Today is the 5th of October and, historically, a day of some significance. President Chester Arthur was born on October 5 in 1829, and in 1892 the famed band of outlaws, the Dalton Gang, performed their last bank robbery, trying to get away with the gold from a facility in Kansas and getting pretty much wiped out in the process. On this day in 1962, the Beatles released their first single, Love Me Do, while the first James Bond film, Dr. No, was released to theatres. And Monty Python’s Flying Circus premiered on British television. It was October 5 when the Wright brothers set a sustained flight record that would hold for several years. And it was on October 5 when the last best hope for the Native American tribes of the Ohio River valley was defeated and killed by an American army under the command of General William Harrison.

If you have kids and live in Michigan then most likely you already know what today was, don't you? Today was, of course, that most important day called “Count Day”. If you do not know what that means, then here is an explanation.

Minnesota has been called by many names. The North Star State, The Land of 10,000 Lakes, The Bread and Butter State, The Gopher State and the New England of the West. And for some of us, it will always be known for the fame achieved through radio personality Garrison Keillor and his wonderfully creative Prairie Home Companion radio show. 

Just a quick little note today.

For many years we have brought great school shows to kids all over the country. But, of course, the kids don't get to select the shows. Instead we work with a representative from the school to do that. We set up our school shows through many different people. Often we do so through the school principal. Other times it is a secretary acting on behalf of a principal. Many times it will be a representative from the school PTA or PTO. Occasionally it will be a teacher. And they all do their scheduling in different ways.

One of our good friends is in Maryland today. His name is Frank, and his real job is that of principal at a school in the greater Cleveland, Ohio area. But today he is engaged in another passion. Frank is a Civil War reenactor and today he is in Maryland, along with thousands of his colleagues, reenacting one of the the turning points in the war, the Battle of Antietam.

We have spoken recently and in the past about our programs that teach kids about how to deal with bullying. This is a serious topic and one that needs to be addressed. Every day we hear from schools looking for ways to help their students.

Labor Day is over, and schools are either back in session or are resuming this week all over the country. If you are the coordinator for school shows at your school, and are still looking for great ideas for school assemblies, here is a super cool offer for you!

We received a communication recently in connection to one of our blogs. It was in reference to a recent piece describing how well our anti bullying assembly - Stronger Than a Bully - has been received during the last year, and how we have now created a follow up program to meet the needs of schools wishing to repeat the show each year. The writer, with antagonism and totally unprovoked belligerence, cast aspersions, denigrated the reliability of client reviews, and demanded empirical evidence proving that the show had been effective in preventing bullying. Wow! Given that the writer had, apparently, never even seen the show, we can only assume he or she was having a bad day.