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Things to celebrate…
The Oakes community offers many opportunities for our youth through various groups at Oakes Public School and the designated clubs at Southeast Region Career and Technology Center. Our students get to compete in state competitions and many are afforded opportunities to travel to national conferences as well. This year, we’ve sent kids to national archery, which is now an independent club unaffiliated with the school, along with DECA, FCCLA, FFA, and HOSA competitions. It’s worth celebrating the dedication of not just the students, but the advisors/coaches who support these students to help them grow through these experiences. Finally, there is often financial support to help these students defray the costs associated with their travel. It’s a community effort and it makes us proud!
News to know…
Hometown Housing, the multi-disciplinary group out of Iowa that OEI has contracted with to help create and implement a housing development plan for Oakes, visited on April 19 to meet with employers and community stakeholders. Housing is a complex, multi-faceted problem and this group will spend time visiting with employers and employees to better understand the challenges related to housing. They’ll encourage the removal of siloes to ensure that all parties involved are moving in the same direction. They’ll help us identify incentives that could be offered to spur housing development. We’ll continue to share what we learn as we engage with them more but we are thankful for this focused effort as people want to move to Oakes and housing is one of the primary barriers to doing so.
Ideas to spread…
If audacity is the opposite of pragmatism, how will ever create anything new? Now, we don’t know if we actually believe they are opposites, but we do believe that it sometimes feels like the most audacious ideas are met first with that condescending, peering over-the-top-of-the-glasses look that insinuates the messenger is being silly at worst and “not smart” at best. If everything that’s going to happen has to have been thoroughly tested before we feel comfortable trying it out, how will we ever innovate or set new precedents? The next time you feel the pull of “practicality” when discussing a new idea, we urge you to simply remember that audacity is the only way to imagine new ideas; and new ideas are necessary to discover new frontiers.