Iowa State high school trap meet

CEDAR FALLS - The Iowa High School State Trapshoot competition came down to a couple of young guns in a shootoff Saturday, at the Cedar Falls Gun Club.

Trapshooting: Young shooters battle at state meet

Cody Mercer of Charles City and Samuel Beaver of St. Ansgar both scored 99 out of 100 to force a shootoff. Cody edged Samuel for the championship. Also New Hampton won the shootoff against Maquoketa after tying.

The results with many very close scores:

TEAM STANDINGS - 1. New Hampton 472 (shootoff); 2. Maquoketa 472; 3. Osage 458; 4. Nashua 454; 5. Northwood-Kensett 453; 6. Mason City 449.

BOYS - 1.Cody Mercer (Charles City) 99 (shootoff); Samuel Beaver (St. Ansgar) 99; 3. Nick Arthur (Lynnville-Sully) 98; 4. Bryce Haines (Iowa City West) 98; 5. Robbi Marzolf (New Hampton) 98; 6. Jaycob Clark (Maquoketa) 98; 15. Neal deBuhr (Cedar Falls) 95.

GIRLS- 1. Calleen Anderson (Ogden) 88; 2. Kayci Klobassa (Osage) 87; 3. Jade Johnson (Mason City) 83; 4. Kelly King (Waterloo West) 83; 5. Kiela Ruth (Nashua-Plainfield) 83; 6. Megan Meissen (New Hampton) 83.

High school kids with guns (and no one got hurt).

Congratulations to the champions.

Girls suing school for strip search

A story that I've been following regarding the Atlantic High School strip search of five girls that were accused of stealing $100. BTR Atlantic school search (They never found the money). Three of the girls are suing the principals involved:

The three girls were among those ordered to submit to a search in a locker room during a gym class on the third day of the school year.

Listed as defendants in the case are the school district, as well as Paul Croghan, who was the high school’s assistant principal at the time; and Heather Turpin, a school counselor.

Girls in strip search case sue school

Strips searches are illegal in Iowa schools, but apparently there are no criminal consequences if one should perpetrate an illegal strip search. No one has been charged.

Guns and schools (again)

The High School & Scholastic Clay Target Program (part of the Iowa Games) have events scheduled for this Saturday

This new event will be hosted on May 15 at six gun clubs across the state including the Palo Alto Gun Club at Sportsman’s Park, north of Cylinder, as well as at the Clinton Gun Club, DeWitt; the Stockdale Gun Club, Ackley; Tri-State Gun Club, Montrose; and Brownells Big Springs Shooting Complex, Searsboro.

The High School & School & Scholastic Clay Target Program is part of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources shooting sports. The program is a team-based clay target shooting program that is changing the lives of grade, middle, and high school students nation-wide and in Iowa.

The Emmetsburg High School Trap Shooting Team was formed the first week of May and competed last Saturday finishing third out of twelve teams.

Read more of their success at Scholastic Clays To Be Shot At Sportsmans Park This Saturday

It looks like more schools across the state are forming shooting teams. Unfortunately our high school was not one of them. Hmmm.

Teacher can't get a job

During "horseplay" a teacher breaks the wrist of a student in gym class. The teacher is suspended, disciplined and now finds it tough to get another phys ed job.

A former Clinton teacher who broke a 13-year-old boy’s wrist in physical education class wants state licensing officials to seal his discipline record because he says it has hurt his ability to land a new job.

And he wants his records sealed so no one finds out about his harming a child.

It has “significantly impaired” Gonzales’ ability to get a job, his request to the examiners board said.

I should hope so.

Teacher wants discipline record sealed

Altantic assitant principal resigns

Atlantic assistant principal resigns after "allegedly" ordering a strip search of female students. Atlantic school official named in strip search case resigns

The assistant principal who allegedly ordered the strip search of several high school girls in Atlantic has resigned.

The resignation of Paul Croghan, assistant principal and activities director, was announced Tuesday night at the Atlantic Community School District's board meeting.

Croghan, without consulting district policy, ordered a female counselor to search the girls' bras after a classmate claimed $100 had been stolen from her, according to a recent report commissioned by the district.

Granted, he wasn't involved with the actual search, which would be cause for registering as a sex offender, but it looks like he ordered the deed.

Previous posts:
BTR Atlantic school search

ACLU of Iowa asking about Atlantic strip search

I missed this last week: the Iowa chapter of the ACLU (whom I normally disagree with 99.9% of the time) is asking for more details from the Atlantic School District and how they are handling their staff discipline ACLU gets involved in Atlantic school strip-search case

ATLANTIC (WHNS) – The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa wants to know what disciplinary action was taken against the two high school staff members who were involved in the alleged strip search of female students in Atlantic.

The ACLU also has asked the Atlantic Community Schools to specify which employees were disciplined.

The request came in response to an Aug. 21 incident in which five Atlantic High students were asked to remove their clothes or partially disrobe while being searched by a guidance counselor.

The girls were accused of taking $100 and despite a state law barring strips searches at schools, a couple of idiots decided to ignore the law. The superintendent ruled it was okay, because "school policy" allows searches. The guy makes up other stuff, too:

Dan Crozier, superintendent of the Atlantic Community Schools, said two staff members had been disciplined in connection with the searches.

He did not name the employees or detail the disciplinary measures, citing confidentiality of personnel matters.

“There’s a law that says personnel files are personal,” said Crozier. “It’s like medical records.”

Medical records aren't as private as you may think.

The ACLU is asking questions and want to take names. I'd like the girls to be vindicated and the idiots who committed child abuse punished.

Previous posts:
BTR Atlantic school search

Student arrested for having a gun in car trunk

A Sioux Falls, Washington High School student was arrested after a shotgun was discovered in the trunk of his car. WHS Student Faces Expulsion For Having Gun In Car

A Sioux Falls student has been arrested and suspended from school for having a firearm on school property.

Sioux Falls Police were called to Washington High School over the noon-hour after the school's resource officer discovered a 16-gauge shotgun in the trunk of a student's car. The 17-year-old student said he had gone pheasant-hunting on opening weekend and forgot he had the gun in his car.

"It's unfortunate that he forgot he had it with him, but you have to remember the law is there for a reason. It's there to protect people and he might not of had any intent on using it, but if somebody else found it, they might have some other plans for the weapon" Sioux Falls Police Officer Sam Clemens said.

The shotgun was not loaded, and there was no ammunition in the car. The student was arrested for having a firearm on school property, which calls for a mandatory 12-month expulsion from school.

Bill Smith with the School Falls School District tells KELOLAND News that there is a provision in the law that allows the superintendent to either extend or shorten that 12-month sentence depending on the circumstances.

How did this "resource officer" discover the shotgun? With these?



I'd like to know who is the victim here? With no victim there is no crime. This kid could lose his gun rights for the rest of his life depending on how he's charged and for what? For the crime of "absentmindedness"?

"The law is there for a reason". That's right officer Clemens. Stupid reasons.

Columbus Day Special: hero and villain

The first maybe-annual look at old Columbus. But the winds have changed since I was in grade-school. A darker side of Columbus emerges in U.S. classrooms

TAMPA, Fla. -- Jeffrey Kolowith's kindergarten students read a poem about Christopher Columbus, take a journey to the New World on three paper ships and place the explorer's picture on a timeline through history.

Kolowith's students learn about the explorer's significance -- though they also come away with a more nuanced picture of Columbus than the noble discoverer often portrayed in pop culture and legend.

"I talk about the situation where he didn't even realize where he was," Kolowith said. "And we talked about how he was very, very mean, very bossy."

So was Patton. Sometimes bosses have to be "very, very mean, very bossy" or else things wouldn't get done. Like defeating the Nazis or putting down a mutiny while crossing the Atlantic 500+ years ago. But we're talking about kindergartners, right?

In McDonald, Pa., 30 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, fourth-grade students at Fort Cherry Elementary put Columbus on trial this year -- charging him with misrepresenting the Spanish crown and thievery. They found him guilty and sentenced him to life in prison.

"In their own verbiage, he was a bad guy," teacher Laurie Crawford said.

"He was a bad guy"? I assume these are bright 9 and 10 year-olds that judged based on the law and not what some liberal text book had printed or influenced by Ms Crawford.

But all of this doesn't beat this guy:

"Every hero is somebody else's villain," said Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, a scholar and author of several books related to Columbus, including "1492: The Year the World Began."

"Heroism and villainy are just two sides of the same coin."

That's true. Just ask any punk wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt.

*Full disclosure: I have some Choctaw blood in me. Not that it matters, but I won't cast stones at Columbus, when the real tragedy towards Native Americans started a couple centuries later.

More updates to the Atlantic school strip search

More information has come out about the Atlantic school strip search that I posted.

It seems that the girl with missing money was a daughter of a teacher. No police report of a missing $100 has been filed. If it's really missing, why no report?

Looks like they are circling the wagons and looking for a scapegoat.

9/18/09 Update: Parents are still angry and lawyers are talking as One girl was excused from the search.

Illinois teacher exchanges pot for labor

From across the Mississippi in Illinois we find a teacher sharing, not her knowledge, but pot. Ill. teacher accused of giving girls alcohol, pot.

No child left behind? At least she didn't hire any illegals.

Strip search in Atlantic school

The Des Moines Register reports

School officials in Atlantic forced five teenage girls to take off their clothing for a search after a classmate reported $100 missing from her purse, according to the girls' families and two lawyers.

The classmate and a female counselor stood watch in the girls' locker room at Atlantic High School as the five girls removed their clothing, lifted up their underwear, and in one case took off all her clothing, according to lawyers Ed Noethe of Council Bluffs and Matt Hudson of Harlan.

Strip-searching is illegal in Iowa schools

And the kicker: "I guess I really can't comment on that because of confidentiality of those involved," Crozier [interim superintendent] said.

He's only concerned with confidentiality after he abused 5 girls.