Mr. Beckeman's Blog

April 16, 2012

Rotary Club Seeks Host Families For R-PHS Exchange Students

Filed under: Archive,Community News,Parents,School Board,School Improvement,Staff,Students — Mr. Beckeman @ 6:18 am

The Rotary Club of Muskegon has been a long supporter of foreign exchange students coming to our campus.  Their programming is very reputable and their communication with and support of the hosting families is simply beyond reproach.

The Rotary Club is looking to place a male student from Denmark at R-PHS for the 2012-12 school year.  He is very active, bright, articulate and driven.  His English speaking skills demonstrate a fluency that would match our Rocket students.

Well placed foreign exchange students have the potential to add incredible cultural and experiential value to the homes they’re placed in as well as our school.

The Rotary Club of Muskegon requires three host families per student.  These families split the school year evenly to provide the guest student with a variety of family experiences during their stay in the hosting district.

If you would like to be considered as a host family for our foreign exchange student from Denmark, please contact me at:  beckemad@reeths-puffer.org

For more information on the Rotary Club International foreign exhange program, visit their website at: Rotary Exchange Program

April 10, 2012

Rocket Enterprises Purchases Movie License

Filed under: Archive,Community News,Parents,School Board,Staff,Students — Mr. Beckeman @ 1:37 pm

Rocket Enterprises is a group of wonderful students at R-PHS that provide a service to our student body by making and selling the very best popcorn a student or staff member could ever eat! 

Our Rocket Enterprise students have recently purchased a movie license that will allow our students the opportunity to watch major motion pictures during lunch and at special functions after school hours.

The Rocket Enterprise program is organized by Ms. Karen Gardner, transitions coordinator for R-PHS and run by Mrs. Alfredson, transitions assistant.  The students have saved their earnings to purchase something that all R-PHS students could enjoy and the movie license seemed to be the perfect gift.

The high school students really look forward to popcorn days, especially the seasoned salt days!  I’m proud of the work the students do and very impressed that they would choose to donate their earnings to the benefit of all their fellow Rocket students.

A huge thanks goes out to Mrs. Alfredson and Ms. Gardner for their efforts in making Rocket Enterprises such a great success at the high school.

April 9, 2012

R-P Junior Wins $100.00 ACT Challenge

Filed under: Archive,Community News,Continuous Improvement,Parents,School Board,School Improvement,Staff,Students,Teaching & Learning — Mr. Beckeman @ 6:34 am

Back in January, just after the Christmas break, we began showing ACT’s top 100 words on the screens in the cafe as a means to build student vocabulary.  Each word was presented, defined and used in a sentence to familiarize students with words they would read or see on the ACT assessments (PLAN & ACT) in March.

To build momentum and excitement among students, I challenged the students to take a 100 word quiz the week prior to spring break with a generous $100.00 first place prize donated by the student council.

Over 800 students took the assessment with a number of students scoring a perfect 100% on the assessment.  The names of these students was placed in a hat and the winner was drawn by Mrs. Anderson. 

Junior, Morgan Jones’ name was drawn and is shown here with me with the $100.00 bill that she earned!  Morgan mentioned that the money would be going toward her trip with her youth group to New York City over spring break.  Congratulations Morgan!

March 22, 2012

R-P Student to Open at Howmet Theatre Tonight

Filed under: Archive,Community News,Parents,School Board,Staff,Students,Uncategorized — Mr. Beckeman @ 10:58 am

Elaina Burress, a sophomore at R-PHS, will open tonight on the Howmet Stage in downtown Whitehall for singer/songwriter, Meg Hutchinson.  Elaina will perform 8 songs that she’s written starting at 7:00 p.m.  Click on the short video below to hear from Elaina on tonight’s performance.

MLive wrote a very nice article on Elaina.  Please click on the link below to read about Elaina’s love for music.

Elaina Live on Stage

School Board Winning Ticket!

Filed under: Archive,Community News,Parents,School Board,Staff,Students — Mr. Beckeman @ 5:42 am

For those in attendance at the Reeths-Puffer School Board meeting, the winning ticket can be viewed by clicking on the link below.  Congratulations to the winning ticket holder! 

Winning Ticket

To claim your prize, contact me via email at beckemad@reeths-puffer.org

March 16, 2012

Cafe Communications

Filed under: Archive,Community News,Parents,School Board,Staff,Students — Mr. Beckeman @ 3:40 pm

We have been making good use of our upgraded cafe communication system for our student body throughout the school day.  Not only do we place school announcements on our two screens, we present topics that we hope help support, sustain and build upon the values that we consider to be critical to a positive school culture. 

We also present humorous videos from YouTube and other media sources to provide a lighter fare for lunch time.  If you would like to view some of the presentations that we’ve used over the course of the first semester, just click on one that might spike your curiosity.

Character

Determination

These are Questions

Discipline

Service

One liners

Happiness

Respect

Example

More to come later!

R-P Showcase Performers Represented Well!

Filed under: Archive,Community News,Parents,School Board,Staff,Students — Mr. Beckeman @ 8:10 am

The Frauenthal was rocking last night!  It all started with the R-P Jazz combo opening the show with their lively combo of excellent musicianship and vocals.

The combo was made up of Grant King, Linnea Hodson, Zach Rykse, Courtney Kops, David Whynot, Marquis Munday, Brendan Martin, Ben Davis, Tim Loeffler and Jessica Kooi.  The vocals are provided by Katie Casey, Tailer Bowen and D’Marco Hughes.  They performed the jazz classic What is Hip?

The solo performing arts act for R-PHS was Jessi Dick.  She danced to  an original lyrical ballet to The Floodby Katie Melua.  Jessi earned a Showcase second place medal for her performance!

Jessi receives her Showcase medal from Mr. Dave Sipka, Superintendent of the Muskegon Area Intermediate School District.

Our literary arts representative was Colton Hall.  Colton’s literary entry was a collection of three poems titled, “A Generation of Beats,” “Perspective” and “With What’s Left in Our Veins.” 

Our Visual Arts nominee was  Caroline Bonin.  Caroline created a self-portrait in the style of a contour line drawing.  Her work will be hung in the Canon Gallery of the Frauenthal Complex for the entire month of March.

In academics, our valedictorian, Stephany Zahl was our representative.  She was honored along with all of the valedictorians in the Muskegon area for her dedication to, and excellence in academics.

In athletics, Cody Stenberg and Christy Schultz represented R-P.  Cody has had a lot of success at wrestling with three city titles in a row in his weight class and two state finalist appearances.  Christy’s main sport is track and field where she owns the school long jump record.

We have great reason to be very proud of each student that represented our high school in Showcase 2012!

R-PHS Under 2-Hour Delay

Filed under: Archive,Community News,Parents,School Board,Students — Mr. Beckeman @ 7:16 am

Friday, March 16th is starting with a 2-hour school delay due to a fog bank that rolled in last night.  The high school will start with 3rd hour at 10:00 a.m. and continue through the rest of the day as normal.

Have a good Friday!  It’s a choice!

March 15, 2012

R-P Powerlifters Update

Filed under: Archive,Community News,Parents,School Board,Staff,Students,Uncategorized — Mr. Beckeman @ 2:18 pm

R-PHS sent a team of powerlifters to the state competition at Lake Orion with the following student-athletes placing in the event:

Varsity Level Competition:

Kaleb Bray:  10th place in the 165 lb. division

Josh Richards: 8th place in the 130 lb. division

Junior Varsity Division:

Matt Hoover: 1st place in the 275 lb. division

Corey Plichta: 2nd place in the 207 lb. division

Jake Balkema: 4th place in the 220 lb. division

Buck Tottingham: 8th place in the 207 lb. division

Congratulations to our powerlifters!  We’re proud of your accomplishments and look forward to more success stories in the future.

Showcase Tonight!

Filed under: Archive,Community News,Parents,School Board,Staff,Students,Uncategorized — Mr. Beckeman @ 2:08 pm

Showcase 2012!  It’s one of the very best tickets in town and Thursday night will be the night to be in attendance as R-PHS students will be performing and recognized for their talents in the areas of: Academics, Literary Arts, Athletics, Performing Arts and Visual Arts.  Click on the link below to view the official Showcase flyer for showtime information.

Showcase 2012

The following students will be representing Reeths-Puffer at West Michigan’s Student Showcase 2012.  Showcase is a Fine Arts competition among area high schools which takes place at the Frauenthal Theatre March 14th and 15th.

 In academics, our valedictorian is Stephany Zahl.  She will be honored with all of the valedictorians in the Muskegon area for her dedication to academics.

 In athletics, Cody Stenberg and Christy Schultz will represent R-P.  Cody has had a lot of success at wrestling with three city titles in a row in his weight class and two state finalist appearances.  Christy’s main sport is track and field where she owns the school long jump record.

 The literary arts representative is Colton Hall.  He has selected three representative poems titled, “A Generation of Beats,” “Perspective” and “With What’s Left in Our Veins.”  His work will appear in the program for Showcase.

Visual Arts is represented by Caroline Bonin.  She has created a self-portrait in the style of a contour line drawing.  Her work will be hung in the Canon Gallery of the Frauenthal Complex for the entire month of March.

The solo performing arts act is Jessy Dick.  She is dancing an original lyrical ballet to The Floodby Katie Melua.  She recently won the high school talent show Showstopper award for her dance.

The group performing arts piece is a jazz combo and solo singer.  The combo is made up of Grant King, Linnea Hodson, Zach Rykse, Courtney Kops, David Whynot, Marquis Munday, Brendan Martin, Ben Davis, Tim Loeffler and Jessica Kooi.  The vocals are provided by Katie Casey, Tailer Bowen and D’Marco Hughes.  They will perform the jazz classic What is Hip?

The winners of each of the visual, literary and performing arts receive $1000.  There is also a Showstopper Award which carries a $1000 prize.  Second and third places pay out $500 and $300 respectively. 

The following schools will perform tonight:

  • Calvary Christian School
  • Careerline Tech Center
  • Coopersville High School
  • Fruitport High School
  • Hart High School
  • Hesperia High School
  • Mason County Central High School
  • Mona Shores High School
  • Muskegon Area Career Tech Center
  • Muskegon Catholic Central High School
  • Muskegon Heights High School
  • Newaygo High School
  • Orchard View High School
  • Providence Christian High School
  • Ravenna High School
  • Reeths-Puffer High School
  • Shelby High School
  • Spring Lake High School
  • THEO Home School Group of Grand Haven
  • Walkerville High School
  • WayPoint Academy
  • Western Michigan Christian High School
  • White Cloud High School
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