It is only right to let you know that the North Dakota representative to the National American Legion Oratorical contest is from Maddock. Andy Backstrom will be going to Indianapolis, IN on April 4-6 to compete against a contestant from each state in the Union. Great opportunity and great honor for Maddock.
Tonight was the first elimination night that America’s votes counted for American Idol- Season 7. The ‘Top 12′ guys sang on Tuesday night and the ‘Top 12′ girls sang last night. At the beginning of the show, all of the contestants sang a song together. There was also a World Premiere music video “Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow” feat. Paula Abdul from Randy Jackson’s new cd, Randy Jackson’s Music Club, coming out March 16th. After that, the votes were tallied and the four contestants to go home were Garrett Haley, Colton Berry, Amy Davis, and Joanne Borgella. A photo of each of them is in the slideshow below. There is also a video beside the slideshow if you click on the picture of Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul.
February 16th to the 23nd of 2008 is this year’s National FFA Week. The theme is “Blue Jackets, Bright Futures”. Starting today, the Maddock A.S. Gibbens FFA is volunteering for the rest of the week at the After School Activities Program (ASAP), which runs from 3:30pm to 6:00pm. After the kids have their snack and finish their homework, Mr. Wald and the volunteer(s) will be going down to the Ag Room and doing some flight simulations and cutting out some patterns with the scroll saws. 
Lu and Addie Mathison, Carol Backstrom, Priscilla Backstrom, Flo Kallenbach and students from MHS attended a class for advanced bloggers yesterday presented by Gayle Gette. This is a fun community project and a challenging and learning experience!
The Funky Friday group is going to sing the national anthem at the Boys’ Basketball game tonight, which is vs. Cando @ Maddock and the B-squad game starts at 6:00p.m. with the A-squad following. The Funky Fridays is made up of kids in grades 4-6 who want to sing. Hope you can come and check out they’re awesome singing tonight!
The Maddock Pep Band is playing for tonight’s Boys’ Basketball game between the pregame and half time of the A squad game vs. Northstar at 7:00p.m. @ Maddock . Their newest song that they will be playing tonight is “Come Sail Away” by Styx. You might also notice that the band has a new look. Hope to see you at the game!
These past couple of days I have been yelled at for just sitting at a table doing homework waiting for a basketball game to start. I remember when I was younger and would run around the school and no one would care. Nowadays I’m getting yelled are for doing the right thing, I’ve been getting yelled at because I have not been supervised. The school administration has been tough on students who are not supervised in the school because of a past incident that happened in another North Dakota School. A student got hurt because he/she was not supervised and the student’s parents sued the school because their child was hurt for being dumb. I have a real issue on how our school is not allowing me to do my homework after school because I am unsupervised. I wasn’t doing anything wrong but yet I was asked to leave the building or find someone to supervise me so I won’t hurt myself.
I also got in trouble for shooting a basketball after school because I have to stay off the gym floor and also because I was unsupervised. Does the school administration not want students to have fun anymore or what? Keep kids off the gym floor so we can save money, the administration seems ok to have parent teacher conferences on the gym floor while parents and students come from outside with snow and rocks on their shoes while the snow melts and the water from their shoes seeps into the wood floor. I guess times change but what am I suppose to do after school when I think it’s useless to drive a 10 mile round trip home. I guess I have to drive around town and waste gas and money or maybe hang out at the After School Activities Program with the younger kids there.
I feel students should be treated better than a bunch of cattle being pushed around. In the school handbook it says “Every student should be unique and no student should be alike. We push for every student to be themselves….” How can students be themselves if they can’t do some of the things they would like to do? Some school rules I feel need to change.
The other day I was in the band room playing guitar, when all of the sudden an announcement came over the intercome announcing that school will be dismissed at 2:00! My day brightened up when I heard that announcement, as I really wanted to take a nap. On the way home the roads were drifting really bad but I made it home safely. Later that day I got news that school was going to be an hour late the next day. I was excited for that becuase I thought I could sleep longer, but I had to get an early start in case I got in car trouble. Let’s hope we don’t have any more bad weather, unless it lets school out early.
Throughout this past week I have noticed many students have been absent. A majority of these absences are due to several illnesses going around, including the flu and other colds. Students are not limited to being sick, there have been several adults who have recently been ill as well. Everyone should take the proper steps needed to prevent themselves from getting or spreading these illnesses.
