Thank you, community; summer maintenance projects planned

Spring is on its way and working on breaking through on a consistent manner, but winter keeps rearing up its ugly head every so often. It is hard to believe that we are in the third trimester and have less than 10 weeks of the school year left.

I would like to thank everyone who voted last Tuesday for the spring election. There were 2,234 people who voted. The consolidat ion que stion asked if people supported the consolidation of the Greenwood and Loyal school districts. Loyal had a total of 1,143 voters with 760 (66%) voting yes and 383 (34%) voting no, with the total vote for both communities being 2,234 voters with 1,616 (72%) yes votes compared to 618 (28%) no votes. With these results of overwhelmingly supporting consolidation, both boards will meet in May to continue the process and start working on what is next and a timeline. Other election news is that David Clintsman, Crystal Rueth, and Nikki Rueth will be joining the school board at the April board meeting. I would like to thank Holly Lindner and Dennis Roehl for all their time and efforts serving on our school board. Your service was greatly appreciated.

With summer approaching, there have been many discussions and decisions made for summer maintenance projects. These projects include replacing the roofs on the middle school and the high school gym, installing a new walk-in freezer, starting the process for the elementary parking lot, adding shelving and counters in the 4K room, completing the outside concession stand, and tuckpointing and sealing the exterior of the building.

There is work that continues moving forward on developing a childcare center at the school. If you have any interest of utilizing this possible program, please contact the middle/high school office at 715-255-8511 ext. 1311 or email at lmueller@loyal.k12.wi.us.

I would like to congratulate all of the district’s co-curricular organizations for their accomplishments at their respective state competitions. There were 54 participants who made it to the state competition for either FCCLA (Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America) , FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America), and/or FFA. As of today, there are two FBLA members who have qualified for national competition, Addison Wolf and Jonah Vircks. We also have an out-going state FCCLA officer, Noelle Teschner, and an incoming FBLA state officer, Jonah Vircks.

The three-act play had three awesome performances this past weekend. A big thank you and congratulations to all involved.

It is sad to see two of our long-time veteran teachers retiring at the end of this school year. I would like to congratulate Mary Ellen Johnson on 33 years of teaching and Mark Rueth on 41 years of teaching. Both have spent their entire teaching career at Loyal. I want to thank them for their commitment to the district and wish them good luck in their retirement and future endeavors.

Seniors, you have just over two months left before you reach the milestone of graduation, so please enjoy this time, finish strong, and thank those who have helped you through your journey.