Teachers and administrators at Hanau Middle/High School in Germany have been serving breakfast to students this week prior to Terra Nova testing. Working his way through the serving line Tuesday was junior Angelo Hall. (Kevin Dougherty / S&S)
HANAU, Germany — One morning last August, not long before the first bell of the school year chimed, D’Shaun Carroll stood outside Hanau Middle/High School and foresaw a banner year for him and the Panthers.
“I’m going to go out with a bang,” the high-school senior proclaimed.
On the first day of the final school year, Carroll wasn’t the only person in Hanau feeling feisty and hopeful. Principal Cristina Echevarria predicted the 2007-08 school year would be great, regardless of the military community’s pending closure.
There’s a sports adage coined by baseball great Dizzy Dean that says, “A boast is not bragging if you can back it up.”
So far, the Hanau school, with an ever-shrinking student body, is living up to the hype. The football team captured the Division IV championship in the fall, and last month the boy’s basketball team won its own title. The wrestling team, despite a thin roster, fared well, too, and soccer and track are right around the corner.
“A lot of people underestimated us,” Carroll said Tuesday.
But it’s not just in sports where the kids are excelling.
School secretary Ramona Wunsch, who has seen a generation of kids pass through the community, notices a big difference between this year and the past. There have been far fewer disciplinary problems, for example, and students genuinely seek harmony over discord.
“They accept each other, which they haven’t always done in the past,” Wunsch said. “I think they consider themselves this year more of a family.”
When the school year began in the waning days of August, the consolidated school had 155 students. Today, that number has dropped to 110, give or take a few. Enrollment is expected to dip a bit before a larger exodus hits in mid-May, when students can finish school early if necessary.
Between now and then, the social calendar is busy. A talent show is planned for early April, the prom comes a month later and a goodbye party follows on May 9, Echevarria said. Graduation is scheduled for June 5.
“We’re keeping it alive, even though we are dying,” senior Shanterra Scott said, referring to “school spirit.”
Echevarria noted it was the seniors, Carroll and DeAndré Holmes in particular, who rallied together enough people to have a track and field team.
News of the community’s closure “was a little difficult to take at first,” said junior Taija Kidwell, who attended Giessen High School before it closed. “But you get used to it. It’s the Army.”
