Mankato Magazine

TOP COP

Amy Vokal leads Mankato’s Department of Public Safety

Also in this issue: TRANSPLANTS just love it here Radio god TJ PALESOTTI Autograph hunting with JOE TOUGAS

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Amy Vokal APRIL 2020

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Cabinetry: Plywood vs. Particle Board When it comes to designing a kitchen, most people have a general idea of what they want their space to look like. As kitchen designers, we help our clients choose appliances, counter tops, layout, plumbing and electrical configurations, materials, cabinets, and even décor. While there are thousands of iterations of kitchen cabinets, be it color, finishes, wood species, and style, with a few questions from the kitchen designer, we can quickly narrow in on what type of cabinets they have in mind.

One of the most difficult decisions to be made is what type of box construction should be used, plywood or particle board. The two materials have very different characteristics, so it’s good to become familiar with the pros and cons of each before choosing your kitchen cabinets. Each material has benefits to consider.

Plywood is an engineered wood product consisting of several layers of wood veneer that are glued together. They alternate grain direction in various angles and are ‘sandwiched’ together. This is done to create a high dimensional stability that resists splitting and warping. In contrast, particle board, also known as furniture board, is made of wood fibers that are glued and pressed together. Plywood is generally thought to be the better product when building cabinets. It has superior construction longevity because it holds screws and other mechanical fasteners more efficiently. It has a slight advantage in the ability to bear weight. It weighs less than particle board which can be advantageous when hanging large cabinets. And, it is also more resistant to dents and scratches than particle board.

Particle board also has its own advantages. It has greater dimensional stability and doesn’t warp due to temperature fluctuations and environmental changes.

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2 • APRIL 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

FEATURE S APRIL 2020 Volume 15, Issue 4

20

Kato top cop Amy Vokal came to Mankato for a job right out of college.

Twenty-nine years later, she’s leading the department.

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30

Transplants

Signed, sealed, delivered

Need more proof that Mankato and southern Minnesota are great places to live? Just look at the number of people who come here for work and never leave.

Why do we love possessing the signatures of famous people? Go ask your mom.

ABOUT THE COVER Pat Christman had the right to remain silent, knowing anything he said while taking this photograph of Mankato Department of Public Safety Director Amy Vokal could and would be used against him in a court of law.

MANKATO MAGAZINE • APRIL 2020 • 3

DEPARTMENTS 6

From the Editor

8

Faces & Places

12 This Day in History 13 Avant Guardians Andrew Breck

13

14 Beyond the Margin Team USA

16 Familiar Faces TJ Palesotti

18 Day Trip Destinations Quaint small towns

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36 Let’s Eat!

Pappageorge

39 Beer

Bucking Maibock

40 Country Minutes

Dogs on the prairie, Part 3

42 Garden Chat

Vacation thoughts about seeds

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44 Coming Attractions 46 Community Draws Community gardens

48 From This Valley

Still missing Michael’s

Coming in May

36 4 • APRIL 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

48

Mankato’s tastemakers: When it comes to culture (food, fashion, music, art, etc.) these people help us navigate what’s cool in Mankato.

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FROM THE ASSOCIATE EDITOR

By Robb Murray APRIL 2020 • VOLUME 15, ISSUE 4 PUBLISHER Steve Jameson EDITOR Joe Spear ASSOCIATE Robb Murray EDITOR CONTRIBUTORS Bert Mattson Diana Rojo-Garcia Jean Lundquist Kat Baumann Dan Greenwood Nicole Helget Pete Steiner

PHOTOGRAPHERS Pat Christman Jackson Forderer

PAGE DESIGNER Christina Sankey ADVERTISING Danny Creel SALES Joan Streit Jordan Greer-Friesz Josh Zimmerman Marianne Carlson Theresa Haefner ADVERTISING Barb Wass ASSISTANT ADVERTISING Sue Hammar DESIGNERS Christina Sankey CIRCULATION Justin Niles DIRECTOR

Mankato Magazine is published by The Free Press Media monthly at 418 South Second St., Mankato MN 56001.

To subscribe, call 1-800-657-4662 or 507-625-4451. $35.40 for 12 issues.

For editorial inquiries, call Robb Murray at 344-6386, or e-mail rmurray@mankatofreepress.com.

For advertising, call 344-6364, or e-mail advertising@mankatofreepress.com.

6 • APRIL 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

Tales from the beat

W

hen I started my job at the Mankato Free Press, it was everything I ever wanted. Jobs in journalism — especially in a high-quality-of-life state such like Minnesota — were hard to come by. Plus, I’d spent three years in college here and the place was kind of growing on me.

My first “beat” in The Free Press newsroom was what we in the business call “cops and courts,” which put me in contact with police officers and firefighters on a daily basis. And I got along with most of them.

I was very early in my career here when I met Amy Atkins, whose name would later change to Amy Vokal. She was young and idealistic, just like me.

Today, we’re both 50 years old and working at jobs we never would have predicted we’d still be at.

Our cover story this month is a profile of Vokal, whom I interviewed a few weeks ago. And as sometimes happens, I forgot to ask her one of the questions that prompted us to do this story in the first place. So I had to call her back later to get her thoughts on being the first female director of her law enforcement agency.

Vokal sort of brushed off the question. But not in a way that would suggest she didn’t want to answer it; it seemed to genuinely catch her off guard, and she seemed sincere in saying it’s not something she thinks much about.

Well, I think about it. I think about that kind of stuff a lot, actually. As a journalist, and father of a daughter, you wonder — in a glass-half-full kind of way — how long it’ll still be a question to ask, given the progress we’ve made on equality. Then again, given the progress we’ve made on equality — in a glass-half-empty kind of way — if feels like we’ll be asking

this question for a while.

When my daughter was born, I’d hoped that, by the time she grew up, we’d be a lot further along in this process than we are. Yet here we are, 2020, and we’re still asking women for their thoughts on how it feels to be the first female whatever.

Vokal might not think much about it, but I guarantee you there are girls out there who saw her ascend to that position and were inspired. For that we should be thankful. And I think you’ll come away from this piece knowing a lot more about Amy Vokal than you did before.

Also in this month’s Mankato Magazine, we’re starting a new feature called Let’s Eat! We’ll be diving into the best local restaurants telling the stories the people who run them and the food they’re proud of.

We’re kicking it off with Pappageorge’s Restaurant, home of some of the best steaks — and service — in town. And we’re confident we’ve got enough great places in southern Minnesota to keep this featur going for years to come.

Check our Familiar Faces feature this month, which gets up close and personal with radio deejay TJ Palesotti. TJ, known for local radio and Maverick hockey games, recently got a new gig at Alpha Media. We’re just happy he’s not leaving town.

Finally, we’re thrilled and honored to have the work of wordsmith (and former Free Press staff writer) Joe Tougas, who tells us some of the stories behind his impressive autograph collection.

Robb Murray is associate editor of Mankato Magazine. Contact him at 344-6386 or rmurray@ mankatofreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @freepressRobb.

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FACES & PLACES: Photos By SPX Sports

Dancing with the Mankato Stars

1. Alanna Smith jumps over Chris Shay’s back in their Country style dance routine.

2. Brook Devenport dances as Napoleon Dynamite during her individual performance.

3. The Dance Express Company performed their “Dream State” performance as the show opener.

4. (Left to right) Dancing with the Mankato stars judges Tyler Hanes, Suavé and Kameron Blink hold their scorecards up.

5. The Mayo Clinic Health System Nurses celebate after their dance routine.

6. Tiana FitzSimmons and Bukata Hayes dance to African Jazz.

7. Jessica Alstad and her dance partner, Steve Wegman, featured a jazz/blues style in their performance.

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FACES & PLACES: Photos By SPX Sports

Eagle Lake Winter Activites 1.

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Aubrie Horkey coloring snow.

Natalie (left) and Beth Retzlaff (right) participating in the scavenger hunt.

A group stays warm by the fire.

Maisey Auringer kicking in a game of snowy kickball.

The Adams family enjoying the sledding hill.

Free cookies and warm drinks were available.

Kids run from the start line of the obstical course.

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MANKATO MAGAZINE • APRIL 2020 • 9

FACES & PLACES: Photos By SPX Sports

Baby & Kids Expo 1

1. Families visited more than 50 vendors during the event.

2. This year marked the 13th annual Baby & Kids Expo.

3. Kids play in the activities area with the Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota.

4. The Baby & Kids Expo took place at the Mayo Clinic Health System Event Center’s Grand Hall.

5. Kasie Gonczy from Gonzee Designs creates a balloon doll.

6. Karmy Luker, Museum Experience Supervisor with the Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota, interacts with the children playing.

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FACES & PLACES: Photos By SPX Sports

Pedal Past Poverty This event is a fundraiser for Partners for Affordable Housing

1. Approximately 50 teams participated and an estimated $75,000 was raised for Partners for Affordable Housing.

2. Teammates helped keep their cyclist cool by fanning them.

3. Leanne Miller poses for a photo as she cycles.

4. Pedal Past Poverty is a one-day and one-of-a-kind stationary bike race. This fundraiser is Partners for Affordable Housing’s signature event.

5. Participants for this year’s Pedal Past Poverty fill up the YMCA gym.

6. Snacks were provided for participants.

7. North Mankato Mayor Mark Dehen stretches before his turn on the stationary bike.

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MANKATO MAGAZINE • APRIL 2020 • 11

THIS DAY IN HISTORY Compiled by Jean Lundquist

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No miracles in sight as city elm campaign opens April 18, 1977 In 1969, four cases of Dutch elm disease were documented in Mankato.

By 1977, City Parks and Forestry Director Davis Sears expected 2,000 to 3,000 trees in Mankato proper to show signs of the disease. That number is despite the fact that a remarkably cold winter killed off an expected 95% of the fungus-bearing insects. “That’s not enough” to make a difference, Sears said. About 65% of the shade trees in Mankato were elm trees in 1977.

Infected trees were removed and trucked to West Sibley Park (now Land of Memories) to be burned. Meanwhile, the city more than doubled its tree planting budget to replace elms with ash, maple, locust, linden and hackberry saplings. April marked the beginning of the scouting for Dutch elm diseased trees in Mankato.

Farmers show keen interest in rural lighting project April 1, 1936 Bringing electricity to the countryside was seen as a great modernizing improvement by farmers in St. James when 100 of them attended a meeting to learn more about the Rural Electrification Administration and plans to bring current to the local rural area. The University of Minnesota Extension agent from Waseca, L. P. Zimmerman, told the crowd they carried no individual liability to join. While city residents and those nearby faced a cost of 1.75 cents per kilowatt hour, farmers farther away would pay 5 to 6 cents per kilowatt hour. Utilities in the area were telling farmers it would cost $1,000 per mile to string farm lines. Farmers in Butterfield, Madelia, St. James and the eastern part of Cottonwood County near Mountain Lake were in the planning area for electricity.

Peacock strays from home to find companions April 23, 1953 The Carl Peterman family east of Sleepy Eye noticed a colorful visitor in their yard when a male peacock took up residence among their chickens and other livestock one day. They were in a quandary trying to figure out from where the bird had come, but they enjoyed its multicolored feathers glistening in the sun. They thought perhaps it had escaped from the zoo in Mankato and had wandered westward. Turns out Pershing Snow had purchased a pair of the birds a few years back. His female died, and Snow assumed “Mr. Peacock” had wandered off in search of love. Snow reported the bird was busy readjusting to his surroundings without the company of the Peterman chickens and sows. There was no mention of how far away Pershing Snow and his peacock lived.

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AVANT GUARDIANS

By Leticia Gonzales

A ‘go-to’ photographer Andrew Breck loves to manipulate space

A

ndrew Breck’s roots at the Waseca Art Center run deep.

As a child, he would tag along with his mom at times to the center’s photography club.

“I’d see the work the group brought in and listened to them talk about the technical details of their work (it was all film back then) and subject matter,” said Breck, who is now the executive director at the Waseca Art Center, a freelance graphic and interior designer, and a caretaker of Courthouse County Park.

“I was allowed to use an older point-and-shoot camera since I can remember; my mom would develop the film for me,” he said.

“I experimented with composition, subject, lighting and documented my life.”

After earning a Bachelor of Science degree in interior design from Minnesota State University, Breck said he wanted to be both an architect and an artist. With a father in construction and a grandfather in masonry, Breck said he was fortunate to learn both trades and was not only encouraged to think as an individual but to exercise his creativity.

“As a designer, I love manipulating a space that changes depending on where you are and what you are doing in that space,” he said. “I love a neutral backdrop with pops of

bold color because color trends are always changing. As an artist, I’ve been working more with twilight and after-dark photography. As an avid outdoors person, I love to access nature at all hours of the day.

It’s amazing how the same space can have an entirely different feel depending on what light is or is not available.”

Projection art is among Breck’s newest explorations as an Emerging Artist grant recipient from the Prairie Lakes Regional Art Council.

“The project I am currently working on for my grant will involve large-scale temporary sculptures using found material that will have an architectural element to them,” Breck said. “I will tell a story by projecting film and photographs onto the sculptures, which will generate an immersive experience with all components.”

The installation will be at Courthouse Park at a date that will be announced.

Photography continues to be Breck’s “go-to form of expression.”

“I made the transition to digital photography and had access to digital SLR cameras but had never owned my own,” he said. “When I didn’t have access to one, I felt a sense of loss. An iPhone was the closest thing I was able to have on hand; I completely adapted my technique and used the restrictions

Photo by Jordan Below to my advantage, worked at overcoming the obstacles, and had fun with being creative. I’ve been exploring projection art over the past couple years and my first outdoor installation will showcase that work.”

Breck said his role at the Waseca Art Center has helped him appreciate professional artists and the struggles artists they have to make ends meet.

“Our work culture, in general, is absolutely unlike anything we were taught while growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s,” Breck said.

“Today you have to be your own publicist, agent, human resource manager, graphic and web designer, writer, accountant and everything in between. The expectation to perform has dramatically risen while compensation, longevity, job security, and benefits have diminished.”

Despite the challenges, Breck said his organization continues to encourage organizations to produce art.

“We want to inspire, partner and facilitate art that is unique to our community.”

MANKATO MAGAZINE • APRIL 2020 • 13

BEYOND THE MARGIN

By Joe Spear

Team “USA” has a different challenge S

ports may be the savior of our republic. Or at least its hope.

The pundits squeal there is no time our country has ever been so divided. The depth of this division can be seen all around us, whether in vulgar campaign rallies or social media “forums” that have become havens for name-calling and poor sportsmanship.

But the republic won’t be saved by the spectators. The discouraged faces who gin up to the bar can in a few hours either thank the Lord they have the Green Bay Packers or ask God to damn the Green Bay Packers.

No. It will be the high school players and Little League coaches, and yes, even the referees, who will save us. Because they believe in the last institution that requires we set aside our differences and play for the common good of a game well-played. A team cannot argue. Players on a team cannot go their own way. A team has to agree on the rules and play by them, whatever the outcome, good or bad. Leaders and followers and teammates emerge.

And society is the better for it.

The evidence comes in a careful reading of the sports pages.

From high school to college, the inspiration is more telling. After all, these athletes do it for the love of the game, the soul-building of the effort and the Lombardi moment when the athlete has “worked (their) heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle — victorious.”

On a Wednesday in February, the Mavericks men’s basketball team faced its last home game with playoff hopes on the line, their 10-point lead dwindled to 1 with six minutes to play.

14 • APRIL 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

But it was Kevin Krieger’s last home game. And that made a difference.

He had battled hamstring issues all season and was not the scorer he once was. His average was down 2 points this season. But he steeled himself against the adversity and rose to the occasion.

With the leading scorer fouled out of the game, Krieger took charge.

“No way was I going out with two losses like last weekend,” he told The Free Press.

“I’ve definitely struggled offensively, but my role on this team is more defense,” Krieger said. “But I made one, and Ryland (Holt) told me, we have to take care of this.”

Minnesota State coach Matt Margenthaler was grateful. “Kevin absolutely put us on his back. To do that in your last home game, it was something special.”

Krieger shot above his weight because of determination that swelled from within. He made 7 of 9 shots, including an incredible 4 of 5 from 3-point range, and 2 of 3 free throws, scoring 20 points, about 50 percent above his average.

Krieger scored 20 points and MSU defeated a motivated Bemidji State team 71-61 in the opening round of the Northern Sun Tournament.

What’s better is that 919 fans got to see one player with grit who decided his career would not end with another home loss.

Perseverance.

Teamwork.

Then there’s Charlie Pickell, a senior at Mankato West who won the state wrestling title at 132 pounds.

He lost the state final two years in a row, in 2018 and 2019, and

that was motivation enough.

“Those two losses in the finals haunted me,” he told The Free Press. But in some ways, the past became the past. “I let them go before the match and just wrestled my style.”

The win put Pickell in the Mankato wrestling history books as only the third wrestler ever to win three state titles, a list that includes Cody Adams of Mankato East and former Mankato Mayor Stan Christ of Mankato High School.

Resilience.

“I really wanted this. I know I worked harder than everyone I wrestled against. I deserved it.”

Desire. Work. Confidence.

Kolin Baier has a different story, but no less remarkable.

The Mankato East senior won the state championships with pins, not decisions, an event his coach called “quite a feat.”

Baier follows in the footsteps of his father who won a state wrestling championship in South Dakota in the 1980s.

Kolin Baier beat the top seeded wrestler as he was behind in points and had hooked his opponents arm when he saw the nod from the coaches to go for the pin, making him the third wrestler from Mankato East to win a state title.

Drive. Coaching. Inspiration.

And then there’s the unlikely Bethany Vikings men’s basketball team, down early and often to a faster St. Scholastica.

But Brian Smith decided to play aggressive defense for Bethany.

“We know if we defend, our offense will take care of itself because we all believe and trust in each other. We just came out there in the second half and played for each other.”

That defensive play sparked a 27-8 surge and led the Bethany Vikings to a 92-82 win for the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference Championship.

Feb. 22 brought the 40th anniversary of the “Miracle on Ice,” the most storied underdog victory in sports history that put the unlikely victory in the hands of the U.S. Olympic hockey team over the vaunted Soviet Union team.

John Harrington, now coach of the MSU women’s hockey team, played a part, getting an assist on a goal in the game. Harrington says it can be called a “miracle,” but he attributes it to hard work and a desire to win.

And coach Herb Brooks told the players this moment was for them and “screw the Soviets.”

Grit.

Some dismiss sports as “only a game” and lament how much schools spend on athletics to the detriment of other needs. But the coaches, referees and yes, even parents, commit to seeing young people succeed and work as a team so they can carry that forward when it really matters. And in these times, it really matters.

So the lessons from our sports heroes can be summed up: Perseverance. Drive. Work. Confidence. Teamwork.

Grit. Listening. Inspiration. Belief. And “playing for each other.”

Joe Spear is editor of Mankato Magazine. Contact him at jspear@mankatofreepress.com or 344-6382.

Follow on Twitter @jfspear.

MANKATO MAGAZINE • APRIL 2020 • 15

Familiar Faces

Hey

Mr. TJ! TJ Palesotti, a local radio mainstay for more than two decades, is right at home in southern Minnesota

T Photo by Pat Christman

NAME:

TJ Palesotti Occupation:

Program director/Morning Show co-host Mix 99.1 KEEZ-FM

Hometown: Mound

Guilty pleasure song:

“Ripple” by Grateful Dead always helps level my mood.

Favorite radio/podcast: “High Performance Mindset” with Dr. Cindra Kamphoff; “Disgraceland” with Jake Brennan

16 • APRIL 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

here aren’t many people in the Mankato area who can make the claim that probably 90 percent of the community has heard their voice. But TJ Palesotti might be one of them.

If you’re a fan of Maverick hockey, you’ve heard the soothing sounds of TJ Palesotti’s voice announcing, over the sounds of a few thousand screaming fans, “MAVERIIICCCKKK GOOOAAAL!” or letting everyone know there’s “one minute remaining in the period,” to which the fans reply, “Thank you!” to which Palesotti in turn says, in an oh-so-Minnesota accent, “You betcha.”

His voice also has been all over the southern Minnesota radio dial. For more than two decades, Palesotti has worked in local radio, garnering fans and followers for his pleasant demeanor and calming baritone. And anyone who follows him on social media knows he’s recently relocated down the dial, so to speak. As he said on his Facebook page, he was fired from his job at a popular country music station. But he was quickly snapped up by another station, and is now part of the morning show team on KEEZ 99.1-FM. He’s a true southern Minnesota original, and we’re so glad he agreed to answer a few questions for us.

Mankato Magazine: Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself?

TJ Palesotti: I moved into one of two apartments in an old house in Fairmont in 1996 when I began my radio career.

Five months later a girl moved into the other apartment.

We’ve been together ever since. We have two children.

Our daughter is 17 and plans to help cure cancer someday.

Our son is 13 and plans to take his mother to the Oscars.

I spend my spring coaching track and field for Mankato Loyola/Cleveland. I spend my fall doing public address for Minnesota State Football. I spend my winter doing public address for Minnesota State men’s hockey. In the summer I go to the lake.

MM: You’ve said that you wanted to be closer to your hometown, Mound, Minnesota. Two decades later, you’re still in Mankato. What has kept you here?

TP: Roots. When I was younger, my plan was to work my way back to the Twin Cities and live in the suburbs, but when I got to Mankato, that plan changed. We found ourselves right where we needed to be. It’s an incredible community and I recently found out how supportive it can be. I’m very grateful for that. Thank you.

MM: For the last 20 years, you’ve coached track and field. Recently, you were present for the first time for one of your athletes letter of intent signings. What was that like?

TP: The shotput and discus gets a quick little bumper on the way to commercial break during Olympic coverage.

I could watch those events all day. When you have an athlete that shares that passion with you, you’re able to achieve some great things. Dawson Davito came to me as a freshman who wanted to be a college football player and he knew track was going to make him better. He quickly realized that he was also a pretty good thrower. The day he signed that letter he committed to the University of Sioux Falls as a thrower AND a football player. He gets to do both! It’s storybook.

MM: Your first job was in Fairmont. Tell us more about that.

TP: April 15, 1996, overnights midnight to 5 a.m. for about a year. One night I was all alone and I looked out the studio window and there was a cow breathing heavy on the glass.

He had gotten away from a nearby farm. True story. After that year I was moved to the morning show and exactly a year later Mankato called. I have an unbelievable amount of memories from my two-year stint in that small town.

MM: What interested you in radio and broadcasting?

TP: It was a total accident. I really wanted to be a football player or a gold medalist. The required talent was not something I possessed. I thought about becoming a physical therapist. I spent a couple years pursuing law enforcement. Then I stumbled upon a broadcasting school that had a placement program, and I thought I’d get my degree and go sell advertising. While you’re in broadcast school, you learn a little bit about all the possible jobs in the industry. I fell in love with the on-air and production side of the business and I haven’t looked back.

MM: How has your first month at Mix 99.1?

TP: Refreshing, exhilarating, sometimes overwhelming.

That said, the only person putting pressure on me is me.

I’m the kind of person that knows what I want, and I want to get to it sooner than later. I just need to remind myself that I am learning new things and it’s going to take time.

I have a great rapport with Kelsey on the show and we’ve been having a lot of fun. It’s some of those behind-thescenes things that are new to me, and I really want to make sure I get them right.

MM: How has your freelance work doing voiceover been going?

TP: If I’m honest, business at tjpalesotti.com is slow right now, but I haven’t been pursuing it as much as I could.

When your voice is already on the radio in a market, it’s not quite the commodity as it is elsewhere. I need to get better at marketing myself outside this region, and I will.

I’m currently focusing all my energy on my responsibilities at Alpha Media with Mix 99.1. That’s the priority, but I’m always willing to talk about your project if you need a voice.

MM: We’re in a parallel universe. What is your occupation?

TP: I’ve always secretly wanted to be a game show host.

“Let’s play Bamboozled! Pick a Wicked Wango card to determine whether you go higher or lower!”

MM: Finish this sentence. On Sunday mornings, you can usually find me…

TP: Occasionally at church but most likely sleeping in.

Sunday mornings can sometimes be my only day to sleep in. I’ll get up late, grab some coffee and my phone, see what everyone is complaining about today and then get on with my day.

MM: What’s something most people don’t know about you?

TP: Not one person knows this about me. It’s a MM exclusive. I know every word to “Underwater Rimes” by Digital Underground. The only person that’s ever heard me rap it is me. The only person that will ever hear me rap it is me. There’s a reason I play the songs and it’s because I can’t sing them … or rap them.

MM: Anything else you’d like to add?

TP: I feel that I may have already said too much!

Compiled by Diana Rojo-Garcia and Robb Murray MANKATO MAGAZINE • APRIL 2020 • 17

DAY TRIP DESTINATIONS: SmAll cOmmuNiTieS

By Diana Rojo-Garcia

‘Oh, those small communities’ Minnesota has an abundance of quaint small towns that are worth your time

S

mall towns are the unsung heroes of American travel.

They can be easily overlooked, but these charming slices of Americana have a lot to offer. Unique restaurants, museums, state parks, walking trails — the list goes on.

And Minnesota has plenty of small towns to venture out to this spring and make a day of it.

Little Falls, population 8,343

Hometown to aviator Charles Lindbergh, Little Falls has a lot to offer in its quaint town. There’s a lot of history that was made in Little Falls, and with that, many places to visit.

Things to do: n Charles Lindbergh House and Museum

The museum will be back up and running after its completion of construction later this month (April 30). The museum gives its visitors a comprehensive look at the life of Charles Lindbergh. There are model planes, interactive exhibits and a full-scale replica of the Spirit of St. Louis cockpit. According to its website, visitors can envision themselves “performing a tricky takeoff in New York, surviving an ice storm over the ocean and landing safely in Paris.”

The museum also shows original footage from the aviator’s famous flight daily, and all day, in its 50-seat theater.

For those interested, take a tour in Lindbergh’s childhood home.

The tour guides the visitors through his home, including original items from the home. (More info at mnhs. org/lindbergh) n Minnesota Fishing Museum The museum is open year-round 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. The museum holds more than 10,000 fishing-related artifacts.

But the museum insists that it’s not “just a collection of old fishing items.”

“Rather, a collection of historical possessions that belonged to individuals from across Minnesota who were (and are) a part of history

18 • APRIL 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

of freshwater fishing in our state,” according to its website.

Some items include ice fishing houses, boats and tackle, some of which date to the early 1900s.

Tickets to visit the museum are $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and students and $15 for families.

More info: mnfishingmuseum.com Also check out: Pine Grove Zoo, Linden Hill Historic Estate, Charles A. Lindbergh State Park.

Highest rated places for grub: Little Fiesta, Mexican cuisine; West Side Cafe, comfort food; A.T. The Black & White, American cuisine.

Fun fact: Actor Jessica Lange, known for her roles in “King Kong,” “Tootsie,” and the “American Horror Story” series, lived in Little Falls with her family until the late 1950s.

Plan your trip: littlefallsmn.com

Grand Marais, population 1,359

Grand Marais, French for “Great Marsh,” has always been a bustling area. In the 1700s it had been a popular fur-trading station.

Today the town is a gateway to the popular Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Grand Marais also prides itself on its arts and music culture during the summer.

The Grand Marais Art Colony is the oldest artists’ colony in Minnesota.

It is also the home of the Devil’s Kettle, a geological oddity in which Brule River splits, sending half its flow tumbling 50 feet over a cliff, and other half into what appears to be a hole in the rocks. (Spoiler alert: Scientists solved the mystery a few years back. The water returns to the river a short distance downstream.)

Things to do: n Gunflint Trail This is one of the best places to see moose, according to its website. The variety of nature and wilderness even landed Gunflint Trail, which is actually a road, in one of the world’s “50 Places of a Lifetime.”

It is also one of the most popular areas to go canoeing. On an overnight (or just a late night) trip, take a look at the stars. This area has some of the darkest skies, and there’s also a potential to see northern lights when the conditions are there.

If you can’t get out to Grand Marais but still want to witness the cool nature from the comfort of your home, check out their webcams at visitcookcounty.com/ resources/webcams.

Also check out: World’s Best Donuts, Lake Superior Trading Post, Grand Marais Lighthouse, Artists’ Point.

Highest rated places for grub:

Sven & Ole’s, pizza; South of the Border Cafe, American comfort food; My Sister’s Place, beer and burgers.

Fun fact: Grand Marais is the hometown to musician Cobi, former band member of Gentlemen Hall, known for their hit “Sail Into the Sun.” Plan your trip: visitcookcounty. com/community/grand-marais

Lanesboro, population 732

Located on the far southeasterns side of the state is the small town of Lanesboro, founded in 1868.

It features an arts council, professional theater, downtown shopping and the Root River State Trail path. There’s even an Amish community in the area.

Things to do: n Niagara Cave The cave has been named one of the Top 10 caves in the U.S. by attractionsofamerica.com. It has also been recognized on CNN, the Travel Channel and The Weather Channel.

The limestone cave is 200 feet deep, featuring stalactites and stalagmites. There’s even a 60-foot waterfall. Visitors can take a guided tour through the caves in which they can hike one mile underground. According to its website, participants can also see fossils up to 450 million years old and an underground waterfall.

The cave also hosts weddings in the subterranean wedding chapel.

Niagara Cave is open from April through October. Admission is $16.95 for adults, $10.95 for children ages 3-12 and free for children 2 and younger.

(Niagaracave.com) n Bluffscape Amish Tours Escape from the world of technology and tour through the Bluffscape Amish tour. The threehour tour stops at six Amish farms — through Lanesboro, Preston, Canton and Harmony — where visitors can learn about Amish history. At each farm, take a look at the stores that are full of Amish crafts, hardwood furniture, candy, fresh produce and more.

The tours run from mid-April through Halloween. Admission is $30 for adults, $20 for teens, $10 for children ages 6-10 and free for children 5 and younger. (bluffscape.com) Also check out: Scandinavian Inn Mystery Nights, International Owl Center, Commonweal Theatre, Root River State Trail.

Highest rated places for grub: High Court Pub, bar and pizza; Pedal Pushers Cafe, comfort food; Lanesboro Pastry Shoppe, pastries and breakfast.

Fun fact: Buffalo Bill was such a frequent visitor, the town hosts “Buffalo Bill Days” each August.

Plan your trip: lanesboro.com

MANKATO MAGAZINE • APRIL 2020 • 19

TOP COP Amy Vokal came to Mankato law enforcement 29 years ago fresh out of college; now she’s the first-ever female to lead the department Story by Robb Murray | Photos by Pat Christman

20 • APRIL 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

W

ith a dozen or so refugees gathered around her, Amy Vokal, then a police commander with the Mankato Department of Public Safety, started saying things she thought needed to be said.

The department had been getting a lot of calls at that time from and about refugees and their families.

From repeated cooking fires and kids running amok to language and interpreting issues, the department decided to do something about a growing communication problem with the city’s immigrant community. So they sought a grant and teamed up with local nonprofits to engage in outreach.

And now, with a firefighter having just completed a fire demonstration, it was Vokal’s turn to educate them.

“And I was like, I got this, I know this,” she recalled from that day 10 years ago. “And I said, ‘Here’s the deal: You call 911.’ I was the expert, right? I knew more than anyone else in the room about this.”

This was a meeting of a group that would eventually be called the Tapestry Project, an effort to help immigrants and refugees understand the more practical parts of American and Minnesota culture. After law enforcement officials spoke, it was time for the immigrants to tell police officers and firefighters their personal stories. And that’s when Vokal, confident after explaining how 911 works, felt her confidence melt into something else.

She listened to a Sudanese woman’s story of fleeing Sudan with her family and how she and her husband separated. They ended up in separate refugee camps; she in Kenya, her husband in Ethiopia.

To get to him, Vokal recalled, this pregnant mother walked eight months at night carrying a child and a sack of rice on her shoulders.

“I was humbled. Absolutely humbled,” she said. “And I was embarrassed because I was so arrogant. But I went in there as a cop. I didn’t go in there as a human being. Not to say cops aren’t human beings, but I went in there to teach cop lessons, and I got taught life lessons.

“How dare I come in my little uniform and say, ‘I’m gonna tell you what you need to know’ instead of really looking at the resilience and the strength and the hope people have that have gone

through situations I could never even imagine,” she said.

Vokal, 50, arrived in Mankato in 1991. Idealistic and bookish, she came fresh out of St. Thomas University to a job as an undercover agent on the Minnesota River Valley Drug Task Force.

Twenty-nine years later, she’s the director of the Mankato Department of Public Safety. And that moment — while she listened to an immigrant talk about her family’s difficult journey to come here — illustrates a lot about her approach to leadership and public safety, and why she’s risen to the top of her profession. Vokal, while she loves to talk, also loves to listen. And she’s not afraid to critique and evaluate herself if it means bettering herself, bettering her department or bettering the city.

Oronoco flow

She was born and raised in the little town of Oronoco, a few miles north of Rochester. She attended John Marshall High School in Rochester. She says she was lucky in that she grew up with loving parents in a happy home.

“I lived out in the country and lived on a lake when it was not cool to live out in the country on a lake,” she said.

Mom was a nurse at St. Marys Hospital, Dad worked for IBM. They still live in the house where Vokal, who was born Amy Atkins, grew up.

After high school she enrolled at the University of St. Thomas, which was then called the College of St. Thomas. She did well, graduating summa cum laude with a major in sociology and a minor in Spanish.

It wasn’t until her senior year at St. Thomas that she considered a career in law enforcement. Her sociology studies exposed her to the world of criminal justice and the works of Supreme Court justices. She also scored an internship with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension fall semester, which led to a parttime job with the BCA during spring semester.

“Profiling was kind of hot back then. It was fascinating,” she said.

“The BCA when you’re 21 years old is pretty damn cool.”

After graduation she attended skills training, which is required for all licensed peace officers.

“When I went to skills the week

after I graduated, I was the dumbest person there,” she said.

“Everybody else had studied statutes. I never studied statutes.

Everyone else was so much more prepared.”

She’d considered trying to find a job with a federal law enforcement agency, such as the FBI. But a veteran law enforcement officer told her that, if she wanted to pursue a career in federal law enforcement, the best way was to become a police officer. So, after a recommendation from a BCA agent, she applied for a job with the Minnesota River Valley Drug Task Force.

Drug deals and goat thefts

And that job was exactly what you’d expect a drug task force job to be. She worked undercover, buying drugs from dealers, working cases that resulted in drug crime arrests. It only occurred to her later that she maybe should have been more scared than she was.

“I was 22-23 years old, nothing seemed dangerous,” she said. “Was there a propensity for things to go wrong? Sure. But when you’re that age, you don’t know any better.

And then later I came to patrol and I thought, ‘What the hell was I doing? What was I thinking? That’s crazy!’ But you know me, I’m a talker. I can talk my way into things, and I can talk my way out of things.”

After two years on the drug task force, Vokal went to work as a Mankato police officer. Like any officer who works patrol for any length of time, she’s had her share of memorable calls.

Case in point: She was the commander on duty when the infamous-but-adorable goat theft occurred.

“I will always be most famous on Google for the story about the goat,” she said. “Fantastic story.”

Police received a call at 11:30 p.m. Aug. 11, 2011, about two children, roughly 6 and 5 years old, walking a goat down Riverfront Drive.

“They borrowed the goat. They tried to forcibly adopt the goat,” Vokal said. “They had been at a family gathering at Sibley that day.

Then they went home and hatched a plan that, when their parents were asleep, they’d sneak down to Sibley Park and get the goat.”

MANKATO MAGAZINE • APRIL 2020 • 21

When questioned, the girls were ready with a story. They said it was a family pet and they were taking it for a walk. Further, they’d said, the goat lived in their closet, hidden from Dad, who had yet to be told the family had a pet goat.

“I actually got international calls about that story,” Vokal said. “It went local. And by the next day (KARE-11’s), Jana Shortal was down here from the metro. A week later I started to get pockets of people out East calling me and saying, ‘We saw you on TV.’ Excellent story. Absolutely awesome story.”

But, obviously, the work hasn’t all been rosy.

“I had a case that involved a 12-year-old boy who committed suicide,” she said. “Trying to wrap my head around that … It was just such a feeling of hopelessness. I still think about that.”

She also recalls when fellow officer and beloved coworker Troy Mueller died from complications from pneumonia.

“That was a really hard time,” she said. “Having a department that’s just broken ... that was just really a tough time.”

Vokal was just a few years into her tenure when she was promoted to commander, a promotion she credits to the vision and mentorship of former Public Safety Director Glenn Gabriel. She said that, while Gabriel’s abrasive style may have ruffled a few feathers, 22 • APRIL 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

everyone under his leadership had clear direction and knew exactly what was expected of them every day. He had a mandate to promote women within the department, Vokal said, and he did his best to carry out that out.

“Glenn is probably the most talented manager I’ve ever seen.

He’s been a great mentor to me over the years,” she said.

Praise from peers, superiors

Craig Frericks, a police commander who has worked with Vokal for over two decades, said he was pleased to hear she’d been chosen to lead the department. Her leadership style is inclusive, and she’s earned the trust of people in both the fire and police departments.

“Amy is good at bringing people together,” he said.

This is evident, Frericks said, in her work with the Tapestry Project.

“And that’s been good not only for the department, but also good for the community,” he said.

“We’ve always wanted to forge bonds with different groups, and Amy was really one of the people on the forefront of that from the start.”

City Manager Pat Hentges agreed.

“She just has that ‘it’ factor, and the ability to lead,” he said. “I’m sure there’s always a few employees that have different

opinions, but generally speaking most people are very complimentary of Amy. … Amy is an example of the new type of leader you’re going to find in public service, and she’s building a reputation as a community leader.”

Hentges said Vokal also helped the city restructure its public safety department. Previously the structure was simply police on one side, fire on the other. Now they’ve transitioned to a different dual structure. One side includes 24-hour emergency services (police and fire response), while the other includes more strategic initiatives such as investigations, rental inspections and fire marshal duties.

“Different leaders in the department were really excited how we reorganized,” he said, “and many appreciated Amy in terms of what she brought to the table in terms of her leadership.”

Hentges said getting an internal candidate to replace outgoing Public Safety Director Todd Miller, especially after restructuring, was the city’s Plan A. “It would have been hard if we’d gone outside and brought someone else in and said, ‘This is the organization structure, this is what you’re working with,’” he said.

“Amy was the person that had worked longest in a management role in public safety and, not to say the others weren’t qualified, but she was the logical choice to lead it.”

It’d be disingenuous to not point out that Vokal is the department’s first-ever female director. And in an age when women are still fighting for equality in the workplace, it would surprise no one to hear about a law enforcement agency the first one andnever thenhad goainto ‘generic’ having female leader. or w firm best lawyer ad without mention Vokal doesn’t want tothe dwell on that.

“I’ve never thought about it,” she said. “Somebody might have mentioned it, but it’s not something I think about. I’ve been in this community for so long, I think people don’t think of me as a girl or a boy.”

Still, the significance isn’t lost on her.

“I would hope that certainly girls would see the importance of having a woman in a high-level position,” she said. “But this has to do with my skills and confidence of my community. I want to be judged on my skills and abilities.”

Community support

Vokal said she misses being on patrol. That’s why, a few times a year, she puts on her uniform and walks a beat downtown. She says it helps her stay connected to a job she loved doing for so many years.

It also helps her stay connected to the community.

Whether it’s emails or phone calls from the public telling her specific things officers or firefighters have done in the name of public safety, shouts-outs of support from college students while on bar-closing patrol downtown, or letters from school kids thanking them and calling them heroes, she said her department’s connection and positive relationship with the community is special and, actually, kind of rare.

“Is there room for improvement?

Yes. Is there still mistrust from some? Yes,” she said. “But we’re doing things like our work with the Tapestry Project and our meetings with students on campus.

Partnering with the Diversity Council has been fantastic. And we’re doing things like Time to Talk through the YWCA. So we’re trying to get there and trying to make ourselves accessible. But at the same time, you don’t want to go and force yourself on someone who is afraid. You want them to feel empowered.”

When talking about the Tapestry Project, Vokal reflects for a moment, thinking back to that day with the group of immigrants, and how much it encapsulates her approach to leadership.

“I think the most important quality I’ve ever developed is empathy,” she said. “Telling stories, just being vulnerable — when we all ofhave empathy, we have a very different ability to relate.”

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MANKATO MAGAZINE • APRIL 2020 • 23

REFLECTIONS

By Pat Christman

A

pril can be a fickle month in Minnesota. Some years the daffodils are in bloom and birds are chirping. Other years it’s the second coming of winter. It can be a challenge to guess which version will show up from one year to the next.

Spring has looked pretty good so far, but smart Minnesotans know to never put away the snowblower until May. MM

24 • APRIL 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

MANKATO MAGAZINE • APRIL 2020 • 25

Paul Allen, originally from Canada, came to Mankato 30 years ago for a job at Minnesota State University.

Photo by Jackson Forderer

Welcome home

Mankato is home to many transplants; what is it about this community that makes people want to stay here?

By Diana Rojo-Garcia

M

ankato is the sweet spot for most of its residents. It’s a safe place to raise a family, yet big enough to still have plans out and about downtown. Many musicians roll around to our very own backyards, like Bob Dylan, Elton John even Marilyn Manson. And it’s only a 1½-hour drive to the Twin Cities for extra adventures.

For some, Mankato always has been their home.

They’ve seen the city grow and expand, went to either East, West or Loyola high schools, and they’ve never left.

But for others, the dot on the map marking Mankato

26 • APRIL 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

was a mystery to them until they arrived. Some moved here when Mankato’s status as a regional hub was just emerging. Others came more recently.

Regardless of when they came, they all stayed. And many have no plans to leave. Mankato has become a part of them. They’re all engrained in its culture and have been embraced by their neighbors.

For them, like us, Mankato is home.

Paul Allan, Calgary

Paul Allan took the plunge and moved from Calgary, Alberta, to Texas. It was about a 20-hour drive from

home to Western Texas College.

He followed the path of his older brothers who had also come to the U.S. for school.

“Our family tends to be, I think looking back on it, we were pretty independent and not scared of stuff,” Allan said. “I think it was more adventurous than anything else.”

Allan graduated from Western Texas College in 1982 with a degree in education and history. He wasn’t really sure what he wanted to do with that degree, however. So, the adventure didn’t stop there.

After graduation, he headed to Northern Arizona University where he did a graduate assistantship in athletics doing sports information work for three years.

“I fell into doing this as a career,” Allan said.

When he was 25, he found another opportunity and continued his adventure to Mankato.

He began working at thenMankato State University in the mid-’80s and has been a member of the MSU’s Athletics Department staff ever since. He’s now the associate athletic director/ communications.

In Mankato he met his wife, Lori, who is a ‘92 MSU alumna. They had three kids — Sean, Seth and Jack — all of whom went to Mankato East High School. And during his time from 1985 until now, Allan witnessed many changes in town.

In 1985, there wasn’t the Vetter Stone Amphitheater nor the Mankato Marathon. There was no, River Hills Mall or Taylor Center.

No Division I men’s or women’s hockey at MSU. At least not until an NCAA decision in the mid-’90s threatened to remove the men’s hockey program, which at the time was playing at the Division III level.

“The NCAA legislation, which had really nothing to do with us but was going to affect us, was going to do away with the ability to play Division III hockey,” Allan said. “We were a Division II school in everything but hockey.”

The rule was that unless the school was Division III in everything, the school couldn’t isolate itself to having just one Division III program.

“There was no Division II championship, so at that time, we can’t be Division III and there isn’t Division II, so what are our options?” Allan said. “ Division I or

Kathy Brynaert moved to Mankato with her husband, Tony Filopovitch, in the 1970s and never left. Photo by Pat Christman no hockey.”

However, MSU didn’t have a Division I rink. There was only the All Seasons Arena, which is not suitable for Division I competition.

During this time, where the civic center is now, there wasn’t a whole lot happening in the downtown area. The River Hills Mall was being built on the other side of town, and a lot of businesses followed.

Can you imagine? A place like Mankato, which prides itself in its hockey, to not have hockey?

Mankato wouldn’t be the same place if it had gone away with the sport.

Thankfully, with the collaboration between business owners, the city and MSU, the half-percent sales tax (which still exists today) was passed. With that tax, the city built the Mankato Civic Center. This allowed MSU to elevate its men’s hockey program to Division I. Their first game as a Division I program took place in 1995.

“We’re getting 5,000 people per game,” Allan said. “By the time playoffs are done, we’ll have over 100,000 people who attended MSU men’s hockey games this year.”

Anyone who has ever been downtown during hockey nights understands the importance of the sport to Mankato’s community and identity. But key to all of it is the strong leadership and progressive leadership that has always existed in Mankato, Allan said.

“That whole thing didn’t happen in a vacuum. There’s this combination of events, leadership

within the community, that leadership at MSU, that leadership within both the city government and business, where that all sort of came together.”

Kathy Brynaert, Detroit

Kathy Brynaert is a well-known name around the Mankato area.

She was a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives from 2007 until 2014. She was on the Mankato School Board from 1995 until 2005.

She also volunteered at the Mankato Co-Op and was the board president before it closed its doors.

Brynaert’s face, and work, has become ubiquitous in Mankato, a community that has been Brynaert’s home since the late ‘70s with her husband, Tony Fillipovitch. The couple moved to Mankato in 1978 after her husband was hired by MSU to teach urban studies.

But before moving to Mankato, she and her husband had lived in bigger cities: Pittsburgh, Portland, Oregon, and Ann Arbor, Michigan (where they met).

The smallest city they had lived in before coming to Mankato was Tulsa, and at the time, the population was 400,000.

Her husband also grew up in a big city — Chicago — so the two were accustomed to big-city living.

And moving to Mankato was vastly different than the metropolitan areas.

So when they came to Mankato, it was kind of a shock. In comparison to all the other places MANKATO MAGAZINE • APRIL 2020 • 27

they had lived, Mankato was a small town.

“We didn’t have a lot of resources at that time because we had been graduates. So a lot of our entertainment value was street life,” she said, such as finding music on the corner, going for downtown walks or shopping at retail stores.

Despite the small town, the two decided to follow their big-city living tradition and took a walk around the downtown area. They parked near Second Street, where there used to be a bakery, and noticed all of the beautiful historical buildings. So there must be something to this little town, right?

“We walked around downtown, I mean, we walked around twice. We looked at each other and said, ‘Two years and we’re out of here,’” Brynaert laughed.

The following year, they welcomed their first daughter, and their perspective started to change.

“We had our girls. Kids get you into community life, that’s kind of what they do,” she said. “We started feeling comfortable here in terms of the connections we were making personally.”

Life is incremental, Brynaert said, and sometimes you don’t notice what’s happening until you look back.

And naturally, with their backgrounds in urban studies and philosophy, they became heavily involved in the community. Starting with the food co-op, her husband’s work at MSU and Brynaert’s volunteerism at the Suzuki School of Music, Brynaert realized Mankato had something special.

“What we started to experience … is there were a lot of interconnections at this point,” Brynaert said.

There were various groups and organizations in Mankato, but they didn’t isolate themselves.

“There were a lot of tentacles among those groups of people,” Brynaert said. “What we came to know about that is that Mankato is a pretty collaborative place.”

What kept Brynaert involved in the community and eventually running for office wasn’t partisan or political. It was the community.

“People weren’t very protective of their territory, and they were more about ‘What can we do together to make things work?’”

For Brynaert and her husband, 28 • APRIL 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

this definition of community was the exact reason they decided to stay.

“And living in a community where, in a grocery store, you met people that you might have seen at the PTA or City Council,” Bryanert said. “There is a mix of people, with not always the same interests, but similar concerns in the way that you felt we could make a difference.”

Plus, Mankato is close enough to the Twin Cities to escape for a little bit, all while feeling safe with kids riding their bikes around the block surrounded by historical buildings.

Thinking back, Brynaert said it makes her smile to think that two big-city kids have spent more than half of their lives in what they originally called a “small town.”

“And we have been really happy here.”

Vusa Bentley, Wisconsin

The Midwest has always been some kind of home for Vusa Bentley.

Bentley had come to the U.S. nearly two decades ago from Azerbaijan. She attended Drexel University in Philadelphia. She then trekked her way to Minnesota State

University, Moorhead.

Shortly after, she moved to Wisconsin where she assisted as a paralegal at Zalewski Klinner & Kramer in Wausau. In the 10 years she had spent in the neighboring state, she coordinated the program Wills for Veterans. The volunteerbased program held clinics every other month to help veterans write up wills.

In 2011, Bently was chosen as Paralegal of the Year in Wisconsin out of more than 3,000 in the state.

Nearly after a decade, Bently moved to Mankato with her two sons when her then-husband found a job at the IRS in Mankato.

“I knew I wanted to live in a place where it was close to the city — no more than an hour and a half from the airport — but an active place,” she said.

Mankato hit the nail on the head.

Bently has been living in Mankato for the last five years. She’s found solace in various parts of town, including one of her favorite places, Sun Moon Yoga or Body Concept’s salt room.

Some might recognize her from her and Jack McGowan’s mobile pizza wagon — aptly named Bentley McGowan Wagomobile.

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“I love to feed people,” Bently said.

It began in 2017 and started with finding out how to use her passion of cooking for others while also giving back to the community.

The BMW pizza wagon took Mankato by a storm, creating dozens of fundraisers for various organizations, including the National Guard, the Children’s Museum, La Leche, SMILES Center for Independent Living and local schools. All of the product, Bentley’s time and the pizza wagon were donated to the space. All profit made during times of operation went directly to the organizations.

“We raised anywhere between $752 to $2,500,” Bently said.

Some others might recognize her as a covergirl for the River Valley Woman magazine or perhaps as a mediator or, most recently, a paralegal at Birkholz & Associates law firm.

But something that Bently found, specifically in Mankato, was a deeper passion and sense of community in the fitness world in Mankato. She says that Mankato has many great options for fitness (and jokes she has a membership to most). It was in Mankato she felt she was able to fully find herself in the fitness world.

“Finding my fitness passion in this town is a burst of my true character and is the rebirth of my passion,” she said. “It was a burst of where I felt free enough with myself to express myself.”

In 2018, Bently decided to serve the community with her talents in a different way. She created Vusa Fitness: Fitness for All Walks of Life.

“I wake up, and for most people, they don’t leave until they brush

Vusa Bentley, originally from Azerbaijan, came to Mankato 20 years ago.

Photo by Pat Christman their teeth or put their pants on.

My training is my pants, it is my brush,” Bentley laughed. “It’s not like an option. It’s a mission.”

She takes the health and fitness of her clients seriously, ensuring success for those who train with her.

But they’re not just her customers — they became an important part of Bentley’s life and community.

“My clients have become my family. They’re my clients when I train them, but they’re not as soon as that training is done.”

Between everything that Bently has accomplished in the short term she has lived in Mankato, she continues to develop her passions in each way she can, but always striving to serve her community as

much as possible.

Eventually, she hopes to open her very own restaurant featuring organic and grass-fed beef and is also training to beat the women’s world record in planking.

But that’s another story.

And she isn’t planning on leaving anytime soon.

“This was a place where I found my true passion, my true passion is in athleticism, my true passion is in serving food, my true passion is in giving back to the community,” Bentley said. “My true passion is making sure I am there for my children, and listen to them when they say this is their home. The fact that my children are my home. And the fact that they call this home, it makes my home.” MM

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Y A S

ES

Signed, sealed,

DELIVERED Adventures in Autograph seeking

By Joe Tougas 30 • APRIL 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

I

think the pleasure I get from obtaining autographs by rock stars and writers and basically anybody I admire has something to do with my mom’s love, which itself didn’t really dawn on me until Glen Campbell’s autograph came in the mail.

I was 6 or 7 years old, home sick and occupying the white vinyl couch in our tiny living room in Chicago’s south side. Instead of Sister Mary Philomena’s grim sentencings of our souls and math, this one day I was instead quietly, happily taking in 7UP, soft-boiled eggs and toast. And, naturally, television – the key to life. At that age and time, life was a series of either 30- or 60-minute increments, and for all the good Sister’s work, nothing grabbed me by the soul more than the “Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour” on CBS, which allowed me to see the genius whose 45s I listened to as much as I watched TV. He had high hillbilly harmonies and seemed to really push those on the TV show. And I’d get upset when family members laughed at or imitated him. I took it personally because I took Glen Campbell personally. Maybe I’d grow out of it and someday see why he’s laughable, but for the time being I listened to him constantly and loved that show.

I’m quite certain it was the first mail I’d ever received. Two pieces, actually. The mailman showed, and my mom nonchalantly handed me a large 8-by-10 envelope and a regular business envelope, both addressed to me and both with the return addresses of: Glen Campbell.

The smaller envelope contained a typewritten notice on “Goodtime Hour” letterhead welcoming me to the Glen Campbell Fan Club and letting me know my first newsletter would arrive soon. That was the larger envelope.

Along with the newsletter in that envelope was an 8-by-10 black and white glossy photo of Glen, who in his own ever-lovin’ Wichita Lineman’s hands wrote: “Joseph, thank you for joining my fan club.

Glen Campbell.”

It had all been my mother’s doing, months and months earlier.

She told me she’d almost given up on hearing back from CBS. She was as thrilled as me that it finally came.

And it hit me then, even as a

young kid and even with the excitement of that delivery, that it was the nicest thing anybody had ever done for me. And by my mom, of all people, that lady who made the soft-boiled eggs and toast and poured the soda in those tall Tupperware cups. Maybe she wasn’t laughing at Glen Campbell or me after all.

What follows are a few scenes in pursuing autographs and, more so, the spirit of that great sick day when a major adult in my life made me feel ever-so-legit in my tastes.

That’s a pretty cool thing to do for a kid.

The one that got away

Long before I had my autograph epiphany, Mom and I were downtown and about to take the bus home when she excitedly pointed out to me a tall man in a suit and skinny tie, laughing and talking to about four or five people, clearly fans of some sort. Let’s go say hello, Mom said, and it looks like he’s signing autographs.

I didn’t recognize his weird name and insisted we continue home because “Cartoon Town” would be starting soon. Mom pointed out that he was so close and seemed so willing to talk to fans and sign autographs. I countered with some sort of reminder that I could psycho-brat this scene immediately unless we got on that bus. She relented, we took the bus home and I contentedly watched

“Cartoon Town” while mom told my dad how she almost met Cassius Clay.

Chuck Berry

For some reason likely involving taxes, Chuck Berry played at the Rock County 4-H Fair in Janesville, Wisconsin, in the mid-’70s. Toward the end of his afternoon show, we were all sufficiently frenzied, dancing in the pouring rain collectively not believing we were seeing Chuck Berry, reeling and rocking across the stage for his final song, the wind and rain whipping him as well. He didn’t care. He was sopping wet and doing that duck walk of his across the stage and aiming his guitar in front of him like the world’s happiest weapon.

When it was over, everybody scrammed for shelter but I needed more. I found an empty popcorn box, tore a panel off for paper and darted to the tour bus, where there was one other person, my buddy Matt Arnold. He and I met in sixth grade, the year my family moved to Wisconsin from Chicago. He and I had bonded on Elvis music so now, a few years later, it wasn’t surprising to find him here as jazzed as I was about what had just happened. We hadn’t really hung out since we were in grade school either, but now holy hell the bus door was opening.

The driver asked who we were and what we wanted. Nobody and autographs, we dribbled. He shook MANKATO MAGAZINE • APRIL 2020 • 31

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his head.

“You can stand out in the rain all you want. He’s not signing autographs.” And the door shut.

We decided to stand all we wanted, and 10 minutes later the door opened again.

“He’s all the way in the back.”

The bus had shades drawn, low light and forget the noise of a county fair outside, it was silent and solemn as we walked down that aisle toward the back. And then. Centered perfectly with his guitar case on his lap and a pen in his hand, Chuck Berry gave Matt and I a smile and very gentle “hello.” His wet hair was combed back and he had on a long-sleeve burgundy shirt. It was royalty. We mumbled something, surely, maybe not, as he signed the plain side of my popcorn box panel and whatever Matt had. We thanked him, walked back down that quiet aisle and started playing in bands together with names like Phase II, Escape and The Press. We always, always played Chuck Berry songs and damn if we didn’t always try to make it rain.

Johnny Cash

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At the end of a phone interview with Johnny Cash for the Mankato Free Press, I told him a rather long story that I hoped would illustrate how much his music meant to me.

It wasn’t a great story and I won’t bother you with it here, but he nonetheless chuckled politely and told me to make sure I stop by and say hello in person when he played in town the following week.

“Well,” I told my contacts at the Mankato Civic Center, “Johnny Cash wants me to stop and say hello so whatever you can do to make that happen…”

A few minutes before his concert, I found myself last in a line of about 15 people waiting like me to say hello to the Man in Black, who as it turns out is also gigantic. He emerged from a dressing room and man, did he have a presence and booming voice. Next to him was some sort of manager who was rushing him along, despite Johnny’s desire to talk patiently to each fan.

I was holding his latest CD, the Rick Rubin-produced, bare-bones solo acoustic “American Recordings,” which launched a resurgence of Cash’s career. In front of me, the Mayor of Mankato held a paper grocery bag. And the

manager next to Johnny was getting antsy. “OK, Johnny,” he’d say as Cash would move to talk to another fan, “We gotta make this quick.”

The fewer people in front of me, the more adamant the manager became. “Johnny, that’s it. No more.” Johnny persisted, calmly. By the time he got to the Mayor of Mankato, the manager was losing his mind.

The Mayor of Mankato introduced himself to Johnny in a fairly mayoral way, then reached into the paper bag and announced he was giving Johnny the very first Key to the City. The Man in Black smiled and accepted the gift gracefully. The manager, meanwhile, was delivering kitten number four.

The Mayor of Mankato then asked Johnny if he’d ever heard of our area’s annual Dakota powwow and proceeded to give Johnny a short history of the celebration and its relevance to our area.

It was show time. The manager thanked the Mayor of Mankato, grabbed Johnny’s arm and led him away. But Johnny turned and walked to me and I blathered that

we talked last week on the phone and asked if he could play something from the “American Recordings” CD, which he signed for me.

The show was incredible, of course.

He opened with “Folsom Prison” and June Carter was there and they sang beautifully together about growing old and waiting on the other side. People of every age were wiping away tears. At one point he pulled up a stool, grabbed an acoustic guitar and said: “I had a request to do some songs from

my new album.”

Yeah, I know: He was going to do them anyway. But still. Some moments are too big to fit into one night. That was one.

MANKATO MAGAZINE • APRIL 2020 • 33

Nancy Young

When the Internet hit, I spent a lot of time trying to track down out-of-print books by Richard Brautigan. So did a bunch of other people, apparently.

(Before that time, I’d find them at the best bookstore of my time, The Once Read in downtown Mankato.) At the time, a website of a large bookstore chain had a section of rare and out-of-print books. You could not only search for a rare book, but a checklist allowed you to narrow your search to first editions, or signed copies or hardcover. My searches for

signed copies of anything by Richard Brautigan showed prices in the high hundreds.

One day, though, as I checked the boxes to see about finding a signed Brautigan paperback, the prices that scrolled by were predictable at first: $1,500, $980, $500, $9, $1000 – and I backed up.

Nine dollars? Yep, I checked it out.

Nine dollars for a signed paperback copy of Brautigan’s “Rommel Drives On Deep Into Egypt.”

Somebody out there made a terrible, terrible mistake, and that mistake was going to cost me only $9. I ordered and prayed the book would be sent before the seller checked the Internet. It took weeks and weeks, but on a snowy white morning I looked out the window of our Liberty Street home and my heart jolted at the red, white and blue Priority Mail envelope sticking out of the mailbox.

The joy of Priority Mail is the ease of opening the cardboard envelopes with a satisfying zip, satisfying like you’re some kind of accidental millionaire. I pulled out that book of poems and opened to page one expecting my life to somehow align in this little way

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with San Francisco poets and Beat writers and alcoholic tragedy and history all thanks to one man’s name.

Technically, I got what I paid for – a signed copy of Richard Brautigan’s paperback book of poetry, “Rommel Drives On Deep Into Egypt.” Except it was signed

by Nancy Young. Nobody else.

Nancy Young, former owner of a nice paperback who was probably pleased to see that some guy in Minnesota bought it for $9.

My mom laughed when I told her about that. Now, of course, sitting here looking at dozens of autographed CDs and books, I wish I would have told her why I was even bothering.

MM

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Food & Beer

let's eat!

By Dan Greenwood

southern mn style Jay and Layla Pappas are the owners of Pappageorge's Restaurant.

Pappa knows best

W

Jay and Layla Pappas have developed a loyal clientele from scratch

hen Jay and Layla Pappas opened Pappageorge’s Restaurant and Bar nearly 13 years ago, they already had a following of devoted customers.

That’s because Jay Pappas – who has been working in the restaurant industry since he was 15 years old – and his father used to run Maggie’s Restaurant and

36 • APRIL 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

Bar, a former Mankato staple that developed a reputation for simple, high-quality, classic full-service dining.

The couple actually met there, and when they sold Maggie’s in 2005, Jay Pappas began delivering packages for FedEx and Layla Pappas sold advertising for Clear Channel. But their hearts remained in the restaurant business.

“We just weren’t in love with our careers,” Layla Pappas said.

When the building at 1028 N. Riverfront Drive became available, they put together a business plan, got a loan and named the restaurant Pappageorge’s in honor of Jay Pappas’s great-grandfather, who emigrated from Greece to the U.S. in 1902 and was the first in the family to open a restaurant

What:

Pappageorge’s Restaurant and Bar

Where:

1028 N. Riverfront Drive, Mankato

What they’re known for:

Classic full-service dining.

Along with a variety of steaks, seafood, pasta, sandwiches and salads, weekend specials include a London broil cut from tri-tip steaks in au-jus and wild mushroom ravioli in a gorgonzola cream sauce topped with filet-mignon, fresh tomatoes and green onions. in America. Today, the family has been running restaurants spanning four generations.

“We were fortunate when we did open that we’d already established a good name in the community,” Layla Pappas said. “We were able to open the doors and have regular customers immediately by serving them what they were used to from Maggie’s. It was fun to see all the faces of regular customers we cared about so much.”

Like Maggie’s, Jay Pappas said it’s all about starting with a good product prepared from scratch.

“We sell a lot of shrimp, walleye and steaks,” Jay Pappas said.

“That’s what people come here for.”

Jay Pappas, who learned how to cook from his parents, is head chef at Pappageorge’s. He has two cooks, including one who joined the staff a few months after opening in 2007. Layla Pappas said they’re not over-the-top as far as fanciness goes; they let the food speak for itself.

Weekend specials such as the wild mushroom ravioli, mixed with a homemade gorgonzola cream sauce and topped with medallions of filet-mignon, fresh tomatoes and green onions, is exceptionally popular. It’s not uncommon for the London broil – which is made from cuts off a tri-tip sirloin and set in au-jus – to sell out before the weekend’s over.

Pappageorge offers some of the best steaks and service in town.

“We run it until it sells out, which it does every weekend,” Layla Pappas said.

The lunch menu focuses on burgers, sandwiches and salads, and the dinner menu expands to steak and seafood entrees. Some recipes from Maggie’s have carried over to Pappageorge’s menu.

“Our turkey pasta salad — we brought that over from Maggie’s and people just love it,” Layla Pappas said. “It’s a buttermilk ranch with fresh vegetables mixed in.”

Other popular items are the variety of hand-cut steaks, from filet mignon to a one-pound ribeye. Jay Pappas makes all of his sauces – like the gorgonzola sauce to a garlic parsley butter – from scratch. Layla Pappas said two of her personal favorites are the 10-ounce top sirloin and the grilled pork loin.

“It’s a big pork chop without

a bone, and it’s so juicy and delicious,” she said.

Layla Pappas said her favorite part of running the restaurant are the friendships they develop with regular customers, some who come for a meal several times a week to meet with friends or meetings. Like Jay Pappas’ parents, grandparents and great-grandparents before him, the customers are multigenerational. She said some of their best customers are the children and grandchildren of people who used to dine at Maggie’s.

“They’re not just customers anymore — they’re family,” Layla Pappas said. “You know their names when they walk in the door.

You know when they’re having a good day or a bad day. That’s why we do it.”

MANKATO MAGAZINE • APRIL 2020 • 37

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BEER

By Bert Mattson

Bucking Maibock and peripheral froth A

t some point, a number of Germans put their heads together with the aim of a beer with the sting of Bock, camouflaged by hops and a paler hue. Maibock was born, probably with an exclamation of whatever is the German equivalent of “Party on!”

It’s tough not to talk about it this time of year, as it’s an unassailably apt style for the transition from winter to spring: retaining the alcoholic warmth fit for winter, and some of the malt, but pointed with hops to hint at the thaw, leaves of green, and rays of yellow sunlight.

Further, if one is going to discuss Maibock in Minnesota, Schell’s and Summit should enter the conversation. At least as far as I’m concerned, they basically introduced me and my circle to the style.

That said, change is swirling on the spring air. Ever sluggish to sense change, it must be clobbering me over the head for me to notice at all. Bear in mind, I emerged from a generation of restaurant minds who still scratch their heads that anybody would ever consider putting up the words “cold coffee” in the window, as though that were somehow conceivably something to brag about. Well, modern appetites couldn’t care less for the crusty, quaint appeals of that ilk.

Or mine! First Schell’s Maifest was retired from my local shelves, and now Summit Maibock is taking a backseat. (It’s not gone mind you.

Some cans are included in Summit’s Go Box).

This unbockly refrain is to make way for Summit’s Cabin Crusher Kölsch (with lime). Cabin Crusher is an April release coming in at under 5% alcohol, hopped gently with citrusy strains, and exhibiting exuberant carbonation. (“Scandalous!” he cries, mining his Go Box for Maibock). Further, my precious Great Northern Porter is on hold, yielding to Triumphant — Summit’s low-alcohol, low-calorie, low-carb session IPA. The news is bittersweet, as I’ve been waxing endlessly ironic about how 3.2 brew is dying whilst low-cal (low-alcohol) beers find traction. Summit seemed to be one of the few outfits reflecting this trend at The Beer Dabbler this year.

The state of significant shifting taking place on the beverage scene — anyone doubting this, note how styles of coffee threaten to eclipse images of doughnuts on certain doughnut chain drive-thru menus — inspire me to reflect on human nature. OK, pretty much everything does that, but still. We tend to assume some products epitomize

and trap authenticity in amber. It’s an illusion. Folks my parents’ age are surprised to learn milkshakes were once actually flavored milk shaken in a cocktail shaker before the proliferation of refrigeration and, subsequently, ice cream. Now the stuff has come full circle in the form of milk “cold foam” that boomers and millennials alike assume was invented by space age baristas. I digress. The point here is that it is spilled milk. I for one have decided not to just ride the wave of change, but to rip it.

To the future!

Bert Mattson is a chef and writer based in St. Paul. He is the manager of the iconic Mickey’s Diner. bertsbackburner.com

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COUNTRY MINUTES

By Nicole Helget

The Dogs of Oshawa Township Part 3

P

ony, on the brink of labor and birth, didn’t come back. It rained a half an inch the first night she was gone. In the morning, Husband loaded his truck for another music gig, a few days long.

“Keep me posted,” he said.

After waving him goodbye, I went back to the porch, where one whelping nest sat unused and then into the kitchen, where the other glowered at me in accusation.

I had gotten Pony from a student at the community college where I taught. One of my gifts as a teacher was attracting the “early-to-class” types who showed up in the 20 minutes before class when I was in the classroom frantically grading their long overdue papers and tests. Students would arrive and talk to me about their lame spouses, ungrateful kids, peacocking bosses, bills, layoffs, hangovers, probation officers, dads who had one set of rules for their brothers and another set for them, and so on. One of my students talked about the impossible schedule of her job, her classes, her kid, and her dog.

“I’ll take the dog,” I said. Rewind, rewind, rewind, I thought.

“Really?” she said. “That’d be great.”

So, one night after class, I packed up my own kids, drove over to the trailer, and got the dog. She hopped into the backseat of my Chrysler 200 and parked her butt between the boys as though she’d always been there. My kids and I brought her home and pondered a name. She was only five months, but very tall, with lean legs like an antelope. She was shiny black with longish fur, almost like a skunk’s. Her ears were odd. They didn’t hang down like a lab’s nor did they stand up. They 40 • APRIL 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

pointed left and right, kind of like a goat’s. When we let her outside, she ran like a starving cheetah after a zebra.

“Whoa,” we said.

Husband said, “Pony.”

Pony, she became. At first, she had her run of the large farmhouse.

She hopped up on the couch.

Immediately, I didn’t like that.

Despite growing up on a farm, I had not grown up with animals living in the house. I wondered what my mom would think. But I had seen how other normal dog owners on Facebook posted photos of their dogs sitting in chairs and sleeping in beds where people belonged and thought, This is how normal dog owners treat their dogs. Lighten up. When she got off, I stared at the inhuman black hairs stuck to the cushion and became light-headed.

I can’t do this. Pony ate crumbs off the floor, which I liked. But she also drank from the toilet and then used that mouth to lick us, which I didn’t.

She chewed up crayons, socks, legos, and a vacuum cleaner cord, which I also didn’t approve of. I trained her to stay in the kitchen, only. Where at least I could contain her shedding hair and sweep it up. Some nights, she stood in the doorway, between the kitchen and dining room and stared at us with morose eyes.

“Mo-omm,” the kids would say, their little hearts of empathy bursting out of their hand-me-down t-shirts. Of course all of their friends had dogs and cats and gerbils and birds and pet reptiles enjoying the spaciousness of their houses.

“NO.” Pony, who can walk backwards, a rare phenomena among animals, would tap back, like a batter stepping out of the box.

“You’re mean,” the kids said.

Pony did other things I didn’t like. She ignored her dog food and, instead, stole corn cobs from the neighbor’s field. Hundreds of them.

She lay down in the grass, shucked the cobs with her mouth and paws, and ate the chewy kernels. She got fat. I shoved aside the metal vaccination tags on her collar and loosened it, thinking why do you need a rabies shot if you’re just going to diabetes yourself to death.

Even her ears and the whites of her eyes looked obese. Corn is really just a starch-delivery system.

At night, in the kitchen where we keep our jackets and shoes, Pony destroyed my heels, an orange pair with pointed toes. I wanted to strangle her. But, being a good and responsible and understanding dogowner, like the ones on Facebook, didn’t.

On that first drive bringing her home, I imagined how much my kids would love her. How they’d hug her and squeeze her and race her around the yard. But their relationship wasn’t really like that. They’d give her a pat or share a beef stick with her, but they weren’t sweet with her.

They treated her in much the same way they treated each other: 10% playful, 10% combative, and 80% tolerant disregard. They’d only come to her defense when I was mad at her. She was one of them.

At night, Pony went to bed on a rug in the kitchen. By morning, she was shivering with pent up energy and would sometimes leak pee.

I opened the door and pointed out.

“Get out.” She lowered her ears, ran past me, and off into the ravine or corn field, dog heaven.

Where is she? I thought all morning. I contacted the neighbors.

None had seen her. One of our neighbors put up a Facebook posting

about our lost dog. I called the Humane Society and the veterinary clinics.

“She’ll probably come back,” said the woman from the clinic. “Dogs do this sometimes. Some bitches like to be alone when delivering.”

Don’t they though, I, birther of six, thought. “I hope so,” I said.

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Nicole Helget is a multi-genre author. Her most recent book, THE END OF THE WILD, is a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice, a Parents' Choice Award Winner, a Charlotte Huck Award Honor Book, a New York Public Library Best Books for Kids, a Kirkus Best Middle-Grade Book, an Outstanding Science Trade Book for Students, a Best STEM Trade Books for Students K-12, a Georgia Children's Book Award Nominee, and the Minnesota Book Awards Middle Grade Winner. She works as a teacher, manuscript guide, editor, and ghostwriter. She lives in rural St. Peter with her family and dogs. You can follow the Dogs of Oshawa Township at @TheOshawa on Twitter.

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www.NorthernComfortInc.com MANKATO MAGAZINE • APRIL 2020 • 41

GARDEN CHAT

By Jean Lundquist

Vacation thoughts about seeds I

n February, Larry and I got a wild notion to take a two-week trip to Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. As we discussed our spring trip, there was one caveat: I needed to be home in time to start my seeds. And with my new greenhouse, that meant I was starting seeds in early March rather than mid-March.

We got home Feb. 29. The next day, I was busy in my basement with my new LED grow lights, while my greenhouse warmed to over 75 degrees. That was enough to open one of the automatic vents to keep it from getting too warm. How exciting!

Some of the first seeds I planted were yucca seeds gathered from the yard of some snowbird friends. Also, some seeds harvested, maybe illegally, from a desert mule’s ear plant, which will provide beautiful flowers if it survives here. In New Mexico, it’s a perennial, but if it’s an annual here, I’ll just be sure to harvest some seeds again this fall.

I also harvested mesquite seed pods just as an 42 • APRIL 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

experiment. These are the seeds I am pretty sure will not do well in Minnesota, but it seemed like an idea at the time. Maybe I’ll just get enough wood to smoke a few chicken legs on the grill this summer.

Our southwestern trip was a glimpse into summer.

Many flowers and some cacti were blooming, and hummingbirds and butterflies were dancing among the flowers. I saw some gardens designated as “Monarch Way Stations” but never saw a monarch butterfly in them.

We walked around in shirt sleeves and made use of the sunscreen dispensers we found in some public restrooms.

The day we left it was 84 degrees with no humidity. I, however, was ready to leave. The newscasts warned people that rattlesnakes tend to become active about the time the weather approaches that temperature and to take precautions against being a victim of a bite. Not the place for me!

I don’t like snakes. That’s not to say I kill them, but then again, Minnesota snakes are not going to kill me, either,

though there are reports of rattlers in southeastern Minnesota. We hope to do some camping there this year, so maybe we’ll have to go in the fall when the weather cools. nn n n In gardening, there are so many things to spend money on. I elected not to purchase the shelving that the greenhouse company I bought from makes. Sure, it looked pretty and fit well, but I decided to come up with something less expensive. And I found it.

With my old plastic hoop house, I had to weigh it down with cinder blocks to keep it from blowing away in a stiff spring breeze. Those cinder blocks and some two-by-fours are now my economical shelving. And I think it looks just pretty enough.

If you are using a small soft-sided hoop house this year, like I used for several decades, let me help you learn from my mistakes. After you get the house anchored (the spikes that come with it won’t do – you need something heavier and stronger), be aware that the sides will move with the wind and will be trying to knock over your shelving and send your seedlings tumbling to the ground.

This will make you angry.

So don’t try to put your shelves around the outer side of your hoop house. Place them in the center, where the flapping walls will have less contact with your precious seedlings. In really rough weather, some shelving still collapsed, but it’s a lot less likely to happen. After I finally figured this out, I spent a lot less time angry.

In April we are so close to getting outside in the sun and in the soil. The humidity and the bugs have not yet hit us, and dreams are in full bloom.

Let’s take advantage of it, even as we remember those late-April snowstorms of the past.

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COMING ATTRACTIONS: APRIL 1 Relationship Vloggers: 17-19, 24-25

Shane Burcaw & Hannah Aylward 7 p.m. — Ostrander Auditorium, MSU — free and open to the public — mnsu.edu.

5

Kids Charity Circus 2:30 p.m. — Mayo Clinic Health System Event Center — 1 Civic Center Plaza — Mankato — $15 adults, $10 kids 4-12 and free for children 3 and younger — mayoclinichealthsystemeventcenter.com.

18

Minnesota Valley Chorale concert 7 p.m. — Trinity Chapel — Bethany Lutheran College — $10-12 — minnesotavalleychorale.org.

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MSU presents “Mama Mia!” 2:30 Sundays; 7:30 p.m. — Ted Paul Theatre — MSU — $22 — mnsu.edu/theatre.

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MSU presents “Black Comedy” 7:30 p.m. — Earley Center for Performing Arts — MSU — $10 — mnsu.edu/theatre.

Mankato Area International Festival 11 a.m.-3 p.m. — Centennial Student Union, MSU — free — mankato.mnsu.edu/academics/ global-education.

MSU presents “French Twist” 7:30 p.m. — Earley Center for Performing Arts — MSU — $10 — mnsu.edu/theatre.

17

MNSU Powwow 12 p.m. — Centennial Student Union, MSU — free — Facebook @mnsuwacipi.

Whose Line is it Mankato 7 p.m. — Mayo Civic Health System Event Center — 1 Civic Center Plaza — Mankato — $50 — mayoclinichealthsystemeventcenter.com.

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Bethany Lutheran College presents “Ken Ludgwig’s Treasure Island” 7:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. April 19 — Ylvisaker Fine Arts Center — Bethany Lutheran College — blc.edu/arts/theatre/box-office.

25 26

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America 7 p.m. — Mayo Clinic Health System Event Center — 1 Civic Center Plaza — Mankato — $99.50, $79.50, $59.50, $49.50, $39.50 — mayoclinichealthsystemeventcenter.com.

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COMMUNITY DRAWS

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46 • APRIL 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

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MANKATO MAGAZINE • APRIL 2020 • 47

FROM THIS VALLEY

By Pete Steiner

Still Missing Michael’s O

ccasionally, folks I run into ask me to write about the great old Mankato restaurants – the Colony Club’s vanished luxury at the north edge of town, the Holiday House in Kasota (I can never forget the vast hors d’ouvres spread, and as a kid, wondering in which of the many rooms our family would be seated). There was, of course, the Century Club on the North Mankato riverbank before the new bridge took it out.

They had the famed Monte Cristo sandwich and scrumptious clam chowder, plus great music: Jim McGuire held forth regularly, and once the great Willie Dixon, composer of “Hoochie Coochie Man” and other classics, played there. My brother tells me Willie, from Chicago, said our town was the coldest place he’d ever played.

The legendary restaurant I think most qualified to reminisce about (does one need qualifications to reminisce?) is Michael’s, in the old fire house at Second and Walnut, which now houses the Mankato Foundation.

It’s a good bet to say I would be a different person today if it were not for Michael’s. (I’ll offer one reason in a bit.)

The late Jay Pappas of the famed family that owned the legendary original Michael’s in downtown Rochester had come to Mankato in the ‘60s to open a restaurant. Soon Mankato’s Michael’s would gather all strata of locals, from successful businessmen to women’s groups to poor students like I was. This miraculous melting pot was divided into three spaces: the formal dining room, with its gold and red brocaded wallpaper and linen tablecloths; the Red Boot Saloon, with its brass rail bar and Lowell Schreyer leading Michael’s Minstrels in toe-tapping Dixieland tunes; and the Walnut Room (now Tandem Bagels), with its comfy booths and warm acoustics. It was ideal for music, and Jay brought in good local musicians, popular regional acts like Frank Hall, and even national acts like Chad Mitchell, and yes, Jackson Browne. (In the March 2010 issue, I wrote about the legend of Jay firing the up-and-coming superstar after just one night because the only person who came in to hear him was Dan Duffy, who had a nice conversation with Browne while he was changing guitar strings.)

Besides great food and welcoming atmosphere, part of Michael’s formula was the waitresses: longtime professionals such as bustling, smiling Millie, who qualified as everyone’s favorite aunt. There were also the engaging young college women financing their educations. In fact, I married one of them (does that help qualify me to write this? It did change my life!). Suffice it to say, for many folks, next to their own homes, Michael’s was the place in town where they most wanted to spend time.

Alas, all good things must end. Worn by the grind 48 • APRIL 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

(you can’t farm out the work if you own the restaurant), Jay sold Michael’s in 1978. (He would open the popular Maggies near the University in 1982, then close it in 2006; son Flip and his wife, Layla, now run PappaGeorge, continuing the legacy.) Then in 1979, Michael’s changed hands again, bought by Dan and Ann Bartel, a couple who had met working for Paul Pappas in the family’s restaurants in Rochester. Dan and Ann wanted to own their own restaurant, and while they renamed it D’Annies, they kept most of the formula that had made Michael’s special. Unfortunately, they financed their purchase during a time of inflation and very high interest rates.

As former Free Press columnist Tim DeMarce related in a poignant column in December 1981, the Bartels’ variable rate on their loan had soared to 20%. (Take that, ye who cringe at anything approaching 5%.)

As DeMarce wrote in that column, the bills kept piling up, and “… a gathering darkness … settled over the place, and drove the dreamers and the laughter out.” The Bartels decided to close the restaurant. In late August 1981, employees and close friends gathered on a Sunday to order off the menu one last time and sample the Red Boot Saloon’s finest – Demarce says one person called it “a hell of a party.” On Dec. 15, 1981, auctioneers came in to sell all the furnishings and equipment. The historic building was converted into a law office (although the Walnut Room would continue as a music venue for a couple decades as Susan’s, then the Sugar Room). nnnn You may know, the "Best Of" issue is coming in July. If you have a thought, we’ll create a new category for this year’s “Steinie” awards: favorite all-time local restaurant. Send brief comments to pete@ktoe.com.

STEINIES Longtime radio guy Pete Steiner is now a free lance writer in Mankato.

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MANKATO MAGAZINE • APRIL 2020 • 49

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50 • APRIL 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

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