Armour, SD

I am just writing to say thank you to all those that do blog on the website. I know it takes time but I can definately see an improvement in our community ever since Horizons has started. People become more active when they see progress and there has definately been progress. We are a small town and I love small town but we need to keep moving forward or our small town will not exist anymore. I took part in the Welcome Banquet in February and I was glad that people came to support the newcomers and the citizens of the month. I hope that each year it will grow not only with new families but also with the current families showing their support and neighborliness to the newcomers. Thanks to all who were involved.
Nicole

If you look on the right sidebar, I just added a summary of recent comments. That way you can easily see what others are saying without having to click the comment links under each post.

I also added a counter that will help us see how many hits we’re getting on the blog. It’s set up to count each unique visitor rather than every page view. I set it to zero at 4 p.m. on Thursday, December 6. It will be interesting to see how many people are reading Armour’s blog.

We recently completed our Strategic Plan for Phase II of the Horizons Project. We’ll be celebrating the completion of this document on Saturday, December 1st during the Christmas in Armour event.

If you’d like to read the document, please click here to download the PDF file. And watch the blog for updates about the plan and our goals. This is a very exciting time for Armour. There is lots of information to share, so please check this blog frequently.

The annual Community Club Holiday Celebration will be held Saturday, December 1st.

Events include:

• Vendor Booths in the Armour Development Corporation Building next to the daycare.
• Residential Lighting contest.
• Letters to Santa / Food Drive — children of all ages may leave a letter for Santa along with items for the food pantry. Santa will answer the letters and send each participant an “Armour Buck” that can be spent at an Armour business.
• Music on Main Street by the “Pretty Good Little Band.”
• Drawings for Armour Bucks — Radio station Q107.3 will be in Armour to broadcast live during the celebration. Armour Buck drawings will be held at 3, 4 and 5 p.m. Entries for the drawings may be made with each purchase at an Armour business.
• Bingo — 3 to 5 p.m.
• Santa will be in town after the parade at the Armour Development Corporation building.
• Parade of Lights at 5:30 p.m. on Main Street.
• Lighting of the ree on Main Street at 6 p.m.
• Lorain Theatre movie — “Fred Claus” at 7:30 p.m. Receive a coupon for $1 off your concession purchase when you shop at a local business during the Christmas Promotion.

November 7, 2007
The Armour PTT met at the Fire Hall at 7pm. Alyssa Larson, School Psychologist from Mid-Central COOP was our speaker. The topic was on child Depression and Suicide. Some of the highlights from this presentation were: Disorders (mood, anxiety, psychotic, behavioral, eating, obsessive compulsive, and conduct) to name an few. Statistics and treatments were presented for these disorders. Teacher/Student/Counselor/Parent involvement were discussed and ideas given on how to detect and manage these disorders. One very good suggestion was to have parents and teachers work as a team and be positive. Early detection is the best treatment. Various cartoons and television shows influence a lot of how our children learn and what they learn about today’s society. Another influence is video games and information overload. Alyssa also discussed Depression signs and symptoms. This diagnosis is becoming more common in younger children. They can detect some of these symptoms in preschool children all the way through adolescence and adults. Discussion involved what we can do as parents and teachers to get involved and detect these areas of concern in our children. Suicide was also talked about and statistics given including various risk factors, warning signs, prevention, and protective factors. They now have a committee called S.O.S. Signs of Suicide, which was formed to assist in early detection and prevention of suicidal students.

Remember that November 12-16 is Education Appreciation Week. Please remember to THANK our teachers and ancillary staff for all they do to educate our children on a daily basis. We have a wonderful teacher student ratio and the support shown by our teachers for our school is beyond what many parents can expect. Thank you to all our educational staff!!

Armour School will be starting their Breakfast Program soon. Start date is tentatively set for November 19. We are just waiting to get all the menus out to the parents to get a head count of the students that wish to participate in the Breakfast Program. The first day will be Belgian Waffles for all of those students that wish to get a warm meal at the school before your day begins. Parents should be looking for those forms to fill out and get back to dietary just so we can have an average count of how many to cook for. Breakfast will be served from 7:45-8:15 daily. We are hoping the schedule will work out to have town kids there and about done eating by the time the bus kids get in so there is not such a waiting line. Things are subject to change and we are open to suggestions. The menus for breakfast will be sent home and posted on the school website if you lose your copy.
Nicole

The next PTT meeting will be Nov 7 at the Armour Fire Hall. We will have a speaker for Teen Depression and Suicide. We will also discuss the school board and state decision on the Breakfast Program Proposal. We look forward to seeing as many parents and teachers as we can. It is very informative and it helps to get different opinions on what we can do to improve our school. We had a great success with the Spintacular and the CHIP identification programs that we sponsored in October.
Nicole Neugebauer