Well it's now July and everyone is out enjoying the great weather we sincerely do hope! Enjoy the summer while you can because before you know it the gusty cooler weather of Fall will be upon us.

Well, 2013 is in the history books now, so we thought you might like a quick recap of our top ten school shoes from last year. Here is what we had for you! Not that these are the best shows we have ... all our shows are absolutely awesome! But of all the more than thirty great school programs we offer, these are the shows you, our clients, scheduled the most often! These are the top ten most often scheduled school shows from 2013.

By now, we would hope that most people have some awareness bullying in our schools and just how tragic the outcome often is. To raise awareness even more, each year in October we observe National Bullying Prevention Month. What started as a week of observance, founded in 2006 by Pacer's National Center For Bullying Prevention, the campaign has grown to occupy the entire month. Now coming up on it's eleventh year, the celebration truly it has an affect on the entire month and the entire year. And deservedly so. The scourge of bullying is preventable.

Recent events in the small city of Steubenville, Ohio have drawn national attention to the small community across the river from West Virginia. Members of a much loved local football team are charged with raping a young woman, while controversy flares concerning the possible involvement of several others. An inflammatory video has surfaced showing another team member laughing, joking and making crude remarks in reference to the victim. Meantime allegations of a cover up to protect the local team are flying wildly around the internet.

Today is an anniversary of an invasion that took place in Kentucky in 1862. Kentucky, of course, remained loyal to the Union during the Civil War, one of three “border states” (the other two being Missouri and Maryland) where slavery was legal and practiced before the war, but where the elected state governments did not vote to secede along with the rest of the South.

I was out of the office yesterday in the morning. I went over to Northwood Elementary School in Royal Oak, Michigan, because our program Stronger Than a Bully was performing there. Since Stronger Than a Bully started out on tour on the road this year, this was the first time I was to have an opportunity to catch a live presentation of this great new and important school show.

Anyone who has kids will know this. Just before holidays they get excited. Gee... kind of an understatement there, huh? Ballistic might be a better word, or frenetic, animated, distracted ... you name it. But one thing is for sure, it is hard to get them to concentrate on school work. Whether it be summer vacation, fall break, winter break, Thanksgiving ... it doesn’t matter, they will still work themselves into a frenzy, and it is very frustrating trying to calm them down to accomplish regular school work during these times.

We mentioned yesterday that Dave Mitchell was coming back to Ohio and Michigan schools next week after touring the East Coast the last month or so. His anti bullying school assembly - Stronger Than a Bully -  was especially popular among New Jersey schools.