For over three decades now, 2^nd graders at Horace May Elementary School in Bemidji have been taking the stage for the annual 2^nd grade play. Last Thursday, the halls of the school were once again filled with laughter, dancing and music for their 36^th annual play called “A Day In The Life Of Me.”

“We have a whole variety of different things that we’ve done in those 36 years, and of the 13 that I’ve been here, even in that small time quite a few things that we’ve done,” says Patrick Purrington, a 2^nd grade teacher who has worked on the play 13 years now.

This year, the show was all about the life of a 2^nd grader from the moment they wake up to the time they crawl back into bed.

“Their foot falling asleep. Getting a brain freeze from eating too much ice cream. Losing your shoe and you can’t find your shoe,” says Purrington.

“There were two solos and a duet, and I just think the girls and they guy who did that, they just did a fantastic job,” says Robert McKeown, a 2^nd grade teacher who has been involved with the play, on and off, for 22 years.

You could say it’s the 2^nd grade teachers who are the masterminds behind the production. They come up a concept each year and then go from there.

“My favorite part is actually the writing because usually what happens is we have a play and it’s not an hour long, so we start adding songs to it, and sometime I’ve written songs and sometimes Mrs. Pearson’s written songs,” says McKeown.

For one teacher, getting to see her class in the play is extra special. That’s because she was once in her 2^nd graders shoes as a star in the show.

Lindsi Shanahan, a 2^nd grade teacher and former actress in the play, says, “It was a long time ago that I was an actress in it, but it’s really cool to see both sides and I kind of know a little bit more about what the kids are feeling right now. The nerves and the excitement and all of those types of things that go along with it and I can talk to them from experience.”

For Purrington and McKeown, this will be their last year helping out the production. While they’re sad to leave, all teachers agree the best part about show is watching the kids show off their talents.

“Just how excited the kids get about it and the effort they put in to it and when they come together and work through all the little details that they have to get right, and you just see them gel [into] a group,” says Purrington.

Shanahan adds, “Some of those kids who aren’t normally your stand-up and say lines and all of a sudden, they’re in this play and it’s just their thing.”

By — Shirelle Moore