The student news site of Stillwater Area High School

The Pony Express
The student news site of Stillwater Area High School

The Pony Express
The student news site of Stillwater Area High School

The Pony Express
Shad Kraftson

Shad Kraftson, Distribution Reporter

Shad is 16 years old and a junior at Stillwater Area High School. He is a Distribution Reporter for the Pony Express. Shad is also a nordic skier and cross country runner. He qualified for state in skiing as a freshman and was a member of the Stillwater team which placed third at state in 2014. Besides sports, Shad also plays piano.

All content by Shad Kraftson
Junior Parker Anderson and senior Joe Sorenson are the team’s captains this year. “It’s really fun. There are a lot of jokes around the team. Everyone’s pretty calm, there aren’t any big fights,” Anderson says. The only time it does get heated is during games of lightning. The team is very focused during practice and saying practice is calm is an accurate description.

Putting towards a championship season

Shad Kraftson, Distribution Reporter
April 27, 2016
The boys golf team practices putting at the beginning of practice at Stillwater Oaks Golf Course. “I think we have the practice part down; we have the instruction part down. A lot of guys have personal instructors,” head coach John Scanlon says. Many of the players practice year round and the team is looking to win the conference and section this year.

Golf balls are sprayed around the putting green as the team waits for everyone to arrive. “We usually start out trying to hit some balls. We try to give equal time to the long game and the short game,” says Scanlon. The boys can be seen at the conference championships on May 26 at Oak Glen Golf Course and hopefully at the state tournament in June.

Coach Scanlon talks to junior Bennet Sell about the schedule. The team has a good varsity and the JV team won their first conference meet. Had they been in varsity the JV would have been fourth. “We have a relatively young team so we’re very deep and we’re very talented, but maybe a little bit inexperienced in spots,” Scanlon says.

Anderson putts on the green. The team has a long season, but is thinking ahead to the section match. “We play two days. After the first day, the top four teams move on to the second day and the top team after that moves on to state,” Anderson says. The Ponies hope to be that team this year after getting fourth last year. The boys also want to win the conference championship match.

The cardio room is full of new equipment like ellipticals and treadmills. Money from the PEP grant has helped purchase these tools. “We have lots of new equipment: basketballs, birdies for badminton, tons of new cardio equipment. Most every piece of equipment in the cardio room is brand new,” says PE teacher Ryan Bartosiewski. The technology has improved PE classes and Stillwater is starting to be known for its program.

Final year of $3 million PEP grant

Shad Kraftson, Distribution Reporter
March 15, 2016
Students purchase food from the 4.0 club and the cafeteria. The PEP grant focuses on providing healthy food choices for students. “What we want to do is during the school day give our kids brain power. Can we offer them chocolate milk instead of a mountain dew? Do we give them a muffin or yogurt?“ Van Klei says.

The PEP grant is not just for the high school, but the district as a whole. Students at Andersen Elementary play on the playground in the afternoon. “We’re also doing things with recess. We really want to give our kids brain power doing the school day,” Van Klei says. Be it through recess, PE, nutrition or another area, so far the PEP grant has been quite successful.

Students walk past vending machines at the high school. This is another area that could see change in the final year of the PEP grant. “Right now we’re doing a vending machine pilot at Oakland were the schools purchase their own vending machines and we send a survey out to all the students and they get to pick food based on certain nutrition guidelines. We want to expand that to the other secondary schools,” Van Klei says.

The menu from March 4 is written on the board. Nutrition supervisor Julie Powers is already working on the menu for the 2016-2017 school year with help and guidelines from HealthyMOVES. Students have a chance to voice their opinion regarding the menu. “Julia really wants to have your feedback. Any help or feedback we can get from you guys on that now will help prepare our menu,”PEP grant coordinator Deb Van Klei says.

Shelly is not afraid to share what she truly thinks and her co-workers get it. “I’m a pretty open book. Anyone here that knows me knows me,” Enhelder says. Enhelder is not going anywhere anytime soon, so staff and students might want to get to know her.

Enhelder loves her job as secretary

Shad Kraftson, Distribution Reporter
February 12, 2016
When Enhelder started in 2004, the school had a registrar. In 2016 students do not know what a registrar is. “They eliminated the registrar at the high school so parts of those duties were split up between the counselors and secretaries,” Enhelder says. The responsibilities that Enhelder has change every year. Her passion and enjoyment of the job do not change. Today she does administrative work along with other jobs.

When walking into the White Pony Center students and staff are welcomed by a smiling secretary. Secretary Shelly Enhelder loves her job and that is evident in her interactions with students and staff. Most people could not tell you when they started their current job. Despite it being over a decade ago Shelly can tell you the date. “February 2nd in 2004,” Enhelder recalls.

U.S. Auto Outsourcing

Many students stand out at Youth United Way meetings, but there was not a single adult. The group does have an adviser but it is led by the students. Lois Raboin gives them advice and helps with some of the logistics and she is an employee at Youth United Way. “I retired from 3M and I wasn’t ready to retire from work so I was hired here,” Rabion said. Student leaders Kate Kugler and Aly Brasch organized the meeting.

Youth United Way creating smiles throughout community

Shad Kraftson, Distribution Reporter
November 19, 2015
Youth United Way is an organization for students to help the community. The group held their most recent meeting at the United Way office on Nov. 9. Kate Kugler helped run the meeting and took notes on agenda items. Youth United Way does many different activities. “We raise money, we host events for various purposes. Basically it’s a group of teenagers at the high school who come together and help the community through different community events,” sophomore Joe Sanderson said.

Newspaper students were assigned to take photos and write captions for those photos. The photos were taken Oct 27 and the captions were discussed Oct 28. Junior Stone Weidner and Junior Cole Cernohous work on uploading and writing their captions. "We have to write captions for our close up and medium shot," Weidner says, adding that "it is good practice for our articles."

The assigned project made students think more deeply about writing photo captions. They should be longer and more in dept than many students thought. Junior Nathan Novateny takes a moment to think about what to write for his captions. Novateny says " writing captions is hard, it takes practice and so this asignment is good."

Perspective

Rule of Thirds

Establishing Shot

Wide Shot

Assistant Principal Bill Howlett talked to community members about the new changes. "I'm most excited about what is happening in music and theater," Howlett said. The open house at Oak-land saw visitors who were mostly supportive. At the Stillwater open house Sept. 28th, the discussion was more heated.

District 834 expands high school for freshmen

Shad Kraftson, Distribution Reporter
October 13, 2015
The school will look very different from the back side with the coming changes. "There will be two connectors through the back which will give circulation we don’t have now," Bach said. These connectors will be hallways, but will also contain classrooms and work spaces.

People who stopped in to the open house saw design plans for the high school, elementary school and new athletic center. "The biggest thing for us is to recognize that your high school transcript starts in ninth grade," Principal Rob Bach said. The designs will make it easy for freshmen to integrate into the high school.

People involved in the district construction and expansion projects talked to interested citizens at an open house at Oak-Land Junior High. Besides the high school addition, plans for a new elementary school in Woodbury were also unveiled. "It will open fall 2017 just like the high school addition," Principal on Special Assignment Mark Drommerhausen said, adding "it will be pre-K to 5th grade."

Posters at the open house outlined the project time lines for both the elementary and high school. Because the timeline is what it is, there will be some distractions during the school year. Principle Rob Bach said, “The reality is there probably will be times were there’s either noise or dust or things like that. It’s been done at schools before. [Construction] doesn’t have to be a barrier to our learning."

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