Beauty and The Beast Opens Thursday
All-Conference Volleyball Team Announced
BPHS Runner Signs College Letter of Intent
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ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-THIRD YEAR
BELLE PLAINE, MINNESOTA, NOVEMBER 19, 2014
75¢ SINGLE COPY
NUMBER 47
Belle Plaine Man Nationally City Council Okays Loan for Exposed for Eating Dilly Bar Downtown Business Owner to by Dan Ruud Dan Lehman of Belle Plaine did not let the snow and cold during Saturday’s Gophers football game at TCF Bank Stadium keep him from enjoying a frozen treat on the sidelines. But little did he know how much buzz his halftime snacking would create on both national television and social media. The game, which featured No. 8-ranked Ohio State against No. 25 Minnesota, was televised on ABC. Lehman, a 1983 graduate of Belle Plaine High School and longtime sideline telecommunications technician for the Gophers, went to the press box at halftime to grab himself a Dairy Queen Dilly Bar, which is far from an uncommon practice for him at games. He brought it back down to the sidelines, where in the midst of the snowflakes that were falling, a cameraman for ABC figured a Minnesota man eating a frozen treat in a wintry environment would be a good shot for his national
Purchase Professional Building Will Buy New Alarm System for Two City Properties
Dan Lehman of Belle Plaine had no idea that eating a Dilly Bar on the Gophers sidelines Saturday would become national news, even if it was snowing and the temperature was in the teens. “It’s just a Dilly Bar!” he said. But in an online ESPN article, Lehman is called “Dilly Bar Dan.” audience. and you’ll see how much. OutAnd it definitely played out, Belle Plaine Man especially on social media. Just (continued on page 8) Google “man eating dilly bar”
Community Thanksgiving Service Next Tuesday Night at St. John Lutheran The annual Ecumenical Community Thanksgiving Service will be held at St. John Lutheran Church in Belle Plaine 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 25. The service is sponsored by the congregations of St. John Lutheran, Our Lady of the Prairie Catholic, First Presbyterian, Redeemer Lutheran, St. John’s Assumption, River Rock Christian, Discovery and West Union
Lutheran. The community is welcome to attend. The Thanksgiving worship is also intended to remember the needs of others. A monetary offering will be accepted during the service to support the local Good Samaritan Fund, which provides help for transient people in the area. This fund
is supported by participating churches and the Thanksgiving offering is the main source of annual income for this fund. In addition, worshipers are encouraged to bring nonperishable food items to be donated to the Belle Plaine Food Shelf. Monetary donations are also welcome. Checks can be made out to the Belle Plaine Food Shelf.
by Dan Ruud The Belle Plaine City Council Monday night approved a request by local businessman Ashton Pankonin for a $40,000 loan from the city’s revolving loan fund so that he can purchase the Main Street Professional Building at 104/106 East Main Street downtown (next to the Canopy Group Building). Pankonin, who formerly headed the Edward Jones financial advisor office in Belle Plaine before joining Waddell & Reed at 215 North Meridian Street, is making the loan request on behalf of Pankonin Enterprises LLC. The purpose of the loan is to help finance the acquisition of the Main Street Professional Building, where Pankonin plans to expand his business opportunities through higher traffic volume and a more visible location. According to Community Development Director Chelsea Alger, the building has seven leasable suites. Alger added that the sale price of the building is $100,000.
Pankonin plans to obtain most of the remaining $60,000 from the State Bank of Belle Plaine. The loan with the city is for a term of 15 years at 2.5 percent interest, resulting in a total loan repayment of $48,008.82. Pankonin partnered with Waddell & Reed in 2013 and has since been subject to a noncompete agreement with Edward Jones. That agreement expires Dec. 14, which will allow Pankonin to begin reaching out to former clients. Pankonin is an active member of the Belle Plaine Chamber of Commerce and past president. The current owner of the building is Twin Cities real estate agent Terri Spruck, who
purchased it from Alan Tholkes a couple of years ago. Her most recent and largest tenant was Great River Energy, which occupied most of the units for administrative purposes during the construction of the CapX2020 power line through the Belle Plaine area. In other business Monday night, the council unanimously authorized the replacement of the alarm systems at the city’s water and wastewater treatment facilities at a cost of $39,592 plus taxes. Public Works Superintendent
City Council
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Applicants Sought for Eight Seats on Advisory Groups The city of Belle Plaine is seeking applicants to fill a total of eight seats on city advisory groups, including the park board, planning commission, economic development authority and design committee. Following interviews, all seats will be appointed by the city council in January. On the five-member design committee, the seats of Nate Hvidsten, Laurie Behnke and Pat Krings expire Jan. 31, 2015. The positions are four-
year terms. The design committee prepares recommendations for design components and potential funding sources for community-wide improvements. It also administers the design standards for properties in all industrial and commercial zoning districts as outlined in the Belle Plaine Design Manual, adopted September of 2008. The committee meets on the
Applicants Sought (continued on page 7)
B.P. Schools Superintendent Adding Specificity to Evaluation Clubs Policy Taking Shape
In years past, the Belle Plaine School Board’s evaluation of Superintendent Kelly Smith’s performance during the previous year sometimes lacked specifics when it came to objectives he was to achieve and even consistency of when or if a review was conducted. In consultation with the school board, Smith is out to rectify that in the final two years of his existing contract. He has
written three specific goals he wants the board to judge him by during the two years. Board members by consensus offered their OK of the goals at their workshop Nov. 10. The board is expected to formally approve the goals at its meeting Monday (Nov. 24, 6 p.m.) in the Belle Plaine District Center. Smith’s contract does not include any pay incentives for meeting the goals. His existing contract calls for a salary of $143,225 by the 2014-15 school year. The goals are aimed at improv-
ing student and staff performance, areas Smith has direct influence over. He said the formal goals place more emphasis on the annual review. “It’s my job to make sure our staff has the tools they need to help our students,” he said. The first goal is to have 75 percent or better of students achieving proficiency in the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCA) in math, sci- Working in pairs, Becky Wessels and the other members of the North Star Search & Rescue ence and reading by the concluteam trained in an area between the Minnesota River and railroad tracks Sunday morning and afternoon. The team is certified to search for live people and cadavers alike. The Twin B.P. Schools Cities-based group searches at the request of law enforcement at no cost. (continued on page 6)
B.P. Woman, Ryder Working to ‘Help Bring People Home’
Wessels, Ryder, Spend 16 Hours a Week Training
A Successful Benefit The Belle Plaine Area Food Shelf enjoyed a successful fund-raiser Saturday night at Valley View Golf Course. Over 90 people attended the buffet dinner with silent and live auctions. Pat Ollhoff, the food shelf’s facilities manager, said part of the success was the top three prizes -- $500 in cash, a $500 travel voucher that was auctioned off for well above its face value, and $150 in cash – were donated back to the food shelf. Since it opened in July of 2011, the Belle Plaine Area Food Shelf donated almost 303,000 pounds of food into the community, over 38,300 pounds this year alone. It has served over 650 families since 2011, including 42 families and 633 children for the first time in 2014.
She remembers the search for Michael Lyons, a third-grader kidnapped in Yuba City, Calf. He was eventually found May 17, 1996 down along the Feather River, but it was too late. “If they would have had more resources to go down there, they might have found him earlier,” she said. Today, Becky Wessels wants to be one of the people on the front lines searching for a lost person. She has spent hundreds of hours working with her dog, a rambunctious Weimaraner named Ryder, a 19-month-old male, learning to be an expert at searching for lost people.
Sunday, amidst frigid temperatures, Wessels, Ryder and a handful of members of the North Star Search & Rescue team were along the river bottoms north of the Bell Pharmaceutical plant in Belle Plaine training and searching. Young dogs like Ryder were honing their skills, working toward eventual certification by NASAR (National Association of Search and Rescue) or the North American Police Work Dogs Association (NAPWDA), two of the four certifying organizations in the United States. Older, more experienced dogs and their handlers, including one certified cadaver dog, was searching the area for any hint of Troy Anthony Hallstrom, a McLeod County man who was last seen in Belle Plaine heading north from the intersection of Walnut and East Forest streets in October.
Wessels, 33, is a rookie on the dog handlers team. Typically, they train north of the metro area. But the team agreed to come down to Belle Plaine and train along the river bottoms. It will eventually conduct a wider scale search for Hallstrom. Wessels grew up in northern California. She recalls the days when sheriff’s deputies and police searched for the kidnapped boy in 1996. Today, the Belle Plaine resident is willing to spend about $3,500 in training with Ryder. Its expensive making the trips to train. His equipment is expensive. The classroom materials and work she must complete to earn certifica-
B.P. Woman
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