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PUBLIC SAFETY: Departments report on statistics PAGE 9
Centennial teacher explores Arctic
Colorful faces in the crowd
BY SHANNON GRANHOLM STAFF WRITER
PAUL DOLS | PRESS PUBLICATIONS
Some of the more than 300 participants in the first Color Me Cougar Color Fun Run start breaking open color packets before the official start of the benefit run around the grounds at Centennial Middle School Saturday morning, May, 14. Find a story and more photos on page 10.
Teacher of the Year selected BY SHANNON GRANHOLM STAFF WRITER
CIRCLE PINES — After more than 40 teacher nominations were submitted by 57 community members, Centennial High School English teacher Andrea Krueger was announced as Teacher of the Year at a ceremony held Wednesday, May 11. The first award in the district was given out in 1966. The Centennial Education Association (CEA) and the Centennial Area Education Foundation (CAEF) sponsor the program. Teachers who are selected as the Centennial Teacher of the Year are entered into the Minnesota Teacher of the Year contest. The 2016 Minnesota Teacher of the Year was announced May 15. “I wanted to cry. Honestly, teachers don’t often get recognition and we are not the type of people who want to
DEE ANN SIBLEY | SUBMITTED
Centennial High School English teacher Andrea Krueger was selected as this year's Teacher of the Year Wednesday, May 11.
get recognition. I felt very honored, humbled, overwhelmed and overjoyed,” Krueger said. “No teacher is an island; we are working with people who are supporting us all the time. I look it more as I am accepting it as a member of a team.” Krueger, who is originally from Cold
Springs, Minnesota, began teaching in the Centennial School District in 2005. She was a seventh-grade English teacher at the middle school for two years before she moved to the high school. She currently teaches ninth-grade AVID Honors English and 10thgrade Campus Learning English. Krueger completed her undergraduate degree at the College of Saint Benedict in German and art history in 2002. Following graduation, she taught in Vienna, Austria for a year. After returning home, she became an admissions counselor for Saint John’s University and the College of Saint Benedict. “That is when I realized I loved teaching. I realized I loved being in a school setting, I loved getting to know these kids, and this is what I want to do,” she said. Krueger went back to school at the University of Minnesota to obtain
her master’s degree in English education. After graduating in 2005, she secured her first teaching job at Centennial. She said she enjoys her job because of the students, “getting to know them, what their goals are, seeing when they are successful and when they are empowered by some of the skills they are learning. Seeing them come into their own as leaders, as students who can succeed by their own will,” she said. Krueger took a leave of absence from Centennial for two years to teach in Brussels, Belgium. Over the past two years, with both the Campus Learning and AVID English courses, she has had to take some risks in her teaching career. “Five years ago I felt like such a strong teacher and then these past two years I’ve
CIRCLE PINES — To Centennial High School geography teacher Chris Ripken, temperatures in the positive teens to the negative 20s are moderate. Ripken recently got back from an Arctic expedition that took place across roughly 200 miles of Arctic wilderness in Canada. This is the first trip in a series of eight offered through the University of Minnesota Learning Technologies Media Lab (LTML). “Just being in a beautiful place that so few people get an opportunity to visit,” he said, “you get to challenge yourself physically and mentally to complete the journey and to do it with a team of people who are all participating and engaged in the mission is something that is really thrilling,” Ripken’s journey began on April 15 and ended on May 6. He was accompanied on the journey by expedition leader Aaron Doering, an adventure-learning pioneer, professor and worldwide explorer; researcher Jen Henrickson and professional videographer Matthew Whalen. The trips are funded by a grant secured by Doering. The expedition is a part of the Changing Earth Project, which is a new adventure-learning series of
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A young boy who helped Centennial High School geography teacher Chris Ripken set up an electric bear fence in Arctic Bay. Ripken recently returned from an Arctic expedition that explored remote areas of Canada.
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