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.
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."
After a series of high-profile appearances in recent years, the Unified Music program at Buffalo High School is now preparing for its most prominent performance yet.
On Monday, Nov. 24, BHS Choir Director Zack Carlson-Giving informed the Buffalo-Hanover-Montrose School Board that the 32-member ensemble of students with and without disabilities has been invited to perform at the 2026 Midwestern American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) Regional Conference in Milwaukee.
“This is one of the most prestigious professional gatherings for choral educators in the nation, representing nine states across the Midwest and featuring only the most innovative and exemplary programs,” Carlson-Giving told the board.
Superlative singing, a pit orchestra on stage rather than in front of it, unique lighting and set pieces, and a story that has endured since antiquity await audiences who attend Buffalo High School’s fall musical, “Hadestown: Teen Edition.”
Four shows in the refurbished Performing Arts Center are scheduled at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Nov. 14 and 15, as well as 7 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 21, and 2 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 22.
A unique fusion of Greek mythology in a soulful Depression-era New Orleans-inspired setting, the sung-through production tells the story of young dreamer Orpheus and his love interest, the disillusioned Eurydice. The pair journey to the underworld, where they meet King Hades and his wife, season-changing Persephone. Throughout, the story explores the themes of doubt against faith, fear against love, industry against nature, and heroic action in the face of overwhelming odds.
It’s no simple thing to stand out among one’s peers when all have dedicated their professional lives to educating the next generation, but four Buffalo-Hanover-Montrose educators were recently recognized for just that.
Those invited to the Leadership in Educational Excellence Awards banquet at River’s Edge Convention Center in St. Cloud on Wednesday, Oct. 29, included Kristine Johnson, third-grade teacher at Tatanka Elementary STEM School; Karmen Harnois, speech language pathologist at Montrose Elementary School of Innovation; Erik Cagle, science teacher at Buffalo Community Middle School; and Joel Peterson, math teacher at Buffalo High School.
