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PRIOR LAKE
SATURDAY, AUGUST 27, 2011
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AMERICAN Time flies when you’re in love Prior Lake couple celebrates 70 years of marriage BY LORI CARLSON editor@plamerican.com
T
ime has flown for Albert and Aileen Schneider, but a whole lot has changed in the world during their 70 years as a couple. A world war, several other wars and conflicts, and 13 presidents later, the Keystone Communities residents are still happily married. They celebrated seven decades of marriage at a party at their son’s
house near Fish Lake on Aug. 14, one day before their actual anniversary. Al and Aileen were married Aug. 15, 1941 in Shreveport, La., where Al had taken his first assignment after finishing flying school. Aileen was nearing her 19th birthday, and Al was 21. World War II was underway, and the couple braced for Al to become part of it. “We were sure he was going to be in the war, and they badly needed
pilots,” Aileen recalls. Al flew B-52 bomber planes, eventually logging several thousand hours and staying in the military nearly 30 years, retiring as a colonel from March Air Force Base in Riverside, Calif. As the war was ending in 1945, Aileen gave birth to their first child, a son named Albert Jr. In 1946, as Al was serving on a base in Berlin, Germany, Aileen and Albert Jr. came to live with Al for three years. The family would move more
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than 30 times throughout their lives. “I don’t know where 70 years went,” Aileen says. “The first 30 flew by. We were always moving, and he was gone a lot.”
PHOTO COURTESY OF LOREN JONES
Albert and Aileen Schneider have weathered distance, war and the effects of age and still are happily married after 70 years.
Schneiders to page 11 ®
Students surpass state peers on MCA-II science exams
NATIVE PRIDE
Elementary, high-school students show growth; eighth-graders decline BY MERYN FLUKER mfluker@swpub.com
P rior L a ke - Savage st udent s conti nued to soa r above t hei r statewide counterparts on a science exam administered earlier this year. A majority of District 719 fi fth-, eighth- and high school students met or exceeded proficiency on the 2011 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment-Series II (MCA-II) science exam, extending a trend of double-digit gaps in achievement over their peers across the state. This year, while 46 percent of f i f t h-g rade students statewide passed the exam, that number was 62.9 percent for District 719. Ten percent more Prior Lake-Savage area eighth-graders (54.4 percent) met or exceeded proficiency on the exam than their peers throughout Minnesota (44.4 percent), and 75 percent of district high-school students passed the science MCA-II, creating a 21.2-percent gap between themselves and other tested highschoolers in Minnesota, which averaged 53.8 percent of high-school students passing the exam. District 719 fi fth-graders widened their gap over state averages by 6.2 percent from last year. Prior LakeSavage Area high-school students also increased their proficiency
PHOTO COURTESY OF KEVIN F. BIEGLER/SMSC
Thousands of dancers and attendees enjoyed the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community’s annual powwow last weekend. More than 1,000 dancers and many drum group members took part in the Grand Entry ceremony.
MORE ONLINE READ MORE ABOUT PRIOR LAKE-SAVAGE AREA SCHOOL DISTRICT STUDENTS’ PAST PERFORMANCE ON THE MCA-II SCIENCE EXAMS AT
rates over state averages by 3.7 from last year. Statewide eighthgraders are 2.2 percent closer in achievement to eighth-graders in District 719. Typically the results are available in July but were delayed due to a three-week state government shutdown. The scores were released by the Minnesota Department of Education earlier this month. District 719 Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Jeff Holmberg presented a summary of student scores at a board meeting on Monday. “Our students did perform well,” he said. “We do consistently outperform state averages.” For the first time since they began taking the tests in 2008, a higher percentage of District 719 fi fth-graders (62.9 percent) passed the test than eighth-graders (54.4 percent). High school students, who take the exam upon completion of a biology course – commonly a sophomore class – continued to have the highest rates of proficiency in the district. With three out of every four high school students tested passing the exam, these exam takers not only continued a trend of being the highest-achieving group of students assessed, but also scored the largest pass rate ever achieved for any group of District 719 students on
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“There’s a positive trend going upwards. These are increases we want to continue to see.” Jeff Holmberg Director of curriculum, instruction and assessment
the science MCA-II exam in the test’s four-year history. “Our progress is continuing to be evident as a district,” commented Superintendent Sue Ann Gruver. “I’m very excited about the test scores. I think it shows we’re making progress.”
Scores to page 10 ®
Mother, daughter hospitalized after crash 42 to close on Monday for bridge work County Road 42 will be closed between county roads 17 and 83 on Monday, Aug. 29. The one-day closure will go from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. A detour will be provided. The road closure will allow crews
to complete constr uction of the CR17/42 interchange. Crews will be setting bridge beams and can’t allow traffic underneath or near the intersection, according to the Scott County Highway Department. Shannon Fiecke
A 2-year-old Prior Lake girl is still in critical condition after she and her mother were in a crash on Boone Avenue in Savage. The 24-year-old mother and her daughter were hospitalized on Aug. 20 after the woman’s vehicle collided head-on with a car driven by a 16-year-old girl from Savage just
south of Carriage Hill Road. The 2-year-old was airlifted to North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale, and her mother was transported by ambulance to the same hospital. The Minnesota State Patrol was asked to do a reconstruction of the accident, and Savage Police Capt.
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Dave Muelken said, “It’s too early to determine exactly what the causes were.” A detective from Savage spoke with the mother on Tuesday morning, and the mother said the child was still in critical condition, but that the doctors were pleased with her progress. Alex Hall
VOL. 51 ISSUE 48 © SOUTHWEST NEWSPAPERS
School starts on Tuesday, Sept. 6th Great Food for Great Gatherings! Hwy. 13 So. • Prior Lake • 952-440-3900 www.villagemarket.net
Please drive carefully around children and school buses! Don’t forget - Village Market has all your school lunch & snacks to feed your family. 209462