New Restaurant Set to Open at Former OK Corral Site
Winter Sports Teams Getting Back Into Action Page 12
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ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FOURTH YEAR
BELLE PLAINE, MINNESOTA, DECEMBER 30, 2015
75¢ SINGLE COPY
NUMBER 53
Police assisted Cardinal Ridge Apartments residents like Genevieve Schommer (center) from the building to a waiting bus after thousands of gallons of water from a broken 2-inch sprinkler pipe flooded the building Feb. 6. Schommer had turned 100 years old in January.
The Year in Review
Austin Smoak is pictured inside his new snowplow/dump truck that was a gift from his father, Mike Smoak.
Belle Plaine 6 Year Old Getting
Bridge/Ridgeview Project, Horrific Lots of Use of Christmas Present Murder, Cardinal Ridge Evacuation and A lot of 6-year-old boys have his young age, Austin has mas- even Santa and his elves could received trucks for presents, tered the driving, plowing and be envy of. In this case, Mike’s State Championships Top the News but not like the one Austin dumping mechanisms of the helpful elves were Dave Knish, The events leading to the groundbreaking for a new bridge, clinic and senior housing center that will be situated in the form of a campus near the intersection of Highway 169 and County Road 3/Meridian Street grabbed numerous headlines in 2015, making it the Herald’s top news story. The second and third top stores both involved senior citizens. Included were the brutal murder of 90-year-old Earl A. Olander in his rural Belle Plaine home, and a broken water sprinkler pipe that flooded the Cardinal Ridge Apartments and forced residents from their homes for months. The next biggest stories involved youth as both the Belle Plaine High School girls’ track and field and volleyball teams won state championships, which were just the second and third “team” state titles in school history. Rounding out the top 10 stories of 2015 in Belle Plaine were the closing of Valley View Golf Course, the untimely death of public works employee Jerry Connolly while on the job, the resignation of School Superintendent Kelly Smith and the hiring of his replacement, a remarkable growing season, BarB-Q Days and business openings and closings, the latter of which included Otto Drug Store. At least three of this year’s top news stories will spill into 2016. Those will be the actual construction of the bridge, clinic and senior housing facility; the trial of the two men charged with beating and killing Olander (Edison Celin-Dominguez Benitez of Richfield and Reinol Godines Vergara of St. Paul); and the sale (or lack thereof) of Valley View Golf Course. On pages 2 and 13 is a recap of the first five months of 2015. The Year in Review will continue in next Wednesday’s Herald.
Top 10 Stories of 2015
(1) Bridge/Ridgeview – Two big projects that will bring substantial change to Belle Plaine were given a major boost on Sept. 21 when the city council awarded the bid for the construction of the overpass/Enterprise Drive extension project to S.M. Hentges and Sons of Jordan at the low bid of $3,179,966.84, which was over $1.2 million below the city engineer’s construction estimate of $4,387,703. On Oct. 19, the council and city staff were joined by dozens of other government officials and members of the community for the groundbreaking ceremony on property that once was the site of the Eric and Lisa May family home. The city had purchased the home from the Mays in order to use the property as part of the necessary right-of-way for the new bridge and extension of Enterprise Drive. The house was eventually burned to the ground by the Belle Plaine Fire Department for a training exercise. Leading the groundbreaking ceremony was Belle Plaine Mayor Mike Pingalore, who said the ceremony was the result of years of collaboration between city, county and state officials. He also acknowledged Ridgeview Medical Center, which will construct a medical clinic near the site while the overpass is being built. To top it all off in late 2015, The Lutheran Home Association (TLHA) and Ridgeview Medical Center announced they are planning a new health and wellness center in Belle Plaine, which will feature the clinic connected to a senior living facility near the northwest corner of Highway 169 and County Road 3. (2) 90-Year-Old Man Murdered – Carver County Sheriff’s deputies found Earl A. Olander dead in his home on April 11, his hands bound and his house at 16885 Homestead Road in San Francisco Township pillaged. Olander, 90, had reportedly been assaulted. He lived alone and had never married. His brother-in-law, Gordon Anderson, had called to reminisce. Unable to reach Olander, he asked one of Olander’s neighbors to check on him. The neighbor found Olander and called sheriff’s deputies. The house is located about five miles northeast of Belle Plaine. A month later, recovered U.S. Savings Bonds helped police identify and arrest two men who allegedly killed Olander – Edison Celin-Dominguez Benitez of Richfield and Reinol Godines Vergara of St. Paul. The men have since been indicted and are awaiting trial. Top 10
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Chard Employees, Owners Make Big Donation to Food Shelf Employees and owners of Chard Tiling & Excavating of rural Belle Plaine and its sister companies recently delivered a big donation to the Belle Plaine Food Shelf. The company and its 150-plus employees delivered $15,105 plus 162 pounds of food to the food shelf in downtown Belle Plaine. The donation is the largest monetary donation the Belle Plaine Food Shelf received from a business this year, said Pat Ollhoff, the food shelf’s operations manager. Company owners Connie and Leroy Chard matched employee donations at a 3-to-1 ratio. The company includes Chard Tiling & Excavating, River’s Edge Concrete and Sibley Aggregates. A year ago, Chard Tiling &
Excavating and its companies donated $10,000 to the food shelf.
Growing Numbers
The donation is helpful to the food shelf that saw an increase in the number of people and families served from 2014 to 2015. The food shelf helped 4,415 children, adults and senior citizens in 2015 – 254 more (or 6.1 percent more) than in 2014, Ollhoff said. The people the food shelf assisted included 19 new families in 2015 and 126 people it helped this year that were not assisted in 2014. Overall, the Belle Plaine Food Shelf gave out about 58.934 tons of food in 2015, an increase of approximately 9.688 percent over 2014.
Smoak of Belle Plaine received on Christmas Eve. His truck is one that he can literally drive, plow and dump with. He has his mechanicallyinclined father, Mike, to thank for it. In return, Mike has had no problem having snow removed from his driveway and sidewalk, or for that matter, the entire front lawn, which has become a snow removal play zone for Austin. The snow that fell late Christmas night into Saturday morning was welcomed by Austin and his new machine. Despite
vehicle, which was hand-crafted by his dad, with the help of a few of dad’s friends. Mike, who co-owns and operates Midway Dock & Marine in Belle Plaine, used his mechanical craftiness to transform a riding lawn mower into what Austin says is the best Christmas present he’s ever gotten. In essence, Mike used parts of other lawn mowers, sheet metal, items from Craig’s List, hoses from John Deere, boat tilt and trim parts, a hydrostatic pump/controls, a dump box and plow to build a contraption that
Robert Malz and Dan Shepherd, the latter of whom Mike co-owns Midway Dock & Marine with. Mike said it took about three weeks to complete the project, which he did with the support of his wife, Bethany and Austin’s sister Makayla. Mike explained that they had gotten Austin a Power Wheels toy vehicle that Austin eventually outgrew. Mike said Austin’s upgraded vehicle can go about 5 miles per hour. Austin got yet a another present this past Monday and Tuesday – more snow!
Belle Plaine’s ‘Firefighter of the Year’ Grew Up at Station Herrmann Joined Fire Department to Give Back to B.P.
As a boy growing up in Belle Plaine, Ryan Herrmann spent plenty of time playing at the Belle Plaine Fire Station. The faint scar on his forehead is proof. Herrmann, 32, received the scar from stitches after he and another boy were scrambling to gain control of a basketball. The boys were playing hoops at the basket on the north wall inside the station. Herrmann crashed into a cabinet during a scuttle. Herrmann was recently named the Belle Plaine Fire Department’s Firefighter of the year for 2015. The award was presented during the department’s annual meeting earlier this month. “It was quite a surprise to me,” he said. “There’s nothing I do that, to me, stands out as a big moment.” Herrmann’s contributions to the department are subtle, yet critical, for an organization that relies on the participation of dedicated members. In addition to making a high percentage of calls for service, Herrmann has given many hours of time working on behind-the-scenes departmental committees. He’s a member of the committee working on the new pumper truck the department will receive in the spring. Committee members helped put together the specifications for the truck, worked closely with city staff during the bidding process, and will inspect the truck at the manufacturing plant to make
Ryan Herrmann was named the Belle Plaine Fire Department’s Firefighter of the Year honoree. sure those conditions are able to be met. Herrmann has also given plenty of time on the building committee. The group is working on ideas to maximize the use of the fire hall. Committee members inspect the facility and take care of any maintenance they can perform. The committee’s focus this year has been the fire station’s meeting room and kitchen. “They haven’t been touched in 30 years,” he said. Herrmann knows there’s still plenty to learn as a firefighter. He likes the idea about serv-
ing the community for another 15-20 years. If the opportunity were available, he is interested in one day serving as an officer. He’d like to be part of the leadership that guides firefighters at a scene. Herrmann works for J & W Asphalt. The distance between the company’s Burnsville office and Belle Plaine limits him to making early-morning, evening and overnight calls. He said the toughest calls are the ones that come in around 7 a.m., when
Firefighter
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