By Tyler Dahlgren

Assistant principal Ed Rowse stood near the baseline in Minden’s gymnasium Friday morning, holding a microphone in his left hand and gesturing towards six high school students with his right.

While Rowse introduced the leadership from FBLA, FCCLA and FFA, his CL Jones Middle School students sat in the bleachers and did a commendable job at listening. But when Rowse handed the microphone to two-time state volleyball champion Makenna Betty, well, you’ve never heard 300 fourth through eighth-grade kids fall as silent as these ones did.

“When I hand off that mic, the place just goes absolutely quiet,” said Rowse, who spent 30 years at Minden before being swayed out of a short-lived retirement to join CL Jones, where he also serves as activities director. “Our kids are intently watching those high schoolers and listening. When I talk, they do a good job. But it’s just different when they talk. You can see it in the crowd.”

It’s all about leadership. Learning leadership, and instilling leadership. That’s what Rowse had in mind when he developed the school’s “Whippet Pack Families” program last year. The school’s student body is divided into 25 different families, each headed by a teacher, who also serves as their family’s namesake. There’s about 10-12 kids in each pack.

The idea came to Rowse by way of his daughter, a teacher whose students while she was in York had been doing something similar for a number of years now. They started small last year with monthly family meetings that involved a variety of team-building activities. This year, they added an additional Friday meeting and an end-of-the-month ceremony that’s more of a celebration than anything.

“I feel like it’s really just built camaraderie between the students and also between the different staff,” said principal Chelsey Jensen. “Our building is really big on having a family feel. This program has kind of emphasized what it means to be a part of a family.”

The ceremonies end in competition, and though they do see themselves as one big family, there are 25 different packs vying for the top spot in the school year’s standings. After hearing from the high school student organizations Friday morning, each family sent two students down to the gym floor to participate in a game that called for them to bounce six ping pong balls into six Solo cups while the crowd behind them roared.

“It’s been fun to see their competitiveness, not only amongst their own family members in the group, but against the other families, too” said P.E. teacher and coach Dan Wilson, whose family happens to sit at the top of the leaderboard. “We’ve been lucky to win a few, so, yeah, we get a good razzing every once in a while, but it’s mostly pure luck, to be honest.”

In its first full year of full-on operation, Whippet Pack Families has enriched what was an already-special culture. Rowse has been here for three decades, long enough to have seen it all come together. He talks almost poetically about doing things “The Whippet Way,” a motto that caught on under former superintendent and current ESU 10 administrator Dr. Melissa Wheelock’s tenure. 

“That piece has really developed over the last 17 years, and it was in place even before then,” said Rowse, who always aimed to imprint the idea on his wrestlers and volleyball players during his time as a coach. “Our leadership in Minden has always tried to stay ahead on everything. We have great facilities and really great teachers. Teachers come here to retire. It’s a great destination for them and for their families. We don’t have a lot of discipline issues, and we credit that to doing things ‘The Whippet Way.’”

Middle school is a unique place. There’s a vast difference between a nine-year-old fourth grade student and a teenaged eighth-grader. Fostering a relationship, or even a friendship, between the two is an extremely rewarding experience for a teacher, said Rowse, and the dividends can be seen in the stands at a volleyball game or in the hallway during a passing period.

“It’s great to see the older kids taking on a leadership role or even a mentor role,” said Jensen, who spent 20 minutes of her Friday morning chasing wayward ping pong balls, a smile on her face. “And it’s great to see the younger kids feeling like they have a connection with at least one or two of the older kids in the building. That mentee-mentor relationship has come out of this, and that’s been great to see.”

Tatum Delira, an eighth-grader in art teacher Katie Jorgensen’s family, said it’s been a blast getting to know the younger students in her pack. Her friend and classmate Olivia Armstong, who’s in 6th-grade teacher Sarah Rosno’s family, agreed.

“It’s fun getting to know them and building relationships,” said Armstrong. “They’ve come out of their shells as the year’s gone on.”

Wilson gets to watch it happen from a courtside seat. 

“Oh, it’s awesome,” he said. “It allows our younger students to collaborate and work with our older students. We see it in the hallways all the time. They’re developing relationships that I don’t think they would’ve had before.”

The program has been a smashing success already–the teachers confirmed that with rave reviews at a staff meeting shortly before Christmas–but it’s the future that really excites Rowse.

“I can’t wait to see what it looks like in several more years, once the high schoolers speaking at these assemblies have gone through it and experienced it,” he said. “I can see them introducing themselves and then saying ‘I was in the Wilson family,’ and having everyone cheer. When that happens, that’ll be kind of the signature moment where it all comes full circle.”

At that meeting before the holiday break, Rowse said the teachers took on even more ownership of the program. Their two Friday meetings are looser now than they were. It’s your family, Rowse told them. Now, they come up with the team-building activities and the collaborative exercises and he gets a kick out of watching.

“Spending time with our Whippet Families is always fun,” said Delira. “It’s nice that everyone knows each other, and we all get along.”

That kind of camaraderie is what makes Minden Public Schools special, said Wilson. It’s reflective of the entire community.

“Everybody’s here for each other,” said Wilson. “It’s a really good place to be. We all take care of each other, and we’re only getting closer by doing these things.”

The gymnasium empties quickly as the Friday morning frenzy comes to an end. The half an hour flies by, and by 8:45 the cheers fade to an echo and the kids scatter off to their classrooms, ready to put an exclamation point on another great week at CL Jones Middle School in Minden.

After folding all the tables and stacking all the chairs, Rowse and Jensen return to their offices, where they could sit and rave about their students and their teachers for the rest of the day if you let them.

“The people make this place special,” Rowse said. “It’s truly the people. They’re one-of-a-kind. The staff is amazing, the students are amazing, and the community support is outstanding.”

It’s a candid statement, its validity confirmed by the fourth-grade student walking down the hallway alongside their eight-grade friend. Whippet Pack Families, it seems, capture the very best of everything Minden is about.

“If it’s good for the kids,” said Rowse, “then it’s good for us.”