber and Development Council (CDC) of Crawford County for seven years, resigned effective July 31, in order to accept the position of director of marketing and development for Crawford County Memorial Hospital in Denison. On October 10 Evan Blakley, who had worked at bluespace creative in Denison since 2008 and was a senior designer, accepted the CDC executive director’s position.
It Was A Pleasure Serving You In 2012 & I Look Forward To Continuing To Serve You In 2013!
Tower One arrives in Denison Jim Clark, firefighter and publicity chairperson for the Denison Volunteer Fire Department, had a long photo shoot of the department’s new aerial truck, named Tower One, on Wednesday, October 10. After some detail work, a few more decals and a couple minor tweaks, department members began training on the operation of the truck. The new truck features a midmounted ladder that will allow fire crews multiple access points to a building. With the rear-mounted ladder that was on the department’s old aerial truck, crews had limited maneuverability and emergency access to buildings. With the midmount, travel height restrictions become less of a concern as well. The aerial truck arrived in Denison from Snyder, Nebraska, where it was manufactured by Danko Emergency Equipment. Members of the Denison Volunteer Fire Department took several trips to Snyder to observe and inspect the truck as it was being manufactured. Photo by Bruce A. Binning
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