Hawk’s Eye

By Karen Sattler
    With the Christmas season fast approaching, we are beginning to hear the strains of Christmas carols floating from the band and chorus rooms.  The Winter Concert Calendar is as follows: Dec. 12 – High School Band and Chorus at 7 p.m.; Dec. 18 – Middle School Chorus and Band at 6:30 p.m., and grade 4-5 Chorus and Band will perform at 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 19.
    So, if that Christmas Spirit seems to be eluding you, make plans to attend one or more of these concerts.  The students have worked very hard and you will surely not be disappointed.
    A few of our middle school students were chosen to participate in the All Aroostook Musical Festival as part of the chorus. Tiffany Muncey, Taylor Schillinger, and Brianna Tully raised their voices with many others from the county as part of this yearly event.  We’d like to congratulate all these students on this musical achievement!
    Rob Goulet and his Lego Robotics Team are traveling to Augusta on Dec. 7-8 to compete in this year’s challenge, “Senior Solutions,” at the Augusta Civic Center. This group has been working for eight weeks to prepare for this and they are feeling pretty confident about their preparedness. If you’d like to see more than 50 teams compete in different challenge areas, visit the Civic Center on Saturday, Dec. 8. It’s amazing what can be done with Legos!
    If you had the opportunity to catch the Today Show which highlighted a segment on Savannah’s Soldiers, I hope you will help us to encourage our students to take part in a letter writing campaign following this young lady’s lead.  More information will be shared in just a bit.
    Picking up with something we did last year as part of this column, I would like to tell you a little bit about Ms. Noel Pratt, one of our middle school teachers. Ms. Pratt is our social studies teacher and also teaches an eighth grade math class. This is her third year working at Mill Pond and she has worn many hats in her short time here! Her responses to a short questionnaire were very informative. She has “tons” of family and her furry-family members are Beau (a horse) and Deacon, her dog. If given the opportunity to experience her dream vacation, she would choose to visit Ireland. When asked if she would change anything about how she has lived her life to this point, she said she would marry a doctor and sleep in every day!
    An unusual bit of knowledge about Noel is that she once saved the life of a frog by doing chest compressions (CPRrrribbit). Seeing her little cousins so upset over the frog being knocked out, she did what she could, and the frog lived! Her proudest moment?  “When my great aunt, a grandmother figure in my life, told me I could do anything!”  Wow! Maybe we should all take her example and try to encourage our youth with some positive comments.  Who knows what difference a few kind words can make?  Until next time.