By Sharon Fischer, Principal
Stettler Elementary School
Stettler Elementary School (SES) cross country runners travelled to New Norway on Sept. 27 to participate in the Spartan Tough X-Country Run. Many of our athletes performed very well and all of them made us proud with their hard work and positive attitudes. The cross country season has been fun, wet, muddy and eventful.
SES had 80 runners participating in the Viking meet in Camrose the week before this run and at for both events. The runners did a great job this year. Our goals were to improve at each meet. The first run was 1.5 km and the second run 2.2km. We can’t compare times, but we can compare smiles and overall rankings against other runners.
In Camrose our boys won the overall aggregate for the most points. Coming in to capture the silver medal was Grade 2 student Casson Doan.
In fourth place was Connor McNeil, sixth Owen McDonald, seventh Tate Kranzler, and eighth Riley Hayden.All of these boys placed in the top 10 finishers. Rylan Payne, Hudson Raab, Malcolm Kieser, Brody Fryer, Bruin Atkinson, Dylan Levesque, Ethan Candlish, Nash Nicholas, Owen Aiken, Clark Prehn, Chance Northrop, Briggs Eshpeter, Eaton Cai, Kane Wheeler, Ethan Roenspies, Liam Strome, Ryland Smyth, Avery Acera, Kale Baird, Kaysen Stevens, Able Foesier, Jett Wilson, Braydon Wolansky and Rex Perry all had strong performances that improved in New Norway.
Dalin Nixon placed ninth with an awesome run in the Grade 4 division. Aiden Rock, Ben Aicken, Dexton Mohn, Jude Hawkins, Xander Jones, Oliver Benjamin and Jack Hayden also improved their runs this past week in New Norway. In the Grade 5 boys category, we had Griffin Prehn finish second and Zach McDonald captured the Bronze. On the hills at New Norway Zach won Bronze and Griffin placed fourth. Kade Strandquist placed sixth in Camrose and placed twelfth in New Norway. There were 750 runners in Camrose and 950 in New Norway, so we are very impressed with the efforts of our 80 students. We also had great performances from Nicholas Pires-Silva, Jevan Ans, Daniel Enyedy, Dominik Jones and running his first cross country was Romeo Muchaita. In Grade 6 our numbers were down, but Philippe Barrette moved up from a 22nd place finish in Camrose to 18th in New Norway with a total of 62 runners competing in that category.
In the girls’ action, Rachel Enyedy was our top Grade 3 runner finishing in sixteenth place. There were 106 runners in New Norway and Rory Tanner, Alice Hunter, Gloria Prieto, Cassidy Stewart, Auria Shoemaker, Ember Kuntsman, Ashlynn Parks, Serenity B-Martin, Katie Breker, and Maycie Rairdan had strong performances. In the Grade 4 girls division, Maggie Huska captured the silver medal at Camrose and New Norway. Hadley Prehn placed 10th and seventh. Running personal bests were Morgan Fuller, Becca Schierman, and Kaylee Halverson. In the girls Grade 5 division we had Summer Greiner capture the silver medal in Camrose and the gold in New Norway, Kadence Fisher placed fifth winning a T-shirt in Camrose and Kylar Cornelssen ran to an eighth place finish. Jenna Fryer, Myriam Barrette, Alecs Oprea, Chloe Hunter and Brooklyn Stewart were not far behind with excellent runs in a field of 85 runners in Camrose. In New Norway, Kylar placed sixth winning herself a new T-shirt. And finally, our awesome grade 6 leaders and runners! Ava Greiner did not attend Camrose, but was the fastest girl in New Norway with her sister, Summer, coming in right behind her. Samantha McNeil finished sixteenth in Camrose, but had a top 10 finish in New Norway finishing eighth. Jayden Olafson and Mya Prehn had improved runs in New Norway and provided lots of smiles and fun for the younger runners.
On Sept. 28, there was a sea of orange throughout the entire school as we celebrated together Orange Shirt Day. The classes, hallways, and playgrounds were filled with orange and during the lunch recess, many of those sporting orange met together in the Drama Room for a few quick pics.
Terry Fox run
Also on Friday, we celebrated our annual Terry Fox Day assembly followed by the Terry Fox Run. We were very pleased with the number of parents, grandparents, siblings, and community members who came out to join us again this year.
October full of great ideas and student passion
As we enter into October, our students are excited to bring forth their great ideas and passions as student-led clubs get up and going. The students write their proposals and find adult supervisors this week, and then their clubs will be up and running next week. The buzz in the hallways, while they are organizing their clubs, is really quite indescribable.
Our Grade 5 and 6 students have already begun supervising classrooms and this week our Grade 3 and 4 students began the Blue Vest supervisors’ group. This group of young leaders offers an important element to our kindergarten and Grade 1 playgrounds. Having extra supervisors outside helping the adults is paramount to the safety of our youngest students, so we appreciate what these leaders do. With the Grade 3-6 students already taking on important supervisory roles, it only seems logical that the other clubs should be up and running as well.
Perhaps the highlight of this first week of October was the Turkey Trot Run held on Oct. 3. All students in Grades 4, 5, and 6 get to participate in the run and prizes are given not only to the fastest students in each age group but also to the students who are able to guess closest to their actual times. It is a fun run that is the culminating event for the cross country unit in phys ed class and the “Turkey Trot” seems like a fitting tribute to Thanksgiving that we are so rapidly moving toward.
On that note, students have no school on Friday while teachers hone their skills participating in Professional Development activities. This PD Day allows families to have an extra long weekend and we hope that families enjoy their time together celebrating the very many things that we have to be thankful for. Have a great week and Happy Thanksgiving to each and every one of you.
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