Exeter-Milligan School Update

Mr. Murphy's history and geography classes have been
incorporating technology in the classroom throughout the
school year. The Internet has many useful tools available
to improve student learning, especially for those who miss
class because of their extracurricular schedules. Two
websites that students benefit from are Purpose Games for
map quizzes and Quizlet for test reviews.

In World Geography, we are currently studying about the
continent of Europe. The eighth grade American History
classes will start to study about the Civil War. After the
Civil War is completed, the class will spend the remainder
of the year studying Nebraska History. In high school
American History, World War II is the topic being discussed.
Students have made computer slideshows about the war before
the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Pictured are a few of the freshman using their computers to
review for a
map quiz over European countries.

Exeter G.F.W. C. Woman's Club Hosts Wedding Show

Marlene Gallup shares a photo from her wedding (photo on the top).

Karen Chapman and her mother, Luanna Sullivan show Luanna's brown wool wedding dress from 1938(photo on the bottom).


It was a trip down memory lane at the Exeter Care Center on Tuesday afternoon.

The Exeter G.F.W.C. Woman's Club hosted a Wedding Memories Show in the activity room at the care center.

The program began with favorite old "love songs" played on the suitcase organ by Marci Manwarren. The crowd enjoyed singing along with "A Bicycle Built for Two."

Exeter G.F.W.C. Woman's Club Co-President Marlene Gallup welcomed the crowd and explained the program for the day. Barb Votipka presented a short program on the history of wedding traditions.

Votipka explained how many of the traditions we have today date back as far as the fifth and eight century for the bachelor party (which was known as a bachelor dinner) and bridal bouquets. In the eighth century the bridesmaids

Wilma Murphy shows the wedding dress
her grandmother wore in 1914.
photo courtesy Mary Schlegelmilch

dressed as the bride did for safety reasons. This also carried over to the bridal bouquet made of garlic, herbs and grains, which were thought to keep evil away.

It seems much of our wedding traditions can be traced back to the wedding of Queen Victoria. White dresses came to be in fashion after she wore one. The "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" tradition also harkens back to Victorian times.

It seems all the trappings of a proper wedding have roots somewhere. Veils show modest, rings, the longest tradition were worn on the left hand because it was thought to have a vein that was directly connected to the heart. And of course the "honeymoon" which came about from couples drinking a sweet wine four months after their wedding. Sweet wine, like honey, and four moons became honeymoon.

The members of the Woman's Club shared memories of their own weddings starting with Karen Chapman who brought her mother Luanna Sullivan. Luanna, who will be 92 next month, shared about getting married in the middle of the depression in 1938. She showed her brown wool wedding dress which she paid for on a weekly basis and shared about their leaving Nebraska immediately after their wedding to find greener pastures in California.

Bonnie Cudaback showed her wedding photo, her wedding shoes and her album telling about their wedding lunch. Judy Dinneen shared a few momentos and talked about how their wedding took place as a blizzard was starting and her husband drove a maintainer that winter which was comparable to this years record snow and cold.

Sue De Jonge shared how she took an airplane filled with servicemen to San Diego to marry her husband, Jim, who was in the service. Bethine Leif wore the earrings that she did in her wedding. Suzanne Johnson, who with husband, Roger, recently celebrated their 50th anniversary, showed her wedding hat, her dried bridal bouquet and bridesmaids flowers.

Marlene Gallup had wedding pictures and also the beautiful veil of her daughter Linda Allen. Wilma Murphy showed the wedding dress of her own mother from 1914 which her own daughter, Rose, wore for her wedding. She also had the watch that her father gave her mother when they married which still works. Barb Votipka showed her blue going away suit from her wedding. Elaine Oldehoeft also shared some beautiful photographs.

The residents and Woman's Club members enjoyed more songs from Marci and her organ followed by some of the residents sharing their own memories. Esther Deterding shared about her first marriage and losing her husband and then finding out about the dances in Milligan. She shared about adopting her daughters as well.

One of the residents, Nancy Galusha, who recently lost her husband shared her wedding picture.

Committee members for the event were Marlene Gallup, Barb Votipka and Bernice Hall. Bernice also provided the paper products for the event.

After some more songs on the organ all were served wedding cake and punch in the dining room.

Scout Update

The Exeter Cub Scout Pack 218 and Cordova Boy Scout Troop 359
were able to collect 292 pounds of food in the communities of Exeter and Milligan. The food was delivered to Blue Valley Community Action in Geneva, Nebraska where it is part of the Feinstein Challenge Donations. Each pound or dollar will be matched by this grant up to $40,000.






Also, the Exeter Cub Scouts pack 218 recently participated in the Adopt A Stream Program that is sponsored by the EPA, Doane College, Public Health Solutions and the Nebraska Wildlife Federation.

The boys learned how to perform six tests on water learning about turbidity, ph levels,

Eric and Peytan working on water tests

temperature, dissolved oxygen, hardness and alkalinity. Most of the tests were multiple step processes. After practicing the tests, the boys took their skills to the field and tested a local stream. They will test again in April and their results will be posted online.




In the final scout update Joey Bartu recently participated in the
Prairie Winds District Pinewood Derby. Joey entered in the Stock Show category and won first place in the district.

Exeter-Milligan Update

Reading Round-up by Laura Kroll, E-M Literacy Coach

This year Exeter-Milligan Elementary implemented a K-6
reading program that follows a direct instruction approach
and is based on mastery. The term "Direct Instruction"
refers to a rigorously developed, highly scripted method for
teaching that is fast-paced and provides constant
interaction between students and the teacher. A crucial
element in the implementation of DI in most cases is change,
and this has held true for the elementary teachers and
paraprofessionals at EM. Although the implementation of
this program has brought about many changes, it has had a
positive impact on student performance. Remaining the same,
however, is the importance of hard work, dedication and
commitment to students. Dixie Krejci and Rhonda Korbelik
have worked for the Exeter-Milligan School district for
several years. Their skills as paraprofessionals have been
put to good use this year assisting teachers with the
implementation process in the primary grades, which is
especially important. They have been an integral part of
the success of the program, and the teachers at the Exeter
site appreciate all that they do.

Exeter-Milligan School Update

Pictured is Mr. Mahoney's reading group. They have shown
remarkable improvement in reading fluency and
comprehension and look forward to the new challenges within
the reading program.
From left to right, the students are Blake Steuben, Theron
Odvody, and Hope Castro.

Exeter-Milligan School Update: Notes from the Counselor's Corner

Why Take Math? Many future jobs require strong math skills


Strong math skills will help you get a job, many of them
high-paying, in the future. In the list of fastest growing
occupations from the U.S. Department of Labor, math-related
jobs include:
. physician assistants;
. computer software engineers, systems administrators,
and database administrators;
. physical therapists;
. veterinary technologists and technicians;
. medical scientists;
. medical technologists; and
. biomedical and environmental engineers.

As technology advances, it usually leads to new uses
of math in the workplace, requiring more workers to have
strong math skills. As you can see from the list above, many
of these jobs also require knowledge in related scientific
disciplines, such as computer science or medicine.
According to the Department of Labor, the most common fields
for mathematicians to find work in are computer science and
software development, physics, engineering, and operations
research. More are also getting jobs in financial analysis
for businesses.

Even if you select a career in which math is not
required to do a lot of your daily work, you'll still need
math skills. For example, news reporters need to understand
statistics to report on many stories. And if you choose a
career that doesn't require a four-year college degree,
such as carpenter or electrician, you will need math skills
for those jobs as well. So keep taking those math
courses. Even if you don't think you'll need it in your
job, you'll need it to get through life.

Try to think of careers that involve science, math or
technology. Do you realize that more than 60 percent of all
jobs today require some form of technical skills? The need
for workers with science, math, and technology skills is
going to expand during your lifetime. And the need for these
skills won't necessarily be confined to jobs in science,
math or technology fields.

You can start getting ready for job opportunities by
taking challenging courses in math and science and learning
computer skills. Everyone has the ability to learn. If you
think that you aren't "a natural" at math, get the
help you need to understand it. The more you work with any
subject, the more you learn and the more confident you
become. ACT recommends that students take a minimum of
three years of math (Algebra I and higher- does not
include general math, business math, or consumer math) and
at least three years of natural sciences (Earth science,
biology, chemistry, physics, etc.). If you are planning to
enter a career that involves math or science skills,
research the academic requirements. ACT has found that
college-bound students' academic skills are often at odds
with their future career plans. The ACT scores earned by
graduates in the class of 2006 indicated that many were not
ready for college science and math courses that count toward
a degree. Yet, the top planned college major for this class
was health sciences, which is filled with careers requiring
strong science and math skills. These careers include
medicine, nursing, dentistry, optometry and pharmacy. Health
sciences was named as a planned college major by 24 percent
of the students who reported their college plans. Other
college majors in the top 10 student choices-including
business, social sciences, engineering, biological and
physical sciences and computer science-also usually
require students to take advanced math and/or science
coursework in college.

Local Talent Show Participants

Patrick and Caitlin Murphy recently participated in the York Lion's Club Talent Contest last weekend. Caitlin placed first in the 8 and under age division. She sang "Tomorrow" from Annie. Patrick played "Dance of the Irish" on the piano and competed in the 9-11 year old division.

D.W. Visits Exeter-Milligan Elementary Students

Exeter-Milligan elementary students got a special treat Tuesday afternoon. They had a visit from the real “D.W.”. Who is D.W. you ask? Why everyone knows Dora Winifred Read, don’t they?

Well, for those of you who aren’t familiar with D.W., she is the annoying younger sister of Arthur of the Arthur series of books and star of the PBS series.

Kim Marc, is the real D.W., and the real younger sister of Marc Brown the author and illustrator of the long running Arthur series. Currently she lives in Litchfield, Neb. And visits schools around the country sharing with students the process that her brother, Marc, goes through when he writes an Author book.

Kim brought a lot of humor to her presentation asking the students, “You guys didn’t think I was going to show up with pink fuzzy ears?” She exemplified so many of the characteristics and even the intonations of D.W. as written by her brother Marc.

Kim explained how Marc Brown wrote the first Arthur book when he was working as an illustrator. His oldest son begged for a nightly bedtime store and Arthur the Aardvark was born. His son asked for the Arthur story over and over and eventually Marc made it into a book for his children and mentioned it to the publisher he worked with. Since then he has written well over 100 books about Arthur and his sister D.W.

About twenty years ago the Arthur series came to PBS. Brown overseas the series on PBS and one of his sons works as a producer on the series.

Exeter-Milligan students got the opportunity to ask Brown questions about Marc and the writing process. She also shared quite a few pictures of Marc, their family and his home. When showing his beautiful home in Martha’s Vineyard she reminded the students, “you don’t have to be a sports hero to have a nice beautiful home.”

Brown also shared some of the secret games that are present in the Arthur books. She explained how that Marc includes each of his children’s names hidden in the pictures of his books and one special book that includes all of the names of his nieces and nephews.

Kim explained that it takes Marc about two weeks to write a story. He does about 30 rewrites on each story to get it just right before moving on to the illustration. Illustrating is where Brown started and still enjoys the most. In addition to the Arthur series he continues to illustrate books including a Dinosaurs series with his wife as the author. The Dinosaurs series was designed to help children get through difficult situations like divorce.

The students enjoyed having Kim read them a D.W. book, D.W., The Picky Eater and also learning the eight steps drawing Arthur. All of the students got in line and Brown stamped autographs in the Arthur books students brought or on a piece of paper. Before the students left, Arthur himself made an appearance and took pictures with the students.

The program was put together by Librarian Jeretta Tauriella. When she found out that Brown was available to come to the students she booked her noting that “It is not too often you can find someone who is inexpensive who will come to a little town.”

The funding for the program came from the Book Fair fund and Tauriella thought it was “something that would help the kids related back to books.”

Community Flips over Chamber Pancake Feed

Exeter Chamber of Commerce members stand at the ready to serve pancakes, sausage and drinks to the line-up of hungry community members.

Visiting and eating at the pancake feed.

Jaiden Papik enjoys her giant pancake.

Exeter community members had a chance to be served pancakes by members of the local chamber of commerce Monday evening.

The free pancake feed was well attended by over 120 members of the community. The Exeter Chamber of Commerce holds the feed annually.

After the pancake feed the chamber held their regular member and voted to donate $200 to the American Legion to help with insulating the ceiling of the Legion hall. They also held elections with Bob Mueller elected President, Paul Sheffield, vice-president, Alan Emshoff, treasurer and Hope Androyna, secretary.

In order to raise additional funding the chamber explored the possibility of holding a consignment auction this summer and Barry Murphy will chair this committee.

Exeter-Milligan School Update

Mr. Krejci's reading group has been working
on new sounds and more challenging words this semester.
They are shown here working on their worksheets after
reading the story of the day. The students continue to
use the new Reading Mastery Program which has improved their
reading skills throughout the year. Pictured are MaKenna
Morgan, Summer Auld, Georgia Meyer, and Ty Underwood.