Another Way to Show your School Pride!!

The great thing about school (yes,there are great things about school) is that you don't always have to be an athlete in order to compete and show your school pride.

This past week our Soil Judging team placed at a competition and has now qualified for the Iowa State Soil Judging Contest!!  Who knew!! A contest in judging dirt!! Who knew!! We have a Soil Judging Team!!

Now I'm not trying to make fun of FFA or soil judging in anyway...I mean, I just never knew that there was a a state competition in judging soils...sandy soil vs. loomy soil, black dirt vs. brown dirt (Obviously, I have no idea what they judge or even what different types of soil there are. What is the difference between dirt and soil? I need a lessen.)

I guess I keep picturing the FFA competition from the movie, Napoleon Dynamite where the lead character would taste a glass of milk and could tell what the cow was eating for feed...lots of blue corduroy jackets and funny jokes!

All kidding aside, it's great that the kids who maybe aren't bigger, faster or stronger, who maybe have no interest in sports of any kind (yes, there are those people out there, thank god) still have an opportunity to represent their school.

I don't know if this is a spectator event or not, but I would love to attend as an administrator because it sounds like a dream supervision job, no little kid football games on the sidelines, no screaming parents, no screaming coaches...just blue corduroy jackets and piles of dirt!!

 For once at an event, I could yell, "stop watching the game and start playing in the dirt!!"

I wonder if my activity pass gets me in for free?

What did you do on your summer vacation?

In the old days, (in my case the 1960's and 70's), back before Twitter, Facebook, cellphones and email, it was a tradition that on the first day back to school kids shared with their classmates what they did over the summer.

As I remember back to those dark ages, it always seemed like my classmates had more interesting stories to tell about their summer vacations than I did.  There always seemed to be a few that traveled to far away places like Omaha, or Minneapolis or even the Black Hills.  Me?  I never left the state of South Dakota!! (I guess the thought of six kids and a dog traveling in a car with no air conditioning wasn't to appealing to my folks)

My summers were pretty much bike riding and baseball...no travel, no trips to the cities, no exotic vacations to the Black Hills...just bike riding and baseball...not much to tell on the first day of school.  I had a very boring upbringing!!



Finally, this summer I actually did something worth telling my classmates about.

That's right, me, old bike riding, baseball playing, boring Gibbs had a summer to talk about!!

Here I am teacher!!  Ready to share with the class!

My hands in the air, waving like crazy just waiting for my turn to share!!

Please, will someone just ask me what I did on my summer vacation??

Okay, I thought you would never ask:

1. I married my niece!!  (No I mean I officiated at my nieces wedding, what an honor!!)
2. I went to the Twin Cities and cheered on the Twins on three different occasions. (Yes, they are in last place! Not my fault!!)
3. Ran in my first 5K during Dam to Dam!!  (finished 15th in my age group and yes, there were more than 15 people in my age group)
4. Went on a vacation to the Black Hills and climbed Harney Peak!! (Highest point east of the Rocky Mountains)
5. Attended a family reunion on my mom's side of the family and actually had a good time! (and if you knew my mom's side of the family that's saying a lot!)

Finally, just like when I was a kid, I played, I relaxed, I recharged my battery and got excited for another year of school...and, just like back in the 60's and 70's, I still love the beginning of a new school year!!

Am I a Tweeter or just a Twit??

Each year the principals and I get together and set district and personal goals that we would like to accomplish for the upcoming school year.

Last year, one of my personal goals was to increase the schools presence on social media.  I'm always reading about how other Superintendent's and schools are using Facebook and Twitter to promote their school and school groups. They report that by using social media they are able to increase public awareness and support for their school.  Since I already have an account on both Facebook and Twitter I figured that using them for school would be fairly easy.  For the first year I thought I would start with Twitter since I had just received some training on how to use it and it seemed a little easier to use.

I was wrong...first of all, we block both Facebook and Twitter at school which made it very difficult for me to set up and maintain a school account...(difficult for me, but the block didn't seem to stop the kids from using them!!)

The second problem, and the one that caused me to fail to reach my goal...you had to actually log in and update your account!!  Shouldn't be that hard, on Twitter you can only use 140 characters per update so no long post to worry about writing (unlike my blog updates which seem to go on and on)

Anyway....new year, same old goal...this time though I'm working on a challenge as someone dared to tell me that no one would follow the Wheelers on Twitter even if I kept it active...so...here we go..

I need to have people sign in click here (or log-in for those of you who already have a Twitter account) and start following the Wheelers on Twitter @gowheelers...that's it!!

Although I think the original challenge was to double my followers (I started the year with 13!!) I am making it a personal goal to get at least a hundred followers.  After only one week I'm already up to 15 so I'm well on my way...

For my part I will promise to post updates concerning upcoming school events, tweet updates from school sporting events and any other information concerning the Audubon Wheelers that their fans might find interesting (or that I find interesting at least...since I'm the one doing the posting)

Please pass the word and the web link and start following the Wheelers on Twitter!!

Get started here:  click here

Remember...be a Tweeter not a Twit!!  @gowheelers