Well, my gosh. It is nearly half way through the month of March and I have yet to give out some Cheers and Jeers in the year 2023.

Well, I can’t let that oversight go on any longer, so here are a lot of Cheers going out to those who deserve it, and a few Jeers to those who also deserve them as well.

First off, a bunch of Cheers to each of the four students, two at Blue Earth Area and two at United South Central, who were selected as their school’s “Triple A” – Arts, Academics and Athletics – honorees this year.

Every year the Register staff writes stories about these students and I am amazed at how many things these students are involved in. So a great big Cheer goes out to Parker Meyers and Eloise Blair at BEA and Nathaniel Clore and Grace Niebuhr at USC. ­Kudos.

Another set of Cheers to local athletes who qualified to go to the “Big Dance” – the State Tournament.

Addison Armstrong represented BEA at the State Gymnastics Meet, and Kade Gaydon and Parker Meyers qualified for the State Wrestling Tournament for BEA.

Wyatt Walters, Byron Getchell and Cooper Ochsendorf also went to the State in wrestling for the Maple River/United South Central Longhorns.

Congrats to all of them.

There is also a Cheer for our non-sport activity participants in area schools. Many of them are also doing very well this year.

One in particular is the BEA BPA group, who had 36 of their 38 participants in regional competition move on to the State. A big Cheer for all of them.

We send a Cheer out to BEA and USC Schools, and our law enforcement agencies, for keeping School Resource Officers (SRO) in the schools.

DJ Bullerman had been a Faribault County Sheriff’s deputy at BEA, but now is a Wells Police officer serving at USC. Barry Meyers is a sheriff’s deputy now on duty at BEA. Both men seem well-suited to their positions at the schools, and we are glad to see those officers still on duty at our area schools.

We do have to send out a Jeer to the fact that having an officer on duty at the school is necessary in the first place.

We have Cheered them before, but here is another Cheer to our local Economic Development Authorities (EDA).

You read a lot about them in the pages of the FCR, and that is because we have a lot of active EDAs in the county, including the Faribault County EDA itself.

There are also the two REV (Rural Entrepreneurial Venture) programs in the county, one in Wells and one in Blue Earth, which help promote starting a business in the county.

All of them are using funds to support local businesses, create new businesses and help boost local economies.

Made up of some elected officials and many volunteer citizens, these groups and others seem to be helping out a lot. Good for them.

A Cheer to the BEA School District and the fact they recently brought back two important programs. One was Escape the Vape II and the other was Project TRUST.

Escape the Vape brought in local experts on the problem with teen vaping, as well as other drug use issues, and presented programs to both students and adults.

Project TRUST had high school students perform a play that taught younger students about inappropriate touching, and what to do about it.

A Cheer to those who were involved in these two important programs. But, once again, we have to give out a Jeer to the fact that these kinds of things are even necessary to have to deal with in this way.

A Cheer to our county libraries, who are working together on a Faribault County Reads program. They are encouraging everyone to read the book “Carolina Moonset,” and there will be discussions of the book and a visit by the author next month.

A Cheer to everyone who volunteers in any way to help make their community a better place to live. A particular Cheer goes out to BEA student Sophie Keister who was selected as Miss Minnesota Teen Volunteer, and to Crystal Dulas who was honored as the community of Wells Volunteer of the Year.

You knew this Jeer was coming, because it seems to always be needed. But, the weather deserves a Big Jeer once again.

It has been a bit of a rough winter, to say the least. We have had a lot of snow, as well as fog, ice, sleet and even rain.

We are not alone, of course. It has been wild weather in many places across the U.S. When spring finally arrives, we will all be heaving a sigh of relief and giving out a great big Cheer.