Submitted by Ethan Sickels, Principal

I’m not sure what we have done to anger Mother Nature, but we are certainly getting our fair share of unique weather for this time of year! I hope all of you are dealing with the up and down temps and precipitation the best you can.
Since this kind of weather makes you want to stay inside, we have just the event for you on Friday, April 13. Our High School play, “The High Schooler’s Guide to the Galaxy,” will be performed in the north gym. Our students have been working hard and learning multiple parts to put on a great show, so we hope you will come out and enjoy the performance!
Thankfully the weather has not slowed down the great results from our students in Scholar Bowl, Band, FFA, FCCLA and FBLA. If you have been reading the paper, I have no doubt you have noticed the success for our students recently . . . but if not, here is a quick rundown:
• Our Scholar Bowl team sits at 24-6, went 13-2 in Conference and took second place both in Conference and the Conference Tournament. They head to Mound City on April 14 for District action. Mercer Deatz and Ethan Lucas have earned First Team All-Conference honors.
• Our band returned from District contest in Platte City this past Wednesday and received an Exemplary (I) rating! Mrs. Palmer, just in the beginning of maternity leave, still made sure the students were ready and directed them at contest. Thanks to Oscar, our new Blue Jay in the Palmer household, for being such a great teacher’s kid already and tagging along with Mom to all the events.
• Our FFA organization has qualified 19 students for state contests on April 19-20! I am not the official record keeper, but that has to be pretty close to some sort of record for number of students qualifying. The four events we will be competing in are Job Interview, Agronomy Team, Conduct of Chapter Meetings, and the Parliamentary Procedures Team. We are very proud of them, and appreciate all the work Mr. Hastert has done to get them prepped for competition.
• FCCLA had three members qualify for national competition in Atlanta this summer. Hannah Miller, Kelcie Gaines and Beth Davis will be taking their “Chapter in Review Portfolio” to present with the theme of “Rock Port FCCLA Taking Flight.” These ladies have earned gold at both regional and state events, and we know they will do great work this summer!
• Finally, our FBLA students will be at state contest April 8-9 . . . so I don’t have those results at this time. But if it goes as well as everything else has the spring, no doubts we will bring home some fantastic news as well.
As we head into the last 30 days of school, we have MAP/EOC assessments, banquets, spring sports, awards days, and graduation ahead of us. This time of year you just have to hold on, as every day and evening has a different event happening. We hope you will check out our school webpage for our events calendar so that you can catch our great students in action.
As always, if you have Twitter, please follow us @RPBlueJays.  We post daily lots of the great things that are happening here at school. Until next time . . . Go Blue Jays!