After a two-year hiatus, Tracy Area High School students were once again able to board a plane and visit Spain.
The group, which this year consisted of just six students who were accompanied by four adult chaperones, returned to Tracy last Tuesday
“It was really nice to be back in Spain after a couple of years,” TAHS Spanish teacher Pamela Anderson said.
For the first time, this year’s group had its own tour director — a native of Spain who filled the role long occupied by the late Shorty Engel, who started the school’s French program in 1973 and annually accompanied students on trips to either France or Spain.
“She was with us the entire time — it’s the first time we’ve done that,” Anderson said. “She kind of took over Shorty’s role; he was the one who got us everywhere. She wasn’t Shorty, but she was great. She helped make the trip absolutely fabulous.”
The small Tracy contingent — Ian Her, Yenghoua Kue, Matt Munson, Joseph Anderson, Nick Schmitt and Nathan Seager, along with chaperones Anderson, Dan Anderson, Amy Munson and Vicki Rasmussen — was joined by a school from Yuma, AZ, and one from Detroit, MI. As a whole, that group consisted of a total of 25 people. Typically, the Tracy group would team up with students from Maple Lake; that was when the school district used the Language and Friendship group to oversee the trip. The school district now works with a company called Explorica.
“Explorica just paired us up with other groups that were going on the same dates, so it was far more random,” said Anderson. “But the students got along well, the leaders got along well, so everything worked out just fine.”
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