Thanks to everyone that came to our Veter-an's Day Service. A special thanks to Dave Nicks for the moving story you shared with us, also, our color guard for being a part of it. A huge thanks to the CLT and senior stu-dents that put this to-gether.

God Bless America!!

To Act Justly, To Love Tenderly, And To Walk Humbly, with our God...Micah 6:8

RSM School Newsletter

December 2016

John 8:12

Little Saints

Many family, relatives and friends were on hand for the St. Catherine- St. Mary’s annual All Saints Prayer Service. The church was fairly full for the October 28th service held at St. Catherine’s Church in Oyens. The TK students car-ried up objects representing some words of wisdom from the newly canonized St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta. The Kindergarten and First Grade students each taught the guests about the saint they represented. All the students did a great job entertaining the guests with the songs: When the Saints Go Marching In, Jesus Loves Me, and Banner Over Me is Love. Everyone enjoyed refreshments and activities in the school following the service.

First Grade Saints Back: Dalton Klein, Faith Kelley, Beau Johnson, Reece Homan, Sophia Harpeanu, Tre Galles, Kimberly Cronin. Front: Tyten Waldschmitt, Ian Tentinger, Lucas Sheehan, Breeana Sheehan, Brielle Schorg, Allie Nacke, Dayton Kneip, Laney Klein.

Kindergarten Saints are: Back- Bentley Reed, Brodey Penning, Kinley Tentinger, Chloe Homan Front: Jayze Bunkers, Dylan Schroeder, Juliann Mohning, Ethan Klein, Katherine Doidge, Ben Roder.

TK: Mason Matgen, Lily Matgen, Hunter Klein, Hadley Klein, Liam Kelley, Brynlee Keffeler, Jenna Homan, Ruthie Arens

Senior theology students helping Rick Harpenau with the

grotto and pond cleanup.

Christian Leadership Team made a visit out to Bavarian Meadows to paint pumpkins. What a great time.. Lots of laughs and smiles.

Shop Exploratory 5th grade students giving it their all trying to sepa-rate 2 blocks of wood which were glued up and clamped last week. During this exercise they wit-nessed the adhesion strength of wood glue on wood. When we broke the pieces apart using a chisel, they saw where the glue did not let loose, but that the wood in fact split, proving that the glue is actually stronger than the wood if clamping is done correct-ly.

Christmas Concerts

December 7th 7 PM

TK-5th grade

December 14th 7 PM

6th grade –12th grade

Sandy Augustine Memorial Gym

Elections

The 2nd-4th graders had their own election on Tuesday, November 8th, 2016. They had to experience waiting in line, filling in the election ballot, and receiving a sticker after they voted. The winner for our election was Donald Trump.

Happy Siesta Halloween Fun! Hats off to our blood donors!! 17 donors today....

SunnyD Book Spree If you haven’t helped your child’s teacher participate in the SunnyD Book Spree® be-fore, now is the perfect time to start. Since the program began, the SunnyD Book Spree® has donated over $6 million in books to classrooms across the country. They expect to give away even more books to schools and classrooms this year, but your child’s teacher needs your help! We invite you to get involved by collecting eligible SunnyD® and Fruit2O UPC labels and submitting them to your child’s teacher. We appreciate your participation in this exciting program for our school to earn free book for each classroom. For more information and to see all eligible products visit: SunnyD.com/bookspree

7th and 8th Grade Field Trip

Is a pumpkin patch an appropriate place to take 7th and 8th graders on a field trip? That was the question I asked myself and was pleasantly surprised to find the answer is, “Yes!” RSM 7th and 8th graders ventured to Orange City Thursday, October 27th. While there they learned a little about Vogel Paint, found their way through a maze at Pumpkinland, ate at Pizza Ranch, and saw a performance of Artrageous, which is an interactive arts and music show put on by a group of artists, musicians, singers, and dancers, who travel around the world.

Jacob Britt accepts the invitation

to dance on stage at Artrageous.

Good News from the lunch program by Mrs. Wiederholt Every spring and fall, the lunch program welcomes a special visitor from the Siouxland District Health De-partment. Alicia Sanders, Environmental Specialist, recently conducted her bi-yearly inspection of our program and our facilities, and I am happy to announce that Mrs. Carolyn Arens, cook at Oyens St. Catherine’s, received a perfect inspection. Congratulations, Carolyn for not only being an excellent cook, but also being an excellent man-ager of your kitchen. Perfect inspections are very hard to accomplish and we so appreciate all of your efforts at St. Catherine’s. I also want to commend the wonderful kitchen helpers that we have in Remsen as well. We welcome, Jennifer Brende, Carla Jones, Michael Schorg, Linda Slota, Deb Niehus and Sharon Bouma who are new on staff this year. Thank you for sharing your excellent culinary skills with our St. Mary’s family. We also want to thank Shirley Jaminet for her baking abilities and to substitutes, Mary Ann Kobberman, Shirley Harpenau, Angie Waldschmitt and Nicole Bohnenkamp for all of your much appreciated help this past quarter. You have definitely shared your light with us! In the December menu, you may notice that the pizza menu has a new title. We now have Papa Murphy's from Le Mars who deliver our pizzas. The pizzas arrive freshly made and the kitchen only has to bake them and slice them. These pizzas meet all the government regulations in nutritional content, calories and serving size. When Papa’s Pizza is listed on the menu, we will need a day notice to how many pizzas we will need to order; so take note when it is listed that way and plan ahead to make sure you get your order in. May you all have a Merry Christmas and God’s Blessings to you in the New Year!

Physics The physics class, consisting of Paige Willman and Jacob Loutsch, recently performed a lab using an apparatus called an Atwoods Machine. The de-vice is intended to demonstrate the dis-tinction between gravitational mass and inertial mass. It works by using various masses on either side of a pulley sys-tem and measuring the acceleration of the masses. We used an ultrasonic mo-tion detector to measure the motion and a TI-83 calculator as a data recorder. In spite of a very cobbled together appa-ratus, the results were amazingly close to the theoretical expectations. The fig-ure shows the data table and plots of acceleration versus mass difference with constant total mass, and accelera-tion versus total mass with constant dif-ference in mass. You can see from the graphs that the experimental and theo-retical curves are nearly identical. It is seldom that we get results that good with very inexpensive equipment. Great job Paige and Jacob.

St. Catherine's Center praying for the fallen

Des Moines officers and their families.

A SCSM Partnership Between School and Parents By Mr. Les Douma

It is vital that SCSM continues to build a strong partnership, a pledge, between parents and school that will support the educational growth of the students entrusted to our care. Paramount to this educational growth includes:

1) An education grounded in the Catholic faith that results in students living lives that reflects “acting justly, loving tenderly, and walking humbly with their God.”

2) A curriculum, TK-12, that emphasizes the importance of students being able to speak clearly and to write precisely. Whatever futures our students experience, they will be expected to read, write and speak the best that they possibly can.

3) Experiences within the school setting, in the home, and in the church that allows the students to develop a strong set of values and have the courage to defend them. Among others, these values will include:

a. Integrity – becoming the person who can be trusted and who do the right thing; b. Respect – respecting all people, including their classmates, and respecting property as well; c. Courteousness – being polite, living in a civil manner, behaving appropriately; d. Loyalty – being loyal to family, school, teammates, classmates, and to those who have sup-

ported them; e. Awareness – being aware of the opportunities that surround them every day; f. Compassion – loving tenderly, treating others appropriately; g. Determination – striving, always, to succeed even in the face of adversity; h. Happiness – enjoying the life that God has given them: f. Commitment – being the best at whatever they attempt to do.

4) The encouragement to develop a personal strength to control their circumstances rather than be controlled by them. Hopefully, our students will control their lives rather than be controlled by the circumstances around them. Making right choices in life is the sign of maturity.

5) Acquiring the ability to be tolerant of people whose beliefs, thoughts, abilities, etc. are different from theirs. This does not mean compromising their value system, but rather understanding that God did not create everyone the same.

6) Attaining the ability to look squarely at the world and its problems and do so with hope. The true measure of all of us, including our students, is to understand that life will deal us problems, disap-pointments, and discouragements. The real measure is how we deal with them.

Indeed, we have a challenging task before us as parents and school. Let’s continue to build that partner-ship. Our students deserve our very best.

Remsen St. Mary's

sophomore class went over to Happy Siesta to celebrate

Thanksgiving with them. The sophomores helped

serve the meal and ate din-ner with the residents.

Seniors: Mallory Behrens Haley Delperdang Hannah Loutsch Brady Portz Lauren Pottebaum Catherine Russell Colin Schroeder Paige Willman

Juniors: Matthew Begnoche Ken Bohnenkamp Brett Galles Rebecca Johnson Veda Pick Nicholas Ruden Zachary Ruden Mitchell Schiltz Derrick Schorg Sydney Schorg Wyatt Staab Abigail Tentinger

Sophomores: Sophia Bohnenkamp Brooklyn Frederes Will Galles Alexis Harpenau Hailey Klein Bailey Penning Robert Russell Olivia Schroeder

Freshmen: Madison Feller Emma Galles Spencer Schorg Noah Schroeder Skyler Waldschmitt Ashley Willman

Gold Honor Roll

Seniors: Tom Ahlers Michael Koenck Jacob Loutsch Erika Strassner Jacob Wesselmann Jared Wurth

Sophomores: Kelsey Behrens Shay Galles Sydney Lewis Miranda Loutsch Rachael Renken Kaitlyn Van Den Top

Juniors: Parker Bohnenkamp Kaylee Galles David Grady Hannah Harpenau Katlin Harvey Marcus Konopasek Brody Ricke

Freshmen: Miranda Ball

Silver Honor Roll

Fr. Brent Lingle from the Sioux City Diocese graciously accepted an invitation to teach at RSM High School during the Junior Sacrament’s class with a focus on the Mass and Eucharist. It was an honor to have him in our midst for an afternoon. Following are the reflection questions students were to answer after Fr. Lingle finished. We invite all to think about the same questions. 1. Reflect on the symbolism of Bread = Eucharist. How is bread necessary for life? How is the Eucharist necessary for spiritual life? How often do you eat bread? How often do you “eat” the Eucharist? 2. When someone dies, we often feel that we have lost that person forever. When Christ died, he left himself in the Eucharist. Reflect on how the Eucharist can make Christ still live with us, despite his apparent death. 3. How long can a person live without eating? What happens when someone starves to death? Compare physical starvation to spiritual starvation when a soul is deprived of the Eu-charist. 4. Thanksgiving is approaching. What are some of your family’s Thanksgiving traditions? How are these similar to/different from the meal we celebrate at every Mass? How does the Eucharist make us a family? 5. Students were to also reflect on an important message taken from Fr. Lingle and his teachings. Zach Ruden wrote, “I thought Fr. Lingle was really interesting to listen to. He made me laugh a bit when he said things like, “I about fall asleep in my own chair when I look out and see some of the Congregation doing it.” He also brought up some good points about the Mass that taught me things I had no idea about. There is a reason he is in the position he is. He cares about us enough and understands the Eucharist enough to come up and teach us. I think the most important thing I will re-member, not necessarily about just the Eucharist but about the faith as a whole, is to not take Theology/Faith the same way we take Math. Don’t treat it as an assignment to remember everything for a grade. Instead, think of it as pushing your faith further and applying it to your life. Make it part of who you are rather than something to just get done.”

The sixth, seventh, and eighth grades video conferenced with Bishop Nickless as par t of Vocations Awareness Week 2016. During the twenty five minute discussion, the Bishop and vocations director Fr. Shane Deman spoke about how they discovered their calling to the priesthood. Students questions ranged from as simple as favorite color and food to asking why they considered (and responded to) the call of the priesthood. The event, organized by Mr. Hughes, Mr. Fred Shellaberger-diocesan director of evangelization, and Fr. Shane, was the first of its kind in the Dio-cese of Sioux City.

Anointing Mass

Friday, December 2 at 10:30 AM

Grades 2-12

Sandy Augustine

Memorial Gym

Following the Mass

lunch will be served in the cafeteria.

Activity Club

Soup and Sandwich Supper

Friday, December 9

4:30 pm

Sandy Augustine Gym

Dedication between the Varsity Girl/Boy Game