Mobile Ed Productions has reached it's 35th year, and Geoff Beauchamp has been a part of more than half of it! Starting as a performer in January of 1989, Geoff created Mobile Ed's The Living Lincoln, and is still one of our "Lincoln's" who brings The Living Lincoln into your school each year. Pretty good likeliness huh? 

As mentioned earlier, we had a booth at the Ohio Association of Elementary School Principals conference in Sandusky, Ohio this week. We had a great time and just wanted to give an update on how things turned out.

Time again for the annual Ohio Association of Elementary School Principal’s conference! 

Television technology has become an intrinsic and indisputably important part of our lives. Computers, the internet and video are on a collision course with each other and with our future. The adults of tomorrow will need to know and understand this technology in ways most of us do not, and they will need to be able to make use of the fusion between these areas in new and creative ways as they roll through the world they are inheriting. So it is important that they be introduced to some of the basics at an early point in their development that they are then able to determine the degree they may wish to delve into these brave new worlds as they progress toward career choices.

For most kids history is an ugly thought. Learning about history has about as much appeal as eating broccoli. Mention history to a lot of kids and their eyes glaze over with a look that says:

Every year I say goodbye to friends. Friends I have worked with for years. That’s because every year principals with whom I have become good friends pack it in after many years of shepherding children through their formative growth. While I am always happy for them personally, I am also always so sorry to see them go. Not because I won’t be doing business with them anymore, but because I have honestly grown to value them as friends. I know their kids. I have never met their kids, of course, but I remember when they were sick in elementary school or when they left for college, when they got married, had children and so on. I remember because my friend and I talked about it at the time. I know where they went on vacation, and I know about the time a tornado knocked down their house, or their wife won the lottery or their town flooded. I know them because we are friends. This year alone, I will be losing touch with several good friends in Ohio. In Bryan, Ohio alone I am losing two good friends. Over near Canton, Ohio there is a gentleman I consider a very good friend who is retiring after more than forty years. I have been to his school myself several times, and we have worked together, picking his programs since 1992. I have listened as his son, whom I am sure is a great guy, left high school and applied at colleges, settling on a prestigious military academy. I listened as his son went off to war in the Middle east, and I listened to the relief in his fathers voice when he returned home safely, then married and began to raise a family of his own. These people are my friends and I will miss them!

Ohio is just across the line from our home state of Michigan so, of course, a lot of our school assemblies appear at Ohio schools throughout the year. Every so often we will encounter a reporter at a school, either from a newspaper or a television station, and we are always happy to see them. Sadly, by the time the article appears in print we are usually gone from the area and so we seldom see our own publicity.
Recently, however, one of our school assembly presenters was in a southern Ohio school to present our television production school assembly program - “Lights Camera Action”. Derek McDonald, one of the gentlemen who presents that show was visiting at the Bishop Flaget school in Chillicothe, Ohio. He found himself speaking with David Berman, a reporter from the Chillicothe Gazette. Well David wrote a nice little piece about the program which you can read here:
http://www.chillicothegazette.com/article/20110303/NEWS01/103030301/-1/7daysarchives/Bishop-Flaget-students-get-hands-chance-video-production
We are very proud of Derek. Derek hails from the great state of Tennessee and has been performing school assemblies in schools throughout the midwest for us for many years. He has many fans in schools in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. Derek also presents our Character Counts school assembly “Inspector Iwannano”, and does a really great job. The great news is that next year Derek will also take on two of our other programs (two of our absolute best!), “Sky Dome Planetarium” and “The Earth Dome” (AKA Earth Balloon). We are certain he will bring great professionalism and flair to these fine school assemblies. The bad news is that next year Derek will spend very little time in the midwest schools where he has performed for so many years. Schools in Ohio, Michigan and Kentucky will have to fight over a small number of dates in September and January, as Derek will spend much of the 2011-2012 school year on the East coast visiting our client schools in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, New England and throughout the area around DC, Maryland and Virginia. So bad news for midwest schools but great news for schools on the East coast.
Regardless of where you are, whether your school is in Ohio or New York, Michigan or Virginia, the great school assemblies presented by Derek will provide an awesome experience for your school. He is a champion school assembly performer and we hope you will bring him to your school next year!

Get the news out! As of this week, Mobile Ed is now accepting orders for school assemblies for Ohio schools for the 2011-2012 school year.

Following in our recent line of “shout outs” to great school assembly performers, a little recognition for a long time favorite of ours, Ms. Kathleen Day, our auburn haired heroin from Springfield, Ohio!

Many states focus their 4th Grade curriculum on elements of their own state history. This gives the savvy coordinator of school assembly programs some great options! For example, in Illinois, Indiana or Kentucky a perfect subject for an assembly program is, of course, Abraham Lincoln. But with a little scholarship and a little digging, you can get some great ideas for school assembly programs at your school by perusing the content standards for your state. They are usually found quite easily these days on the web site for your state’s Board of Education.