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The youngsters were getting into the music and the festivities at the Sunrise River School Beach Party; held annually to celebrate the school's nutrition and fitness program called "Fitness Fever." Sunrise River also uses this as an opportunity to collect for the North Branch food pantry. This year the collection generated 1180 pounds of canned goods.

The school food service department hosts the beach party in the cafeteria, where kids dress in summerwear and bring beach towels to eat a bag lunch, picnic style. On this special day the youngsters also get to show-off their limbo skills.

The fitness fever hand-puppet contest (made from small paper bags) drew almost 300 entries this year. Puppets are supposed to be designed to resemble a food. Kindergarten winners were Drew Schindler, Jason Madden and Adam Johnstone. Winners from first grade entries are: Avery Tribbett, Jake Fenton and Hailey Johnson. Second grade winners: Ragne Keyte, Joe Heldt and Hailey Mauer. Winners in third grade: Alyssa Saleen, Glenn Beck and Alex Bergquist. Fourth graders who made winning puppets: Tatiana Kaslow-Howard, Samantha Bloomquist and Isabella Torres-Howard. (Fifth graders were relocated to their own wing at North Branch middle school as the district reconfigured facilities to allow for the demolition of the obsolete Main Street School building. District offices, community education and other services are now housed in the old primary school building.)

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