Mr. Bruns’s Highlander Highlights

Graduation Sunday May 22nd Streaming Live

How did it go? Well, it went kind of "ish". Our attempt to stream graduation live did not go as well as we would have liked. The picture came across nicely, but the sound was nearly non-existent I've been told by my wife who stayed home with our kids and our three year old niece. To boot, in the middle of the ceremony my computer decided to shut down. My apologies to those of you who tried to view the ceremony. At one time we had nearly 30 viewers, which considering I announced everything on Friday is not a bad number. I also "advertised" on Channel 19, so I'm sure we had some viewership in town as well. We will have to work the kinks out I suppose. Considering the idea to try it came to me Friday morning, I'm happy we had a bit of success, although a bit of a disappointment in the end. Next year will be better!
Live Streaming by Ustream.TV

Region Track

Here are some videos from the Region Meet.  I didn't get as many as I would have liked looking back because there were definitely some nice performances.  Congratulations to our state qualifiers: Amber-Dawn Edwards (Discus), Jaymie Barrett (High Jump), Haley Brunke (3200m), Carley Skorepa (Shot Put), Spencer Bloch (Shot Put and Discus), Nick Settje (High Jump), and Tim Sternhagen (300m Hurdles).

 

It was quite the windy day, as you'll be able to tell with the sound of the videos. Garret Kotalik sprints in the 200m Dash. Carley Skorepa throwing Shot. Haley Brunke and Katie Cosman after Katies fine performance in the 800 leg of the Medley Relay. Haley did run strong in the wind...but she did let a little girl run behind her despite her plan. However, she prevailed in the end out-sprinting the other girl at the finish.

Rotary Club and Students Team Up

Thursday May 21st Scotland High School students teamed up with the Scotland chapter Rotary Club to clean up the ditches south of town.  

Class of 2011

Meet the Governor

 
Jesse Pechous shakes Governor Daugaard's hand after a banquet which recognized school's top students.  Way to work hard Jesse!

Hollowing Out the Middle

Have you noticed that our best and brightest students haven't been coming back to our rural communities?  So have the authors of this book.  They have subtitled the book The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America  Scotland Horizons are hosting a "book read" in which this book is being read.  On June 16 professors and staff from SDSU will come to the library to discuss the book.  Personally I already have some thoughts on the subject and look forward to a good read.  I will post my book review right here on this very blog sometime in the near future.  Stop by the library for a copy, they're going fast though because several groups have signed on to read the book.  Don't get left out. Happy reading.  

Tony and Jakab Rock Star Wars

What I find interesting about being an educator is we hold ourselves to high standards of professionalism and model excellent behavior for our students.  In doing so, students and maybe sometimes we forget that we were once cool too.  We even enjoyed cool music, and we had our own moments of rebellion.  Popculture is what is popular to the culture at any given time, and usually American youth are the driving force what is popular in Western culture.  We could have a history lesson here going back to Rebel Without a Cause to the Kardashians.  I had a student ask me the other day if I liked the musical group Boston.  I'm sorry, but no...to me, even growing up in the 80s and 90s I did not consider Boston cool.  I might share what I thought was cool, but then you would think I was just trying to be cool, which is not cool.  Because what I liked, at the time was a little rebellious, but rebellious is pop-culture, often the cultural Zeitgeist, and my music paved the way for what is cool today.  Okay...okay...I liked Ozzy, I liked some rap (although my senior research paper dealt with being able to censor some of the senseless rap that came out in the 90s) who'd have thought that would come from a future writer and English teacher.  I do listen to a lot of country as well, but never Boston.  I love the sound of Blink 182, and Reel Big Fish can put you in a good mood any day.  Today I'm more of a Jack Johnson guy. Now is any of that important to education?  Sure is, music can create all kinds of viable connections and having a strong music program might lead to more creative thinkers, and achievement in all walks of life.  Maybe they'll even be risk-takers as we'll see that with the two boys I'm about to share.  And they took something from pop-culture that defined my generation, and as we see is still cool with today's younger generation, and brings some of us back to the days when we were cool.  Star Wars.  Thank you Jakab and Tony, to the readers and viewers: enjoy.

 

All American

2009 Scotland High School graduate and current collegiate track star and All-American Molly Kokesh competing for Augustana at the Drake Relays in the 4x800m Relay and a follow-up interview after the race.

 

 

Watch more video of 2011 Drake Relays on flotrack.org

Watch more video of 2011 Drake Relays on flotrack.org