Storm Lake student’s Michael Jackson act saves summer lunch break buzz

Judah Isaiah Buckner turned a Storm Lake summer school lunch break into a mini concert, but the bigger story was the program that gave him a stage. The 8-year-old third-grader strutted through the cafeteria on June 15 in a sequined fedora and white glove, then raced past tables and high-fived classmates while Instructional Coach Jean Knapp introduced him.

For Buckner, the performance was part showmanship, part identity. He has been doing Michael Jackson-inspired moves for months, and the singer he has liked since age five became the answer to a frustration at school: he did not want to be known only as Bella’s brother. His act has already traveled well beyond one lunch period, with one earlier performance at the elementary school drawing about 9,000 views and a later appearance at the middle school reaching roughly 44,000.

That kind of attention gave the lunchroom scene a wider meaning in Storm Lake and Buena Vista County. The summer school program that hosted Buckner nearly did not happen, and district leaders kept it alive at the last minute with a STEM grant. Storm Lake Community School District was awarded up to $20,000 from the Iowa Governor’s STEM Advisory Council and the Iowa Department of Education for a summer STEM program, money that helped preserve learning time and the kind of student engagement that can be hard to measure in a budget sheet.

Storm Lake has leaned on similar state support before. In 2024, the district started a summer reading program after receiving a $200,000 grant from the Iowa Department of Education, another sign that summer learning has become a real recovery tool, not just an extra activity. The district was also selected in 2026 for a $40,000 STEM BEST award, part of a program designed to connect students with local industry professionals and career-connected learning.

The broader state system behind those grants has roots that go back to July 2011, when Gov. Terry Branstad signed Executive Order 74 creating the Iowa Governor’s STEM Advisory Council. In Storm Lake, that policy machinery ended up funding something far more personal: a lunchroom moment where a third-grader could be a performer, classmates could be entertained, and a summer school program nearly lost to funding pressure could still feel alive.