Dear Reader —

You don’t know me, but you’ve definitely heard from me before.  My name is Page, and I am Maggie’s assistant – I mostly work in the background; for any Devil Wears Prada fans out there, I’m her “Emily”.  I am the current reigning champ of the Emilies, seeing that I’ve lasted the longest – there have been four “Pages” to date.  She can’t seem to keep anyone around, but I like to think that I speak fluent Maggie, so the last few centuries have gone better for me than it did my predecessors. 

As I’m sure you know, after the Olympics, Maggie became fairly obsessed with the super obscure sports, speed-walking being one of them.  She wasn’t able to find any speed walking events near us but after a quick search on YouTube, she fumbled upon Prancercise, which totally tracks for her.  So she grabbed her pearls and flew out the door this weekend for a trip down to Boca Raton for a Prancercise 10K. 

Since she’s gone, I’m filling in for Maggie this week – and because teaching a 931-year-old ghost how to “Prancercise” is the nonsense I put up with on a daily basis, I’m feeling inspired to tell you guys about Walk-A-Thon.  I’m just happy that for once, she was so rushed getting out of town that she didn’t mind that I’m signing my name to this column instead of hers! #FinallyNotTheGhostWriter 

Alright, here it goes… I don’t have the time nor the patience to answer questions from you crazy parents, so I’m just going to give you the facts …actually, I’m not.  If you can’t find those in the main part of the newsletter, then you’ve got bigger problems.  I know most of you just scroll straight to the bottom of this newsletter to read what she/we had to say each week and skip the rest – so go-on back and read the part about Walk-A-Thon now (…I’ll wait). 

To cut the chase – THE WALK A THON IS A BIG DEAL AND IT’S A LOT OF FUN.  I’ve been around these parts for long enough that I am fairly jaded by most SMOS events, but I truly love this one.  Families come out, kids get some exercise, and it’s a huge communal event that raises money to keep tuition down for each and every one of you.

This year the goal is to raise $20K at this event in order to supplement tuition cost.  I know that figure feels like a lot but when you really think about it that’s less than $50 bucks per kid.  Which really isn’t too bad if the majority participate.  Plus, if you go, that means there’s one less meal to prepare that day. I give you permission to count 17 Airheads as a serving of fruit, and 45 bags of Cheetos as dairy —  as long they’re all eaten on Walk-A-Thon day.

If you followed my directions earlier (GO!) and looked at the ACTUAL newsletter, you should know how this all works, but if you have questions contact Chris Stephens (who is like the school’s “Emily”, except she gets to use her real name!).  But all you really need to know is that all it takes is attending one time for it to become your favorite SMOS event!  And it’s easy – honestly, you don’t need to do anything to prepare – just show up!  Once you see how many laps your kids do, you can figure out then how much you want to hit up Grandma and Grandpa for.  So prance on down to Tower Grove Park on Saturday the 19th, and see if you can beat that one 6th grader who always walks enough laps that he’s completed a marathon by 11am on a Saturday morning.  JK! JK!  The parents don’t walk – that would be ridiculous! 

— Page