Buffalo High School

When it comes to paving the way for students with and without disabilities to learn together in a mutually beneficial manner, Buffalo High School staff members have stood out as leaders in their individual fields over the past few years.

This spring, they combined their efforts to host the first Unified Symposium in Minnesota, and perhaps the nation.

The Friday, April 10, event drew 38 educators from around the state. Several came from Anoka-Hennepin, the state’s largest district, while others hailed from Cloquet, Morris, Mankato and other communities near and far. 

Careening from one world-ending apocalypse to the next, surviving, and finding the will to begin again, the Antrobus family endures by “The Skin of Our Teeth.”

Buffalo High School’s spring play portrays humankind’s ongoing flirtations with disaster, and ultimately its resilience.

“It focuses a lot on family, and how a family needs to hold itself together,” said senior Lucas Louwagie, who plays the head of that family, George Antrobus. “These people face so much. Even if they are at each other’s throats, they’re still a family and they’re still holding each other together through everything.”
 

When notified that he and Jeanette Bermudez had been selected as Buffalo High School’s Triple ‘A’ Award winners for 2025-26, Parker Carlson’s mind went directly to his predecessors.

“I thought of the people who won it last year – Hope [Bjornson] and Mitchell [Friesz] – and I thought, ‘Wow, there’s no way I’m in the same class with those two,’” Carlson said. “I felt and still do feel a little undeserving, but it’s really great that all of our work is getting recognized. I think it’s just a really great honor to be memorialized with such a great group of people.”

Bermudez was similarly humbled. 

“It’s crazy that I’m able to be the person the school picked to represent this,” she said.
 

It can take time for leadership qualities to emerge, but eventually those qualities cannot be hidden.

By nominating Brielle Sebey and Braxton Teschendorf for the Minnesota State High School League’s ExCEL Award, Buffalo High School has granted recognition that neither student was seeking, but both deserve.

The award, which represents Excellence in Community, Education and Leadership, is for juniors who participate in an MSHSL fine arts and/or athletic activity, hold a leadership position in their school, and volunteer in their community, among other stipulations.

Although she has quickly dismissed email invitations to join Google’s annual art contest in past years, BHS art teacher CiAnn Jackson suddenly felt a bolt of inspiration this school year.

The difference?

Senior student Benjamin Freshour, whose artistic skill, speed and “superpower” made him a natural fit for this year’s theme.

Buffalo High School invites community members to attend a Choral Showcase at 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 12, in the Buffalo High School Performing Arts Center (PAC) following the cancellation of the Minnesota Music Educators Association (MMEA) Convention. The MMEA performance, originally scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 12, at the Minneapolis Convention Center, was canceled, but student musicians will still have the opportunity to share their work thanks to local collaboration and support.

Longtime Buffalo High School Theatre Director Tracy Hagstrom Durant recently received the National Federation of State High School Associations Outstanding Theatre Educator of the Year Award for Minnesota. 

For more information about her career and accomplishments, click to see the Minnesota State High School League story.

The Library Learning Commons at Buffalo High School serves many purposes on a daily basis. It is a social gathering place, an expansive classroom, a study hall and a resource-rich destination for research.

In mid-November, the space also became a museum gallery.

Students in Tara Rosh and Dwight Monson’s CIS World History classes were tasked with choosing one of more than 70 possible topics to study in depth, then creating artifacts and information about their findings.
 

Over the past decade the Buffalo High School Future Farmers of America program has been one to watch in state and national competition.

Specifically, the program’s Market Plan teams have won state and advanced to nationals in six of the last seven years, in addition to successes in various other fields. At the 98th annual FFA Convention & Expo in Indianapolis, Oct. 29-Nov. 1, Buffalo’s most recent Market Plan team of Isaac Erhard, Brendan Park and Coltonn Peterson earned a Silver Rating, placing them squarely in the middle of the Gold, Silver and Bronze awards earned by 38 total teams.

“The whole experience was just surreal,” said Peterson. “Winning state was probably a Top 5 moment, maybe higher. And going to nationals was really cool. I’ve never seen so many people from different states in my life. Just looking around – we wear these blue jackets that are our official attire – you see Alabama, California, Texas, Delaware, Hawaii. You meet so many people, everybody is really nice, you get to talk with them, and it’s so much fun."