Shakopee_100611

Page 1

Meet candidates for School Board

Tennis team is champion

Profiles outline qualifications, goals of four seeking seats

Sabers rally, take Missota crown for the first time

Pages 8, 9

Page 17

www.shakopeenews.com

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011

SHAKOPEE

VALLEY

$1

news SHAKOPEENEWS.COM UPDATE

COOL JOBS: MIKE RIKER, WILDLAND FIREFIGHTER

Sweeney meets AYP, seven schools miss BY KRISTIN HOLTZ kholtz@swpub.com

ONLY THE

TOUGH NEED APPLY SUBMITTED PHOTOS

No computer, no cell phone, 16- to 20-hour days of manual labor in smoke, wind, rain and heat. Jordan High School senior Mike Riker found his calling. Inset – This controlled burn was performed by Mike Riker’s North Star Fire Crew in Alaska. Many of the firefighters in the crew advance to Hotshot crews, like those deployed last week to fight a northern Minnesota wildfire.

Jordan High School senior’s summer job could fuel his career fighting wildfires BY DAVID SCHUELLER dschueller@swpub.com

Editor’s note: This is an occasional series focusing on residents’ interesting, unusual or even oddball occupations. he wildland firefighters worked fast with chainsaws. If they didn’t, fire could get out in front of their crew of about a dozen, putting them in danger. Among them was Mike Riker, an 18-year-old Jordan High School football player and wrestler chosen to be part of the

T

North Star Fire Crew in Alaska. The crew often spent two to three weeks at a time in the Alaskan wilderness after flying into isolation to work 16- to 20hour shifts cutting wide swaths through the forest to rob a blaze of the fuel to rage on. Firefighters subsisted mostly on military-style ready-to-eat meals, carrying 50-pound packs, striking camp around 3 miles from their saw lines. “Sometimes the nearest road’s 100 miles away,� Riker said. Only the physically and mentally tough can make it

and thrive in such a crew, where members deal with what Riker called “long hours, little sleep and crappy food.� Some firefighters “broke� and had to be taken back to civilization. “They’d get sent back,� he said. Not Riker. This was pretty close to his dream job. He took a teenager’s sense of invincibility to Alaska in mid-May and returned from the largest state in the U.S. feeling somewhat more finite.

After two years of being oh-soclose, one Shakopee elementary is celebrating its own comeback story. Sweeney Elementary met adequate yearly progress (AYP) in 2011 to stave off preparations for a mandated restructuring, according to data released by the Minnesota Department of Education Friday. All student populations at Sweeney met their math and reading proficiency targets on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments for the fi rst time in five years. “After being called a failing school for four years in public, to be off this list is just a fantastic feeling,� said

Dave Orlowsky

Jayne Gibson

Sweeney Principal Dave Orlowsky. “I’m very proud of my students, staff, and I’m happy for this school community that has worked so hard to achieve this.�

AYP to page 16 ÂŽ

To save or not to save? As county adopts long-term visions for parks, it has a short-term decision to make BY SHANNON FIECKE sfiecke@swpub.com

Who knows how long it’ll be before camping, horseback riding and kayaking can be offered at the DoyleKennefick Regional Park reserve south of Prior Lake. In the meantime, the Civil Warera home that could serve as a centerpiece for the park sits vacant and locked up, its windowsills covered with boards. The 1861 log home, which was added onto twice and covered with stucco, was occupied until 2002. The

following year the county purchased the farmstead for a regional park. As the county has waited for funding to develop the park, the front porch has fallen into disrepair and vandals have marked the inside of the home and attempted to start it on fi re. A citizens’ park design committee and the county’s Historical Society director believe the home should be preserved, but county commissioners are unsure whether the restoration is worth the cost.

Parks to page 10 ÂŽ

A KING CROWNS HIS QUEEN

Job to page 7 ÂŽ

Want more jobs? Toot your horn Business group says county needs more ‘pad-ready’ sites, leadership BY SHANNON FIECKE sfiecke@swpub.com

If cities and townships want to score more jobs in Scott County, local business leaders say the county better start acting more like a business: Market yourself better. Play more with others. And, most importantly, be a person (i.e. county) of your word. “Businesses don’t like runaround, they don’t like red tape and they don’t like double talk,� said Savage

MORE ONLINE READ THE GROUP’S ENTIRE REPORT AT

www.shakopeenews.com

City Administrator Barry Stock at a recent forum in Prior Lake. “You got to be straight up with them and hold their hand through the process. If we don’t do that collectively as a county, I worry in three years, this work will be all for naught.�

The Scott County Association for Leadership and Efficiency (SCALE) compiled a group of local business leaders, real estate experts and others to identify strategies to further the county’s goal of securing enough employment by 2030 to support half of its labor force. The committee completed work this summer and shared its findings with local elected officials in a meeting last month. To compete with real estate space in adjacent counties and other

PHOTO BY SHANNON FIECKE

After he received his king crown from Shakopee school Superintendent Rod Thompson, Cheavaeang Pen got to crown Claire Sames, who was voted queen, on Friday during the Shakopee High School homecoming event. The coronation was part of the homecoming pep fest during the school day this year, instead of held separately during the evening. See the full court on Page 16.

SCALE to page 7 ÂŽ

INSIDE OPINION/4 OBITUARIES/6 CALENDAR/11 SPORTS/17-18 HAPPENINGS/27 CLASSIFIEDS/28-31 TO REACH US SUBSCRIBE: (952) 345-6683 EDITOR: (952) 345-6680 OR E-MAIL EDITOR@SHAKOPEENEWS.COM.

VOL. 150, ISSUE 40 Š SOUTHWEST NEWSPAPERS

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