Exeter Gym Gets An Upgrade

 The padding on the Exeter site gym walls was replaced in late July.  Work continues on the locker room and hallway upgrade at the Exeter site.

Exeter Parade

It was a celebration of the 150th anniversary of statehood in Nebraska and Exeter decided to join in the celebration with a car show, parade, softball tournament, a bbq and polka band on Saturday, July 29th.  The parade was led by the colors carried by members of the Exeter American Legion and the Sons of the Legion.  From the left are From the left are Brian Moor, Justin Harre, John Tauriella, Jim Anderson, Mitch Becker and Mark Beethe.  Exeter-Milligan sophomore Caitlin Murphy sang the National Anthem as the flags stopped downtown.

 There was candy everywhere at the parade on Saturday afternoon.

Above -Paul and Nancy Jensen fly through the parade as “Just Plane People” and Paul threw out balsa airplanes as they went by.

Below – Troy and Will Kallhoff advertise Uncle Greg Ekeler’s  repair shop in the Exeter parade.

Above – Brett and Tommy Kallhoff get ready to throw out candy during the Exeter parade from their buggy advertising their Uncle Greg Ekeler’s repair shop.

From the left Kay Due, Jonah Geiger and Diane Geiger pass out candy during the Exeter 150^th Statehood celebration.  Below Amy Emshoff of Generations bank launches another handful of candy out the window.

 Bob Dumpert gives his real opinion on red tractors during the parade.

Above – Aidan Vavra drives the miniature semi truck for the Farmers Cooperative. Below, Carri Vavra launches a handful of candy out the Coop truck window.

 Dusty Axline passes out a Horizontal Ball Camp during the Exeter parade.

Joe and Sharla Dinneen cruise through the parade in their Corvette with their sign celebrating the 150 years of Nebraska Statehood.

 Exeter Lumber celebrates the 150th of Nebraska Statehood.

 The Total Look from Milligan participated in the Exeter parade.

 Roger and Mary Pribyl drive their 1955 Crown Victoria through the Exeter parade.

 Peyton Pribyl drives this beauty of a Camaro during the parade

 KTMX helped promote the event in Exeter and came out to be part of the parade.

 Manning Grain was on hand to help celebrate.

 Knox Becker rides shotgun with his mom. J.J. Becker during the parade.

 Exeter's mayor Alan Michl participated in the car show and the parade with his Dodge

 Winner of the Judges choice in the car show was Exeter's own Adam Erdkamp in the Dodge Hellcat.

 Farmers and Merchants Bank of Milligan was on hand for the parade throwing on koozies and money.

Gotta get your steak!

Exeter Car Show

Paul Erdkamp (far left) and his son Elliot admire the Rat Rod built by Randy Hall as Hall (far right) and Brian Moor discuss the process.

Exeter celebrated the 150^th birthday of the State of Nebraska on Saturday with a car show, parade and supper with a polka band.

The car show downtown featured everything from tractors and motorcycles to pickups and mini cars.  Placing first in people’s choice was Lawrence Jensen (above left) with his 1957 Ford 300, first in the rat rod category was Randy Hall and judges choice was the Dodge Hellcat owned by George and Adam Erdkamp.

Above - Assistant Volunteer Fire Chief Jacob Miller hands the People’s Choice Trophy to Lawrence Jensen.

 

Pictured in front of their Hellcat are first place trophy winners in the judges category from the left are Adam, Axel, Deacon and George Erdkamp.

Countdown to Eclipse

The countdown to the Eclipse is on and Exeter is right in the path.  On August 21st Exeter will experience 2 minutes and 35 seconds of total solar eclipse and darkness. All graphics are courtesy of NASA.

Exeter-Milligan Challenged through HUMANeX

Exeter-Milligan faculty and staff posed for a photo at the HUMANeX conference in Kalamazoo, Mich.  Pictured from the left are: Denice Kovanda, Laura Kroll, Marla Weber, Katherine Roemmich, Laura Steuben, Treven Cerveny, Lisa Soukup, Shelli Mueller and Paul Sheffield.

Two years ago Exeter-Milligan Superintendent Paul Sheffield “had a gut feeling that things just didn’t seem right” with the staff, faculty and students in the school district.

Around that same time Sheffield was at an administrator’s day and was introduced to the vendor HUMANeX which help companies and schools evaluate their relationships and community.

HUMANeX examines the entity and according to their proposal objective they are “creating and driving sustained excellence in organizations through expert education, equipping and execution to impact key outcomes in a significant and sustained manner.”

The district hired the company to come into both the elementary, middle and high school and Sheffield and Exeter-Milligan Principal Laura Kroll are both enthusiastic about the work that HUMANeX has done at Exeter-Milligan.  Kroll explained, “They evaluate the culture of your school and help you to find a direction and set goals each year.  The biggest help for us is the survey they do of all the staff, not just the teachers.  They collect information and from that information tell you where you areas of need are and where your strengths are.”

HUMANeX doesn’t just evaluate and spit out reports.  They have been very hands on in their evaluations according to Kroll, “They meet with the staff without the administrators there to talk about the things that are their concerns and the directions they want to go.”

HUMANeX has designed surveys with over 100 questions that the faculty and staff have answered during professional development time.  Kroll shared that the information from the surveys really “opens up the conversation, and creates a dialog and a partnership.  This creates a change of culture so everyone understands and is working toward the same goal.  It also gives everyone an opportunity to voice their opinion.”

Fourth grade teacher at Exeter-Milligan, Shelli Mueller, feels the district has benefited with the HUMANeX experience, “I think there was some disconnect there (between administrators and faculty).  This has narrowed our focus as a group and helped us see what needs to be worked on.  It really showed what our strengths are and what we need to work on especially with new staff in Milligan.”

Last year, between teachers resigning and changing campuses, four new teachers were hired for the Milligan campus. 

Mueller added, “Having two sites it is important to see how we can improve our communication.  We met at the end of the school year and HUMANeX was impressed with the improvement in our numbers, but we told them we could do better.  We are a motivated group.”

“It’s really a way for us to get a pulse on the organization as a whole and makes improvements,” explained Sheffield.

Kroll noted that communication was the primary goal that “rose to the top through the survey.  The K-6 goals were that ‘Our team effectively communicates with each other’ and ‘I feel in on things that are happening at E-M public schools.’”

Similar goals were revealed through the 7-12 survey’s with them sharing the top goal of effectively communicating with each other.  Their second overall goal was ‘I am on a team that encourages each member to surpass expectations.’

These goals are those that HUMANeX found through the survey given to all of the teachers.

HUMANeX seems to have enjoyed the relationship with Exeter-Milligan as well and invited the administrators to their annual conference in Kalamazoo, Mich.  “We were first invited as participants and then HUMANeX met with some of our elementary staff and they wanted all of them to come to Kalamazoo.”

In June, nine teachers and staff at Exeter-Milligan took the HUMANeX sponsored trip to Kalamazoo as well as Sheffield, Kroll and Guidance Counselor Denise Kovanda presented at the conference.  Sheffield emphasized that the positive responses he received from representatives of large corporations after the presentation confirmed that the district was seeing the results of their interactions with HUMANeX.

While the Exeter-Milligan administrators presented at the conference, the teachers served as a panel for the session.  Mueller enjoyed fielding questions from the audience.

Mueller thought the Kalamazoo leadership conference was “amazing.  We listed to awesome speakers. It was one more way to bring our district together. We were one of the few groups from a school that brought nine.”

Recently, the Exeter-Milligan school board completed a survey tailored to their relationships and trust level.  In the next phase, Exeter-Milligan will utilize HUMANeX with their coaches and student athletes.  The long term goal, according to Sheffield is to do a community survey, “We would love to be a pilot school and community for HUMANeX.  They haven’t done an entire community yet.”

Kroll agreed, “I think it’s a great way to get everybody on the same page working toward the same goal and making sure that your school is growing.”

During the conference HUMANeX recognized the progress at Exeter-Milligan calling Sheffield on stage and presenting him with a set of John Gordon books.

“Our ultimate big picture goal is helping Exeter-Milligan be the place to be  We want people from the outside say, ‘I want my kids to go there or I want to go there,” explained Sheffield.  “This has helped with growing our culture and the internal growth and at the same time knowing that you can’t be complacent.”

Exeter History: Yates

This photo was found at the Exeter Public Library and on the back reads, "Mrs. Emory Yates and daughter Anna take 1900 Lincoln, Nebr.