A Glimpse of Steele County
About this time last year, the New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva School District was celebrating a state basketball championship – the girls’ second consecutive title. This year the Panthers won another highly competitive competition and it wasn’t in basketball or in any other sport, for that matter.
It was of all things – trigonometry. The TrigStar competition recognizes the best students of trigonometry from around the state. And three NRHEG juniors brought home the gold. Abby Christopherson, Eli Lutgens and Torrie Stencel finished in three of the top five places to earn the first place finish for the school.
Many times people forget why these students attend classes. It is not to play athletics at a higher level. Although, as we have seen, former NRHEG basketball star Carlie Wagner shined at the University of Minnesota this past basketball season, and, there are several other seniors graduating this year around Steele County who could also make their mark in the sporting arena.
But at this moment it is about these three young students who made a mark of their own. They had one hour to solve four trigonometry problems. For some of us, just trying to spell the word trigonometry is difficult. But these three youth breezed through the competition each in less than 49 minutes. In fact, Lutgens completed the mission in the second fastest time at the event in 45 minutes and 45 seconds. Stencel and Christopherson came in with times of 48 and 49 minutes, respectively, good enough for third and fifth place overall. Each scored 100 percent. The overall average was 76.5 percent.
What an accomplishment! And from what I understand after the competition, the hallways were lined with students and teachers congratulating these three youth on their achievements. What an incredible feeling that must have been! I’m sure that is something none of those three will ever forget.
The morale of the story is that Steele County students are doing incredible things not only in sports but in all other aspects of their high school lives, also. And it is important to always remember that.