Reaching Everybody!
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Newsleader Sartell
Friday, Sept. 13, 2013 Volume 18, Issue 36 Est. 1995
Town Crier
You can help ‘Raise the Dough’
Eat at House of Pizza from 5:30-8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 17 to support the completion of the Huntington Park fitness trail. Girl Scout Troop 783 is hosting a “Raise the Dough” event to raise money for fitness trail equipment as part of its “Healthy Park, Healthy People” project.
Join Cub Scouts Thursday, Sept. 19
Three Sartell Cub Scout packs will hold their sign-up nights on Thursday, Sept. 19: Oak Ridge Elementary at 6 p.m. in the school’s cafeteria; Pine Meadow and St. Francis Elementary at 7 p.m. in the St. Francis Xavier cafeteria. Cub Scouts is a family program for boys in grades 1-5. All new members receive a mini flying disc to use at the Oct. 5 newmember event at Camp Ripley. For more information, visit www. bsacmc.org/playcubscoutgames. html, call 320-251-3930 or stop by at 1191 Scout Drive, Sartell.
United Way sets Sept. 26 as Day of Caring
United Way of Central Minnesota will host a Day of Caring, which is designed to bring people together to volunteer on community projects, Thursday, Sept 26. Projects available are painting, fall clean-up, kid’s activities and Kids Fighting Hunger. This event is intended to create positive changes in our very own communities through the volunteer efforts of local residents. For more information on this and other United Way volunteer opportunities, visit www.thenewsleaders.com and click on Criers.
Postal Patron
Girl Scouts transform neighborhood park by Dennis Dalman news@thenewsleaders.com
Q: How many Girl Scouts does it take to transform a neighborhood park? A: Four Girl Scouts – Scouts with vision, determination and hard work. Thanks to the four Scouts, the Huntington Park neighborhood park in south Sartell is receiving a new-and-improved look. The Scouts are Kali Enstad, Emily Hoppe, Ally Haas and Jessica Mergen – all of them 14 years old and the only four members of Sartell Girl Scout Troop 783, led by Ally’s mother, Wendi Haas.
Vision
More than a year ago, the four Scouts had been thinking of doing a community project to earn their “Silver Awards,” the prestigious honor between a bronze award and a gold award. As soon as they saw Huntington Park last September, the girls’ visions clicked in. The park, they decided, was woefully lacking in certain amenities. It could, for instance, use a few benches on which parents could sit and watch their children play.
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Girl Scouts Ally Haas, Emily Hoppe, Jessica Mergen and Kali Enstad gather to fill a tree-watering bag at Huntington Park. The four girls are working hard to add some amenities to the park, including 10 shade trees. The landscape fabric was showing under the playground equipment. The park badly needed some restful, shady areas land-
the park playground could use a couple more equipment games, such as a “Toss Up” and a Scouts • page 3
at SJU), plus four national championships. And in 2006, he was also named to the NCAA College Football Hall of Fame while still an active coach. That is one large pair of shoes. Late last year, Fasching was chosen to be the next head football coach at St. John’s after spending the past 17 seasons as a defensive assistant. His appointment ended a month-long replacement search. The last time a new head coach was hired at SJU, the president of the United States was named Eisenhower. Gagliardi’s tenure and his teams’ accomplishments would become the stuff of legend. Fasching was one of 25 original applicants for the head coaching job. In mid-December he made the list of three finalists, chosen by the 10-member selection committee. The other two finalists, also Johnnie graduates, were Mike Grant and Kurt Ramler. Both Grant and Ramler have achieved coaching success of their own, at the high school and college levels. Fasching expressed his admiration for his fellow finalists.
“I have a ton of respect for both of those guys,” he said. “I was going to trust whatever the committee decided. No matter who they selected, St. John’s was going to get an excellent coach.” Fasching knows only too well what a tough act Gagliardi is to follow. He credits his former mentor for being “the best in the business.” “We’re never going to see another John Gagliardi,” he said. “He let his assistants do a lot of the coaching. What I have to do is work hard to be ready, and to make sure my team is ready for this season.” It would come as no surprise to hear Fasching express his willingness to work hard. He was raised on his parents’ dairy farm in Winsted, Minn. (about 15 miles northeast of Hutchinson) as one of 15 children, working to help with the daily chores. Anyone who comes from a family of 15 knows a little something about working to get what you want. And the experience also taught Fasching something about what he wanted, or didn’t want, out of life. Fasching • page 4
Fasching has ‘large pair of shoes to fill’
First turkey, deer hunt for disabled at nature preserve
The application deadline is Tuesday, Oct. 1 for the first turkey and deer hunt for people with disabilities in Stearns County’s newest park – Rockville Park and Nature Preserve. Midwest Outdoors Unlimited will select three hunters for each of the hunts (turkey/deer) and supervise the hunts. The mission of the group is to provide outdoor recreational activities for Disabled American Veterans, individuals and youth in Minnesota. The park will be closed to the general public during each of the five-day hunts. The turkey hunt is scheduled for Wednesday-Sunday, Oct. 23-27; the deer hunt for WednesdaySunday, Nov. 13-17. For more information or to apply, visit www. thenewsleaders.com and click on Criers. For additional criers, visit www.thenewsleaders.com and click on Criers.
scaped with trees. There could be some exercise “stations” along the paved trail through the park. The girls also decided
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Gary Fasching (above) said he is eager to work on his new career as head coach of the St. John’s Johnnies football team. Fasching was selected to replace long-time legendary coach John Gagliardi, who announced his retirement last spring after a phenomenal coaching record. by Mark Lauer news@thenewsleaders.com
What if you were picked to take over for someone who was so honored, so well-respected, that the very thought of being that person’s “replacement” seemed out of the question? And that no one, no matter how qualified, could ever fill those shoes again? Welcome to Gary Fasching’s world. Last November, St. John’s Uni-
versity’s football coach, John Gagliardi, announced his retirement after spending 60 years at the school. Just say that to yourself once. Sixty years. Who stays at a job, any job, for 60 years? And during that time, plus four earlier seasons at Montana’s Carroll College (1949-52), Gagliardi established himself as the winningest college football coach of all time, compiling a record of 489-138-11 with 30 conference titles (27 of them
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