Big shots
Don’t tell the senior class of Conde (S.D.) High School that bigger is better.
The class has won an all-expenses-paid trip to Los Angeles to appear on the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” That’s because there are only three seniors in the graduating class.
Producers of the late-night talk show had apparently been looking for the smallest graduating class in the country. And on April 27, Principal Craig Kono received a call from a member of Mr. Leno’s staff asking the students to send an audition tape. Seniors J.D. Bawek, Pamela Hanson, and Alysha Remily got the word that they had been chosen just two days after their May 16 graduation.
The trio will be joined on the show by actress Gwyneth Paltrow and country-music singer Dwight Yoakam.
In addition to the June 12 taping of the show, the new graduates will spend the day at the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park. Each student is allowed to bring one parent along.
“This is definitely a first for us,” said Mr. Kono, who is also the 12th grade history teacher at the 85-student K-12 school.
In a town of about 200 people, the trio can’t go anywhere without somebody asking them about being on the show. But, he said,"I don’t think this has really hit the kids yet.”
Duck walk
Why did the duck cross Hatchery Road? Because it saw the sign.
Thanks to the 1st grade class at Cooley Elementary School in Waterford Township, Mich., ducks can cross safely from one pond to the other.
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The youngsters, who were studying animals as part of a class project, decided to focus on the problem of animals--especially ducks--getting hit by cars on the community’s Hatchery Road. That road is just a stone’s throw from the 420-student school, whose wooded suburban location is also home to a nature center.
All 75 1st graders took part in the project to push for signs alerting drivers to duck crossings. Each wrote a letter to the county road commission.
“Please put up signs on Hatchery, because the ducks are getting road-killed,” read one student’s note.
Rudy Lozano, the commission’s vice chairman, took the request to heart and acted quickly.
Two signs were put up June 3.
--KAREN ABERCROMBIE & ADRIENNE D. COLES
