[Music] Ahoy Minnetonka I'm David law superintendent of Minnetonka schools thank you for joining us for this episode of our district podcast Ahoy Minnetonka today we're talking about alumni of the school district and the Minnetonka Alumni Association which leads all kinds of Engagement efforts to help Skippers of all ages re-engage with the school district I'm so happy to have Marietta Jacobson president of the Minnetonka Alumni Association and member of the Minnetonka High School class of 1970 and Dr Matt Andrews a newer member of the Alumni Association and of the Minnetonka High School class of 1996. thank you both for being here please tell us what you've been up to since you graduated from Minnetonka High School well after high school I went to Saint Cloud State for a year and then I ran off and got married for four years and then I came back and went to the University of Minnesota I held a variety of positions at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis and I know it's this is very unusual but I stayed there 40 years wow Nobody Does that anymore I had 80 employees and um I was able to make patients feel better you know feel welcome because we were the first Department that helped patients and then I retired last year um like I said regulations yes thank you um as I mentioned I got married for a short time from 20 to 24. my advice to everyone is get married when you're 30 so you know what you're doing um I bought the house I grew up in on Lake Minnetonka and yes I got the family discount so I can't afford it I have no kids but I borrow kids all the time I think that's part of my connection to the students here is because I don't have any kids I borrow my sister's kids what I like about that is I can give them back at the end of the day so that's what I've been up to thank you well welcome back yep and Matt yeah thanks uh after uh I graduated the University of Minnesota I was able to teach in New Zealand and Australia for a few years and then I moved to California to teach and go to graduate school and what area did you teach all sorts but I've been able to teach teachers at the University but I I enjoy economics business and then I also teach English and math but um and it's mostly online one-on-one with International students so I get to travel quite a bit well it sounds like you both have a gopher connection I also I'm a gopher graduate for a few degrees so go Gophers um Marietta tell us a little bit about the Alumni Association and how you got involved with it well as I mentioned I bought the house I grew up in I still have the same phone number from when I was a kid that's amazing and um so I have really deep roots here and I got started um just looking for something else you know get involved in and so the association had just started and Steve Frazier was my Civics teacher at West Junior High so he gave me a call and asked me if I wanted to be on it so I've been on it since the very beginning wow and what what does the Alumni Association do like what are some of your annual activities well let me just tell a little bit of a history in 2000 these three men from Minnetonka got together and said the high school is going to be 50 years old let's do something fun so it was Tad Shaw who was a school board member and then it was Dr Miller he was a dentist in Excelsior and then Steve Frazier the Civics teacher from West Junior High so they wanted to do this big Street party so that's how it got started our vision has always been to connect alumni but we do so many different events so um the first event we did was the all-school reunion in 2002 and there was no Facebook and people people were hungry for connections so it was really well attended I will tell you we ran out of food because we hadn't planned as well as we could have now we do it every four years and we've got it pretty much nailed and again our original Mission was to connect alumni we do fundraisers to help fund for the teacher grants and you know teachers always spend a lot of money out of their own Pockets so this was really cool they can apply for grants for projects that they want to do and then we fund them along with the foundation so some of the ones we've funded is we did Art on a cart for one of the art teachers my favorite was we paid for the copyright for um The Wizard of Oz so all five of the elementary schools got to put up the play so that was really cool we've spent about almost sixty thousand dollars since we started funding just from the Minnetonka alumni we also have our annual awards show and we people nominate alumni that have done incredible things and then no kidding they fly from all over the United States to come back to the high school to have get their award and last year I put Kleenex on the tables because they're they give really touching speeches about what Minnetonka means to them um let's see what else have we done um actually I think that's about what we do and we have a monthly meeting where you're welcome to sit in on it or if you're interested you can become a board member we still have one opening So yeah thank you and Matt how did you come to come back to the Alumni Association well yes I became involved last year when I met marietti when she retired uh a friend of mine had passed away and so you know old childhood friends I've been attacking people got together and we're connected and then I met Marietta and found out she had time on her hands so um we combined and I was excited about some of these things we combined we were talking the children call it hoco which is homecoming right right but that's when we do our alumni Awards and then same thing it's been a couple years we've delayed um this is all the crazy health concerns but now we have our all-class all Friends reunion coming up so that's been fun to connect with alumni of all ages you know you kind of know you're a few people in your that you grew up with but now it's been great to connect with people 25 years old or 25 years younger so Marietta I had the chance to attend the Saturday alumni ceremony and I I thought I'm glad there was clinics there I was it was pretty emotional you're right what are some of the kinds of awards that are recognized on that day if you don't mind sharing yeah we have like distinguished alumni so some of the people that have um done that have been CEOs of large corporations and they went to Minnetonka High School we have someone from my class of 1970 he has 25 medical patents working with medtronics and saving lives we have young alumni so some of the younger kids have just done incredible things even in just less than 10 years so and then we also like to honor our sports team so we've had the 1965 basketball team come in which was really fun to see them after 30 years or 40 or however many it was and we had the women the girls soccer last year won an award so it's it's all over the place and it's just a really fun event it was fun to see one one of the younger graduates was a doctor who won an award was amazing last year and the soccer team to come back and see so many of those people and their coach talk about the team and the highlights of the team it's fun for those people who have never attended event like that who can attend those events anyone can attend the events and it's free it's a free breakfast and it's really fun to watch everyone connect you see people running towards each other going oh my God I can't believe you're here if someone finds out about this now clearly that happened last Saturday but if someone finds out about this for next year do they have to RSVP through the alumni association for next year or do they show up how does that work yeah we've asked people to register so we know how much food to have sure because you would never want to run out of food we ran out of coffee last year so we want to make sure we know but it's a free event and it we probably don't put it up on the website for a while but and you can always vote for we will have you vote for the teacher award that we give out also so the alumni do they vote on that so go to our website you know that's where all the action is I remember just on a lot of retired teachers coming to the event too to see alumni too so what a fun event and something that I haven't experienced in other places that I've been yep and you were funny too when you gave your speech I remember that good good I hope I was trying to be funny yeah Matt in your time since you've come back what are what are some of your first thoughts about rejoining the Alumni Association well big thing like what Marietta said they're open events so we really try to have free open events like the all-class all Friends reunion there are some events when we'll go to a theater or a game where we might pay some money but for the most part we like to be welcomed and invite people because it's just one of those things some people can come for 15 minutes sometimes you meet new people other people like Marietta or we see her everywhere um so but that's a big part like she said check out the website because people can either register for events they'll be informed we also need volunteers too so what I noticed is there's a few people doing a lot of work so again anybody that anybody that's alumni or friend of Minnetonka schools can kind of help out right and it isn't just fundraising it is I mean these fundraising is a little bit and you mentioned giving back to teachers but it's Network it's reconnecting colleagues so you have a monthly board meeting and those are typically for planning events or what other things happen at the monthly board meeting as we're looking for potential new board members right yeah we do mostly planning but we do watch our budget and um I don't know just regular kind of board meetings where you talk about the exciting policies and procedures and those kinds of things but really our vision is we started out with connecting alumni so that's really our overarching goal that we have is to help people connect so we have a class rep for every year and so those are the ones that we work with to get volunteers and help them because they in turn have their lists and so then they send out information I do want to mention this too that we have the Minnetonka Alumni Association magazine and it just came out a couple weeks ago and if you didn't get it you should go to the website make sure that your data is is correct your answer sort of a catching cover there yes I love this cover this was so cute a great fun students yeah so thank you so um you you mentioned it Matt there's a all school and Friends reunion tell me what that means what should people expect who's welcome to attend where does it happen sure great question so you know most schools if it's colleges or high schools have reunions so the class of 2000 gets together and celebrates this isn't all class so Minnetonka started that's almost 75 years old but the high school and there was deep Haven in Excelsior before this so there's still some deep Haven in Excelsior grads but everybody all classes are invited we closed down um Excelsior so there'll be a Reunion Band tables restaurants host events but it's really a way to celebrate you know our success with Minnetonka schools whatever age sure and so the friends part might be if you're the parents of a graduate and you didn't go you could go or if you live in the community and you've known a lot of people you're welcome absolutely and as we mentioned teachers or coaches or all of these people who have supported children now whatever they're doing maybe they're a retired coach please come um and my mother people's uh family that are part of the schools that's exactly why it's an open event to kind of celebrate that I had the privilege at one of our graduations last spring from our sale our independent living School for students over 18 uh to sit next to a woman who was one of the first graduating classes proud lives in Excelsior uh referenced the all School reunion so clearly it's something that people in the community are aware of but if you're seeing this you don't live in the community what's the time frame what month is it next summer or July 27 2024. okay so it will be a Saturday event we have other events leading up to it so please register reconnect with us and same thing we need volunteers because it's an all-class reunion but we need volunteers from every class to kind of host different events and it's the last Saturday in July you know one of the things just a history lesson for the community I didn't know is that uh there was a point in time where deep Haven and Excelsior were separate high schools and uh the superintendent decided to pull the community together to make the Minnetonka High School on this exactly we're at the high school right now on this property but so if you're a deep Haven or Excelsior alumni you could probably still come to this too there are out there have met them that's exactly and to celebrate this kind of reconnection of you know schools were different when Marietta and I went to uh Minnetonka schools so it's kind of fun to see people they didn't call it hoco then they were actually homecoming right yeah absolutely so um as we're getting near the end of our uh time here is there anything else you want to showcase for the community about the Alumni Association why the benefits of getting involved or just other messages Marietta well I would just say that if we can all volunteer or do stuff with the school there's lots of opportunities outside of alumni too that you can do then I just think we make the school better add anything else you're thinking about Metal adage that it takes a community to raise a child well this is what the Alumni Association is there's a lot of us in the community that don't necessarily come to school daily but this is a way for people to kind of reconnect with school old friends kind of learn what's happening because there's a lot of exciting things happening at schools well you know one of the things that I I want people to hear from this message is you know some parts of school haven't changed we still do a homecoming it's a big event as we had last week that was pet fests and games and a huge dance but there's also you know school has changed a lot over 50 years to meet the future needs of our students and it's exciting to get back to have our alumni come back and see this amazing school program that we're offering right now so we did have uh just put a plug in there for the future we had our our Vantage our experiential learning program kickoff we had 500 community members come back in to be mentors for those students so there's lots of opportunities for alumni to get engaged and connect I'm mentoring a student in public policy lots of fun things there so um lots of opportunities to connect with alumni thank you both so much for the work you do to connect our alumni to support our schools to pull our community together friends and alumni I appreciate that and your time visiting today and to you thank you for joining us to learn about the Alumni Association and on this episode of Ahoy Minnetonka more podcasts to come we'll see you around [Music]