Gute News from the Junior-Senior High School (Dave Gute)

We are now nearing the end of the first semester and other than the weather getting extremely cold, things are going very well. Students really have to dress in layers at the high school and adjust from room to room. One room might be 90 degrees and the one across the hall 60 degrees. Hopefully next

year at this time ,we will be talking about moving into the new building.

At the high school, students take semester tests. During those days, we have Open Campus. This year those days are Wednesday, December 17th and Thursday, December 18th. Open Campus allows the students to come to school for their tests only. They do not have to eat lunch at school. However, there are some qualifications the students must meet to be eligible and only those students will re-ceive an Open Campus form. To be eligible a student must have had no suspensions (in-school or out of school), have all fines and dues paid, all detentions served as well as any Saturday Schools and com-munity service completed, In addition, if your student is not in a sport or PE, they must have all their physical activity forms turned in. If your student is eligible, he/she will be given one of these forms. Be Watching! The Junior High students will have a normal schedule during this time and they will not be

allowed to leave school.

The form is included below:

Above: Andrew Rolley, Olivia Weis, Gabe Smith, Hunter Hodges, Micaela Herrara pose with their display

about the Afghanistan War.

Left: Local Veterans retire the colors.

Above: Rhyan Sanny, Riley Raney, Vince Palazzo, Steve Sutton,

Alexis Post, Nathan Bernett (front) show their WWII display.

On October 31st, the Jr. High Student Council spon-

sored a Haunted House for Jr. High students. These

students worked hard to put all this together and a fun

time was had by all. We want to send a special thank

you to Randi Henderson for doing make up. Members

of the 2014/2015 Jr. High Student Council are: 8th

grade: Rhyan Sanny, Lydia Wede, Andrew Rolley, Val

Andrusyshyn, Jill Blakley, Haley Faga, and Riley Raney

7th grade: Ashlynn Amdor, Abi Petersen, Mason Wich-

man, Jacob Erickson, Paige Osweiler, Gracie Bluml.

Look for pictures throughout this issue.

Above left: Gabe Smith

Left: Hailey Moore

Val Andrusyshyn, Grant Sparr, Chance Hall, Lydia

Wede with their Korean War display

Page 12

Riverside Junior High Girls Basketball Schedule

Riverside Junior High Wrestling Schedule

JH Boys Basketball

The JH Boys started off their season on November 10. The coaches are Steve Allen and Brock Johnson. The pictures below are from the game against Missouri

Valley. The 8th grade won their game.

.

Scenes from JH Halloween

Student Council Member Haley Faga ready

for the Haunted House!

7th Grade Zombies

JH Costume Winners

GO DAWGS! GO DAWGS! GO DAWGS! GO DAWGS! GO DAWGS! GO DAWGS! GO DAWGS!

Better Basketball Now (Coach Davis)

Basketball season is underway. We have more girls participating than we have had in the last couple of years which is a great sign that the program is turning around. The girls are very enthusiastic

and are looking forward to having some fun this season. We have a tough sched-ule, but the girls are working hard to make up for being smaller than a lot of the

teams we play.

This season we have ten freshmen who have risen to the challenge of girls bas-ketball. We also have two returning sophomores and 3 returning juniors. We also have 2 juniors who decided to play this year that did not play last year. Leading our team will be the two senior captains. We have two girls who want-ed to be managers as well. Every girl is essential to building a strong healthy

program, and every girl is appreciated.

Building a program begins with generating an interest. We have that! The girls want to play, want to improve, and want to be successful. The next step is put-ting forth the effort needed to make those strides to improve. We have done this because many of the girls participated in basketball events this summer and are showing up early and staying late after practice. It is an ongoing process of hard work. The next step is generating enthusiasm in the community. We are working as a team to turn the program around and make it more successful. We hope to have the support of the community (mostly we need fans at our games). The final step is to take all that hard work and turn it into wins and

ultimately championships.

I do not know where we will get this year, but we are going the right direction, and I can promise you that the girls will leave it all on the court every night we play. We all hope you want to be a part of our program as well. Everyone is

needed to build a program.

Fall Sports Banquet

The Fall Sports Banquet was held Tuesday, November 11 at the Oakland Com-munity Building. The Post Prom committee served the meal. The sports ban-quet is an opportunity for the coaching staffs and the community to honor the fall athletes. Head Cross Country Coach Alex Oliver paid tribute to both his girls and boys teams with a special tribute to Tim Brink, the lone state cross country qualifier for Riverside this year. Tim placed 57th at state. Both teams earned academic awards. Head Football Coach Mitch Rice announced that Tucker Bluml had been named to the 1st Team All-District. Tanner Storrow made the 2nd Team All-District while Dylan McClain, Braeton Moore, and Jon Gehrmann received Honorable Mention awards. Several members of the foot-ball team earned academic awards. Football Cheerleader Coach Lisa Hummel honored each of the members of her cheerleading squad. Head Volleyball Coach Mandie Reynolds announced that Sheyenne Smith was named to the 2nd Team WIC All-Conference while Grace Gleaves received Honorable Mention

honors. Her team also received academic honors.

Tim Brink accepts medal from Booster Club for

his performance at State Cross Country.

Max Farver, Will Gress, Zach McLaughlin, War-

ren DeGroat accept football letters.

Above: Sara Kemp receives manager’s

award for football.

Left: Volleyball seniors Sheyenne Smith, Justine Brammer, Kyra Martens, Taylor

Frain

Above: Girls Cross Country Team Kelsey Danielson, Alyssa

Brink, Sara Wede, Sydney Raney, Paige Kallsen (left to right)

Above Right: Maci Pendgraft accepts volleyball manager

award

Right: Cheerleaders Hannah Henderson and Hannah Hummel

Riverside High School Presents Musical

The Riverside High School Vocal Department under the direction of Ms. Kelsey Burn assisted by Ms. Kristina Sturm and Mrs. Brandon presented the musical, Little Shop of Horrors on November 7-9 in the high school auditorium. Seymour (Brent Pendgraft) tries to climb out of Skid Row by creating a unique plant. He works for a flower shop along with his secret love, Audrey (Paige Kallsen). However, Seymour finds that his little plant has turned into a giant monster of a man-eating plant, Audrey II (John Baker). Needless to say, that is a very brief explanation. You had to be there. Kids, you were great! Thanks. And Remember . . .

Don’t Feed The Plants!!!

Far left: Mrs. Mushnik (Maci Pendgraft), Sey-mour (Brent Pendgraft) and Audrey (Paige Kall-sen) in the flower shop

with Audrey II.

Left: Audrey II (John Baker) with stage crew (Brittney Haubrich, Mag-gie Garvey, Allison

Reicks, Jaycee Mansfield)

Far Left: “Feed Me”!

Left: Orin (Collin Price) the den-tist/abusive boyfriend of Audrey show

Seymour his trusty dental drill

Above: Seymour is interviewed by

Chris Gaynor

Chiffon (Morgan Gentile-Turner)

The residents of Skid Row

Ronnette (Shae Palazzo) sings “Don’t Feed

The Plants”

News from Mr. Meek, PK-6 Principal

Elementary School

With the Christmas Break right ahead of us, we are nearing the halfway point of our 2014-2015 school year. So far this has been a pretty eventful year and, in both of my buildings, we have had a lot of activities to keep us all on our toes! The food drive just wrapped up and we are so blessed that our communities can reach out and help those in our own communities who are in need. We also participated in a Hat Day where the money went to the Oakland Manor “Black Wednesday” shopping event. The money went to purchase items for the resident’s shopping day. Way to go Bulldogs! Be sure to check out the activities calendar for upcoming events for all of our schools: Jr. High Boys Basketball, JV and Varsity boys and girls basketball, Wrestling, Band and Choir con-

certs, and other district events.

The annual Christmas Concert is just around the corner on Tuesday, December 2, at the Jr. Sr. High School, starting at 7:00 p.m. I have heard all of the students singing and practicing their parts and I am excited to see it all come together for one magical night. Remember this event fills

the entire gymnasium, so come early to get a great seat!

Intermediate School

With the Christmas Break right ahead of us we are nearing the halfway point of our 2014-2015 school year. So far this has been a pretty eventful year and in both of my buildings we have had a lot of activities to keep us all on our toes! The food drive just wrapped up and we are so blessed that our communities can reach out and help those in our own communities who are in need. We also participated in a Hat Day where the money went to the Oakland Manor “Black Wednesday” shopping event. The money went to purchase items for the resident’s shopping day. Way to go Bulldogs! Be sure to check out the activities calendar for upcoming events for all of our schools: Jr. High Boys Basketball, JV and Varsity boys and girls basketball, Wrestling, Band and Choir con-

certs, and other district events.

I caught a small sample of the 4th-6th grade music classrooms and 5th and 6th band the other day and I am excited to see the performance planned for Monday, December 8, beginning at 7:00 p.m.,

at the intermediate school in Carson. They sound awesome!

Please do not wait until the February Parent-Teacher conferences to ask questions about your child’s progress in academics or maybe some behaviors that you are seeing at home that might be occurring at school. I have spent much time this year encouraging staff to call or email home as much as possible if they have a question or to just say how great your child is doing. Please feel like you can do the same. The more staff and families are on the same page, the more successful a

student will be.

Practicing for the Concert

4h Graders on Roller Skates

A View from a Drone

The Latest District Information

By James Sutton, Ed.D.

Regarding Progress on the New Building

The cold weather has slowed down progress on the new building. I’m told that temperatures as cold as we are currently experiencing are not good for pouring concrete slabs, and there are a couple of walls that need to be finished before a roof can be put on the lowest section of the building (the gym, locker rooms, wrestling room, etc.). They are hoping to close in the lowest section and do a lot of the interior work during the winter. I’ve noticed a warming trend before Thanksgiving, so we are keeping our fingers crossed that Mother Nature is kind. We took a drone video of the building about three weeks ago, and Mrs. Beattie is

editing it to put on the website. (I believe an aerial view made the front page of the newsletter.)

One of the frequently asked questions has to do with the water retention area at the bottom of the hill. “Will it always be there?” The answer is yes. It was put there to allow the water to drain into the ditch at an acceptable rate during hard rains. However, the construction company told me that once things are fin-ished, we plant some shrubs and other things around it, and grass grows in the area, it will not stick out like it currently does. And it will not always have water in

it.

The last word I had on a date of completion for the project was January 22, 2016. This was actually an improvement. Initially, (before all of the rain) we were planning for the building to be complete by December 15, 2015. After all of the rain, the construction company said they were behind by 51 days. Then the sun came out for a while, workers utilized some of the weekends and the completion date was moved up to January 22, 2016. Unfortunately, we can only assume that the cold weather is pushing the date back again. Progress has been made on the south entrance to the new building, and once things warm up again, they will finish the access road into the church. Geothermal wells are being drilled at a rate of about two wells per truck per day. They have continued to drill through

much of the cold weather. More than 200 wells will be drilled where the football field is located.

Meeting with Iowa West.

In something not related to the new building, we are continuing to work with other districts, the Iowa West Foundation and Iowa Western Community College

on different initiatives that will be beneficial to Riverside students and other districts as well.

Several of the rural superintendents in Pottawattamie County were invited to meet with the CEO of the Iowa West Foundation during November. Invited to the meeting were Missouri Valley, AHST, Treynor, Tri-Center, Underwood and Riverside. The foundation expressed their desire to hear from the rural schools and possibly support initiatives that may address some programs that could help our students. It was a very interesting meeting. I appreciated their desire to assist us

with programs that address common challenges.

Riverside is currently meeting with other districts about a vo-tech academy, and we will be visiting a couple of sites that are considered central to all of the dis-tricts discussing it which includes Griswold, Atlantic, Harlan and others. We are working with Iowa Western on that initiative, and Iowa West is funding the costs of exploring our options. And, finally, Riverside continues to work with Iowa West, Iowa Western and Council Bluffs Schools on a joint initiative that could finan-

cially help students with in getting an associate’s degree or vocational certification from Iowa Western.

What a Musical.

I’d just like to end with one final word of congratulations to our staff and students. If any of you were fortunate enough to attend the High School musical, Little Shop of Horrors, this month, I don’t know how you could be anything but impressed. What a talented group! I know it takes a lot of time and commitment from a lot of people to make a production like this happen. And I also know that this was Ms. Burns first shot at putting on a musical which was an unqualified home run.

I just want to say that I’ve never enjoyed a school musical more. Thank you, everyone, for a great evening.

A View from a Drone

December/diciembre Breakfast/ desayuno

Sunday/domingo Monday/lunes Tuesday/martes Wednesday/

miercoles Thursday/jueves Friday/viernes Saturday/sabado

December/diciembre Lunch/almuerzo

Sunday/domingo Monday/lunes Tuesday/martes Wednesday/miercoles

Thursday/jueves Friday/viernes Saturday/sabado

1Sausage & cheese

Breakfast sandwich

Fruit choices

Milk

2 Waffle / syrup

Juice

Fruit choices

Milk

3 Egg patty

One slice toast

Juice

Fruit choices

4 Cereal

1/2 bagel

Fruit choices

milk

5 Breakfast burrito

Fruit choices

Milk

6

7 8 Breakfast pizza

Fruit choices

Milk

9 Pancakes/syrup

Fruit choices

Juice

Milk

10 Cheese omelet

One slice toast

Juice

Fruit choices

11 Grilled cheese

Juice

Fruit choices

Milk

12 Cereal

One slice toast

Fruit choices

Milk

13

14 15Breakfast bites

Syrup

Fruit choices

milk

16 Cereal

1/2 English muffin

Juice

Fruit choices

17 Scrambled eggs

Sausage patty

One slice toast

Fruit choices

18 Egg & cheese

Breakfast sand.

Fruit choices

Juice

19 Breakfast cookie

Fruit choices

Milk

20

21 22 NO

SCHOOL

Have a great

Christmas break

23 NO

SCHOOL

24 NO

SCHOOL

25 NO

SCHOOL

26 NO

SCHOOL

27

28 29 NO

SCHOOL

30 NO

SCHOOL

31 NO

SCHOOL

1 Mr. Rib on wg bun

French fries

Fruit choices

Romaine salad mix

Vegetable bar

2 Chicken nuggets

Steamed broccoli

Fruit choices

Vegetable bar

Bread & butter sand.

3 Chicken fried steak

Mashed potatoes/gravy

– fruit choices

Vegetable bar

WG dinner roll

4 Soft shelled taco

Lettuce-shred cheese

Salsa-refried beans

Fruit choices

Cookie

5 Hamburger on wg

bun– pickles-cheese

Fruit choices

Green beans

Vegetable bar

6

7 8 Chicken tetrazzini

Romaine salad mix

Steamed carrots

Vegetable bar

Fruit & dinner roll

9Tenderloin on wg bun

-

Tator tots

Vegetable bar

Fruit choices

10 Spaghetti

Romaine salad mix

Vegetable bar

Fruit choices

WG garlic bread

11 Chicken strips

Green beans

Savory rice

Vegetable bar

Fruit choices

12 Sloppy joe on wg

bun—-Pickles

Baked beans

Fruit choices

Vegetable bar

13

14 15 Pizza

Steamed broccoli

Fruit choices

Vegetable bar

16 Chili

Crackers

Vegetable bar

Cinnamon twist

Fruit choices

17 Hot dog on wg bun

Corn

Vegetable bar

Fruit choices

18 Lasagna

Romaine salad mix

Vegetable bar

Fruit choices

Bread & butter sand.

19 Chicken sandwich

Green beans

Fruit choices

Vegetable bar

cookie

20

21 22 NO

SCHOOL

Have a great

Christmas and

Christmas break!!!!!

23 NO

SCHOOL

24 NO

SCHOOL

25 NO

SCHOOL

26 NO

SCHOOL

27

28 29 NO

SCHOOL

30 NO

SCHOOL

31 NO

SCHOOL

Elementary School Winter Concert Tuesday, December 2, 2014 7 PM at the Jr.-Sr. High School Gym

Intermediate School Winter Concert Monday, December 8, 2014 at 7 PM at the Intermediate School

Riverside Wrestling Tournament Saturday, December 13, 2014 Jr.-Sr. High School Gym

Jr.-Sr. High School Winter Concert Monday, December 15, 2014 at 7 PM at the Jr.-Sr. HS Auditorium

Christmas Vacation begins at 2:30 PM on Friday, December 19, 2014!