Recently, my wife quit her job so we could home school our two children. She’ll teach most of the classes. I’ll be teaching Spanish and Science. I’m excited about developing curriculum, teaching, and learning more myself. She ordered our curriculum for everything but Spanish yesterday. Words can’t express how excited we are. The kids are, too.

Also, I am no longer under contract but am a fully-employed permanent part of Bisk Education and the countdown has started to eligibility for tuition benefits. 30 days before I’m eligible, I can begin the application process. Masters in Education, here I come!

Howe Herald Online

I loved writing those words! It looks so much better than the PDFs (which always looked horrible and were about 5GB in size) and I love that it has the potential to be updated often and comment on stories! News and pictures every day about my beloved Howe?! I couldn’t be happier! Check it out.

I couldn’t have done it better myself. I brought the site up today to get the correct ZIP code and was stunned. Surprised. My jaw dropped. It looks great. I mean really great. I have to admit the one I began designing in the hopes they’d use it didn’t look anywhere near this good and I’m a damn good designer.

I’m not just raving because it looks better than the old site – that bar was, indeed, very low. This new site is impressive in its own right. I’m proud of it. So I won’t waste space saying things like “the graphics are crisp instead of pixelated” or “isn’t it awesome that the colors match.” This new site deserves much better praise than that.

The Home Page
Without making obvious comparisons to the old site, the first two things I noticed about this most-excellent home page is the logo in the upper left all by itself – as crisp & clear and majestic as it deserves to look – without any clutter next to it. Just our crest … speaking for itself. Bravo. Nice touch – very nice touch.

I just like sitting here and staring at it. Adoring it. Le sigh.

The second thing I noticed was the slide show. Again, the previous incarnation notwithstanding, it is fast and beautiful. This is my favorite shot:

I’ve always been a big fan of this “out of the box” effect with photos in a layout.

Sports News

The Sports News section of the old site was, really, the only well presented and maintained section but the overall improvement of, well, everything … the design … makes it even more pleasant to visit.  There are also links to news on the homepage.

Howe Herald Online
The home page includes a link to the Howe Herald Online blog which makes me so happy I wanna pee my pants.

Alumni
Like a good concert, they left me wanting more. The Alumni section must still be under development. What I’m hoping for is a comprehensive store combining the old Alumni store and online Quartermaster but with even more merchandise that I know is in the real brick & mortar QM I’d love to be able to purchase online. And, of course, a place for wish lists and online contributions. I’m sure all of that is already in the works – I’m just sayin’.

Prediction
Now that the school is “wearing a jacket and tie with a shave and a haircut to the interview” instead of “dressing like a schizophrenic homeless person with Tourette syndrome and bringing a shopping cart to the interview” I predict enrollments rise significantly.

Second Prediction
Alumni giving will increase.

Andrew Smith, who lived in the room above me in Echo Company my senior year, was in Tampa on business last week. I work in Tampa but am new to Florida – I drove around for approximately three hours trying to find his hotel one evening before giving up and driving an hour home.

We decided to make lunch plans with our limited time and he gave me the address of the office he was working out of – two blocks from my office! His colleagues had extra tickets for that evening’s dinner cruise on a yacht and invited me along. Great food, great people, free drinks and some really great, relaxed conversation with Lt. Smith in a beautiful environment both in the dining room and on the promenade deck.

In response to her article in the August 2009 issue of Seventeen Magazine, former cadet Allie Schumacher has been invited onto the Tyra Banks show next Thursday. Congratulations again, Allie!

There were no Poetry Slams in the 80’s (to my knowledge). There was, however, the Forensics umbrella which included various forms of competitive poetry reading.

The year I was involved in this, 86/87, was the year civilian clothes were absolutely forbidden by the otherwise perfect and saintly Col. Merritt. This meant I had to wear my uniform which made me stick out like a zit ready to explode. I couldn’t exactly be judged by my performance when I’m wearing, basically, a costume or sign that says “I’m from a military school! Judge me accordingly!” If my family could have afforded the prep-school looking civilian-ish outfit offered at the Quartermaster, I might have fared better.

To counteract what I considered my fascist appearance, I decided to present some “anti-war” poetry.

Unlike poetry slams, in formal competitive poetry you can not read anything you’ve written. Or your friends, for that matter – it has to be published poetry. So I used lyrics:

• “Master of Puppets” by James Hetfield
• “Goodnight, Saigon” by William Joel
• “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by James Hetfield

I wasn’t … by my standards … very good … but I can act and project and stuff. It always came down to me and this one other guy. No matter where I went in the state I had to face him. He always got first place and I always got second.

He was so good. I hated him for it. This bastard would start off slow … then body slam the judges by doing Shel Silverstein’s “Deaf Donald” … it was always over by then but did he stop? Oh NO just in case there were any judges still considering me, he’d then go into this epic reading of “The Sounds of Silence” and pound me into the ground.

I had more to write but now I’m in too sh***y of a mood.

Recently, someone posted comments saying nasty things about the students of Sarasota Community Schools. The comments were immature, inappropriate and were, accordingly, removed.

Even more recently, another directed accusations at a young lady I wrote about.

I have no respect for someone – especially anonymous someones – beating up on children. If you must defame children barely into puberty, please don’t do it here. Apparently the courts are fine with you cyber-bullying youngsters on Facebook and MySpace so take your cowardly and stupid comments there.

Former cadet Allie Schumacher was published in the August 2009 issue of Seventeen magazine (page 166). Schumacher wrote an article on her experiences at Howe. I spoke with the young lady, age 16, and she informed me that hazing – which was minimal if it existed at all while I attended – was a regular practice in more recent years.

Schumacher is also a very talented photographer. Congratulations, Allie, on getting published in a national magazine!

From the HMS Development Facebook page:

Scholarship for worthy cadet for the 2009-2010 school year!
The Development Office was approached by Admissions Director, Dr. Smith, with a request to find more scholarship funds. It seems several families are struggling financially to come back next year. There is one family inparitcular he presented to us who needs assistance. This is a young man who came to Howe last year. He needs and longs to be at HMS. The public schools in his home town were not the answer for him. He came to Howe with a low self esteem, but by May that had all changed. He even visited his grandfather in FL, this summer and wore his heavy wool Howe uniform on the plane. He is proud to be at Howe. We had the opportunity to get to know this cadet better during the school year and got to see what a remarkable young man he has become. He is worthy of any scholarship support our alumni can give him.

We are looking for alumni who can donate any amount, and help this young man return in August.

Please let us know if you can help this cadet, by sending a scholarship donation to Howe in the mail, paypal on the schools website or by credit card over the phone.

If you would like further information about the cadet please contact the Development Office
(260) 562-2131 ext. 228.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Recent update:

Scholarship Donation

The 2009-2010 school year is going to be starting in 2 weeks. Cadets start arriving on Saturday the 15th. I am contacting you regarding the donation you had stated you were interested in giving towards our needy cadet scholarship fund. It is important that we finalize the finances of the cadet we made the request for and your promised donation is important in that factor. If you could please contact me today and let me know the amount you intend to donate, I would greatly appreciate hearing from you. If you are unable to donate at this time please let me know as well.

Thank you for your continued support of HMS and its programs.

Tracy Rosen
trosen@howemilitary.com
260-562-2131 Ext. 228

Receiving each free issue of the Howe Review – a sweet full-color magazine with news about current students and alumni – is as easy as emailing the Development Office with your current address. Birthday cards and Christmas cards are also sent to your current address each year.

Download new issues of the Howe Herald at the official alumni page.

Howemilitary.com also includes a Sports News page which is updated regularly. There are also sports schedules online. I don’t think the sports calendar works.

In addition to several HMS related links for …

MySpace
http://howemilitaryschool.wordpress.com/2008/02/26/the-alumni-club/

FaceBook
http://howemilitaryschool.wordpress.com/2009/03/09/facebook-groups/

… I posted (and the numbers of alumni there continues to grow), Jean Miller is on Facebook both personally and as HMS Development.