Pulse of the Bay – With Bayfield High Seniors – Episode 9

Summary

In this episode of Pulse of the Bay, host Fred Clark interviews Bayfield High School seniors Max Gordon and Quintin Brissette. They discuss their experiences growing up in Red Cliff, their close-knit community, and the importance of sports and friendships during their high school years. The conversation touches on the challenges of school food, the integration of Indigenous culture in education, and the impact of social media on student life. As they prepare for college, they reflect on their aspirations and the legacy of their community.

• Sports play a significant role in building relationships among students.
• There is a desire for more variety and flavor in school food.
• Hands-on learning opportunities are preferred over traditional classroom settings.
• Indigenous culture is integrated into the curriculum through language classes and community events.
• Social media can be a source of stress, but confidence helps manage it.
• Friendships formed in high school are lasting and meaningful.
• Students are excited about their upcoming college experiences together.
• Many students from Bayfield High School are pursuing higher education after graduation.
• The legacy of family and community ties influences students’ choices.
• The Role of Sports in Student Life

Transcript

Fred Clark

Well hello and welcome to Pulse of the Bay, the news and public affairs show from 97.7 FM, WVCB LP, Ashland, Wisconsin. We are the voice of Chequamegon Bay. WVCB FM is community radio. Our programming, our music, our news, our documentary and discussions strengthens our sense of place and connection among the communities along the south shore of Lake Superior. You can check us out at wvcb.org.

I’m Fred Clark, your host for Pulse of the Bay. It’s a program for sharing news, events, and in-depth discussion with interesting people of all kinds throughout the South Shore and Chequamegon. And I’m especially excited today. I’m here at the Bayfield High School looking out over a lot of whitecaps today on a Tuesday afternoon on Chequamegon Bay. And I’m here with Max Gordon and Quintin Brissette. 

They’re two Bayfield High School seniors who only have a few weeks left in their education here. They’re also Red Cliff tribal members. Max and Quentin, they’ve been good enough to sit down and talk with me and tell us a little bit about high school and what that’s been like and a little bit about what’s next. So to start with, I’ll just ask both of you to introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about home and where you’re from and what you’ve been doing here at Bayfield High School.

Quintin Brissette 

My name is Quintin Brissette. I grew up in Red Cliff. I’ve lived there my whole life. Went to Bayfield my whole life.

Fred 

Yeah, Bayfield’s been pretty fun. Glad to hear it. How old are you? I’m 17 years old. 17? Okay. 

And Max?

Max Gordon

Hi, my name is Max Gordon. I’m also 17 and I also grew up in Red Cliff and have lived here my whole life. I actually grew up with Quinton when we were younger and haven’t really explored much outside of the area but love to do so. 

Fred 

Really glad to hear it and I guess you’ll have a chance. So when’s school over here officially?

Max

Two weeks from today, so May 31st is when we graduate. Excellent. 

Fred 

And I think you were just telling me that tomorrow morning you’re leaving on the high school trip to Wisconsin Dells? 

Max

Yeah, we’ll be there till Friday. 

Fred 

All right. All right. Well, so it’s probably kind of winding down now, right? You’ve done a lot of the academic stuff already and you get to have a little bit of fun. Well deserved. So.

Its been a few years since I was in high school, but we’ve all been through it. But I’d love for you both just to talk about your whole experience here, 12 years with Bayfield Elementary and middle school and high school. What’s been the best part of high school for both of you so far? 

Max

For me, just how enjoyable the community is.  A lot of us like sports, so everybody comes together and we play sports. And we all have each other’s backs, no matter who it is in the community. 

Fred 

Yeah. So you feel like sports has really created a lot of, like you’re a tight group. 

Quintin 

It connects like a lot of people in Bayfield and Red Cliff. 

Fred 

What kind of sports have you been most involved in? 

Quintin 

Definitely basketball. good team for the school. Ended 21-5. All right. Glad to hear that. Did you go to state? No, Regionals. Okay. Regional Championship. That’s a heck of a record though.

Fred 

So Max, how about you? What’s been the best part about high school for you? 

Max 

All the relationships and friendships that I’ve made along the way, especially with the people on the basketball team. So Quinton and all the other friends and coaches I’ve had throughout the years. Yeah, that’s great. 

Fred 

You sort of your friendship went beyond the court? 

Max

Yeah, about every single player on the court, we all hang out and spend time together. How big is your graduating class? 30. Yeah. OK. So you all know each other really well. Yeah. We’ve been here since preschool.

Fred 

Yeah, and so lot of the people that you have known since you were kids, even before you started at school, I imagine. 

That’s really cool. There’s got to be a bit of sadness with that, right? That after all those years, is this what you’ve been main experience during the day and it’s coming to an end? 

Quintin 

Most of us are there. I know of eight of us that are attending the same college. OK, so it’ll be just like high school again, just a of faces. OK, a lot harder. 

Fred 

Yeah. Well, we want to hear more about that.

Coming back to school, again, for many of us it’s been so long that a lot has changed. If there was anything you could change about high school or make better, what would it be? 

Max

For me, I feel like its the food. It used to be amazing from what I remember when I was younger. nowadays they’re trying to make everything healthier.  Now there’s not much variety or flavor so food is definitely one of the things i’d say okay glad to hear 

Quintin

yeah i’d agree with max on the food on that one but i would also have like a lot more hands-on classes here make classes more enjoyable where we don’t just have to sit at a desk all day

That’d make it, I think, way better. 

Fred 

You know, that’s a thing, and I think something people are learning, right, is that a lot of people just aren’t wired to learn while sitting in a seat all day. I know when I was in high school, anything I could do to work on a car or learn about carpentry or do something hands-on, I ate it up.  Did you get a chance to do things like shop classes? 

Max

I think I’ve taken every single TechEd class, which is the opposite building that has all the welding and car creating classes. 

Quintin 

Yeah, same as me. Yeah. 

Fred 

OK. So I’m curious about the food. Is there a real indigenous sort of focus on the food here? Did they tend to have traditional dishes or? Once in a while. 

Quintin 

Yeah, they have traditional dishes sometimes, but they just went to like a lot of like vegetarian pastas and stuff like that. Healthier food options that lack flavor. No sausage and bacon and stuff like that. Yeah. No other feeling. 

Fred 

Well, everybody’s trying to do their best, Yeah. So one thing that all around the world, I guess, we’re learning about artificial intelligence and how these new AI programs are writing, solving problems, and everything else. Is that something that you’ve found in school so far, or are lot of students using AI? Or how do you deal with that in school?

Max

Believe that if you were to ask it probably be one out of every two people uses it if it’s not saying all of them are cheating they just go there for like overviews and little Things that you can get simplified to help with their assignments Yeah, I’ll be honest I’ve used it a few times sure just like

Quintin 

When it’s like something complicated and I need help, I’ll go to that. But yeah, there’s a lot of people who use it. I’d probably say everybody’s used it least one time. Yeah, well, it’s a tool, right? everybody outside of school is using it too. And we’ll probably be using it. And even growing up with all this technology is kind of just built into our hardware, you could say. Yeah, right. You’re so used to being able to go online to learn things.

Fred 

Understood. Well, so you guys are both tribal members and a significant number of students here are tribal members. Talk about that. I know that Bayfield does a lot of work to sort of bring a tribal character to the school. What does that look like for you as seniors? 

Quintin 

I think they’ve done a pretty good job with like having, there’s like Ojibwe language classes and there’s indigenous myths and legends and stuff like that. And it helps like teach us even more

than we know even though we grew up in Red Cliff, but it helps us learn about our culture more. 

Max

Yeah. Yeah. I’ll have to agree with Q, especially all the powwows that happen as well that help the community come together. And then the classes as well, passing it on to the next generation so it can be remembered. And it just brings everybody closer, I feel like. Yeah.

Fred 

You guys are the seniors here in the school this year. Are there many ways for you to engage with younger students to pass on your own knowledge to them? 

Max

I wouldn’t say so. 

Since our school is so small, we see them in the hallways a lot. Yeah. It’s probably the most. I think they all look up to us. Yeah. Yeah. They have the high schoolers in their same school. Right. Which I think is cool for them.

Fred 

Yeah, everybody’s here on their one big roof. Like at lunch and meals together? 

Quintin 

No, younger ages eat and do stuff earlier than what we get. So they’ll eat at like 10.30. We’ll eat at 12.30. OK. But we all have like, we all share the same office and stuff like that. Yeah. OK. All right.

Fred 

And are there volunteers from the Red Cliff who come in here and work in a school to work on language or music or things like that? 

Max

Yeah, my neighbor actually is the Ojibwe language teacher. And my cousin is the elementary Ojibwe language teacher. They’re both from Red Cliff. So a lot of people from Red Cliff will work here. 

Fred 

That’s really cool. You go home and see those folks on weekend too, Yeah.

So another question, and this is something that we hear a lot about, is that just this is all throughout society today, just higher levels of stress. People are worried about the economy, they’re worried about whether they’re gonna have a job. We know that social media has a lot of benefits, but it can also make people stressed out when you spend so much of your time in the digital world.

So any experiences you want to share about your own experience with social media or how you deal with that emotionally and mentally? 

Quintin

I think the most stressed I’ve ever been was coming to my first day of high school probably. even though it’s the same school, it’s a brand new environment. everybody tells you it’s going to be hard.  But I would just say to just keep living your life. It’s really not that hard if you just have confidence in yourself and stuff like that.

Max

Yeah, I’ll have to agree with Q on that one. For me, it’s going to sound a little cheesy, but I don’t get stress or anxious too much. But it’s probably one of the most stressed I’ve ever felt from all the higher ups when I was in middle school telling me how difficult it was to actually go into freshman year and notice that I was kind of laid back compared to what they were saying and wasn’t as difficult. Not saying it’s easy, but compared to

Max

how they would hype it up, you’d say. It was different. Yeah. Well, that’s good to know. So basically, you can get real anxious about stuff, but you open your eyes and walk into it and you’re ready for it then. Exactly.

Fred

So what kind of stuff did, I know you both are involved in basketball, what kind of other activities really made school meaningful for you besides classes?

Max

Just all the friends you get to see every single day. Yeah. Because you get to see them at school and then you go home and a lot of people live right down the street from each other. yeah, just build that relationship every single day. Yeah. Because you see them every single day. Real time. Yeah. If you like, besides classes, just all the trips you would take as, because you’re related to half the people in the school, so half the trips you basically take with your family to go experience water parks or the beach that was some of the funnest. Or we have this thing called Water Week where it’s a week of just fun activities that the whole school does and you just travel around northern Wisconsin and just go do stuff. You’re on like a bus? It’s split into like 10 or 12 different groups of kids and each of you, can go, one will go golfing, one will go kayaking, another can do anything else that’s up here. Okay. That actually starts tomorrow too. 

Fred

So, you know, you were kind of mentioning this earlier, but you…guys are 17 years old two weeks away from graduating if you had to write a letter to yourself five years ago your 13 year old self with advice for high school what advice would you give yourself?

Max

I would just say spend more time studying and actually doing your work because I think the first two years spend more time studying because I think the first two years of high school and it wasn’t good. And I’ll also say work more on basketball because I also missed the first two years of high school basketball. OK, you missed it because you didn’t want to play or injury the first year, skipped out the second. OK. All right.

Quintin

I’d say to not just be scared of anything. keep living your life like you were. Don’t let anybody, like, don’t let anybody think or make you think other things. Yeah. I know it’s an age when there can be a lot of drama, right? Yeah. Boy-girl relationships and who’s on top and all of that stuff.

Fred 

Sounds like you guys have approached it with a real steady kind of attitude, I guess. It’s easier going in with lot of friends that you’re very close to. Yeah. And I suppose, does that mean in a way that you’re more careful about how you relate to people because you’re going to be seeing that person again for a long time, right? 

Max

Yeah. So you can’t really be a jerk too much.

Fred 

Yeah. Well, that’s probably one of the best parts of a small community. Cool. Well, so you mentioned going to college.  Where’s that and what’s that gonna look like? 

Max

We are, eight of us are attending UW Whitewater. It’s about 50 miles southeast of Madison and 50 miles west of Milwaukee. And we’re all still in the mix of picking out our roommates and trying to decide on who gets to stay with what since we’re all friends. It’s kind of just an argument back and forth. But.

Fred 

Yeah. so how did you all come to land on UW-Whitewater? 

Max

We went there with a class, not a class trip, but WEOP. It’s a program that helps with school. And they brought us to a bunch of colleges. I fell in love with the college. And I started convincing Quinton and my other best friend to go. And I just started a chain of people that started to go as well. Yeah. 

Fred 

So did you say you’ve got eight of you? Yeah. So out of a class of 30 so that’s like 20 30 percent there. 

Max

Yeah thank you for doing the math for me. 

Fred 

In all of your class, just a guess, what percentage of people are going on to college?

Max

I’m probably like 60. Yeah, 50s, 60s. And other folks are just going to take jobs or have other plans or mostly in the area? I think some people are going to get jobs. I think no one is going to culinary school, which I don’t know if that counts as college.

Quintin 

I know a couple are also taking a couple skip years or past years before they go to college too. So they’ll be attending their freshman year in like two years say. 

Fred 

Well, and a lot of people who’ve done that find it really beneficial. You get a little experience outside school for a while and earn some money. The hard part then though is deciding to go back. 

Max

Yeah. I’ve warned each and every single one of them that’s done that, that it might not be a good idea because you might lose the motivation that you have coming out of high school and going straight into college like the rest of us. Yeah. Well, it can go both ways. And sometimes you learn some things outside school that gives you more motivation to go back. But it kind of depends.

Fred 

Well, before we wrap up, is there anything else you want to share? What are you guys doing for the summer? 

Quintin 

I’m just going to be working as hard as I can, save up money for college. 

Fred 

What are you doing for work? 

Quintin 

Housekeeping.  And I’m going be playing a lot of golf. Yeah? 

Fred 

Is that your sport of choice? 

Quintin 

Second sport. Second? OK. Max has never beat me in golf. 

Fred 

How about you, Max? What you do in the summer? 

Max 

I’ve worked at my mom’s business for two years. It’s a pub down Main Street of Bayfield. OK. But I just picked up a second job on Madeline Island where I’m selling mopeds. Oh. But.

Since my first year of college is paid for from so many scholarships and grants this year I think I’m just gonna save up and try and purchase a car since I already have my license. And as Q said, he’s gonna lose every single time we play golf. 

Fred 

And then he’s gonna get a ride with you in your new car. Okay. Oh you guys. Well I’m inspired by a fact that you’re going to go right on to college and do some good things. So you have majors selected yet, or are you going to be like general education? 

Max

We both, so when me and him applied, we did not talk to each other about applying or what our major was, but it just so happened to be that we wanted to be the same thing if basketball didn’t work out. So we both selected the same major, which was exercise science. .

Fred 

Robots aren’t going to take over that. Good to know. And I’m also just impressed with your lifelong friendship and rivalry that goes along with it. 

Max

We moved on from our dads. They were best friends. We used to be neighbors. would stay in basketball when they were here. Oh my gosh. 2005 and 2006 season. 2005.

Fred 

So you guys are a legacy. Maybe there’s another generation in the works there. 

Max

I just broke his dad’s record for most points. He was very successful. think we broke 90 % of the records that were held at Bayfield for basketball. 

Fred 

You guys did? Like the team. Yeah, team. Yeah. Well, I bet your fathers were very proud. 

Quintin 

I’m sure they were. 

Fred 

Well, Max and Quentin I really enjoyed talking with you both and I would love to come back in a year and hear things win at Whitewater. So when you’re back in the community, it would be wonderful to reconnect and see what the path looked like for you. ,

For all of our listeners, and behalf of everyone at WVCB, we want to thank Max and Quintin for sitting down to talk with us right on the eve of their high school senior trip here at Bayfield. And we want to thank you for bringing us on. All right. Appreciate it. Your first ever radio interview. Hopefully it won’t be your last.

With that, special thanks to our producer Corey Scribner and many other volunteers working hard to establish WVCB, the small but mighty community resource. Check out our programming and our events at wvcb.org. And if you find this program valuable, we encourage you to make a donation online and support the station.

So until next time, signing off from Bayfield, let’s all remember to do our part to help our communities thrive, protect and conserve our lands and waters, and be kind and caring to the people around us. McWitch.