With the school year coming to a close, personnel matters will be one of the main issues during today’s regular meeting of the Duncan School Board.

COMANCHE — You’d be hard-pressed to find someone at Comanche Elementary School, or Comanche Public Schools for that matter, that doesn’t have a compliment for Lynn Tilley.

Tommy Cosgrove has a lot of memories at Marlow High School.
And many of these memories relate to the people Cosgrove has encountered, whether students, teachers or those in the community.
Like 14 years ago, when Chris Jones, a graduating senior, presented a piece of pottery he made to Cosgrove. That gift was accompanied with a note, which talked about the steps they were taking in their lives — graduation for Jones and moving into the principal’s office for Cosgrove, who at that time was a history teacher.

He might be gone, but Jerry Morris’ impact on the community has not been forgotten.
Morris was honored as his family accepted his District 20 Administrator of the Year award for Oklahoma vocational technology schools at a ceremony Tuesday evening.

It may have taken several nights to build bridges, but it took only a bucket of sand to find the breaking points of those bridges.
Fourteen Duncan Middle School students participated in a bridge-building contest, which was made possible because of a grant from the Duncan Public Schools Foundation. To compete, students had to build a miniature bridge from toothpicks and glue.
To test the strength of each bridge, students attached a bucket to their bridges. Once the bucket was in place, sand was added to give more weight.
DMS teacher Cindy Parks said, “I think it went exceptionally well. I didn’t think toothpicks and glue would hold so well.”
The top two bridges were built by Kevin Roddy and Chris Totty. To figure out which bridge had the best efficiency, which is the total weight applied to the bridge to the point of breaking divided by the bridge’s mass. Measuring the efficiency was one of the main goals of the program.
Parks said the competition was a way for students to learn about geometric features, the history of bridge building and construction. The project required several skills.

Monday’s regular Marlow School Board meeting focused primarily on personnel for the 2008-09 school year.
Among the items approved were the hiring of a assistant high school principal and the rehiring of 70 non-certified staff members. These things were approved after a two-hour executive session where the board members discussed at least six items relating to personnel matters.
Superintendent George Coffman said, “We’re very pleased. They have assets to bring with them. And I think they’ll make us better than we are.”
Bryan Brantley, an elementary principal in Chickasha, was hired as the high school assistant principal. The position was most recently held by Wayne Moore, who will be taking Tommy Cosgrove’s position as principal when Cosgrove retires at the end of the school year.

As graduations approach, many seniors are gearing up for post-high school plans. For many students, though, leaving high school won’t mean they’ll stop being involved in their activities. They’ll just be taking them to the next level.
Duncan High School band seniors are no exception. Cody Conklin and Lorenzo Diaz, two of DHS’ graduating band students, will continue on to college, pursing music as a degree.
For them, the chance to play on means an opportunity to expand and grow as musicians as they encounter new and more challenging material.
“The love for it, the love for the instrument, keeps you going,” Conklin said.
Diaz, who said growing up around music has influenced him to play, noted that it doesn’t just fill time, it fills in a part of who he is.
“I just like waking up in the morning knowing you’re going to play,” he said.

Before area high school seniors can move into the real world, they must complete a few steps — the biggest being graduation.
The month of May is filled with graduations. Area graduations begin May 16 and officially come to an end May 23.

Composition I and II are required subjects at Cameron University, and students who excel in those classes received recognition for their efforts.
Several Freshman Writing Awards were presented during the second annual awards ceremony Thursday in CU-Duncan. The event recognized outstanding freshmen in English.