Greetings to you all as we enter into Holy Week leading up to the joy, beauty and majesty of Easter!
Fr. Steve is away attending some meetings in Chicago and giving a retreat to our retired priests and Brothers in Pinellas Park, Florida. That’s what he said anyway, but I think there might be an effort to get in a spring training baseball game or two as well! As he will not be back until after Easter, he asked me to pass along what’s been happening here at St. Joseph’s over this past weekend.
The students and staff are on Spring/Easter break at the moment. They’ll return on Easter Monday. Our high school students are on a different schedule (since they attend Chamberlain High School) so they are still in session. Don’t feel sorry for them though – it seems like they are off for something or other every week! They’ll have Good Friday through Easter Monday off.
Just before the students left, we were able to host two special programs that shared insight into the scientific realm as the Lakota Star Lab came on Thursday and on Friday, we learned about tornadoes.
The Star Lab was an effort to get our students looking to and dreaming about the stars and the heavens. The Weather Enrichment Program dealt with storm chasers. There was an initial presentation of the impact tornadoes have and how they are formed. Then a 20-minute 3-D film called Tornado Alley showed how the storms are chased and studied.
That was followed by a Q & A session and then a tour of the Doppler on Wheels vehicle used in the pursuit of the storms. It weighs 26,000 pounds, stands 14 feet high, 8.5 feet wide and 27 feet long and is able to obtain speeds around 80 miles per hour. I asked where they did most of their chasing and they stated Kansas and Oklahoma because they are so flat.
It is good they shared info on tornadoes since South Dakota does get some during the summer months. We have had one or two storm chasers in the area around St. Joseph’s over the years.
The break also gave three of our Lakota students the chance to take part in a trip to Washington, DC to visit our nation’s capital and see the sights. They flew on Saturday and will visit various museums such as the Holocaust Museum and the National Museum of the American Indian. They will have a tour of the capital building on Monday before heading back on Tuesday. This has been a wonderful opportunity for our Native American students to explore our seat of national government and get to know the places they hear about on the evening news!
The week ahead should be quiet and peaceful here on campus aside from the squawking of all the Canadian geese that are in the area. It is amazing how many did not go south for the winter but found the Chamberlain area a nice place to stop and visit.
Hope you all have a rewarding and grace-filled Holy Week and a beautiful Easter!
that is great that you learned about tornado’s. I hope everyone has a great Easter and enjoy the rest of your spring break