By Tanner Kent
WATERVILLE — For Samantha Rients and Brittani Bartelt, this would be the last walk down the green carpet.
Both are seniors in Waterville-Elysian-Morristown schools. And both have been a part of the district since kindergarten, when they were first learning to tie shoes and color inside the lines.
But on Tuesday morning, as school started across Minnesota for most students, the two seniors realized this day would bring another first: the first last.
“That’s why we really wanted to come down the carpet,” Rients said. “We knew this was our last chance.”
When school started for WEM students Tuesday morning, Rients and Bartelt arrived early to find a familiar school tradition awaiting: nearly two-dozen teachers and building administrators lining the entrance to the school and greeting each returning student with bubbles, Silly String and applause.
But instead of avoiding the green-carpet welcome — and the accompanying blushed cheeks — like they had done in previous years, the duo decided instead to soak in the moment.
“We saw the teachers had Silly String, and we had to do it,’” Bartelt said of her and Rients’ arm-in-arm stroll down the green carpet, which became an annual back-to-school event about five years ago.
“But it was also kind of sad.”
And so the story goes each Tuesday after Labor Day as Minnesota schools re-open their doors.
For some, the first day back was about renewing old friends and old traditions.
For others, like Mankato East, the first day was about renewing a commitment to service and excellence.
“We want to live by our core values and take those ideas to heart,” said Shane Baier, principal of Mankato East High School. “We want to live out who we say we’re going to be.”
To that effect, East hosted an all-school assembly on Tuesday morning where Baier and Student Council representatives challenged students to create a school community centered on integrity and respect.
To encourage the effort, the council designed T-shirts emblazoned with this year’s motto — Take action. Live in the moment. — and plans to give them out during athletic contests and school functions.
And after the assembly, Baier invited those who believe in the school’s mission to pledge their support by signing posters stamped with a “take action” message.
Seniors Jill Kroeger and Danni Steele were among them.
“Now we are the role models,” Kroeger said. “Now we have to set the example.”
Steele agreed, saying that seniors have the responsibility of setting the tone for the school year, especially with younger students.
But even so, Steele couldn’t resist a little cross-town taunting.
“We want this to be the best year ever,” she said, before adding this about the school’s heated football rivalry with Mankato West, the winner of which receives a notorious drinking gourd known only as The Jug:
“And, hopefully, we’ll get that jug this year.”
In Mankato, students in grades K-6 begin school Thursday with parent-teacher conferences being held Tuesday and today.
