| State’s best high school student artwork on exhibit |
It's like going to a state championship — but for artists! The work of Minnesota's award-winning young artists from the Minnesota State High School League Visual Arts Festivals will be displayed at the Minnesota State Visual Arts High School Exhibition May 10 through May 19. The exhibition is at the College of Visual Arts Gallery in St. Paul.
The Minnesota State High School League has long been the governing body for all high school sports and other fine arts activities like debate, one act play, music and speech. Similarly,every spring talented high school students from throughout Minnesota participate in visual arts festivals at the section level. The competition involves judging of specific criteria for either Excellent or Superior ratings. In addition, one piece of artwork in each of nine categories is chosen as a Judge's Choice, earning a Spotlight on the Arts Award.
Students may submit one artwork in one or more of the following categories:
Media Arts, Drawing, Painting, Crafts, Sculpture, Printmaking, Ceramics, 2D Mixed Media/Collage, and Graphic Design. The judges are experienced professional artists and designers.
The Judge's Choice winners are invited to display their work in the Minnesota State Visual Arts High School Exhibition held at the College of Visual Arts Gallery. The college hosts the annual Minnesota State Visual Arts High School Exhibition with assistance from the Art Educators of Minnesota and support from the Minnesota State High School League. The exhibition is an opportunity for these exceptionally talented students from all over Minnesota to have their achievement recognized.
The exhibition is open May 10-19, with Public Gallery Hours Wednesday and Friday noon-6 p.m., Thursday, noon-8 p.m., and Saturday, noon-4 p.m. A reception will be held Saturday, May 19, 2-3:30 p.m., with an awards ceremony at 2:15 p.m. The gallery is located at 173 Western Avenue North, St. Paul (corner of Western and Selby avenues). For more information, visit www.cva.edu/admissions/minnesota_state_visual_arts_exhibition/.
The College of Visual Arts is a private, accredited, four-year college of art and design offering a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in fashion, fine arts, graphic design, illustration, and photography. The fine arts degree offers concentrations in drawing, painting, printmaking, and sculpture. Founded in 1924, the college is located in the thriving urban residential areas of historic Summit Avenue and Ramsey Hill in St. Paul (www.cva.edu).
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| 2012 State Adapted Bowling Tournament |
Alexandria, St. Paul Highland Park to defend team titles;
Five singles champions, one doubles duo also return
Both teams, five singles champions, and one doubles pair will defend titles in the same category at the 13th State Adapted Bowling Tournament. The tournament will be held Friday, May 18, at Brunswick Zone in Eden Prairie.
All five Alexandria teams will try to make it two championships in a row in the CI Division team competition, while two St. Paul Highland Park entries will try for the same in the PI Division.
Sophomore Tyler Engler of Spring Lake Park will be back to defend his singles title in the CI Division. Sophomore McKenzi Klimek of Alexandria will attempt to defend her singles title in the CI Division. New doubles duo champions will emerge in the CI Division.
Sophomore Jack Botzet of Alexandria and junior Kris Bartz of Albany shared the 2011 singles title in the PI Division and both are back. Junior Abby Cochran of Simley, Inver Grove Heights, will be back to defend her singles title in the PI Division. The doubles duo of sophomore Brandy Kirscher and senior Abenezer Fida of St. Paul Highland Park are back to attempt to defend their 2011 title in the PI Division.
CI Division Highlights
All four members of last year's championship team from Alexandria are back, but they are split between two different teams. Sophomores Dane Bennefeuille and McKenzi Klimek are paired this year with a couple of ninth-graders, Jared Greene and Tayler Mayer. Eighth-graders David Madison and Jared McDonagh are paired this year with a couple of seventh-graders, Dylan Timm and Lariah Lerin. If Alexandria wins, it will be their fourth overall championship.
Twenty-seven teams will compete this year. North/Tartan has seven separate teams entered and Alexandria has five. Alexandria senior Gideon Hartzell enters with a 131 average, tops for team competitors. His team's combined average of 447 is also highest among all teams.
There are 105 boys and 76 girls entered in the singles competition. There are 77 pairs of bowlers entered in the doubles event.
PI Division Highlights
Ten teams are entered in the PI Division competition. St. Paul Highland Park won the 2011 event and has two separate teams to attempt a title defense. Both Highland Park squads return with three out of four veterans of last year's tournament. Ninth-grader Stephanie Kampa, sophomore Brandy Kirscher and senior Abenezer Fida are joined by newcomer Jack LaChappelle, a ninth-grader, in defense of their 2011 title. A second Highland Park team finished third last year and this year ninth-grader Jack Kelly, sophomore Tina Randle and senior Nathan Barclay are joined by newcomer Conor O'Meara, an eighth-grader.
North Branch finished second last year and has all four bowlers returning from that team: eighth-grader Chelsea Knutson and sophomores Tayler Dyrda, Iman Omar and Alana Stahley.
Dyrda and Wayzata/Minnetonka junior Steven Fletcher both sport field-leading 133 averages. The Wayzata/Minnetonka squad had the highest combined average of 464 in the field.
Besides Highland Park, Minneapolis South and Wayzata/Minnetonka have entered two teams each.
Thirty-eight bowlers will compete in boys' singles and 23 bowlers will compete in girls' singles. There are 26 different duos competing in doubles.
Tournament Format
There are three competitions for athletes in both divisions — boys or girls singles, doubles, and team. Doubles pairs and teams may be co-ed. There is no limit on the number of bowlers who can compete in the various categories of competition. For example, a school could have 20 participants in singles competition, or five or six doubles teams, and more than one team from a school or co-op can participate in the same division. However, there is a restriction that an individual athlete cannot participate in all three categories.
In adapted bowling, two games constitute a match. There will be no tiebreakers during the state tournament. A handicap will be generated from a scratch score in the tournament since participants will not be competing against everyone. The score of 200 will be used with everyone's handicap being figured by the following formula: 200 minus player's average times 90 percent equals handicap. The average is comprised only of competitive games bowled and is updated after every match.
As one can imagine and as the name of the activity implies, some rules have been adapted to accommodate the athletes with disabilities. For example, a PI athlete may use a ramp for placement and release of the ball, or a retractable-handle ball. PI athletes in wheel chairs using ramps may also bowl three consecutive frames between turns.
Adapted bowling is one of four sports the Minnesota State High School League sponsors for athletes with disabilities and the first that allows for competition among individuals. Adapted soccer is conducted in the fall, adapted floor hockey is conducted in the winter, and adapted softball is also conducted in the spring. Competition is conducted in two divisions: one for athletes with physical or health impairments and commonly called PI; and the other for athletes with cognitive impairments known as CI.
The Schedule
The singles competition is scheduled for 9:00 a.m., followed by doubles competition at 12:30 p.m., and concluding with team competition at 3:00 p.m. There will be a 15-minute warm-up prior to the competition in each event. Awards will be presented approximately 15 minutes after the conclusion of each category of competition.
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| Inaugural MSHSL/FIRST State Robotics Championship |
Minnesota once again leads the nation with this inaugural competition
Basketballs will be flying at Williams Arena on Saturday, May 19, but they will be hurled by robots, not humans. Actually, there will be humans controlling the robots.
The inaugural Minnesota State Robotics Tournament, the first of its kind in the nation sponsored by a high school activities association, will be conducted on the famous raised floor of "The Barn." Students on 28 teams throughout Minnesota will compete to claim the inaugural state championship.
Rebound RumbleSM is the name of the game, the same game that robotics teams throughout the country played this year. Designed and managed by FIRST®, — For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology — the game involves two competing alliances of three teams attempting to score as many baskets as possible in a two minute and 15 second match using their remote-controlled robots they designed and built.
The game is played on a level, enclosed area 27-by-54 foot in dimension. The matches begin with a 15-second hybrid period in which the robots operate independently of drivers. Baskets scored during this period are worth extra points. The baskets are placed at different heights and the higher the hoop, the higher the score.
The matches conclude with student drivers attempting to balance their robots on pivoting bridges at the center of the competition area. One robot from each team during qualification matches will also try to balance on a separate Coopertition™ bridge for additional points.
The 28 qualified teams represent the top 24 teams, plus ties, from various FIRST® regional competitions. Minnesota has the third largest FIRST® Robotics Competition state contingent in the nation with 153 teams, surpassing even Texas which has 147 teams this year. Minnesota has the most teams per capita of any state in the nation. There are nearly as many FIRST® Robotics teams in Minnesota as there are boys' hockey teams (157).
Here is an alphabetic list of the teams, preceded by each team's FIRST®-designated number: 2825 AFSA, 4226 Albany, 2957 Alden-Conger, 3058 Annandale, 2232 Anoka, 3081 Bloomington Kennedy, 3630 Breck School of Golden Valley, 4174 Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart, 2450 Cretin-Derham Hall of St. Paul, 2220 Eagan, 1816 Edina, 3293 Fergus Falls, 2239 Hopkins, 2052 Irondale, 3840 Isanti County 4H, 2861 Lake City, 3454 Mahtomedi, 2549 Minneapolis Washburn, 2538 Morris Area, 4217 Nashwauk-Keewatin, 3883 Park of Cottage Grove, 2169 Prior Lake, 3747 RiverBend Academy/LCWM, 2530 Rochester High Schools, 3018 St. Peter, 2508 Stillwater Area, 3277 Thief River Falls, and 2883 Warroad.
The schedule: Opening Ceremonies at 8:45 a.m.; Preliminary Rounds involving randomly drawn alliances from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Championship Rounds involving the top four teams after choosing their own alliance partners in 2-out-of-3 competition at 2:30 p.m.
Additional fun facts about Minnesota robotics:
The growth of robotics programs in the state has been exponential. In 2006 there were only two teams; 16 in 2007; 54 in 2008; 81 in 2009; 105 in 2010; 131 in 2011; and 153 in 2012.
Roughly half of Minnesota's teams are located outside of the Twin Cities metropolitan area and roughly half of Minnesota's high school students have access to a FIRST® Robotics team at their school or at a partnering school.
The 10,000 Lakes/North Star Double-Regional was the largest FIRST® Robotics event outside of the World Championship, with a combined total of 128 teams competing this year March 30-31 at Williams and Mariucci arenas. Sixty-four teams competed at the Lake Superior Regional March 9-10 this year in Duluth in only its second season.
Edina is in its seventh year of competition, the longest running robotics program in the state. The program was initiated by a junior who built the robot in his dad's kitchen. Eighty percent of Edina's robotics team graduates pursue higher education in either engineering or science.
Alden-Conger, which has 17 percent of its student body involved in robotics and a 50-50 split of boys and girls, took time after school to assist another struggling team in Operation Save Blue Earth.
The Eagan team has used more than 2,000 LED lights to create name tags, bracelets, decorate carts and its mascot costume, as well as other uses. The intent is to light up interest in STEM — Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
The Irondale robotics team, State Fair ribbon winners the past two years, uses a vision tracking program to locate the targets behind the hoops. The team also constructed a school-themed T-shirt cannon that is used at football games.
The RiverBend Academy/Lake Crystal-Wellcome Memorial robotics team's two main tools are a Sawzall® and drill press. Their mentor's superstition requires them to sing Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" before every competition. The team's "cookie lady" bakes them and the team sells them to the tune of about $1,000 this year.
The Warroad nickname is F.R.E.D. That stands for Fighting Rednecks Engineering and Design. A total of 890 person hours were spent designing, building and prepping the team's robot for the recent North Star Regional.
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| MSHSL Spring Bulletin |
Minnesota High School coaches, administrators, and officials are used to opening up their mailbox multiple times a year and seeing the MSHSL Bulletin waiting for them. The Bulletin is a seasonal publication highlighting recent happenings and upcoming events in Minnesota High School Activities. We've got boxes of them going out today to our schools and are proud to feature a new way to get this publication in your hands. Below, you'll find a link to view the Bulletin online. Using the arrows, you can browse through the pages and clicking the pages will zoom and allow you to read things that interest you.
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| Andover’s Anderson Is An All-Weather Record-Holder |
Posted by John Millea (jmillea@mshsl.org)- Updated 5/16/2012 2:21:09 PM
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For a guy who craves warm sunshine in the desert, Thomas Anderson does pretty well under cold Minnesota conditions. The first-person evidence is this Twitter message dispatched by the Andover High School senior on April 21: “Broke the minnesota state shot put record today 65'8 in 45 degree weather.”
The 6-foot-4, 260-pound redhead made history on that chilly day during the Pony Relays at Stillwater. His distance of 65 feet, 8 inches bettered the previous state shot put record by two inches; the prior mark had been set by Mounds View’s Nate Englin in 2003 in the same Stillwater throwing circle. Anderson will return to Stillwater on Saturday for the Class 3A True Team state championships (1A and 2A competition will be held Friday).
 The forecast for Saturday predicts temperatures in the 80s, which is more in line with Anderson’s warm-weather wishes. He has signed a letter of intent with Arizona State, and that decision was two-pronged: his affinity for warmth and a desire to be coached at the highest level. He called Sun Devils throwing coach David Dumble “one of the best coaches in the world, hands down.”
Anderson knows about quality throwing coaches because he has been raised by two of them. He is the only child of Colin and Lynne Anderson, two Olympic throwers turned coaches. Lynne, a former American discus record holder and an Olympian in 1976 and 1980, is in her 31st year as a throws coach at the University of Minnesota. Colin, a 1980 Olympian in the shot put, is a former Gophers assistant coach who now coaches the throwers at Andover.
The first college to offer Thomas a track scholarship was not Minnesota, but Iowa. That happened long ago.
“It’s a pretty funny story,” Thomas said. “The coach at Iowa offered me a full scholarship at birth. So when he was recruiting me, he technically had first dibs.”
Despite his family’s ties to the University of Minnesota, Anderson said he didn’t feel any pressure to become a Gopher. He took official recruiting visits to Arizona State, Minnesota and Kansas before making his decision, and his choice was not very popular on the Minneapolis campus.
“They were not happy with me choosing ASU,” he said of the Gophers coaches who are not members of his immediate family. “They understood but they weren’t happy.
“There wasn’t any pressure; it was wherever I wanted to go. When it finally came down to it, (my parents and I) were discussing where I wanted to go. I had already made my decision and I was getting their unput, and we all agreed that Arizona State was the best place.”
 Anderson was the MSHSL Class 2A state champion in the shot put last year and finished second in the discus. This season Anderson has a discus best of 177-2, which ranks second in the state behind Champlin Park’s Bryce Johnson (185-3).
Anderson easily won both events during a dual meet with Anoka on Tuesday at Andover. His distances were 63-10 in the shot put and 170-10 in the discus. (He is pictured here with his father and fellow Andover throwers Kevin Olson and Joe Putz.)
“It wasn’t a bad day,” he said. “It was a dual meet so there wasn’t much adrelanine pumping.” (On the same day a few miles away, St. Francis junior Maggie Ewen threw the discus 172-7, breaking her own girls state record.)
Anderson’s performance Tuesday was a tuneup for Friday’s True Team event in Stillwater. When Anderson thinks back to his record-setting performance there in April, he still seems slightly surprised.
“It was really cold and I wasn’t feeling all that great. I didn’t think I was going to break the state record. I got into the right position and got a big one off.”
Among Anderson’s goals during this final season of high school competition is reaching 70 feet in the shot put.
“That’s the benchmark number that I’m looking for,” he said. “It’s going to take getting in the right position and it’s going to take warm weather. When it’s cold the muscles don’t fire like they do when it’s warm.”
There’s a message on Twitter that says otherwise.
--To see more photos of Anderson, plus video, go to the MSHSL Facebook page.
BY THE NUMBERS
*Schools/teams John has visited: 513
*Miles John has driven: 7,553
--Join the MSHSL on Facebook by clicking on the Facebook button on the right side of www.mshsl.org. John Millea is on Twitter @MSHSLjohn
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More of John's Journal
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