A Thanksgiving smorgasbord

A lot has been happening around here the last couple of weeks, and given the season, there are reasons to be thankful for all of them.
The Chelsea School Board gave the green light to important changes for kindergarteners and high schoolers.
Obviously the kindergarten issue is a Very Big Deal.
Even though I had a hard time believing it myself, I’ve studied the research that school officials used and it is irrefutable that our youngest citizens will be better off with the additional kindergarten class time.
Congrats to North Creek Principal Marcus Kaemming, School Board President Laurel McDevitt and all the other folks who made it happen.
As a bonus, North Creek will undergo a makeover as new classrooms are built to handle the increase in students. Stay tuned for developments on that.
MSU was on a trimester schedule when I attended in the early ’80s, and I found it to be advantageous.
For Chelsea High School students, the opportunity to have fewer classes per day but end up with more classes by the end of the year should be pretty appealing, especially considering the extra classes in math, science and social studies the state now requires.
I’m thankful the parents of this community care enough about their kids’ education to be involved in the community forums and meetings that led to those decisions.
And hats off to Ronald Weiser, Digger O’Dell and Fred Mills as Citizen of the Year and tandem Lifetime Achievement Award winners.
While Weiser’s pet project, the Clocktower complex, will be a focal point of the community for decades to come, the work done by the others (veterans affairs in O’Dell’s case and Chelsea Schools for Mills) is much more under the radar but has just as much impact on Chelsea’s future.
We all should be thankful that these men (and many more people we don’t know about) are quietly working among us.
That brings me to Thursday’s main event:
May we have the vision to see the wonderful people all around us, and have the grace to be truly thankful for each and every one of them.