After all, they're only five or six years older than some of their students. Spotanski is originally of York and attended the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Lanham, an Oxford native, is a University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate. Both graduated from high school in 1994 and college this year. Spotanski said he has seen a large difference between Franklin and his home school in York.
Class sizes are smaller, and the students all tend to be close.
A group of eighth-graders can tell which upperclassmen are in the next room just by the sounds of their voices. Everybody knows each other. He and his wife, Amy, live in Minden. His parents, Ron and Kathy Spotanski, own a research farm at York. Spotanski said he doesn't remember why he entered teaching.