By VERNON ROBISON
Like waking up from a pleasant sleep, there is something both sad and comforting about the start of a new school year. On the one hand, children and their parents want to hold on to that restful repose. The summer is coming to an end and, with it, those long daylight hours with no hectic schedule to fill them and nowhere in particular to be. On the other hand, the routine and the structure that comes with the beginning of school seems to bring the community back from a long summer nap. The community slowly gets up and starts moving around again.
And it all starts with the community’s children slogging their sullen way back to school. Most of them entered the school gates on Monday morning, dreading having to replace that summer freedom for the grindstone of a daily academic schedule. But by the end of the day they most of them had probably eased right back into that old routine like falling into a soft comfortable chair.
This year, a lot has changed in the local schools since the students’ triumphant release in June. There has been a good deal of jostling around and switching seats in school administration while the kids were away. Three out of the four local schools have new principals. Two of these we are all familiar with. Rod Adams at the high school and Ken Paul at the middle school have merely switched seats from one local school to another.
But Ms. Mary Scialabba, the new principal of Ute Perkins Elementary is entirely new to the community. Despite some mild controversy surrounding her appointment to the position, Ms. Scialabba seems to be an excellent fit for this community. We welcome her warmly and look forward to working with her in the coming years.
Grant Bowler Elementary is the only local school keeping its principal. We are grateful that Shawna Jessen will still be here. And despite the status quo in that school’s administration, there is still a lot of moving and shaking going on to improve it’s academic performance. Jessen has bravely stepped out of the box and brought some interesting innovations into the school which will no doubt merit further news coverage in the future. We suspect that Grant Bowler will be a place to watch this year.
As the dust has settled on all of this administrative musical chairs, we would note that the academic community has also experienced some losses along the way. Former MVHS Principal Grant Hanevold, though he still lives here, is applying his significant administrative talents to a struggling school in Las Vegas. In addition, his former Assistant Principal Hal Mortensen took a new position in the northwest Las Vegas valley. The loss of these leaders is a loss to the whole community and they will be dearly missed in the halls of the high school this year.
With all this, though, the new school year feels promising. That sense of pleasant homecoming mixed with a new adventure that goes along with the start of school seems to work its way down into the whole community.
The MVHS varsity football team looks good in practice so far. Soon, the Pirate stadium will be filled with fans cheering on their Pirates. We can look forward to another successful season and, perhaps, yet another state championship bid. Other school and community sports teams are working hard and looking good as well. The fields and gymnasia throughout the Moapa Valley have returned to a buzzing of athletic activity.
And speaking of the gymnasium, things are especially looking up for the sports infrastructure in town. The high school track, under construction all summer, is all but finished. It now lacks only the final rubber surface which will be applied later this year. The new gym at the high school is also well underway. Construction will continue throughout the coming school year and is expected to be finished in plenty of time for the 2014-15 basketball season. That will be a welcome sight!
But athletics isn’t all that’s going on. Music is also being heard once again in the community. Kids are dutifully starting back into their music lessons. The school bands and orchestras are beginning their rehearsals. Dance and cheerleading teams are holding rigorous workouts to prepare for the upcoming season’s performances.
Preparations are being made for the Moapa Valley Performing Arts Council concert series; especially its season premier event: the community talent show to be held on Monday September 23. Many other cultural events will ripple forth from that one, throughout the season.
So there is much for the community to look forward to in the coming months. And it all seems to slowly start rolling forward with this week’s beginning of school.
With all that in mind, I walked around the various school yards earlier this week on the first day of school. As I watched the nervous children, the parents giving them hugs and kisses and bravely sending them off for a day on their own, the community pleasantly gathering together once again; as I watched all of this, I was reminded of something that the legendary local school principal Grant M. Bowler used to tell all his students.
He would say: “The Moapa Valley has the best kids, with the best families, in the best community, of the best state, in the best nation in all the world”.
How true that is!
