Inside A Cloud

By: Tatia Verhoeff

Rainfall on a summer day in the Rocky Mountains appears to come out of nowhere. Not a cloud in the sky, and yet there are raindrops on my arm, covering the windshield, and dampening the road as we drive along. It was exciting to stop on the side of the road and dance in the rain with the sun shining bright overhead.

We asked, "Mom, how it could be raining with not a single cloud in the sky?" She explained, "We are 'inside the clouds'." At first I didn't understand, but as we played in the rain, it became apparent. The air around us became heavier and heavier with moisture and eventually we were looking into a thick fog there on the mountain.

Above us the sun was still shining bright, but the rain got colder and colder. The fog got thicker. Eventually it felt more like snow than rain. Even with the sun shining it was very cold. We got back in our car and drove along the mountain road in the rain.

I think this is my favorite trip. We learned about weather and how the rain is made by being "in the clouds".

A mountain waterfall after the rain.

Waterfalls

By: Tatia Verhoeff

In the Spring, snow melts and the water runs off the mountains. It comes out of crevices in the mountain and makes pretty waterfalls down the mountain side. There are always new places where it comes out of the mountian every spring because the water freezes and breaks the rock forming new crevices.

Moving water causes erosion. So the rocks get really smooth and almost shiney after a spring run-off.

Sometimes, after a lot of freezing and breaking, the rocks let go and fall off the side of the mountain. This is called a rockslide. If there is a lot of rain, sometimes it is called a mudslide.

A snowslide is called an Avalanche. I think that is where the Colorado Hockey team got their name.

Main Street in my town.

Courage Under Fire

By: Brenna Verhoeff

September 12th 2001. Not as meaningful as September 11th, but it still holds a lot of history. It was on this day that President Bush had to make a very difficult decision for himself, his family, and his country. He declared war on all terrorism, but more particularly the Al-Queida. Since then it has been called America's War On Terrorism. Everywhere Americans look there is something about the war, "Another soldier was killed for America", "A new message from Osama Bin Laden", "Anthrax letters litter mailboxes". This war has affected every person in America, including President Bush.

But have you ever wondered what has really been going through President Bush's head as this war unveils around us? Well, I don't believe anybody but President Bush knows what is going on in his head. But I think it's possibly that under the dark blue suits and the Texan accent, there is a man that is just as concerned for America as everyone else. How do I know this? Just look at his actions and they alone will prove them.

The difference between President Bush and the regular "Joe Shmo" on the streets of America, is that President Bush knows what it will take to defeat the Taliban, and he is executing that plan. He is striking out against them and letting them know that America will not tolerate this kind of abuse any longer. Even at the cost of American lives, President Bush is pushing America forward and defending this country in a way that will make students in the future stand up and say, "President Bush was an amazing man and a great leader." Moreover, I believe students will want to stand up against terrorism in much of the same way that President Bush is doing now.

President Bush is not only a role model for this generation, but also a role model for the coming generations. But does this matter to President Bush? To some extent yes, but I think he has a greater and stronger feeling of responsibility for what is going on now in that, what it will be like in the future. Why? Well, for the obvious reason, if he looked at this war as what its going to be like in the history books, we might have lost a lot more soldiers than we have so far, and also I think America would be a lot more vulnerable now than we actually are.

I look back at the year 2000 election, and I thank God every day that President Bush got elected instead of Gore. To think of what kind of shape we could be in now had Gore been elected into office, I wonder if we would even been able to call ourselves Americans.

Sean's American Flag

An Excerpt: Principles of Management

Written by: Brenna Verhoeff

Now, considering the role of management in organizations, I'm going to use my own experience in managing a group of people to accomplish the objectives and goals of the group. In high school I became the top ranking officer of the Lamar Explorer Cadet Program. This program is for young adults who are considering law enforcement as a possible future career. In the program, members are required to participate in training exercises and fundraisers when available. Since I was the Lieutenant, I was required to assign jobs to members when we had training exercises or a fundraiser. I was also required to organize all different jobs to have the training exercise or the fundraiser.

If you look at this from a management view, you can see that I was delegating work to different members who I felt could handle the job efficiently. I was also bringing together several different objectives for one event such as making sure the shooting range was available for the date we chose for shooting exercises, calling range instructors to arrange a time for class room sessions on proper use of a weapon on the shooting range, finding police officers in our local police department willing to loan their personal guns for our exercise, raising enough money from the group to go out and purchase the ammunition for the guns and gaining permission slips from all the teenagers parents, releasing them to go shooting on the range. In the end, when I pulled all of these objectives together, the group reached their goal of being able to go out to the shooting range for an afternoon.

Now, the difference in the management side of that certain scenario and the leadership. In managing my group, I assigned them jobs to complete. However, in being their leader, I was there to support them in making the right decisions like what kind of guns to use, what kind of ammunition to buy, and how to convince their parents that they had gone through all the classroom sessions and learned how to use a weapon properly, and were responsible enough to go out onto the range for an afternoon. However, on the bad side of being a leader, I was also responsible for telling a young man or woman that they could not join the exercise simply because they could not recite the top 10 range rules in order to go shooting with us.

The Bridge Washed Away

By: Sean Verhoeff

It rained really hard. There was a lot of water everywhere. We drove in water that covered the tires to get home. Sometimes it sloshed into the car under the doors.

Mom said, "I bet the creek floods."

And she was right. When the water ran out of the streets, we went to look around.

Sure enough, the creek flooded. The bridge washed away. The city men had to build a new one and put it back for us to walk across the creek in the park.

Willow Creek Bridge

The Nature Trail

By Sean Verhoeff

Near our town is a river that is mostly dry. But sometimes it has water in it. We call it Willow Creek. It runs through the park.

When we go there, we walk on the nature trail. It goes by the river. There are bogs made by beaver, where water stays for a long time. Trees and bushes on the other side make protection for deer.

We have a lot of deer there. Sometimes early in the morning we see them. But my favorite time is late at night. When we walk, we can hear the deer in the thicket. (I learned that word on Bambi.) The thicket is tall grasses between the nature trail and the road.

I like visiting the nature trail because there are so many wild animals there. I have seen beaver, deer, a bobcat, squirrels, and a lot of different birds on the nature trail.

There are fish in the river too. I'd like to go fishing there, but Mom says we should save the fish in that river for the Beaver.

The streets of Lamar Colorado

By Brenna Verhoeff

Have you ever wondered what a police officer does when he or she begins their shift? Well, on December 21st 2002, I got a chance to see what goes into the job of a police officer in Lamar, Colorado. Is it all being able to drive fast, pull people over just because and arresting those that the officer has a grudge against? Well, that was not the case of the officers I rode with. At the beginning of the shift, the Watch Commander, Corporal Cienfuegoes explained that she would be busy for a while doing some paperwork, and she asked Officer Stone to take me out on the street so I could have a chance to do something besides sit in the Corporal's office for the number of hours she would be working.

At the beginning of the shift everything was very low key, and Officer Stone and I did not get very many calls, and the ones we had were not that major. This was surprising to me because it was a Saturday, and in my past experiences riding with an officer, Saturdays were most definitely not a low key day. On any given Saturday, it is not uncommon to have 4 or 5 tone outs during the shift. On this particular day though, not much was going on.

The majority of the shift consisted of cruising through the streets making sure everything was as it should be. During the first five hours I was with Officer Stone, we contacted a few people on traffic violations, ran a couple errands and assisted a sheriff county officer in a domestic dispute. After assisting Officer Hardwick, we returned to town to assist Officer Thomas in a building search of Senor Hoggs because of an alarm. There we found that everything was ok, and the owners had accidentally set off the alarm when they were entering the building. After all this, Officer Stone and I started patrolling the streets once again and like before contacted a few people because of traffic violations.

Around five o'clock Corporal Cienfuegoes radioed Officer Stone that she was done at the PD and could take me for the remainder of the ride-along. I traded vehicles then, and Corporal Cienfuegoes started patrolling the streets. After contacting a few people for traffic violations, we decided it was getting time for dinner. After discussing where we wanted to go, we decided on BJs. Upon arrival there, Corporal Cienfuegoes called us out for a dinner break. But a crazy thing happened, when she called us out, Prowers Comm asked us to wait a minute because they had a 911 call on the other line. After this, Corporal Cienfuegoes looked at me and said "Betcha we get toned out." Not two minutes later, sure enough the tone sounded. Corporal Cienfuegoes backed out and we headed to the location. Upon arrival to the scene we noticed Officer Thomas out with a young boy. I also notice two small fires that were still lit but not producing flames. At the scene Corporal Cienfuegoes and I talked to a young man. He stated that his friend and him had started the two fires because they were cold and wanted to keep warm as they skateboarded. Officer Thomas, Corporal Cienfuegoes, and even a couple firemen warned the boys on the dangers of starting uncontrolled fires. In the end both boys were charged with fourth degree arson, and a pending charge of trespassing was issued. That night I'm sure both boys learned a valuable lesson that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

Seeing something like that makes me realize just how much freedom we as Americans have, but along with those freedoms come responsibility and consequences. Now I am more aware than ever before how much our actions can affect us for the rest of our lives. I think I live my life more fully now, but also more carefully, just because of the knowledge of consequences I could face for those actions.

That ride-along as well as numerous others with almost every officer in our police department has made me realize how much the officers in our town are a valuable asset, one that if it is lost I seriously wonder what kind of town Lamar would be like to live in. In my opinion, it wouldnt be a very good one. I have heard just about every opposing argument against what the police force in this town does, but I honestly believe that they fulfill their jobs to the best of their ability even if every move they make is not perfect. I think every person needs to step back and realize that while police officers are held to certain standards that very few people are held to, they are still humans, and they still make mistakes, but I have never seen an officer put their life or the lives of others at a risk. During my experiences of riding with officers, I believe they perform their job to the best of their ability, and I encourage every person to participate in a ride-along at some time in their life in order to gain a greater perspective on the job of a police officer.

No comment!

By: Jan Verhoeff

Publicity is correlative to your position in the community. Seldom does the quiet worker, without incident become published in local news or publications. Though his achievements are many and great, he accomplishes great things in his lifetime, his quiet fortitude and persistence are rarely recognized as important or document worthy.

So, what makes a person worthy of comment? Worthy of being heard in a society such as ours? Is it his life? That he has something of grave importance to express? Or that his knowledge is vastly improved over that of the average person?

While it may be fortunate that everyone with a word to express is not heard, and there may actually be some benefit to censored press, it is my honest opinion that those who find it necessary to control the knowledge available to the public are creating a disservice to the general people of our nation.

Let's hear it for freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Be published!