I challenge every voter in School Dist. 309 to do this: get out your high school yearbook. Take some time to enjoy your memories. Now, do this: tear out football, basketball, wrestling, swimming, volleyball, baseball, track and field, hockey, softball, tennis, golf, cross-country, gymnastics, homecoming and winter sports day, band, choir, speech, drama and National Honor Society. Go to the pictures of staff, and cut out at random five or six teachers, two support staff, and about 10 to 20 pictures of graduates, because surely some students will leave in order to find better opportunities in both academics and athletics. Take out the yearbook staff picture too, because there really isn't much to have a yearbook for, is there?
This is our students' future. Why on earth will kids want to come back here to live, raise their families and keep our community strong? What will Park Rapids future look like without activities and adequate educational opportunities for our students? What "fun" will the several hundred kids now involved in extracurricular activities find? How many gravel pits, back roads and hidden fields will become places to "find something to do?"
"Main" will surely become the gathering place for teens. If the school is not given the funding to be able to provide opportunities for all students, either in the classroom or on an athletic field, this community will pay in the future. Higher drinking, drug use, teen pregnancy, truancy: these are all statistics that are high in areas that do not value and provide an adequate education.
Now, about your yearbook: I treasure my memories too much to destroy mine. How can we ask our kids to do this to their future? Support our kids, and vote yes on Nov. 7.
Marilyn Matheny
ADVERTISEMENT
Park Rapids
