Superior Middle School celebrates 20 years (2024)

SUPERIOR — A joint event celebrating Superior Middle School’s 20th anniversary and a Passport to the World cultural night brought hundreds of visitors to the school Wednesday.

“I’ve never seen this kind of a response to a family event,” said LeAnn Egnash, family engagement coordinator for Superior Middle and High schools. “I’ve even seen community members, like an older couple sitting and having dinner and that was their date night.”

Superior Middle School celebrates 20 years (1)

Everyone was given a passport at the door and invited to wander through an array of booths dedicated to different cultures that are represented in the district, including Greece, China, Venezuela and Finland. Music was provided by the pipes and drums of the Duluth Scottish Heritage Association.

Thirty minutes into the event, Superior High School sophom*ore Sara Dai, 15, and junior Ella Huang, 16, had run out of the three boxes of homemade Chinese flower cookies they had baked for their table.

Doug Lovshin walked through the exhibits with his son Layne, 13.

ADVERTIsem*nT

“He loved the s’mores especially,” Lovshin said.

The event had special meaning to the pair.

“I started sixth grade here in the building when it first opened, so 20 years later he started sixth grade,” Lovshin said.

He was in the blue wing back then and reported that as a student he was “kind of a terror.”

In the library, a timeline of artifacts, yearbooks and news articles traced the school’s history starting with the inaugural 2003-2004 school year. Many of the items were collected by the former librarian, Laura Kremer. Others were discovered by teachers when there was a big wing change a few years ago.

Superior Middle School celebrates 20 years (2)

"There's a lot of history right there that, you know, I think a lot of people didn't even know what they had in some of their cupboards," said teacher/librarian Andrea Moreau, who organized the display with the help of students.

They found badges, articles and other items in the bins of memorabilia. One thing the students have really enjoyed is looking at the hairstyles through the years. Moreau remembered how much excitement there was when the school opened.

“It was a really big deal. I was so proud to be part of that. Just the excitement for the building. … People were coming through and like, oh, every classroom had two computers in it. Now the kids don’t realize we were pretty technologically advanced for the time,” Moreau said.

ADVERTIsem*nT

Superior Middle School celebrates 20 years (3)

Kandice Mainville paged through an old yearbook with her children, Nataleah Rosa-Vega, 8, and Xavier Rosa-Vega, 6, searching for pictures of Mainville's siblings. The Superior woman, who graduated in 2011, entered the middle school as a sixth grader the year after it opened. She said visiting SMS with her children felt like walking back in time, like she never left.

"It's kind of nice to know that this is kind of where they'll be going, kind of like following my steps," Mainville said.

The building has been visited by multiple politicians, including Wisconsin governors Jim Doyle, Scott Walker and Tony Evers, then-Vice President Joe Biden and presidential hopeful Howard Dean.

“The building has always been such a community gathering place, too ... different national guard send-offs and welcome homes, and we’ve had funerals here and everything,” Moreau said.

The anniversary display will remain in the library, and teachers have set up times to walk their students through the timeline. They’ll even use it in an activity.

“We actually have an inquiry where they go through and they kind of study the images from the years. And they’ll see the parents or cousins or brothers and sisters, and it ends up being pretty engaging for the kids,” Moreau said.

The librarian has been at the middle school all 20 years. She listed several other educators who have been at SMS since it opened its doors in 2003.

Science teacher Robin Reckinger has also been teaching at the school all 20 years. She’s seen it go through a lot of changes, and had former students return as coworkers.

ADVERTIsem*nT

Her favorite memory?

“It would be all of the people that we’ve gotten to work with over the years. I think that’s probably the most important thing,” Reckinger said.