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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Portraits in Steele 2015: Pillars of Our Communities

I

Welcome

nside these 104 pages, you will find rich, colorful stories about pillars of our communities — individuals, and in some cases families, whose contributions have made Steele County strong and will keep it strong.

The people featured here stretch across the spectrum of life here in Steele County — from those in the business community to those in public life to those in the arts to those who are known for the community services they provide. Some of the faces and the names will be familiar; others may be new to you. But each person profiled here has contributed something of his or her time, talents or resources to make Steele County a wonderful place to live. We are all made the richer in our lives because of these individuals.

This annual publication is a product of the Owatonna People’s Press staff, covering weeks and months of photography, interviewing, writing, designing and creative advertising efforts.

We hope you enjoy Portraits 2015 for weeks and months to come as we celebrate the pillars of our communities.

— Ron Ensley Publisher and Editor

PAGE 1

PAGE 2

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

Contents

Doug and Connie Ruth: Guided by Faith ....................................................................................................................................4 John Connaker: Planting Roots .........................................................................................................................................................8

2015

Pillars of Our Communities

PORTRAITS Celebrating those whose contributions will keep Steele County strong for years to come

Pat Merritt: A Heart for Medford .....................................................................................................................................................12 Brian Bunkers: Health and Wellness ............................................................................................................................................. 16 Owatonna.com

Bob ‘Fuzz’ Martin: Steering the Red Ball Express..................................................................................................................22 Doug and Tamzen Johnson: A Package Deal ........................................................................................................................26 Becky Noble: Forever a Blossom....................................................................................................................................................34

Portraits 2015 A special project of

Evelina Giobbe: Meant to Be............................................................................................................................................................38

Owatonna.com

Mark Skroch: A Chance to Serve ....................................................................................................................................................46

Publisher Ron Ensley

Mike Jones: Right Side of the Tracks ............................................................................................................................................54 Edith and Jean Zamboni: Sisters, Symbols...............................................................................................................................62 Charlie Herrmann: Life of Laughter ..............................................................................................................................................68 Tara and Chad Gimbel: Teachers at Heart ................................................................................................................................ 76 Mark Walbran: Law in the Family...................................................................................................................................................80 Tom Shea: Many Hats ...........................................................................................................................................................................84 Joe and Ev Stransky: A Thriving Tradition.................................................................................................................................90 Ron Van Nurden: Growing Dedication ......................................................................................................................................96 Dave and Kim Ramsey: Volunteering, Naturally ..................................................................................................................100

Advertising Director Debbie Ensley Managing Editor Jeffrey Jackson Media Speicalists Betty Frost, Steve Arnold, Alisha Davidson, Per Kvalsten, Jay Petsche, Jennifer Sorensen Ad Design Lauren Barber, Nikkie Gilmore, Keeley Krebsbach, Kelly Kubista, Jenine Kubista Page Design Tony Borreson Cover Design Kate Townsend-Noet Contributing Writers/Photographers Matt Hudson, Kim Hyatt, Jeffrey Jackson, Kaleb Roedel, Ashley Stewart Portraits 2015 is distributed to subscribers and readers of the Owatonna People’s Press at no additional charge, and is available at the front counter of the Owatonna People’s Press.

All Rights Reserved ©2015

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 3

Advertiser Index

43rd Street Pub & Grill ................................................. 89 A J Lysne Contracting Corporation ............................ 61 A Touch of Charm......................................................... 32 Abraham Consulting Technologies............................. 83 Ag Power Enterprises, Inc. ........................................... 69 Al-Corn Clean Fuel ....................................................... 41 Amy Swain Hearing Centers ........................................ 91 Anertec & Gandy Co..................................................... 55 Attorneys ........................................................................ 49 B to Z Hardware & Rental ............................................ 32 Berkshire Hathaway Home Solutions Advantage Real Estate .......................................Inside Front Cover Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Southern MN .................. 89 Blooming Prairie Area Chamber of Commerce........ 32 Blooming Prairie Country Club .................................. 33 Blooming Prairie Public Utilities ................................ 33 Blooming Prairie Servicemen’s Club........................... 32 Boys & Girls Club of Blooming Prairie ...................... 33 Brooktree Golf Course .................................................. 81 Budget Blinds ................................................................. 83 Budget Tax Solutions, Inc. ............................................ 47 Cash Wise Foods ........................................................... 63 Cedar Travel ................................................................... 97 Central Valley Cooperative .......................................... 59 Child Care & Preschool ................................................ 87 Churches ................................................................... 52, 53 City Auto Glass .................................................................5 City of Owatonna .......................................................... 89 Clifton Larson Allen...................................................... 75 Clubs & Organizations.................................................. 73 Cole’s Electric ................................................................. 21 Comfort Inn ................................................................... 25 Community Education ................................................. 93 Country Goods .............................................................. 41 Crown Cork & Seal ....................................................... 95 Cumberland’s Northwest Trappers Supply, Inc. ........ 65 Cybex .............................................................................. 95 Darrick’s Preferred Auto ............................................... 81 Dean’s Smoke Shack ...................................................... 47 Dean’s Westside Towing................................................ 79 Deml Heating & Air Conditioning ............................. 41 Dragon’s Lair .................................................................. 65 Eagles Prairie Insurance ............................................... 33 Ecumen Brooks & CountrySide .................................. 61 Ellendale Muni............................................................... 47 Ellis Body Shop .............................................................. 23 Elwood Star Cleaners .................................................... 83 Express Employment Professionals............................. 57 Express Pressure Washers, Inc. .................................... 33 Extreme Powder Coating ............................................. 39 Fareway Food Stores ........................................................5 Farmers & Merchants Bank ......................................... 59

Federated Insurance ...................................... Back Cover Fireplace Connection .......................................................7 Frontier Communications............................................ 33 Garlick’s Water Processing ........................................... 57 Geneva Bar & Grill ........................................................ 47 Geneva Lumber Company ........................................... 47 Gentle Dental ................................................................. 63 George’s of Geneva Supper Club ................................. 47 Holiday Inn & Suites ..................................................... 75 Holman Agency ............................................................. 59 Home Sellers of Minnesota, Inc. ................................. 33 HomeTown Credit Union ............................................ 15 Hubbell House ............................................................... 75 Hy-Vee Food Store ........................................................ 55 In Touch Physical Therapy ........................................... 71 Independent School District 761................................. 93 Insurance .................................................................. 44, 45 J-C Press.......................................................................... 23 Jaguar Communications ............................................. 104 Jensen Heating, A/C, & Plumbing .............................. 47 Jerry’s Owatonna Auto Sales ........................................ 39 Joe’s Repair Service, Inc. ............................................... 33 Johnson Construction & Tree Service, LLC............... 32 Johnson & Doerhoefer .................................................. 51 Jostens ............................................................................. 29 Kernel Restaurant .............................................................5 KIK Graphics & Printing .............................................. 32 Koda Living Community.............................................. 69 Kottke Jewelers..................................................................9 Krejci Ford ...................................................................... 75 KSW Roofing & Heating .............................................. 91 Lerberg’s Foods .............................................................. 47 Little Caesars .................................................................. 35 Ludewig Financial & Mages Insurance....................... 89 Main Street Dental ........................................................ 59 Mark’s Repair ................................................................. 67 Mayo Clinic Health System .......................................... 31 McCabe Motors & Rental ................................................7 Metal Services ....................................Inside Front Cover Modern Metal Products ..................................................7 Morehouse Place............................................................ 91 NAPA Auto Parts ........................................................... 25 Nelson Decorating Center............................................ 51 New York Life................................................................. 33 Nick’s Pizza Palace ......................................................... 21 Noble RV, Inc. .....................................Inside Back Cover Northland Farm Systems, Inc. ..................................... 37 Northrop Oftedahl House ............................................ 29 Owatonna Bus Company ............................................. 39 Owatonna Country Club.............................................. 51 Owatonna Degner Regional Airport .......................... 29 Owatonna Eagles Club ................................................. 57

Owatonna Floor Covering & Mirror .......................... 25 Owatonna Foundation .................................................. 43 Owatonna Granite & Monument ................................ 61 Owatonna Groundsmasters ......................................... 13 Owatonna Heating & Cooling ..................................... 59 Owatonna Hospital ....................................................... 71 Owatonna People’s Press............................................. 101 Owatonna Physical Therapy ........................................ 79 Owatonna Public Utilities ............................................ 55 Owatonna R.V. Services................................................ 77 Owatonna Veterinary Hospital .................................... 65 Paffrath Jewelers ............................................................ 75 Pizza Ranch .................................................................... 57 Prairie Manor Care Center........................................... 33 R&R Insurance Agency ................................................ 33 Randall’s License Bureau .............................................. 61 Realife Cooperative ....................................................... 35 Riverland Community College .................................... 19 RWP Build • Design ...................................................... 47 Salina’s Auto Repair Inc. ............................................... 33 salon-e-clips ................................................................... 35 Sette Sports Center ........................................................ 27 Sisters Salon & Day Spa ................................................ 77 Southern Minn Media .................................................. 89 Sparetime ........................................................................ 77 Specialty Personnel Services ........................................ 81 St. Clair’s for Men .......................................................... 15 Steele County Free Fair ................................................. 91 Steele County Historical Society ................................. 67 Steele County Public Health ........................................ 43 Steele-Waseca Cooperative Electric ............................ 51 Steve’s Meat Market ....................................................... 47 Stewart Sanitation.......................................................... 69 SunOpta .......................................................................... 32 Sweet Towing & Repair ................................................. 63 The Bakery...................................................................... 33 The Kitchen .................................................................... 79 Timber Lodge Steakhouse ............................................ 15 Tone Music ..................................................................... 61 Tonna Taxi Service ........................................................ 97 Travel Headquarters ...................................................... 27 Tri M Graphics............................................................... 71 TT Motorcycles.............................................................. 33 United Way of Steele County ..........................................9 Vandal’s Family Market................................................. 32 V.F.W. Post #3723........................................................... 23 Walser............................................................................ 103 Wells Federal Bank ........................................................ 27 Wencl Accounting & Tax Service ................................ 97 Wenger Corporation ..................................................... 17 Worlein Blooming Prairie Funeral Home .................. 32

PAGE 4

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

Doug and Connie Ruth

Guided by Faith

Doug and Connie Ruth say that their lives have been guided by prayer and their faith. (Submitted photo)

By JEFFREY JACKSON • jjackson@owatonna.com

When Doug and Connie Ruth have been faced with difficult decisions in their lives — and there have been difficult decisions — they have always turned to the same place for guidance.

Their faith.

From their decisions about whether or not to run for political office — he for county attorney, she for state representative — to what they should do when they stepped away from those offices, they have prayed

for guidance and direction and have felt God has answered those prayers.

“One of the advantages of retirement is that you can look back in life and see the points in time when God interceded,” Doug said.

Even the decision to ask Connie to marry him — a decision that came to him out of the blue one night, he said, during the summer before he began law school when he was working the graveyard shift at the Chicago and North Western rail yard — had the

hand of God involved.

“It came over me, ‘Doug, it’s time to get married,’” he said, then smiled.

“Clearly, it wasn’t my idea.”

Igniting the spark

Doug and Connie grew up together in the small community of Canby, Minnesota, in Yellow Medicine County, near the western border of the state.

See RUTH on page 5

“”

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.

Philippians 4:8

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 5

RUTH from page 4

Doug and Connie Ruth cut their wedding cake. Though they had dated since Connie was 15, with a year off when he first went to college, they weren’t married until his first year in school. “It took me a while to catch on,” Doug Ruth said. (Submitted photo)

“It’s not the end of the world, but you can see the edge,” Doug said.

You might say that theirs was a relationship destined to be. Long before Doug and Connie met, their fathers knew and worked with each other.

“My dad was a hog buyer for Hormel and Connie’s dad was a farmer who sold hogs to my dad,” Doug said.

“We had very similar backgrounds,” Connie added.

Still, they didn’t start dating at too young of an age, in part because Connie wasn’t allowed to date until she was 15. Once she was 15 — Doug, a year older — they were ready to date.

But as he remembers the initial courtship, it was she who initiated it.

Well, sort of.

The school was having a Sadie Hawkins dance — a popular event at the time when the women would ask the men to the dance.

But it wasn’t Connie who asked Doug to the dance. Instead, as Doug recalls it, one of Connie’s friends came to him to find out that if Connie asked him to the dance, would he go.

He would, he said. She did. And they did.

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That was the beginning of their dating relationship — one that would continue until Doug graduated from high school and moved on to Macalester College, where he studied economics and political science.

In the meantime, Connie, still in high school, sprained her thumb in a volleyball game and was taken to get it X-rayed. The procedure intrigued her so much that she decided that when she graduated, she would go to school to become a radiologic technologist.

Though they may not have been dating any longer and may have seemed to have gone their separate ways, out of sight did not necessarily mean out of mind.

That summer, as Connie remembers it, Doug and his brother were managing a service station in Canby and she kept driving around hoping he would notice her.

“It was taking so long, I got a heat stroke,” she said.

When back at college the next year — he still at Macalester, she at Augsburg — they ran into each other at an orchestra concert.

She recalls that he was with another girl. He, gallantly, can’t seem to remember the other girl’s name — or at least he doesn’t mention it.

What he really remembers about that night was not the other girl or even the music itself. What he remembers is Connie.

“She had a red dress on, and she was a knockout,” he said, a smile across his face.

“That lit a little fire.”

And she wasn’t immune to the reignited spark either, though, especially with the other girl still there, she played it more coy.

“My heart was pounding,” she said, “but I wasn’t going to admit it.”

Doug and the other girl soon broke up, and he was back together with Connie. They married his first year of law school.

“It took me a while to catch on,” he said.

‘A sense of where I should be’

Doug was still fairly new to Steele County and, in fact, new to the practice of law when he ran for and won the position of county attorney.

He had just graduated from law school and the two were trying to decide where to live, work and rear a family.

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

RUTH from page 5 “We decided not the Twin Cities, but not far away,” Doug said. “Owatonna was perfect for that.”

And the community wasn’t completely unfamiliar to them. Doug’s mother’s sister and her husband — his aunt and uncle, Mary Ann and Dale Peterson — lived here.

Doug took a job in the law offices of John Smith and remained there for two years when the county attorney resigned.

At the time, the county attorney’s job was just part-time, which meant that, even if he won, he would have to balance the duties of county attorney with that of a private practice.

His ties to the community were still young and not so strong that they couldn’t easily be broken, especially when other positions were calling. At the same time he was considering running for county attorney in Steele County, he had a job offer from a firm in Willmar, Minnesota.

“I prayed about it,” Doug said. “Then, on the last day to file, I woke up with a sense of where I should be.”

That place was Owatonna and Steele County.

He won the position and remained county attorney until he retired at the end of December 2009, nearly 40 years after he was first elected.

Perhaps he was just looking for suggestions for who might run. And did she have any ideas?

Surely, he couldn’t be asking her to toss her hat into the ring. She had no political experience and really no political aspirations.

“I wasn’t even active in the Republican Party,” she said.

“And I don’t have the time.”

But she told him that she’d think about it and pray about.

“Then I kind of ignored him,” she said.

Yet, he didn’t ignore her.

Would she consider running for the state representative spot?

She talked to her kids, all grown by that time, and they said to her that it made perfect sense. After all, look at her background.

She had grown up on a farm and so had some background in Connie and Doug Ruth, far right, pose with their children and their spouses and the grandkids. (Submitted photo) agriculture. were the broadcast of church services on the ‘Called to do it’ She had studied to be a radiologic techlocal cable TV. Though officially retired, Doug Ruth renologist and had worked at Fairview Hospital The career came as a bit of a surprise to mains incredibly active, if not with his photogin the Cities before moving to Owatonna to her. raphy, then with work pushing for the building start and raise a family, so she had some back“I never intended to be in cable TV,” she project for the Owatonna Arts Center. ground in the healthcare field.

Connie, too, keeps going with her work as Then there was her business background. said. “I don’t even watch TV.” Throughout that entire time, she was tak- a recruiter/volunteer coordinator for Healthy Back in the mid-1980s, she started study‘All these things, God gave me’ ing classes and finishing her master’s degree Seniors of Steele County.

Doug’s prayer would not be the last prayer ing computers when she was told that the local in organizational management from ConcorThen there’s their mission work — work offered by a member of the Ruth household cable television provider needed someone to dia University in St. Paul. that has taken them to Pine Ridge Indian work a couple of mornings a week that had some seeking electoral guidance.

So, yes, she had a background in business Reservation, to Belize on a medical mission In April 2000, Connie received a phone knowledge of computers. Her kids were getting as well. with their entire family and, most recently, call from Steve Sviggum, then Speaker of the older, so she decided to take the position.

“All these things, God gave me,” she said. to Ethiopia.

Within a year, she had been made office House in the Minnesota Legislature.

Still, she knew that if she ran for the Leg“You come back from Ethiopia, and you’re manager.

A year later, the person who had “He said, ‘Two people have given me islature, it would mean a large commitment a different person,” Connie said. been general manager decided he wanted to your name. We need someone to run for the of her time and energy. If she won, it would She recalled the extreme poverty that they House,’” Connie recalled, though at the time go back to Arkansas, leaving that position mean even more. Though her family encour- saw there on their 2011 mission and how that open.

It was offered to Connie. she wasn’t certain what he was asking. contrasts with the vast wealth of the U.S. B y t h e t i m e s h e aged her to consider it, she wasn’t sure.

“I talked to a friend at church,” she said, “On the other side, there’s the joy you exstepped down from the perience,” Doug said, “the joy they have with “and I finally said that I would tell God if position in 1999 when what they have.” there’s no obstacle that comes up in three the company was sold, Then he recalls going with a group to a she was the general days, I’ll do it.”

No obstacle came up. She ran. She won, remote church in the Ethiopian wilderness. manager of three offices — one in Buffalo and defeating Owatonna mayor Pete Connor, who, They could see nothing until they came across one in Glencoe, as well she said, had been campaigning for a year. She a man standing by the side of the road, directas the one in Owatonna went on to win in 2002, 2004 and 2006, before ing them down a path.

“There, in the distance, we could hear mu— directing a staff of 47 stepping down in 2008. sic, drums and singing,” Doug said, choking She still remembers election night 2000, employees and servicback the tears as he recalled the scene. “The with the gathering of the Republican faithful ing 24 communities. choir was dressed in robes, and they came Locally, it was un- at Jerry’s Supper Club, including the volundown to meet us, singing and clapping.” teers who had worked on her campaign. der her leadership at “It was an amazing thing,” she said. “I the cable company that Doug and Connie Ruth pose with a girl during the couple’s mission the “Owatonna Today didn’t know whether I would win or not. But trip to Ethiopia in 2011. (Submitted photo) Show” was launched, as we won, and all these people were there.”

See RUTH on page 7

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 7

RUTH from page 6 Of course, those who know the Ruths know that their mission work beyond the borders is merely an extension of what they have done for the community.

Doug has served on the board of directors, often in leadership positions, for the Owatonna Hospital, the Red Cross, the Owatonna Hospice House, the Owatonna Area Chamber of Commerce and Tourism, the Owatonna Jaycees, the Owatonna Arts Center, and the Minnesota County Attorneys Association; the Owatonna Hospital Foundation; the Owatonna Airport Commission; the Owatonna Sesquicentennial Commission; and in leadership positions for Trinity Lutheran Church. He has been honored with the Owatonna Arts in the Park Artist of the Year award, the Jaycees Distinguished Service Award, the Minnesota County Attorneys Association Distinguished Service Award, and the United Way of Steele County’s Community Leadership/Live United Award.

Connie has served on the board of directors for the Owatonna Rotary Club, Young Life of Owatonna, Steele County United Way, Owa-

Doug Ruth talks with children in an Ethiopian village during a 2011 mission trip. (Submitted photo)

tonna College and University Center, Minnesota Cable Communications, and Top Team [Together Owatonna Prospers Together with Educa-

tion And Manufacturing]; United Way Leadership Council; the Woman’s Club of Owatonna; Women in Cable and Telecommunications; and

several leadership positions for Trinity Lutheran Church. She was the president of the Southeast Minnesota Women’s Church Conference, the president and state delegate for Jaycee Women, a member of the Civil Air Patrol, a member of the steering committee for the University of Minnesota’s Southern Research and Outreach Center, an Owatonna Gift Shoppe volunteer and the chair of the PTA. But they don’t do it for the accolades.

Connie says they do what they do because they feel “called to do it.” Then she cites a passage from the New Testament, specifically Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.”

Doug nods and remembers the example of his parents and Connie’s and how the two of them were brought up that way.

“We believe it’s the right thing to do,” he said.

“The community gives you so much. It behooves you to give back.”

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

John Connaker, a recently retired argricultural loan officer from Wells Fargo, poses in his home in Owatonna. (Kaleb Roedel/People’s Press)

By KALEB ROEDEL • kroedel@owatonna.com

John Connaker

Planting Roots

It’s August 2011, and Owatonnan John Connaker is standing in a peanut field in North Carolina.

Specifically, he’s in a field outside of Greenville, a northern-central area of the state set 87 miles west of the Atlantic Ocean.

Connaker, an agricultural loan officer from Wells Fargo, turns to the land’s owner, the farmer, to ask him a question.

Smalltalk.

“What’s the yield on these peanuts going to be?” Connaker asks.

Curiously, the peanut farmer shuns away, dodging the question completely.

“Hey, it’s OK, I don’t need to know that bad,” Connaker says.

So Connaker and the farmer saunter out of the rows of peanuts and work their way around the rest of the farm, chatting and gazing at the other crops stretched across the acreage: cotton, corn, soybeans.

At the end of the day, however, the farmer circles the smalltalk back to his bread and butter: the peanuts.

“John, I’ll tell you what,” the farmer says, “this crop is made.

It’s a great crop. It’s probably the best crop I’ve ever had. But the reason we don’t say anything is because we’re so superstitious until the crop actually comes in.”

Ten days later, Hurricane Irene swept across the East Coast.

Fast forward to present day, Connaker still can’t believe the unfortunate irony that befell the peanut farmer.

“I felt horrible about this,” Connaker says with a slight chuckle that vibrates his vowels. “He (the farmer) was insured and all that stuff, but bad luck or superstition, or whatever, it took that crop.”

See CONNAKER on page 9

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 9

CONNAKER from page 8 As a former agricultural loan officer, Connaker, who retired just over a year ago, has seen a lot of the country, but as he so aptly puts it, “not the country most people would see.”

Hence, a peanut field in North Carolina.

But that comes later. First, Connaker had to make the tough decision to leave the one part of the country he knew best and felt the most solace: his dairy farm back home in Pine City, Minnesota.

Growing up in ‘marsh country’

John and his wife Sue on Crane Lake. The Connakers spend a good amount of the summer at their cabin. (Submitted photo)

Located 70 miles north of the Twin Cities, Pine City — a small community nestled amongst woodlands and hugging the banks of Snake River and Cross Lake — is a place Connaker calls “marsh country.”

“The fields are smaller and you’ll have a lot of wet areas,” he explained. “People in that area tend to fence off that type of ground so they can pasture cattle.”

Like many who grow up on a dairy farm, Connaker, one of five kids, spent a majority of his childhood milking cows, driving tractors, bailing hay. A farmer in training.

But, after he graduated from Pine City High School, Connaker wasn’t quite sure what career

path to sink his boots into. That was until a college friend at the University of Minnesota unintentionally planted the seed.

“I was at the University (of Minnesota) taking business classes and trying to find my way as to what I wanted to do,” Connaker said. “A friend of mine said, ‘I’m going to go to the ag[ricultural] school.’ And I said, gosh, that makes sense. That’s something that I do know, that I do understand.

So I went over there and checked it out.”

Immediately, Connaker realized he made the right decision. He alternated from U of M’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resources in St. Paul and the Carlson School of Management in Minneapolis.

“Once I got to the Ag[ricultural] school I was like, OK, here we’re opening some doors,” he said.

Following his graduation in 1979, Connaker, earning a combination agricultural/business administration degree, went back home to Pine City to work the farm with his father, Jim. “He was a good teacher and we really enjoyed working together,” Connaker said.

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

CONNAKER from page 9 But after two years, Connaker started looking over the fence in more ways than one.

“I kind of wanted to move into the business area a little bit,” he said.

With that, Connaker “talked long and hard” with his parents and made the difficult decision to leave the farm. Helping matters was the fact that Connaker’s brother, Pat, who was in-between jobs, was itching to come back and till the land.

“It seemed like the natural move to move out and go into banking and let him move in,” Connaker said. “It was an OK-sized farm but certainly not big enough for two families.”

A girl named Sue

During his two post-grad years farming back in Pine City, Connaker, through friends, met the woman he would marry. A woman from Onamia who recently moved to Pine City to teach at the elementary school. Her name was Sue. There’s a funny wrinkle to how their courtship began. Originally, Connaker’s best friend had his eye on Sue. So Connaker agreed to attend a teacher’s party with his pal, who wanted to meet the new teacher in town. Sue wasn’t there, however.

But, “I met some other people at the party who

were convinced that I needed to meet Sue,” Connaker said.

A year and a half after they met, they married in June of 1981. By October of the same year Connaker — making his initial pivot into banking — accepted a job in Moorhead as an agricultural loan officer for Northwestern National Bancorp, the bank which is now Wells Fargo.

Sue stayed back in Pine City to finish out her teaching contract, but not for very long due to tragic circumstances. Her father was killed in a snowmobile accident. Subsequently, the school system released her from her contract so she could join her husband in Moorhead.

Migrating south

After two years at Northwestern National Bancorp in Moorhead, Connaker was promoted. But, it was a promotion that would transfer him to the Owatonna branch. Sue got a job as a teacher at Willow Creek Elementary. The plan was to stay for a few years, and then hopefully slingshot back north, back near their roots, where they imagined settling down and raising a family.

“Sue and I really enjoy the north — the lakes, the rivers and woods,” Connaker said. “We always

John Connaker on a mountainside in South Africa during a vacation. (Submitted photo)

wanted to at least have an attachment to the north.

I said, Sue, let’s go there [to Owatonna] for a year or two.”

Thirty years later, their flag remains staked in Owatonna.

‘It’s all about the people’

Connaker’s blueprint for a brief stay in Owatonna was scrapped pretty quickly.

Quite simply, he and Sue embraced Owatonna as a place to settle down because of how well they were embraced by Owatonna.

“It’s all about the people — it really is,” Connaker said. “What we really liked about Owatonna was the people, the community. We never thought much about leaving.”

Plus, six months after they finished unpacking their moving boxes, they had their first son, Paul.

“Sue was at the hospital at the same time as two of our very close friends with their children,” Connaker said. “And so, boom, there it goes … you get more connections.”

See CONNAKER on page 11

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 11

John Connaker and his family in California celebrating his son Paul’s engagement. Pictured, left to right, are: John, Sue, Michael, Paul, Emily (Paul’s fiancé) and Adam. (Submitted photo)

CONNAKER from page 10

The city itself — from the array of parks to the vibrant downtown — also reeled them in.

In fact, Connaker sees the office building he inhabited when he began working in Owatonna — the historic, nationally registered, Wells Fargo building downtown — as a perfect analogy for what makes the city a special place to live.

“That’s Prairie School architecture, which is basically a blend of rural and city,” Connaker said of the building. “And really, if you take a look at Owatonna, that’s exactly what it is. We’re surrounded by very good farmland and have some really good farming opportunities around here.

And then we have culture of entrepreneurship within the town. It’s kind of a neat combination.”

At Wells Fargo, Connaker went from being an agricultural loan officer to managing the agricultural and business department to taking a team to the Wells Fargo on South Oak where they did

underwriting and training for bankers across the country. In short, Connaker was an invaluable asset.

Getting the lay of the land

On top of spending countless office hours, Connaker got to work remotely in unique pockets of the United States. Farming operations in Amarillo, Texas. A sprawling 35,000-acre ranch in Montana. A grape yard in Central Valley, California, where Connaker, who isn’t fond of grapes, consumed the first grapes he actually enjoyed.

“The customer was a table grape grower,” Connaker said. “I finally ‘fessed up and said, ‘Hey, you know, I don’t really like grapes. What’s the difference between these grapes here and the grapes that I get back in Minnesota that I don’t like? I like your grapes.’ And he said, ‘Three weeks.’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘From the time I pick these grapes to the time they hit the shelf in Minnesota,

it’s probably three weeks.’ I’m eating them so fresh there. I thought that was amazing.”

Giving back to the community

Along with working and traveling and raising a family — he and Sue had two more sons, Adam and Michael — Connaker found plenty of time to sink his teeth into many organizations in Owatonna.

Connaker, whose sons played hockey, spent six years as the Blue Line Club president and later took on a treasurer role for a few years, and was also on the Owatonna Youth Hockey Association board for five years. He was on the Steele County Parks & Recreation committee for six years. He taught firearm safety courses for 18 years. For four years he was the chairman of the Ducks Unlimited local chapter.

“You know, you kind of move through life like a ball on a pool table,” Connaker said. “One

ball hits you and you end up over here. Some of those things are where you give back some to the community, and you also can spend some time doing things of interest to you.”

Now that he’s retired, Connaker can spend plenty of time knee-deep in his interests — whether he’s mule deer hunting with his sons in Mile City Montana, spending quiet night playing cards with Sue, or tending to one of his gardens. He said not long ago he had as many as four gardens — produce, not flowers.

For someone rooted in agriculture, it’s only natural.

“I love to plant things and grow things,” Connaker said. “I love going out in the spring and just driving around and talking to farmers that are in the process of planting. I think spring is the most exciting part because it’s all new. It’s all about to happen.”

PAGE 12

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

A Heart for Medford Pat Merritt

Pat Merritt, a Medford native, served as the city’s mayor for 22 years from 1977 to 1996. (Ashley Stewart/People’s Press)

By ASHLEY STEWART • astewart@owatonna.com

If you’re having a hard time finding Pat Merritt and it’s the fourth Monday of the month, you needn’t worry.

Although he enjoys traveling, chances are he didn’t go far.

In fact, Merritt is likely sitting in the back row of City Hall for the monthly Medford City Council meeting — something he’s been attending for more than 50 years.

“I’m interested in the city,” he said.

And Merritt, a former longtime mayor, is no stranger to Medford.

Born in Elysian, Minnesota, Merritt moved to the Medford area when he was 4 years old and he’s called it home ever since.

Upon graduating from Medford High School in 1955, he tried landing a job in Owatonna or Faribault but was unable to because of the draft.

“No company would hire you,” Merritt said. “They wouldn’t hire you because they were afraid they would hire

you, teach you for about a year or year and a half, and then you’d get drafted, so they said, ‘You go get your service done first, then come back and we’ll hire you.”

So, Merritt did just that. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves out of Faribault for an eight-year obligation and started boot camp at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri in January 1956 for six months of active duty.

“From there, I went to Fort Eustis in Virginia for detail training in transportation,” he said.

By the time the U.S. got involved in the Vietnam War, Merritt was married to his high school sweetheart and had one child.

“That kept me out of Vietnam,” he said. “Plus, I had less than a year to go on my enlistment, so I came home and served the rest of my time by going weekly to the reserves outfit in Faribault.”

When he was just an elementary school student, Merritt

met his future wife, Kay Woodfill of Pratt.

But the two didn’t start dating until high school.

“We didn’t really think of it like that at the time I don’t think,” he said. “All I knew was I liked her a lot.”

In June 1958, the couple tied the knot and moved into their home along the Straight River in Medford, where they still live today, and had their three children, Amy, Jay and Jill.

A career to enjoy

When Merritt returned home from active duty with the U.S. Army Reserves, he had more waiting for him than a family.

See MERRITT on page 13

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 13

MERRITT from page 12

To this day, Pat Merritt wears a ring on his right hand that was given to him by Jostens when he hit the 25-year milestone with the company. He worked there for more than 40 years. (Ashley Stewart/People’s Press)

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“When I got back, my father-in-law helped me secure a job at Jostens,” he said.

Merritt began his 40-plus year career in the announcement division running an embossing press.

“Remember graduation announcements? I made them,” he said.

Merritt did that until 1980 when he was transferred to the south town plant where he became a ring repairman.

“If you wanted your ring made smaller, I’d cut a piece out and push it back together and weld it,” he said. “If you wanted it bigger, I put a piece in and ground it down and polished it.”

Merritt handled high school and college students’ class rings as well as professional athletes’ rings from around the country.

That meant he had the opportunity to touch some valuable rings.

Merritt recalls working on former Chicago Bears defensive lineman William “The Refrigerator” Perry’s Super Bowl XX ring.

“He had a 23 ring size,” he said. “Can you imagine the size of his hands?”

Merritt, a big football fan, enjoyed working on that ring and others like it.

“I enjoyed it very much regardless of the sport,” he said.

“Usually it was football rings, but occasionally there were

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Hundreds of rings came across Merritt’s desk, so it should be no surprise he could pick a Jostens ring out in a crowd.

And to make it fun, he’d place a small wager each time he came across one while traveling with his wife and children.

“We’ve been fortunate to do a lot of traveling, and I’ll see a class ring on either a woman’s hand or a man’s hand.

I’ll say to them, ‘I bet you a drink I can tell you where you got that ring from when you graduated?’ And of course, who wouldn’t take that bet?” Merritt said. “I only lost once regardless of where it was in the world.”

After 25 years with the company, Merritt received his own ring — a 10-karat gold ring with a diamond in a black sapphire surrounded by five smaller diamonds representing his years of service.

“It’s quite valuable and very special to me,” he said. “I wear it every day.”

Merritt retired from Jostens in 2000.

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

RIGHT: On June 15, 1958, Pat and Kay Merritt tied the knot.

The two are high school sweethearts. LEFT: Pat Merritt and his wife, Kay, in San Diego, in June 2013. (Submitted photos)

MERRITT from page 13 Upon retiring, he also received a watch from the local 14-16 union thanking him for serving as president from 1980 to 1997.

While at Jostens, Merritt also dabbled in his own embossing business, which marked his beginnings in the Medford Civic Club.

Merritt and a Jostens colleague operated the business, Merritt Embossing, out of his father’s garage on 1st Avenue Northeast in Medford.

“We stayed in the business for three years,” he said. “We made a little money, but not enough to quit our jobs at Jostens, so we sold it to Jostens of Red Wing.”

But the end of the business did not mark the end of Merritt’s involvement in the Civic Club.

And being involved in the club lead to one of Merritt’s favorite memories with the city: the creation of Straight River Days, an annual tradition in Medford.

The tradition began in June 1971 with a canoe derby, a Medford Beauty Pageant, a parade, a street dance and food and beer stands as a way to celebrate the completion of the city’s first sewer plant.

Merritt said it was something to celebrate because residents took care of their own sewage prior to the plant.

“We were afraid it was going to be called Sewage Days,” he said chuckling.

The completion of the sewer plant was one of many things that took place in Medford during Merritt’s tenure as mayor that changed the face of the city.

A heart to serve

As a longtime citizen of Med-

ford, Merritt has seen a lot of changes, and while serving as the city’s mayor for 22 years, he’s been a part of quite a few of them.

“I wanted the city to grow,” he said. “I liked the idea of us being a small community, but we could be 2,000 to 3,000 and still be a small community.”

And it did grow to include a sewer plant, an outlet center and paved roads.

Merritt began attending city council meetings when he was 24

years old, and at 25, he didn’t miss one with Bill Goede.

“My father-in-law was a top Democrat, he was in the DFL party in Steele County, and my dad was president of the farm bureau and he was a staunch Republican,” he said. “I grew up surrounded by politics regardless of whether I married into it or grew up in it.”

In 1963, Merritt took his first run at city council but lost.

However, in 1966 — at 29 years of age — Merritt was elected to the city council, where he served as street commissioner, park commissioner and liquor store commissioner, before becoming mayor in 1972.

But in 1973, he was defeated for mayor, and was later appointed as chairman of the city’s zoning board.

That didn’t stop Merritt from trying.

From 1977 to 1996, he served 20 years as mayor before being defeated by Lois Nelson.

During those years, Straight River Park was created, the Medford Outlet Center was successfully negotiated in 1990, a storm sewer line was installed, the first and only full-time police force in Medford existed, the Medford Park Endowment Fund was established, City Hall was built after switching five times, and McDonald’s arrived.

“Medford became the smallest community in the U.S. to have a McDonald’s, and at the time we weren’t even 1,000 people,” Merritt said.

Pat Merritt, a former Medford Civic Club member, rides on a kiddy tractor during Straight River Days in Medford in the 1990s. (Submitted photo)

See MERRITT on page 15

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 15

MERRITT from page 14

Pat Merritt with his family at a recent wedding in Faribault. (Submitted photo)

Celebrating 41 Years of Serving the Community!

And outlined on three pieces of paper for his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Merritt outlined other major accomplishments including the creation of the city’s first ice rink at the corner of 1st Street Northeast and 1st Avenue Northeast in 1968, the appointment of John Gross as the official Medford historian in 1993 and negotiation of the first annexation agreement with Medford Township.

“It took up a lot of my time,” he said.

After serving as mayor for 22 years, Merritt stayed involved in city politics for 16 years by helping individuals campaign for city council, including Dan Kaiser, who served as Medford’s mayor from 2000 to 2008.

“I spent quite a bit of time with Pat on the council,” Kaiser said. “His enthusiasm and his heart are so into the city.

“He wants the best for the city. It’s just embedded in him. He has a passion for the city that will someday be gone, and there aren’t residents like

him anymore.”

Kaiser said the face of Medford changed while Merritt was on the council.

“I accomplished a lot of things that I wanted to get done,” Merritt said.

He served as the chairman of the city’s zoning committee for 13 years before retiring in 2012 making him the oldest person to serve on a committee.

“I’m too old,” Merritt said. “In my opinion, once you get to be 65, you should get out of politics in Medford, or in any community.”

And although you likely won’t see Merritt on the other side of the city council table, he’ll be there at City Hall listening.

“I just tried my darnedest to make it a great place to live and raise a family,” he said. “Growing up in Medford, I wanted things to be better for my children than it was for me even though I have no complaints about my childhood. I just wanted it to be the best it could be.”

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

Dr. Brian Bunkers in his at-home office. Bunkers said a lot of his success is due to his teams, both at the Mayo Clinic and at home. His work as a doctor and president is time consuming, but he is still active in the community through sports and mentorships. (Kim Hyatt/People’s Press)

Brian Bunkers

Health & Wellness

By KIM HYATT • khyatt@owatonna.com

After working all day at the Mayo Clinic Health System in Owatonna, Dr. Brian Bunkers stops by Owatonna High School to do skin checks at the wrestling match.

Once home, he talks on the phone with Luke, his youngest son, about soccer tryouts. Meanwhile Bunker examines the foyer and living room, picking up remnants of something wicker, evidence that his dogs Harper and Ella had an exciting day.

He sighs, still in his gray suit, Mayo ID badge clipped to his front left pocket, and deposits the scraps in the trash.

“Are you on your way home? You can tell me about it when you get home,” Bunkers says to Luke.

The house is empty and quiet. Now that Luke is the only one

of three kids still at home, and his wife Kari is in Arizona and often away on business, Bunker often reflects on what brought him here.

Just five years ago, the scene was much different. Kari would be home picking up the wicker among the commotion of three kids. Now, it’s a role reversal, as Bunker’s oldest son Nathan said.

“The family dynamic is always changing. We as a family evolved,” Nathan said, “and Mom and Dad, they’ve grown to understand that, too. They want that for us going through college or a career. They want things to be dynamic.”

Bunkers knew from a young age that he wanted to be a hometown doctor, but his wife had similar — practically identi-

cal — aspirations.

He grew up in Pipestone, the second of seven children, under the care of his father and mother, a nurse, as well as their hometown physician, Dr. Keys.

“He was my inspiration. I admired the way he cared for people and people respected him. Dr. Keys was a very important person in our community,” Bunkers said.

And so his dream of becoming a hometown doctor, well, simply put, he said, “It worked out.”

See BUNKERS on page 17

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY Bunker and Mari on the sidelines of the state football tournament.

Bunker’s daughter had a mentorship working as an athletic trainer. so she said Friday night football games “was a cool thing we had that was just ours.”

(Submitted photo)

PAGE 17

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BUNKERS from page 16 “From the start you can see how invested he was with his patients and the community and the formation of the group and how people work together and move forward,” said David Berg, chief administrative officer of Mayo Clinic Health System in Owatonna. “He stays grounded in the care of his patients. At the same time he looks ahead to what is happening in health care and embraces change and helps patients embrace it as well.”

Bunkers: Busy, beholden and bright

After graduating from high school in Pipestone, Bunkers went to college at St. John’s.

“I met this lovely young lady there who became my wife,” he said. “By the time we were seniors, we decided we wanted to plan a life together.”

He wanted to go on to medi-

cal school, so did Kari, “but she never really expressed it.” Still, they both applied and were accepted into med school at the University of Minnesota and got married the next year.

In 1988, they grabbed their degrees, wedding bands and all and took off for Appleton, Wisconsin, to do their medical training.

“They both have proved what they set out to do and I think it’s a testament of what a good family doctor is and the type of physician you want representing your health care system,” Nathan said.

Marianna said it’s cool that her parents went to college together and how they’ve been studying together ever since.

Not too long ago they had to take a re-certification test where she saw how well her parents “feed off what each other is good at.”

“My mom has questions and my dad was helping her study but my dad is the worst at computers and my mom is really good at that. So that’s my mom’s job,” she said.

Kari’s position with Mayo Clinic Health System is in the office of population health management and care management service line, which involves a lot of work with computers.

The young doctor duo started looking for practice opportunities after living in Wisconsin for several years. Democratically, they mapped out interests to bring them closer to home. Kari grew up near the Twin Cities and Bunkers just three hours west.

“I said to her, ‘I had to be able to stand on the rooftop of my hospital and see a corn field,’ and she said she had to be within an hour of a major shopping center,” Bunkers said.

See BUNKERS on page 18

It was 1946, a time when music programs were booming in schools all across America. A time when a good parade tune was hummed for days after the Fourth of July. Regional organizations and music associations were forming everywhere. It was a time when school music programs in major cities and small towns all across our nation were established. In Owatonna, Harry Wenger was “The Music Man.” As music director, he built the Owatonna High School band, choir and orchestra programs into national award winners. His passion was music education and when he couldn’t find the right equipment to support his students and programs, he built his own.

Harry was driven to make music education more enjoyable for students, and performances more thrilling for audiences and in Harry’s memory, the Harry Wenger Marching Band Festival will take place on Saturday, June 20, 2015. Join us! Parade starts at 11:00am.

For more information on the festival visit: www.owatonnabandfestival.com 800.4WENGER (800.493.6437) www.wengercorp.com

PAGE 18

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

BUNKERS from page 17

Brian and Kari graduated together from the University of Minnesota’s medical school in 1988. The two went on to do their medical training in Wisconsin before moving to Owatonna in 1991 and they’ve been here ever since. (Submitted photo)

It almost sounds too good to be true. Even well as Marianna’s soccer team.

Bunkers admits, “Isn’t that a good story?”

He also believes in practicing what he preach“We’ve been here since 1991 and have no in- es in term of fitness. He’s run in 29 marathons tentions of leaving,” he said.

— participating 25 consecutive years at the Twin When Berg first moved to Owatonna in 1994, Cities marathon — and is an advocate of and he said Bunkers was one of the first folks he met. involved with cross-country running.

He said he was a relatively new physician at the “That’s how he’s prepared for his work life. It’s time, but he remembers a marathon not a sprint,” Bunkers “being so invested Berg said.

HEALTH TIPS FROM in making sure his practice Occasionally though, the doctor needs a Diet and the patients he was seeTHE HOMETOWN ing had the best of care.”

Coke, but everything’s good DOCTOR The Bunkers both startin moderation, right?

1) The mind and body are ed their careers at Mayo “You can tell with their interrelated. Take time each Clinic Health System in crazy hectic lives they still week to connect with family, Owatonna and did not really make an effort to be friends, your spirituality and hesitate in starting a famthere for us whenever we those who are important ily either. needed it,” Marianna said. in your life. Your health will They traveled to ColomFor two years in high benefit! school, Marianna was a bia in 1993 to adopt their 2) Move your body! Most first child, Nathan. The student athletic-trainer. Aleveryone can do some sort young family returned to though she’s not pursuing of physical activity. Regular adopt their daughter Marithe medical field like her faexercise of any sort will pay anna and one last time to ther, they really bonded on adopt Luke. the sidelines during those huge dividends in your long Both Nate and Mariantwo years of training, the term health. na are now in college. She’s highlight being at the state 3) When your Grandmother at the University of Misfootball semi-finals. told you that “all good things souri and he’s at the Uni“That was our thing. come best in moderation” versity of Kansas. Luke has Friday night football games she was right. This applies to one more year left at OHS. we were always together to portion size, sweets, alcohol, “I don’t think they have that time on the sidework etc… missed a single game. It lines, ” she said. “That was a 4) I can’t think of anything cool thing we had that was was always if one can’t go good that comes from the other will,” Luke, the just ours. ” smoking, can you? soccer stud dubbed captain Berg said that’s where 5) A positive attitude is the of the OHS soccer team for you can see his patients for best contagious disease ever his practice carry over into his senior year. discovered, try it!

He said when he first his passion for the comstarted playing on the junior varsity team, he “honestly wanted to quit,” but his parents kept encouraging him. By the end of the year, he said he was playing “significant minutes.”

“My mom is a role model for me in especially the way she perseveres. She left work for me and went back and still made time for us,” Luke said.

Bunkers was involved in all his kids’ athletic programs. First starting when Nathan joined basketball and he helped with coaching the team as

munity. His commitment to OHS athletics is apparent even back when Berg first moved her and attended a Friday night football game.

“He was on the sideline to make sure players were cared for,” Berg said.

Bunkers has been the team doctor the last 25 years, hence the skin checks and sideline status.

He was also recently appointed to be a member of the Community Task Force on Facilities, a group of community stakeholders and parents analyzing buildings in the Owatonna school district.

See BUNKERS on page 20

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

BUNKERS from page 18 “Crazy hectic lives” is a whole different game when looking at the demands and responsibilities at the clinic.

There was a period of time when both Bunkers were working. They shared an on-call beeper and because they were both delivering babies, he said there was several instances the beeper, and babies, interrupted a few family functions.

“She chose to work, yes, but when our kids were young and growing up, she sacrificed her own career for our family and allowed me to excel in my career,” Bunkers said. “It took me a long time to figure outwhat a great gift that is.”

Excel is a humble way to describe Bunkers’ extensive resume.

“Mayo has come to see him as a leader as well.

They look to Dr. Bunkers to help with difficult physician leadership issues. He’s just rock solid,” Berg said. “He’s a leader not only in the care of his patients and the scores his practice receives, but leads the group to be one of the most outstanding providers in southern Minnesota.”

Berg said when first starting out, the clinic was basically just general. Today there are 19 specialty care providers and 65 physicians.

“He provides the service a community like Owatonna can be proud of,” Berg said.

He was named Minnesota Family Physicians of the Year in 2006. He’s delivered 700 babies —“700 times and every time was just amazing witnessing the miracle of life,” he said — and sees 4,000 patients each year.

In his 25 years of working at the clinic, he’s experienced moments of sheer joy with patients and other times that, well, were the exact opposite.

For about 10 years in the beginning of his career, he was the deputy coroner and had to investigate all the Sudden Infant Deaths (SIDS) and “at times,” he said “there’s no words to comfort.”

On the flip side, his happiest times as a doctor were delivering tiny miracles, despite interfering beeper calls.

In addition to his practice, he’s had some leadership roles, primarily being the CEO of the Mayo Clinic in Owatonna for the past nine years, working closely with his administrative partner David Berg.

“A lot of what we’ve achieved in terms of advancing our clinic have been with our combined efforts,” Bunker said.

See BUNKERS on page 21

The Bunkers family comprised of Kari, Brian, Nathan, Marianna and Luke as well as Lucy, Harper and Ella. (Submitted photo)

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 21

BUNKERS from page 20 He said they always had great nurses and other physician partners. There are 450 people at the clinic, and each person contributes to the success of the clinic, Bunker said.

“When people recognize you or acknowledge the good things you do, you tend to think, ‘Oh, I did something great.’” he said. “But nothing happens without a team or someone else helping you. You get to a point in life where you really reflect on how much you can accomplish together.”

His hair has gone from a suave black to silver, still Bunkers continues his role as the hometown doctor. He even is mentoring younger physicians interested in pursing a path of medicine and said “it’s fun to see them mature.”

“He’s been able to mentor other leaders that can help bring health care further forward and so he’s not alone in developing successors,” Berg said.

The path he set on to be the next Dr. Keys came true. When Bunkers was young, he would observe Keys in an informal mentorship, which fueled his

Dr. Brian Bunkers running in the 2009 Boston Marathon.

(Submitted photo)

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physician passion early on, and the fire still burns.

“I had, and still have a very robust practice,” he said. “The fact is, people are very generous to me and grateful but you’ve really got to stay humble. You just helped that one person, great. But what you did to the last person doesn’t matter to the next person. I have to focus on the patient in front of me.”

Bunkers said he owes his success to Kari for putting her career on the back burner.

“Growing up you could tell my mom had sacrificed a lot of her career just by raising us,” Marianna said. “I don’t think my dad would be where he is if she hadn’t done those things.”

Nathan said it was telling of the times that his dad was working and mom was at home, but now there are a lot more women in the workplace, so their role reversal is, again, telling of the times now.

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minority in the sense that she’s a woman in a field dominated by men. I really respect her for that. I think it started to dawn on Mom the fact that, ‘I’m a doctor too. I didn’t go to medical school to be Dr. Brian Bunkers’ wife. I think it really kind of bugged her, but it also gave her lots of motivation to go do her own thing.”

Kari is still a family medicine doctor but primarily works in the administrative side of Mayo Clinic, and is doing very well Bunkers said.

“Now I can give back to her what she did for me. She can now have this latter part of her career to focus on her achievements,” Bunkers said.

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PAGE 22

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

Bob ‘Fuzz’ Martin

Steering the Red Ball Express

By JEFFREY JACKSON • jjackson@owatonna.com

It started with a phone call back in 1963.

Glen Wilson, then commander of the local American Legion chapter, had called Fuzz Martin, a member of the legion, to tell Martin that he was being appointed the new “pheasant chairman.”

“I thought it would be a one-year job,” Martin said.

Flash forward 52 years and Martin, now 84 years old and no longer the official chair of the local pheasant drive, is still actively involved and remains the heart and soul not only of Owatonna’s participation in the Hospitalized Veterans Pheasant Dinner program, but of the entire program statewide.

In fact, ever since Martin took over the reins as pheasant chairman here, Owatonna has been the number 1 donating community in the entire state. And that’s 52 years running.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

“My father was killed when I was 10 days old,” said Martin.

It was an industrial accident. His father was using an emery wheel to sharpen some tools when one of blades broke in half and plunged into his stomach. He died soon after.

His mother was just 28 years old, his older brother was 10, and the infant was not even two weeks of age.

That’s when his Uncle Milton stepped in to help out and help rear the boys. He became like a father to young Robert, so much so that they even shared a nickname.

Everyone called his uncle “Fuzzy” or “Fuzz” “So I was ‘Fuzz number 2’ and he was ‘Fuzz number 1,’” Martin said.

And why was his uncle called “Fuzz” or “Fuzzy”?

“Beats the heck out of me,” he said.

Birth of a nickname

Three months after he graduated from Owatonna High School, Fuzz Martin — that’s Fuzz number 2 — enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. He still remembers the date — Sept. 3, 1948. He would stay in for four years.

But he did not travel far, spending all of his time state-side, mostly in Washington, D.C., including three months at the Pentagon. He was on the administrative staff of the Field Maintenance Office, and even when the Korean War broke out, his commanders kept him here.

The fact that he never went to Korea and never actually saw combat played a big role in Martin’s dedication to the pheasant program.

He was born Robert Emil Martin. Emil was his father’s name. The Robert part he’s never much cared for. If he’s going to be called any of his given names or their derivatives, he prefers Bob. It doesn’t much matter. Most people who know him — and there are a lot of people who know him — call him “Fuzz.”

Even most of the folks at Federated Insurance Companies, where Martin worked for 37-plus years before he retired in 1994, called him “Fuzz.”

Why “Fuzz?”

To understand that, you have to go back to March 17, 1930 — St. Patrick’s Day, 10 days after young Robert was born.

Bob “Fuzz” Martin poses with an award “for outstanding service in keeping Owatonna No. 1 in the state in pheasant donations to the hospitalized veterans pheasant dinners.” (Jeffrey Jackson/People’s Press)

To the service and back home

See MARTIN on page 23

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

MARTIN from page 22

s

r e d n

s s

d Fuzz Martin points at the camera at an American Legion gathering. (Submitted photo) e o . r

s

“I didn’t go overseas in the Korean War,” he said. “This is my way to say thank you to those who did.”

When his four-year stint in the Air Force was up, Martin returned to Minnesota, enrolling on the G.I. bill in a business management course of study at the Minnesota School of Business in Minneapolis.

On weekends and holidays, to earn a little extra money, Martin came back to Owatonna and worked for St. Clair’s for Men — a place where he had worked, doing odd jobs and sweeping staircases, during his senior year in high school.

Eventually, with his business management certificate in hand, he joined Federated, starting out as an underwriter, eventually becoming a supervisor of the personal lines marketing services.

But in addition to giving him a career, Federated was also responsible — at least in part — for something else in his life. His wife, Barb.

“We met at Federated,” he said.

She was a graduate of what was then the

Ellendale-Geneva High School. They knew some of each other’s relatives, but really didn’t know each other.

In 1959, Martin was the post commander at the American Legion post in Owatonna — a post he had joined after leaving the service.

That year he took Barb to the Christmas party at the Legion post.

Before the next Christmas — Oct. 15, 1960, to be exact — they were married.

Here comes the Red Ball Express

When the Hospitalized Veterans Pheasant Dinner program began, Fuzz Martin was still a boy. Yet, he tells the story of the program’s beginning as if it were a chapter from his own life. And in some way very special and important, it has become part of his life.

“There were three vets in the Minnesota Veterans Home,” Martin recalled the story.

“They used to be hunters.”

See MARTIN on page 24

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PAGE 24

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

MARTIN from page 23 And those men were talking one day leaving for work at Federated and give me daily updates. The pheasant drive was the about the fact that one thing they, as hunttalk of the town during those weeks of the ers, loved was missing from the menu of the veterans home — pheasant. pheasant hunting season.”

So the men contacted Ed Shave, the outThe numbers of pheasants in the fields in Steele County were high in door writer for what was then just called the Minneapolis Tribune. The men encourthose years, and the Steele County huntaged Shave to write an article for the Triers were generous in donating what they bune, asking the public to give pheasants so had bagged.

“I can remember going down to Ringthat hospitalized men like they could enjoy a wild game dinner. hofer’s Owatonna Meats where the main And Shave did just that. What’s more, collection point was and seeing huge piles the public came through on his request, of birds waiting to be picked up,” Hale said. with hunters from throughout the state do“It was an amazing sight.” nating pheasants to various groups — the Changes occurred in the program over American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign the years, but that didn’t stop the Red Ball Wars, the Izaak Walton League, and such Express from rolling.

— and those groups, in turn, getting the In 1980, the Minneapolis Tribune pheasants to where they needed to go. dropped the Hospitalized Veterans PheasSo in December 1941, about the same ant Dinner program. But the program kept time as the United States’ entry into World going, in large part because Martin along War II, the first wild game dinner was with Dick Pfaffinger of Blue Earth picked served to hospitalized veterans in Minit up and started to run the statewide program. nesota.

ABOVE: In 1976, Steele County hunters donated a record 794 pheasants — a record that stands to this The tradition has continued every year day. Fuzz Martin, far right, stands with fellow Owatonnans Wayne Broker and Curly Frodl, along with volOne year later, in 1981, the National since, with Minnesota now laying claim to unteers from neighbor communities. (Submitted photo) BELOW: The year was 1966 when 366 pheasants Tea warehouse, where the birds were having the largest wild game dinner held were donated to veterans by Steele County hunters. Pictured, from left, are Fuzz Martin, DNR officer Don cleaned and processed, was sold.

Slinger and Sam Olson. The largest number of birds donated was 794 in 1976. (Submitted photo) each year.

“That spelled the end of the hunted bird That claim can be attributed in large program,” as Hale recalled. degree to Martin and to that phone call Instead, the program became a fundin 1963. raising, with proceeds from the fundraising efforts going to purchasing the pheasants from game farms. But that didn’t Martin put his organizational skills to work almost immediately after accepting the job, and that’s when he noticed stop — or even slow down — the Express. Martin and the something. others who helped in the program just started raising money “The Legion, VFW, Izaak Walton League and the Gun at different events throughout the county, including an annual auction.

Club were all working independently,” he said. “No one was working together on the program. Everyone was doing it “The people of Owatonna support it,” Martin said. “All on their own.” the merchandise is donated by merchants of Owatonna.”

He knew that the effort would be much more successful Slowing down, not stopping if they all got together and established a unified program with one central location for collecting the birds. That’s when Martin said that he told the state commander of the he, Sam Olson and Curley Frodl got together and started a American Legion that he needed to slow down. unified effort in Owatonna.

But that was understandable. He’s had heart arrhythmia They called it the “Red Ball Express.” and once his heart stopped, causing him to collapse and “That’s when it took off,” Martin said. requiring the need of a defibrillator to get it going again.

From that day forward, every year that they collected Now he has a pacemaker. pheasants from hunters to be used in the dinner, Owatonna “I had my third one put in last fall,” he said. “Every seven and Steele County were always the biggest contributors. That years they replace them.” includes 1976, when hunters here donated 794 pheasants.

So four years — yes, just four years ago — he stopped “That record still stands today,” Martin said. participating in the local American Legion color guard. looking for help from Hale, who worked at KRFO radio at the time.

For the record, Martin himself is a pheasant hunter.

“We used to march in parades for two miles and it never fazed “Fuzz asked for my help in promoting the program on the “Not a very good one,” he admitted, “but, yeah, I am.” me, ” he said. radio,” Hale said. “We made plans for regular broadcasts during Todd Hale, in one of his columns for the People’s Press, recol- my radio show which featured updates on the numbers of Steele And he doesn’t make it to as many of the pheasant dinners lected when the Red Ball Express first started rolling and Martin was County birds turned in. Fuzz would call me from his home before around the state any more. He used to go to several.

See MARTIN on page 25

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 25

MARTIN from page 24 One year, he attended nine of the 14 pheasant dinners across the region. The closest was in Minneapolis. He also traveled to St. Cloud, Silver Bay and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, among other places.

“They made a meat loaf of pheasants at Silver Bay,” he said. “It was really good.”

All-in-all, he estimated that he traveled more than 3,000 miles that year, just to eat pheasant with the hospitalized veterans.

“But you don’t mind it,” he said.

Though he officially stepped down from the chair of the state Legion’s pheasant program at the 2013, he continues as an advisor.

“I haven’t had a break in years,” he said. “But I’m glad I did it. What we have done has been very beneficial to hospitalized veterans.”

That was something he has learned since answering that phone back in 1963.

“I’m glad I got involved in the pheasant program,” he said. “After I got to doing it, I came to realize how important it was.”

Fuzz Martin salutes as the leader of the American Legion color guard during Veterans Day ceremonies at Willow Creek Intermediate School in Owatonna. (Press file photo)

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

Doug and Tamzen Johnson have been married for 33 years, and for the first time, the couple is working under the same roof at Johnson & Doerhoefer CPA in Blooming Prairie. (Ashley Stewart/People’s Press)

Doug and Tamzen Johnson

A Package Deal

By ASHLEY STEWART • astewart@owatonna.com

BLOOMING PRAIRIE — If you were to ask Doug and Tamzen Johnson to plan a trip, they’d likely reach the same destination.

However, they’d get there two different ways.

“I’m there first,” Doug said.

And Tamzen agreed.

“You don’t take a lot of time assessing things or the ooey gooey,” she added. “You make decisions quickly, and that’s likely because in the service your life depended on it.”

That was something the Johnsons learned during a Minnesota Executive Program at the Carlson School of Management in Minneapolis as part of Doug’s time at Truth Hardware.

“He did a deal where he divided us up by extroverts and introverts and had us plan a trip,” Doug said. “The I’s were all we’ll go here and it’ll be OK, and then the E’s had to know what they were going to wear, eat and how they were going to get there.”

Tamzen chimed in, “They were totally quiet over there.

In five minutes, they were more than done, and we hadn’t even started.”

And they’ve learned to appreciate those differences during their 33 years of marriage.

Her way

At 12 years old, Tamzen, the daughter of a businessman and school teacher in New Richland, found she had a knack with numbers.

“The week after my mother died [from acute leukemia], my dad sat me down in the chair and said, ‘You need to write this down,’” she said. “He taught me his bookkeeping skills and numbers.”

But she didn’t believe that was a career.

So when Tamzen graduated from high school in 1977, she attended Waldorf College in Forest City, Iowa, to become a professional singer.

See JOHNSON on page 27

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 27

JOHNSON from page 26

Doug Johnson and family the day he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland in 1981. Tamzen is second from the left, and Doug is fourth. (Submitted photo)

“I found out really fast that I was a talented person in a small pool but when I got into a bigger pool, there were a lot of talented people there,” she said. “So I wasn’t going to have a career singing.”

Then, Tamzen thought she’d be a forensic medical examiner like the old TV show, “Quincy.”

“That was until I got into microbiology,” she said.

“That blew that.”

At that point, Tamzen didn’t know what she wanted to be, but one thing was for sure, she wasn’t done with numbers.

full-ride scholarship to the University of Minnesota.

And he chose the U.S. Navy.

“I thought I’d have the best options,” he said.

“At that point, my leaning was to submarines, but it gave me the ability if I wanted to fly, if I wanted to be infantry with the U.S. Marines, surface ships and submarines, but I think I always had a love for the sea and underwater.”

Doug studied ocean engineering.

“That was very practical in Minnesota,” he said jokingly.

His way

When Tamzen received a letter from Doug in the spring of 1978, she was sure it was over.

“I was just flabbergasted, so I took the letter and tore it up into a million pieces and mailed it back,” she said, “and that was it.”

The two had met at a regional wrestling tournament in February 1977 — a few months before graduating from high school — and began dating.

About 20 days after Tamzen was born, Doug entered the world.

The son of Bixby Feed Mill owners and the youngest of three boys, he grew up on the family farm in rural Blooming Prairie.

Upon graduating high school in 1977 also, Doug — a three-sport athlete — had appointments at both the U.S. Naval Academy and West Point as well as a

‘The same wavelength’

See JOHNSON on page 28

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

JOHNSON from page 27 “I had no idea what Annapolis was. I knew it was the capital of Maryland, but I had no idea what being involved in a military academy would be like at all,” Tamzen said. “All I knew was Doug was going away to school on the East Coast. I really didn’t know where this relationship was going.”

The two remained in contact through letters and the occasional phone call.

“Back then dialing long-distance was costly,” Doug said.

On Valentine’s Day, nearly a year after the two started dating, Doug sent Tamzen a dozen roses.

“All the girls on my floor thought it was amazing,” Tamzen said. “Very shortly after that he was coming home for spring break, which he only got home twice a year or so.”

But when Doug returned, there was no Tamzen.

“I was with a singing group in Iowa, and we were going from little town to little town doing concerts at churches and there was a snow storm, and in those days there were no cell phones and the power went out and the phone lines were down,” she said. “So Doug is home for this weekend that we’re supposed to In 1977, Tamzen and Doug attended high school prom together. (Submitted photo) meet and haven’t seen each other for six months and I didn’t come After being apart and dating others, the two back of a Pontiac Sunbird for their drive to Orhome, didn’t call.” decided then to give it another try. lando, Florida, where they were placed in a furSo Doug visited one of their mutual friends And in 1981, during Doug’s final year at the nished naval apartment with rented furniture in Winona. academy, they got engaged and the following fall while Doug attended Naval Nuclear Power School “She proceeded to tell him that I was dating they were married. for six months. this person, dating that person, dating this per“That was a transition for me because really son,” Tamzen said. “He left, and I didn’t get home Navy life I had no idea how much commitment would be that weekend.” required with Doug’s career,” Tamzen said. “He Within their first week as a married couple, And that’s when she received the letter. would get up at 5 or 6 in the morning and ride the the Johnsons were thrust into the U.S. Navy lifeBut that December after not speaking for bus to downtown Orlando and wouldn’t get home style. months, Tamzen sent Doug a Christmas card. until 6 or 7 at night.

It was easily 12- to 14-hour “The wedding was on Saturday.

We opened When Doug returned home for the holidays, days, and then he’ d need to study.” gifts on Sunday, and on Monday we drove to he called.

While Doug was attending school, Tamzen Maryland to spend time with his aunt and uncle “I said, ‘Oh, you got my Christmas card?’ And worked in the cost accounting department of the for our honeymoon and then down to Colonial he said, ‘What Christmas card?’ I still get goosecompany that owned the franchise rights to Pizza Williamsburg, ” Tamzen said. bumps thinking about it,” Tamzen said. “We were Hut, Chi-Chi’s and Long John Silver’s.

Everything they owned was packed into the both on the same wavelength.”

See JOHNSON on page 30

“It was a great job,” she said.

And then the Johnsons moved to Connecticut for six months before moving again.

“We moved six times in nine years,” Tamzen said. “Each time, Doug had a job ready for him. He knew what to wear, where to go and what to do, and I had to start over.

But it exposed me to a lot of different types of accounting jobs and businesses.”

In May 1983, Doug joined his first submarine in Norfolk, Virginia.

“I did jobs all the way from torpedo officer to a navigator on a submarine at the end,” he said. “I did all fast-attack submarines, all nuclear-powered.”

That was until 1990.

Returning to Minnesota

Doug and Tamzen never dreamed they’d return to Minnesota.

“We had a wonderful Navy life,” Tamzen said. “If people asked us if we wanted to go back tomorrow, we probably would, but what brought us here was pretty significant.”

In the late ‘80s, Doug experienced knee problems.

“My knee got me physically disqualified from the Navy,” he said.

“So when it was time to transition, we were looking at all the different

options.”

At that time, the Johnsons had 4-year-old Grant and 2-year-old Alex, and Tamzen was attending Christopher Newport University in Virginia.

But Doug decided to take a design engineer position at Owatonna Tool Company after calling his childhood friend, Gary Noble, and moved in with his parents in August.

“The boys stayed in Virginia with me for four months while I finished up my degree and did our final household move with the Navy,” Tamzen said.

In December, Tamzen graduated from college and returned to Minnesota with the boys to their first home together in Blooming Prairie.

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

JOHNSON from page 28 RIGHT: Doug and Tamzen Johnson on a trip while Doug worked at Truth Hardware in Owatonna. He worked there for more than 15 years. (Submitted photo) BELOW: Doug and Tamzen Johnson volunteering at the Village of Yesteryear in Owatonna.

Volunteering for the Steele County Historical Society is one of many things the Johnsons have been involved in over the years. (Press file

“The semi came to Blooming Prairie to unload at the house,” she said. “People still talk about that.”

The start of a business

When the Johnsons moved back to Minnesota, Tamzen said she had every intention of being a stay-at-home mom but her personality wouldn’t allow it.

She didn’t think that’d mean owning a business someday, but sure enough, it did.

After passing her CPA exam, Tamzen applied for a part-time position at L&L Tax Service in Blooming Prairie in 1992 — the same year the Johnson’s third child, Erin, was born.

“At that time I wasn’t willing to have a career first and a family second, so I turned quite a few nice job offers down so that I could be home,” she said.

In 1997, Tamzen bought L&L Tax Service.

“I was on my own just doing accounting and just slowly growing the business,” she said. “That’s not what I ever envisioned. Ever.”

And her business continued to grow.

In 2000, Mike Jones, Blooming Prairie city administrator, sold his practice to Tamzen.

“At that point we doubled our size, and Amy Doerhoefer was named a partner,” she said.

Over the course of the next 15 years, the two women would purchase practices in Ellendale, Austin and New Richland, which took place in 2014.

And with that many practices under one room, come more clients and more employees. Currently, there are 19 employees working for Johnson & Doerhoefer.

“This is the culmination of six practices,” Tamzen said. “I never thought it’d grow this big.”

Joining the business

While Tamzen was growing her business, Doug was climbing the management ladder at several companies in Owatonna.

In 1994, he left the Owatonna Tool Company to become a design engineer at Truth Hardware, where he remained until 2011.

“I started as a design engineer, then took over as engineering manager and became vice president of engineering, vice president of product development and the names just kind of changed over the years,” Doug said. “I worked with the management team for the last 12 years that I was there.”

In February 2011, Doug became the executive director of the Owatonna Business Incubator, where he was responsible for managing the building and its tenants as well as providing business consulting through the Minnesota Small Business Development Center out of Rochester to businesses and start-ups averaging about 80 clients a year.

Last August, he announced he’d be leaving the Incubator to begin working at Johnson & Doerhoefer with Tamzen in October.

“It’s not like I had never been in this office,” Doug said. “During the heat of the tax season, there were a lot of Saturdays that I spent doing tax work and that was part of what made the decision pretty easy because it’s frustrating to watch someone skilled in accounting never be able to do it.”

Tamzen said Doug allows her to do what she’s best at, which is accounting, since he is handling the administrative duties.

“Part of me doesn’t want to believe it because I’m afraid something is going to come and snatch him up, but part of me wants to cement him here,” she said. “We’ll see what the future holds.”

See JOHNSON on page 31

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Doug and Tamzen Johnson with their three children, Erin, Alex and Grant. (Submitted photo)

JOHNSON from page 30 Giving to city, county

If their lives weren’t busy enough, the Johnsons have dedicated countless hours giving back to the community.

And for those that know Tamzen and Doug, they’re a package deal.

“If they get Doug, chances are they’re going to get some of me involved, too,” Tamzen said. “If they get me, they’re going to get Doug involved, too.”

Since their arrival in Blooming Prairie, Tamzen has been the director of the high school play, Blooming Prairie Area Chamber of Commerce vice president and president, Boys and Girls Club of Blooming Prairie board member, Steele County Historical Society board member as well as volunteers in vari-

ous capacities at her church.

And Doug served on the Blooming Prairie Ambulance from 1994 to 2003 before becoming District 2 Steele County Commissioner from 2003 to 2014. He also coached and refereed wrestling and was involved at the church. He currently sits on the Prairie Manor Board.

“Tamzen and Doug are very, very special people,” said Noble, a longtime friend of the couple’s.

“A lot of people talk about their responsibility to give back to the community, but they walk the talk and go well beyond the average person. They do it out of respect for the community and they don’t expect anything in return.

“Every community wants to have a couple like them no matter the size, and in Blooming Prairie, we’re lucky enough to have them, and I’m fortunate to have them as friends.”

PAGE 31

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

Becky Noble sits in her kitchen and scrolls through the real estate listing of her old house near downtown Blooming Prairie.

Noble now lives in the house she grew up in. (Kim Hyatt/ People’s Press)

By KIM HYATT

khyatt@owatonna.com

Forever a Blossom Becky Noble

Becky Noble set her roots in Blooming Prairie the day she was born and bloomed into an Awesome Blossom from day one.

In her 58 years of life, she’s planted seeds in the community, such as the Blooming Prairie Education Foundation, raised a family and grown into a successful stakeholder in the city she loves and will never leave.

Noble is a wife, mother and the director of the Blooming Prairie Area Chamber of Commerce.

“She’s just a plain down to the earth, wonderful person — about as wonderful of a person as your going to find,” said Jim Fiebiger, president of Farmers and Merchants State Bank in Blooming Prairie. “Becky’s a true community cheerleader.”

She was a cheerleader in high school, so a pun was intended, Fiebiger said.

She’s definitely made a lasting impression on the community along with her high school sweetheart, now husband, Mark Noble. They grew up together in Blooming Prairie and both their families — the Nobles and the Troms — have been around for a long time.

Despite her living in the same place, knowing the same people most of her life, the spontaneity

and unpredictability of life’s many paths took its course and brought her back to her favorite place on earth: home.

Well, she’s always been home in Blooming Prairie. But she’s made plenty of transition in the little town.

Last year, she moved from a small house near downtown Blooming Prairie where she reared her four kids to outside of town to a place she was already acquainted with, to say the least.

“Don’t you just love an old farmhouse?” Noble said as she sat at her kitchen table.

In one week, there was a triple moving spree: Mark and Becky ended up back in her childhood home off 100th Avenue beyond the railroad tracks, her parents in an assisted living facility and their daughter Elizabeth moved back in their old house.

“We moved out to where she grew up. When we moved out there and bought it from her mom and dad and they moved to town, well then our daughter bought our place,” Mark recalled, and having to move three households worth of stuff.

See NOBLE on page 35

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 35

NOBLE from page 34 In short, Noble said it was a “big ol’ swap.” But after a few short months, Elizabeth moved out because her husband got a job two hours away in Iowa. Gone, too, are Noble’s granddaughters, 8-year-old Elena and Gabriella who just turned 2 in January.

She said she misses them and the convenience of just going over to get a quick hug to cheer up.

“I love being a grandma,” she said.

None of her siblings or other children have been living at home or in Blooming for a number of years and Mark found a new job as a trucker and is gone often, but home every night.

“It’s different,” Mark said about an empty house and family moving away. “Both of us like people. We’re always around people. We’re both fortunate enough that we had big families. But she’s the only one who stayed in Blooming.”

Neither of them could ever leave Blooming Prairie.

Homecoming royalty to rainy wedding RSVPs

Mark asked her out to prom when they were juniors at Blooming Prairie High School and then in 1973, both 17 years old, they were dubbed homecoming king and queen.

“I was pretty shy back then. It was last-minute thing, but to my good fortune she didn’t have a date,” Mark said.

“Both of us grew up in town here and I always say that I was on the other side of the street. She was a good girl and I was kind of a wild one.”

Looking back, Mark said, “I guess it was supposed to be.”

They got married at the First Lutheran Church in October 1977 with 400 people in attendance.

“No one was farming because it rained, so the whole family was there,” Noble said.

She said both her and Mark’s family are huge. Noble’s parents each have nine siblings and Mark’s father had

six, his mother had four, and a lot of them farmed.

“I don’t know what the church holds, but it was overflowing,” Mark said.

After the ceremony, the reception was held at the Oak Country Club where their wedding dance was actually the first one ever to happen there.

Their daughter Angela got married last October at the farm and she even wore Noble’s wedding dress. Mother and daughter went to get the dress altered to have a bit of a modern-flare but she wanted to be sort of like a “throwback,” Noble said.

Like any mother would say, Angela wore it best, and Noble said she also wore a pearl belt from her grandma, Noble’s mother, Joyce Trom.

See NOBLE on page 36

After being crowned Homecoming queen in 1973, Becky traded in “Trom” for “Noble” just four years later when she married Homecoming king Mark Noble, in 1977 at First Lutheran Church. (Submitted photo)

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PAGE 36

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

Becky and Mark with their granddaughter Gabriella when she was 1 month old. (Submitted photo)

NOBLE from page 35 BECKY NOBLE NOTABLES The movie “Pretty Woman” with Julia Roberts still makes her smile.

Her former dog Baxter has a Facebook page created by her youngest son Anthony.

She bought her first computer when she was 40 years old.

She dislikes oddnumbered things. So she’s slightly skeptical of the year 2015, but 5 is also her lucky number.

Becky blossoms

Growing up, Noble said, “I was an ugly kid. I had huge buckteeth and black eyes.”

She said she was teased a lot, but both of these imperfections Noble points to were out of her control.

Of course, no one can control the size of their teeth, and the dark circles under her eyes were a result of a car accident with her family when she was 7-years-old.

She recalled being at the Steele County Free Fair when she got sick and wanted to go home.

“I never went to the fair for years after that. I hated going that direction up on the Highway 14 that way,” she said.

A northbound driver was going to turn and the driver behind that vehicle tried to pass on the left and hit Noble and her family head on, she said. Her grandfather, who was driving, ended up breaking his

leg. Noble’s sisters and three other kids were OK and she was, she said, “knocked out for like three days at the Owatonna Hospital.”

The dark circles faded, but one scar from that accident is still visible: a vertical line on her forehead from former stitches. It’s sort of looks like Harry Potter’s scar, but it’s straight and not rigid in the shape of a lightning bolt.

“It’s affected my whole life,” she said.

She gets vertigo and says she can relate to the ongoing discussions of sports concussions and their long-term effects.

Despite her lasting ailment, Noble has managed to have a successful career.

From 16 years ago when she first started working as the director of the Blooming Prairie Chamber of Commerce to now, and even back to when she was yet a young girl, her life has been in constant change.

But some big and small things remain constant.

Like late night television. She always remembered her mother would stay up watching Johnny Carson, except now Noble watches Carson’s successors.

Like mother, like daughter in the same night owl routine.

And the barn and chicken coop next door.

“For a short time there were pigs and we did some crop farming,” Noble said.

When she was growing up, the place went from beef to dairy to chickens. So her dad bought the coop next door. She said now someone stores old cars in there, Studebakers.

See NOBLE on page 37

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 37

NOBLE from page 36 “There’s got to be a lot,” she said about the numbers of cars she guessed to be in the coop.

Still, the family gatherings are always big, but they used to be bigger. At Christmas dinner there were more than 100 people at her grandmother’s house.

They would have oyster stew on Christmas Eve, and still do, there’s just not as many bowls to fill.

On those occasions, all four kids — Adrian, Elizabeth, Angela and Anthony — and the grandkids are back in town. When Noble talks about the reunification, she glows with gratitude and affection for her loved one’s.

Her high school sweetheart says that’s the biggest thing about Noble, how much she cares. Not only for her family, but for Blooming Prairie.

“She’s always willing and wanting to help. Working for the chamber, she gets involved with so much charity work because it’s a very active chamber,” Mark said. “That’s just who she is. Sometimes it seems like it’s too much, but she’s always willing to help.”

They’re both active at the same church, First Lutheran, and Mark still tries to get out racing with support from his number one fan. He spent 30 years at the fire department and Noble is busy with everything the chamber does — Fourth of July to the golf

fundraiser to the Gobble Wobble to the garage sale.

“She’s a tremendous advocate for the community of Blooming Prairie and works tirelessly for the betterment of the community,” Fiebiger said.

Another notable of Noble’s was her being the founding president of the Blooming Prairie Education Foundation when it first started in 1999 until 2004. She served 12 years on the board.

“It sounded like a great idea,” Noble said. “We got to a half of a million dollars and I exited. I just help out now.”

Last year was a record-breaking auction through the Education Foundation. Mark said more than $80,000 was raised in one night. Money donated to the foundation by the Blooming community is enough to pay the wages of the kindergarten teacher for all-day.

“It’s a good, little town. We’re lucky. We have good streets and a very good school system,” he said. “I’m glad I grew up here. I guess I’m just a homebody.”

And Noble, a homegrown Awesome Blossom is too.

“I’m just lucky I got her, because there’s no one who would put up with me. I’m the lucky one that’s for sure,” Mark said.

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Jim Fiebiger, outgoing president of the Blooming Prairie Area Chamber of Commerce, accepts a memento for his two-year service as the chamber’s president from Becky Noble, director of the chamber. Fiebiger said Noble is “a true community cheerleader.” (People’s Press File Photo)

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PAGE 38

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

Meant to Be Evelina Giobbe

By JEFFREY JACKSON jjackson@owatonna.com

It’s a long way from Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn to Steele County, Minnesota — a distance not only measured by miles, but by the differences in the culture.

Still, for Evelina Giobbe, the recently retired executive director of United Way of Steele County, there was a sense of inevitability about the journey, as if being and working in this place were her destiny, her fate.

“It’s like the road led here,” Giobbe said.

That’s not to say it was an easy road. It wasn’t. And instead of being smoothly paved, it was rocky and bumpy and filled with more than its share of detours.

‘Family is everything’

Evelina Giobbe and her dogs, Elvis and Gracie. (Submitted photo)

Giobbe laughs when she thinks of the beginning of her journey, born, as she was, in Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn, New York. Like something out of a Woody Allen movie, she says.

Then there was the neighborhood she grew up in — an Italian neighborhood in Queens, one of the other five boroughs of New York City. You can still hear the distinctive accent when she speaks.

But the influence of that neighborhood goes far beyond her voice.

The stories told by her family — her parents and grandparents, first generation immigrants — told her of their early struggles in this country, of how hungry they were, influenced her greatly.

She still recalls the story of when her stepfather, Frank, was a boy and he found an onion on the table with nobody around to see him. So he grabbed the onion, sneaked away and ate it raw in a place where no one could see him devour it.

“When they discovered Frank, to say that he was spanked was an understatement,” Giobbe said.

Frank’s mother cried greatly because that onion was all the food they had in the house and was going to be dinner for the entire family that night — an onion soup.

And it wasn’t just her stepfather and his family that struggled financially. Her family — and, in fact, the whole neighborhood — knew what it was like to be poor.

“My family understood what it was like to have nothing,” she said.

See GIOBBE on page 39

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 39

GIOBBE from page 38 At the same time, she remembers the work ethic of the immigrant community that lived in her neighborhood, how her mother and aunt did piecework sewing in their homes for extra money, how another aunt worked long, hard hours in a sewing factory. And these weren’t unusual stories. They were the norm for the neighborhood.

“The immigrant community, the people worked like dogs,” she said. “Everybody worked so hard because they were grateful to be here.”

At the same time, their home and their table were open to everyone.

The influence that those stories and the experience of growing up in that neighborhood at that time had and continue to have on her, she said, was that they shaped her “entire politic about the world”— a politic that is unabashedly liberal, which, she said, has not always been easy to have in a county that, as she describes it, “leans conservative.”

Then she tells a story.

Her parents divorced when Evelina was 9 years old, and her father went back to Italy where Giobbe lost touch with him. But in 2012, she met some of her Italian relatives for the first time after she had found her father’s sister on Facebook.

Her trip to Italy was enlightening.

“When I went to Italy, I finally found myself,” she said. “They looked like me, they sounded like me, they gestured liked me. I felt so at home.”

Then, when she met an aunt for the first time, that aunt looked her square in the eye and said, “Blood is strong.” And Giobbe knew what she meant — family is everything.

See GIOBBE on page 40

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Evelina Giobbe, left, presents an award to Julie Rethemeier on behalf of the United Way of Steele County during a banquet at the Owatonna Country Club in September 2014. (Press file photo)

PAGE 40

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

GIOBBE from page 39 But that was nothing new for Giobbe. She had long sense translated that sentiment into the work she did for the United Way and other organizations with which she had worked.

“I was taking care of my extended family,” she said of that work.

It has been and continues to be her push for social justice.

Evelina’s WHISPER

Her resume is vast and varied, like a person who has lived many lives in her 65 years: testimony before a U.S. Attorney General’s commission in Washington, D.C.; testimony before a United Nations commission in Geneva; recipient of the Minnesota Peace Prize, an award that recognizes demonstrated leadership and long-term commitment to promoting peace and preventing violence; appointments in the women’s studies programs at both the University of Minnesota and St. Cloud State University; founder and executive director of Resource Institute; founder and director of education and public policy development for WHISPER; and a list as long as your arm of publications she has either authored or co-authored, dating back nearly 30 years.

Closer to home, she has been the executive director of the Blooming Prairie Center — the precursor to the Boys and Girls Club of Blooming Prairie — and the grants program coordinator for the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation, both positions she held before her 10-year-plus tenure as United Way director.

And that’s just scratching the surface.

If there is a common thread in the work that Giobbe has done, it’s that deep down Evelina Giobbe has always been a fighter, an advocate for the underdog, a crusader for justice.

For a large portion of her life, beginning when she was in her early 30s, that crusade took the form of advocating for women who were victims of human trafficking, specifically those caught up in prostitution and pornography, both of which she classifies as the “commercial sexual exploitation.”

Even today, about 15 years removed from her advocacy work for victims and survivors of that exploitation, Giobbe’s voice is loud and clear.

“Prostitution is a form of institutionalized violence against women,” she said.

And she rails against the cultural images that are often attached to prostitution and pornography — that somehow the women who are forced into it are enjoying it, the so-called “happy hooker.”

Nothing, she said, could be further from the truth.

Many of the women who were coerced into the sex trade were sexually abused as children or the victims of violence as adults, she said. Many are coerced while they are still children, with the average age of a woman entering into prostitution being 14. For many, she said, poverty played a role.

“The whole system is a grave injustice,” she said. “This country calls itself a democracy.”

But, she added, it is not a democracy when all of its citizens don’t have a real choice.

“And it shouldn’t have to be a choice between being a prostitute and starving, between being a prostitute and being beaten,” she said.

Evelina Giobbe in her days with WHISPER (Women Hurt in Systems of Prostitution Engaged in Revolt) protesting outside of Sex World in downtown Minneapolis. (Submitted photo)

See GIOBBE on page 42

Friday, March 20, 2015

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PAGE 42

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

GIOBBE from page 40

Her advocacy in the early to the local chapter of the United Way. mid-1980s led her to community “I knew nothing about the Unitorganizing and protesting and ed Way,” Giobbe confessed. eventually to the lecture circuit.

At the same time, a woman who Her work took her around the volunteered at the Blooming Praicountry and even to Switzerland, rie Center encouraged Giobbe to where she testified before the U.N. apply.

Office of High Commissioner of “She said, ‘You know how to raise money. You know how Human Rights on human traffickto organize,’” Giobbe said, then ing and contemporary forms of slavery. She also helped organize shrugged. “I’m not risk averse.” protests against the Japanese govSo she applied, one of 52 apernment and Japanese firms as well plicants for the position. She still as worked to get reparations for Koremembers the third interview, rerean women who were forced, she calling with a bit of hyperbole that said, into “military prostitution” there were “a million people there,” during World War II. not counting the staff.

She got the job.

“The Japanese government refused to acknowledge it ever hap“It was an interesting couple of pened,” she said. years in the beginning,” said GiobEventually her work brought her be, a big city girl in a rural comto Minneapolis, where she helped munity, an unabashed liberal in a found WHISPER — Women Hurt conservative area, a radical feminist in Systems of Prostitution Engaged among others who were not nearly in Revolt, where she remembers, so radical. among other things, protesting Even the board itself was distrip clubs and businesses that had vided.

Evelina Giobbe, right, with a Korean woman who was a survivor of forced military prostitution during World War II. live sex shows.

“Part of the board wanted Giobbe helped organize protests against the Japanese government, which, Giobbe said, “refused to acknowledge it “We worked helping women ever happened.” (Submitted photo) change, part of the board was reescape the sex industry,” she said. ally happy with the way things were “The women in these type of places going,” she said.

She had been working with WHISPER for about 15 years and were being prostituted.”

And in the beginning, she said, it was difficult to communicate she felt it was time for her to leave, to move on.

Giobbe acknowledged that every so often she is confronted with with anyone at all.

“People knew me through my speaking, writing, organizing,” questions about what drove her into work fighting against prosti- she said. “But I knew that unless I got out of the way, nobody else’s “It was hard, and I didn’t help it,” she said. “They said I was intution, pornography and other forms of human trafficking. And voice would be heard.” sistent. I call it passionate. I was candid. Other people call that too inevitably the questions arise about her own childhood.

So she moved to, of all places, Seward, Alaska, a city of about direct. I like a good debate. Other people call that argumentative.”

“There’s so much speculation about what drove it,” she said.

In part, she attributes it to her upbringing in an Italian home 3,000 in the southern part of the state, where, she said, she did But she declines to talk about it one way or the other. It’s not consulting work while on sabbatical. in an Italian neighborhood in New York — a long way from the that she has anything to hide. Not at all. It’s just, she says, not the “You know what they say, ‘Old directors never die. They con- Minnesota Nice of Owatonna. right question.

“I came from a culture where people spoke over one another. sult,” she said.

“Whether or not I was a victim of commercial sexual exploiPeople found that assertive, even rude,” she said.

But after about two years — and shortly after the Sept. 11 terThen she smiled. tation or trafficking as a child is irrelevant,” she said. “It’s simple rorist attacks, she was getting homesick.

“I’ve mellowed down,” she said. curiosity and gossip that drives those questions.”

“I told my mother, ‘I’m coming home,’” she said.

What is relevant, she said, is the work that she did with others But it wasn’t New York for which she pined. It was Minnesota, ‘For the least of these’ — survivors, attorneys, professors, legal scholars and radical femi- her new home, that she yearned to see. nist theorists — on the issue. What is relevant, she said, is helping As she considered leaving her organizing days in the Cities “I needed a job, but I didn’t want to live in the city,” she said. society to understand that “sexual exploitation of children is a form And so, she found Steele County — or it found her. She came to and going on sabbatical to Alaska, Giobbe, who was reared Roof violence against women.”

Owatonna to work as the grants program coordinator for Southern man Catholic, went to see a friend of hers, a Lutheran pastor.

Her early work was based on the premise that women and chil- Minnesota Initiative Foundation. At the same time, she was living She remembers now lamenting that she would be leaving the dren should not be bought and sold for sex. work that she was so passionate about and that she had given in Blooming Prairie, where she still lives.

“I’m proud to have been on the ground floor of that work,” she In the summer of 2002, a position opened at the Blooming so much of her adult life to doing. She wondered how she could said. “People can speculate all they want.”

Prairie Center, the forerunner of the Boys and Girls Club, which, leave that work.

And her pastor friend said to her, “No, Evelina, it’s not your at the time, worked primarily with migrant families.

Coming home to a new place work.

It’s God’s work. He just let you do it for a while.”

A year later, the position of executive director opened up at The encounter still reverberates in Giobbe’s mind, in her soul.

Giobbe came to Steele County by way of Alaska.

See GIOBBE on page 43

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 43

GIOBBE from page 40 Even though she did not always think that way, for her today, the work that Giobbe has done throughout her life is intertwined with her faith and the teachings of Christ.

And she recalls a passage from the Gospel according to John, where the resurrected Jesus is said to appear to the disciples and speaks directly to Peter, asking Peter if he loves him.

Each time Peter answers that, yes, he loves him.

Then Jesus responds, “Feed my sheep.”

For Giobbe, that passage, along with other teachings of Jesus, has a simple, yet profound meaning.

“We’re instructed to show our love for God by feeding his sheep, by caring for the least of these,” she said.

Then she pauses, as if she is remembering the many faces she has seen, the many lives she has touched.

“Believe me,” she said. “I did it for the least of these.”

And it makes her recall the final chapter that she began with the United Way of Steele County — a chapter whose ending has yet to be written.

The chapter is not simply about the United

Way working to raise money for various organizations in the county. It would be about the organization looking at the root causes of disparities in income, education and health care in the county and working to close those gaps.

Thanks to grants from the Otto Bremer Foundation and the Bush Foundation, the United Way has started to address just that.

“I believe in visionary philanthropy,” she said. “People will join with you if you can identify the issue and create change. That’s why I’m still enthusiastic.”

And she has seen communities come together to effect change. In fact, one such incident kept her here in Steele County.

“I was going to leave Owatonna,” she said.

In fact, she had the ticket to fly out to Arizona for a job interview. She would still be working with United Way, but on a bigger scale.

It was September 2010, and the flood was about to hit Owatonna, Medford and other part of the county. She got a call that night informing her of how bad things were and asking her what the United Way might do to help.

In this July 2013 file photo, Evelina Giobbe, then executive director of United Way of Steele “I knew that night, I wasn’t going any- County, announces the kickoff to that year’s campaign. (Press file photo) where,” she said.

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

Mark Skroch poses in his living room in Ellendale. The octogenarian has returned to the mayor’s office for his 14th term, though this one comes after a 15-year break from the office. (Matt Hudson/People’s Press)

Mark Skroch

A Chance to Serve

By MATT HUDSON• mhudson@owatonna.com

A simple coin flip put Mark Skroch where he is today.

It was 1958, and he was about to finish his service in the Army. Skroch got in touch with the placement bureau at his alma mater, Winona State University, about a teaching job.

He had two majors in college. One was music and the other was a form of indus-

trial shop. So the placement bureau presented Skroch with job options for both, and he flipped a coin to decide.

On one side of the coin was a job teaching shop in Modesto, California, a city in the middle of the state with a warm climate and burgeoning culture. On the other side was a teaching job in Claremont, Minnesota, a sleepy town close to his home

See SKROCH on page 48

and family.

Everything stemmed from that coin flip, things like his long career as a band teacher and a 28-year tenure as the mayor of Ellendale. Skroch met his wife while teaching. They just celebrated their 53rd anniversary. He reared his kids in Ellendale and now watches as his four grandchildren reach adulthood.

Friday, March 20, 2015

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PAGE 47

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SKROCH from page 46 But at the time, it was just heads or tails.

“I flipped a coin and by gosh, Claremont came up,” Skroch, who is now 80, said.

Military service, in the key of C

Skroch grew up on a dairy farm near the small town of Arcadia, Wisconsin. It’s not unlike Ellendale, though today it has more than three times the population. Arcadia is a company town, home to furnishing giant Ashley Furniture.

Skroch skipped just across the Mississippi River to pursue his two majors at Winona State. He paid for living expenses by playing in bands — $10 or $12 per gig covered his room and board. Not bad for a night job.

After college, he started teaching summer programs in Houston, Minnesota. He was just settling into the job when he received word from the U.S. government. He had been drafted.

“I got the letter in the mail. ‘Your friends and neighbors have selected you for the armed forces,’” Skroch said.

The Army recruiter looked to place Skroch in a position in line with his musical background. The problem was that Skroch played brass instruments — trumpet, mostly. He might have been headed for a position in artillery or infantry.

But then the recruiter said that the bands were short on woodwinds like clarinet or flute. With some skill on a woodwind, Skroch would be a shoe-in.

“I said, ‘I could play a scale on the clarinet,’” Skroch said.

And that’s what he did. Skroch played a simple clarinet scale for the recruiter, and that was it. He was assigned to the 3rd Army Headquarters Band, one of the branch’s premiere groups, out of Fort McPherson in East Point, Georgia.

When Skroch shipped out for service, he said that somehow his military occupation specialty, or MOS, still identified him as a trumpet player. He still wound up playing brass.

The 3rd Army Headquarters Band was a 120-piece outfit based in the Atlanta satellite town. Skroch was mainly a trumpet player, but a few of the members switched off on bugler duty.

That was one of the toughest jobs of his service, he said. Skroch played taps at dozens of soldier funeral services across the country.

He was called out to places like Tennessee or Florida, anywhere that didn’t have a bugler for a proper military burial.

Skroch served in the Army for three years, doing what he loved because he happened to dabble a little in woodwinds.

“I just got lucky,” he said. “If I wouldn’t have told this guy that I could play a scale on the clarinet, I’d have probably been driving a tank.”

Toward the end of his service he wanted to get back into teaching, so he met with the placement bureau at Winona State.

And he flipped that coin.

See SKROCH on page 49

Mark Skroch played in the 3rd Army Headquarters Band, a 120-piece outfit based in Atlanta, during his years in the military. (Submitted photo)

Friday, March 20, 2015

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 49

SKROCH from page 48

“” I just got lucky. If I wouldn’t have told this guy that I could play a scale on the clarinet, I’d have probably been driving a tank.

Mark Scroch on playing playing in bands during his Army service

Civilian life, public service

Skroch landed a teaching job in Claremont, the tiny agriculture town east of Owatonna that has recently been trying to give away land parcels to boost its population.

He taught multiple subjects in the small area school.

But after one year, he decided it “wasn’t his cup of tea,” as Skroch put it. After playing music through college and as a job in the Army, he knew that he wanted to be a certain kind of teacher.

In 1959, Skroch took a position at the Ellendale School teaching band. That suited him better. He liked that students had some enthusiasm for music.

“I think people that are in special kinds of things are kind of lucky, because kids don’t have to take that,” Skroch said. “If they’re there, it’s usually because they at least want to. If they’re in history or geography, it’s required.”

And Skroch settled down in the close-knit town, where he would teach for the next 37 years. And as a teacher in a town that size, he more or less saw everyone move through who went on to contribute to Ellendale’s continued tradition.

One of those students was Andy Lerberg, longtime businessman and proprietor of Lerberg’s Foods. His family’s history in the town extends to Lerberg’s grandfather, who he said owned the first retail business in Ellendale.

Lerberg played saxaphone in one of Skroch’s first high school ensembles. He remembers that Skroch was an energetic teacher who seemed to enjoy leading the marching band, among other activities.

“Being the young teacher, he was always fun to have,” Lerberg said.

At that time, the band class was held in a small annex building near the school. As an adult, Lerberg purchased that building, which is now his home. Those memories of band class are always there, in the same room.

Of course, Skroch wasn’t the only reason Lerberg liked band class. He said that he liked to see a woman who sat across from him and played clarinet. She later became his wife.

Skroch had a similar path to marriage. Instead of a classmate, the future Mrs. Gail Skroch was an elementary teacher. They married in 1961 and reared two children together.

See SKROCH on page 50

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PAGE 50

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

SKROCH from page 49 Along the way, Skroch decided to make his the costs. first run for mayor of Ellendale. He said that it A 14th term took a little coaxing by his friend, who was the editor of the local newspaper at the time. He Now after 15 years since he stepped down as won the election in 1972 and didn’t look back. mayor, Skroch is at it again, jumping back into Skroch said that as a teacher, he could adthe public sector in his 56th year as an Ellendale vocate for students. He also liked being mayor resident. because it allowed him to also work with resiIn November, Skroch won his 14th election dents who had a few more years under them. as mayor.

“I was working with kids, which I enjoyed He said that a lot of people said he shouldn’t a lot,” Skroch said. “But then (mayoral duties) have run. But when the previous mayor, Roggave me a chance to work on adult issues.” er Swearingen, became mired in controversy, For 41 years, Skroch was a teacher in EllenSkroch didn’t see anyone else make a move for dale, the mayor or both. Between those duties, the position. He said that he wanted to give he became deeply involved in the town. people a choice.

Skroch’s tenure as mayor lasted 28 years.

“It got kind of embarrassing, a little controHe was re-elected in every run for mayor— 13 versial with the present mayor,” Skroch said. times, with only a break when he launched an “His integrity is somewhat suspect. That’s why I unsuccessful run at county commissioner. decided to do it. Nobody was stepping up to the He says that the biggest successes at the helm plate and I didn’t want him to run unopposed.” in Ellendale were in the large-scale infrastrucIn July 2014, Swearingen was charged with ture projects that he governed through. The three counts of theft. Officials allege that he took largest of those was the sanitary sewer system. money from a veteran’s memorial brick fund— “When I first took over, every home in town one that he helped administer—for personal was just run on their own septic tank,” he said. use. Swearingen pleaded not guilty and is still There were other projects, too. He pointed awaiting trial. out that city institutions like the community In the meantime, Skroch won the election by building, the fire hall, the Muni and the city 57 votes (288 people voted). He’s not just there maintenance building all rose during his tenure. as a placeholder—Skroch said that he has some Lerberg remembers those upgrades to the plans for his latest term. town as well. He said that it was Ellendale’s way One of his initiatives is dealing with the of moving forward. But through the years, Lecity’s debt. He said that Ellendale, a town of just rberg remembers Skroch as more than just a around 700 people, owes over $4 million. He mayor or school teacher. They served in the hopes to find some efficiencies in the budget Lions Club together for more than 35 years. to cut into that debt—a perennial public office Their families belonged to the same church rally cry. couples group.

Taxes might not be the absolute solution for There wasn’t anything inaccessible about Skroch. He said that with his age, he has become Ellendale’s longtime mayor. more fiscally conservative, especially in less pop“He was always up on current events,” Lerulated areas. berg said of Skroch, “and always enjoyed visit“In these small towns, it’s getting crazy,” he ing about community matters.” said. “You got to get things done and keep all the Mark and Gail Skroch married in 1961. They met while teaching. (Submitted photo) The mayoral position can have good and services going, whether it’s water and sewer or bad, successes and frustrations. The tough the street department. But I think there’s some It was never anything major, he said. parts, Skroch said, came from not being able to please everythings we can do a little different to try and hold down the rate “That’s just crap you deal with,” Skroch said. “Everybody in one— just the nature of the job. of escalation of taxes.” every city has to deal with that.”

He said that on one occasion, a resident came by his Whatever the initiative, Skroch wants to be an involved mayHe said that the best way to do public business is to fund the house with some harsh words about the curb and gutter or. He likes to be active in his old age and said that in recent years work outside of his house. On other occasions, he had to greatest good for the greatest number of people, which inevitably he has been “threatening to get a job.” He’s kept himself busy with call people to remind them to clean up if a property became doesn’t always please everyone. yard work in the warmer months, or helping a friend renovate a The important thing, he added, is that the benefits justify too unsightly. home. Skroch likes woodwork.

See SKROCH on page 52

Friday, March 20, 2015

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Friday, March 20, 2015

SKROCH from page 50 For the past four years, he’s also been out getting coffee with friends—every morning except on Sundays. He still likes to stay current with the local business.

“It’s a fun group to talk to and catch up on all the gossip,” Skroch said.

That’s the level of comfort Skroch has in the small town he calls home. It hasn’t changed too much. He said that about 500 people lived there when he first arrived in 1959. Today there’s about 690.

That’s not uncommon for people who have called Ellendale home for decades. It’s easygoing and congenial. The main attractions are all right there on the main drag — the Muni, the locally famous Steve’s Meat Market and of course, Lerberg’s.

“I’ve lived here all my life, and as far as I’m concerned, it just doesn’t get any better than small town, country living,” Lerberg said. “You know everybody. I count it as a blessing.”

That’s Skroch’s sentiment as well, and he’s looking toward the future. He said that the incoming general store will be a nice addition to the local economy, and some new street projects might be in the works to make it a little easier to get around.

And his focus now is to bring those projects along as mayor.

But he’s also quick to point out that he’s not in it alone.

“I’m just one voice,” Skroch said. “Some other council people may have some totally different idea, but that’s how it works.”

A simple coin flip put Mark Skroch where he is today.

Mark Skroch first ran for mayor of Ellendale in 1972. A teacher, Skroch contrasted his duties in the classroom to his duties as mayor: “I was working with kids, which I enjoyed a lot. But then [mayoral duties] gave me a chance to work on adult issues.” (Press file photo)

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Friday, March 20, 2015

A Time to Rejoice, Celebrate & Worship

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 53

First Baptist Church 123 E. Main | Owatonna 507-451-2803

512 S. Elm Ave. • Owatonna • 451-4845

750 SW Jeffrey St. • Owatonna • 455-2729

Thomas Smith, Pastor

Sunday Worship - 9 a.m.

Christian Education Hour - 10:20 a.m.

Summer Worship - Sunday 9:00 a.m. • Monday 7:00 p.m. emmanuel-wels-owatonna.com

Rev. Edward McGrath & Deacon Patrick Fagan Call to verify Mass times Mass Times: Saturday 4:00 p.m.; Sunday 8:00, 9:30, and 11:00 a.m.

Daily Masses - 8:00 a.m. (please call to verify) Reconciliation - 3:00-3:30 p.m. Saturday & also after 11:00 a.m. Mass the 4th Sunday of each month

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Our Savior’s Lutheran Church-ELCA

Emmanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church (WELS)

St. Joseph Catholic Parish Church

Next to the Courthouse in Downtown Owatonna

Christ the King Parish Church 205 2nd Ave • Medford

Mass Times: Sat. 5:30pm & Sun. 10:00am (call to verify Mass times)

Corpus Christi Parish Church Deerfield, MN • 507-451-6353

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Come and Worship!

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Home of Owatonna Christian School Pre-K through 12th grade

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Sunday School Morning Service Evening Service Wednesday Service ~AWANA 4089353 Good Shepherd Church portraits 3-20

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PAGE 54

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

Mike Jones has been the Blooming Prairie city administrator since 2000, but he is no stranger to the city. (Ashley Stewart/People’s Press)

Mike Jones

Right Side of the Tracks

By ASHLEY STEWART • astewart@owatonna.com

BLOOMING PRAIRIE — For Mike Jones, one person changed everything.

But who, Jones admits, he doesn’t remember.

“At that time it wasn’t important to me,” he said. “I could tell you the class. I could tell you the classroom in LeRoy, but I just can’t tell you his name.”

At the time, Jones was a sophomore in social studies at LeRoy-Ostrander High School.

“He gave you extra credit if you did extra work, so I started doing the extra stuff. As soon as I got an A, it was like that wasn’t too hard and it came quite easy,” he said. “I’m lucky someone triggered that for me.

He’s the one who converted me into who I am now.”

And despite being a standout multi-sport athlete and holding multiple track and field records in high school, Jones often tells people he “grew up on the wrong side of the tracks” in LeRoy. “We understood there was a stereotype that we had to fulfill, and we did our darnedest to fulfill that stereotype,” he said. “We got in a lot of trouble when

I was a kid. Not cop trouble, just trouble.”

But when Jones joined the U.S. Army in the early1970s, he realized the significance of that teacher.

“He just opened my eyes that there’s another world out there,” he said. “I got in the service and started to venture into something other than my redneck background I was living in LeRoy.” And venture he did.

A world beyond LeRoy

As a high school senior in 1970 — in the midst of the Vietnam War — Jones knew it was only a matter of time before his number came up in the draft lottery.

And being No. 56 he knew it was going to happen soon, but Jones still gave college a try.

See JONES on page 56

Friday, March 20, 2015

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PAGE 55

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

JONES from page 54 “I didn’t give it much effort I’ll have to admit,” he said.

“It’s kind of comical. Probably the worst grade I got because I didn’t give it much effort was government, and the reason I didn’t get a very good grade was because I didn’t want to get up in front of the class and make a presentation. Now I get in front of people all the time.”

It was 1972 when Jones received his draft notice and was trained as a combat engineer because he was considering a career in construction.

“I volunteered for the draft so I wouldn’t have to be an infantry soldier,” he said. “At that time, I didn’t understand that the military idea of construction was a combat engineer, which is a person that goes out ahead of the infantry.”

However, Jones didn’t have to spend much time as a combat engineer as he was in the in-processing detachment to Korea when he was selected to be a company clerk.

“The company clerk got injured the night before, so they went through the 201 files looking for someone who had typing experience and an IQ score,” he said. “I went from being a combat engineer to a company clerk in a matter of one day.”

That’s when Jones decided he wanted to work indoors.

And when someone else was assigned the clerk position, he was asked to stay in the unit as a company driver.

Jones said because it was an administration unit, many of the men had college deference.

“In other words, they didn’t have to get drafted originally, but once they got out of college, they had to go do their two-year thing, so there was a lot of educated individuals in that unit,” he said. “I got really lucky because they threw this small-town boy into an environment of college-educated, look-at-life-differently type of people.”

That’s all he needed to realize the world was bigger ABOVE: Mike Jones and his wife, Sandy, dance. The two met on the Rusty Rail dance floor in Taopi, Minnesota, in 1975.

RIGHT: Mike Jones in Korea in the early 1970s. Jones was stationed at Camp Casey Korea for 18 months as a detachment driver in the U.S. Army.

(Submitted photo)

than LeRoy. But in 1974, when Jones was discharged from the military, he returned home.

The Rusty Rail

It wasn’t long after he returned home that he realized he should be somewhere else.

“I couldn’t stand living at home very long, so me and some guys rented a house in Taopi, Minnesota, which is nothing more than the size of Bixby,” Jones said.

And next door was the Rusty Rail.

“It was the hot spot,” he said. “It was the dance spot of the era and had live bands all the time so you could go dancing on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night.”

Jones often did.

“That’s where I met my wife,” he said. “She was a waitress.”

Jones met Sandy Smith of Adams on the dance floor.

“That’s where it all started,” he said.

In November 1975, Jones’ roommates moved back home, and he went to the Smith family farm.

“They had a hired man house, so I lived there and helped on their dairy farm as I continued attending college for accounting on the GI Bill,” Jones said.

In September 1976, Jones and Smith married and moved to Austin.

The accounting business

After graduating from college, Jones did the books for an entrepreneur in Austin for a short period before starting at a CPA firm called Bowby, Anfinson, Crandall & Haedt.

“They were just starting to hire young people and build up that clientele and build up that group of core guys,” he said.

And after a while the owners decided to expand the firm into smaller communities — one being Blooming Prairie.

At the time a man named, Paul Kay, owned a little CPA first in Blooming Prairie and it was growing with the economy, so Bowby, Anfinson, Crandall & Haedt decided to venture into a branch office in partnership with Kay. “They sent Wayne Carlson up to represent them in the partnership and right away, Mr. Kay decided he was going to retire, so Wayne purchased them out and asked them to send me up here from their Austin office,” Jones said.

But he declined.

In fact, he declined three times. Well, almost three.

“My wife was working in Adams, and I was working in Austin. It seemed like the perfect thing,” Jones said. “After the third time they asked me I thought maybe they were pretty serious about wanting me to come up, so I told them, ‘I’ll come up and work in Blooming Prairie for a short period of time, but when you branch out to other offices, I’d kind of like to have the one in Spring Valley.’”

See JONES on page 58

Friday, March 20, 2015

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PAGE 57

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

JONES from page 56 For six years, Jones worked with Carlson in Blooming Prairie.

That was until the farm crisis in 1985.

“A lot of the big customers we had were struggling, so one of us had to leave,” Jones said. “Wayne decided he needed to go to California.”

In October 1985, Jones bought the firm.

“I signed the paperwork and the next day he left for Palm Springs, California,” he said.

Jones tried commuting from the Austin area to Blooming Prairie for one tax season but found it difficult, and the Joneses, who were living in a two-bedroom home with three children, were ready to expand.

while owning his own business.

“I came up to this town kicking and screaming because I didn’t want to come up here and now I’ve been here since ’86,” Jones said.

“There will be people who think I’m from Blooming Prairie because I’ve been here for a long time and I’ve been working here since a long time. But no, I’m not Mr. Blooming Prairie.”

Self-employed to government

The start of the new millennium proved to be pivotal for Jones.

Arriving in Blooming Prairie

Jones and his wife drove around and looked at houses in Blooming Prairie with a local Realtor before stopping at the city park.

“She noticed a house that was on the corner from the city park for sale and the Realtor hadn’t really showed us,” he said. “We bought the house.”

In 1986, the Jones’ family, including his children, Josh, Angela and Hilary, moved into the house.

And since Jones had been working in Blooming Prairie since 1979, it didn’t take him very long to become acquainted and involved.

In 1988, before his fourth child, Patrick, was born, Jones joined the local fire department and served until 2010. He was also involved in the Gopher 50 and the local Jaycees chapter.

Jones also remained served in the National Guard from 1977 to 1996.

And he did all these things Mike Jones with some of his family on a recent vacation. (Submitted photo)

For years, Jones had been assisting the City of Blooming Prairie with its audit and books, and in 2000, when the city administrator left the city council asked him if he could work part-time in administration.

“If I did, I’d be doing city administration part-time and be doing my practice part-time. I didn’t see where I could do that on a parttime basis, so I kind of turned them down,” he said But the council was persistent.

Two more administrators had come and gone and Jones was asked to serve as the interim administrator until the city was able to hire someone, and he accepted in August 2000.

“I was kind of working here part-time and over there part-time for a period of time,” he said.

As part of his interim city administrator duties, Jones assisted the city council with interviewing new candidates. “[The council] interviewed a group of prospective administrators and found one they were interested in,” he said. “We made an offer, but the city he was working for actually gave him a bonus to keep him.”

So, in October 2000, Mayor H. Peterson visited Jones’ office.

“He said, ‘Why don’t you take the job?’ And I remember thinking — because I went home and told my wife — ‘Gee, I’ve been offered the job. Just think about getting paid vacations, paid holidays, you get your health insurance provided and they pay you,’” Jones said.

Being self-employed for 15 years, those things were nonexistent to Jones.

See JONES on page 60

Friday, March 20, 2015

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PAGE 60

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

JONES from page 58 “It was a whole different idea,” he said. “So I put together a quick resume and submitted for consideration.”

And Jones was hired.

“We couldn’t have done better than Mikes Jones with the position we were in,” Peterson said. “We were almost in debt, and he really bailed us out.

“He is a tremendous asset to the community has an administrator and a citizen.”

Upon taking the administrator job, Jones sold his practice Blooming Tax & Accounting to Tammy Johnson, who is now one of the owners of Johnson & Doerhoefer in Blooming Prairie.

However, Jones isn’t done doing taxes — at least not yet.

“I’m still actively involved in doing tax returns, but that’s going to come to a halt here very soon because I’m going to retire from this position and I will retire from that position,” he said.

Closing the books

Mike Jones with his youngest son, Patrick, a few years ago while he played on the Blooming Prairie Blossoms football team that went to state twice. (Submitted photo)

Each year during the week of June 10, you won’t find Jones behind his desk at City Hall.

In fact, he’s likely in Canada for a family fishing trip tradition — something started more than 30 years ago.

“I’ve missed graduations and weddings because this is where I’ll

go, and I’ll tell people I go the week that June 10 falls, so don’t plan anything,” Jones said.

And come retirement, Jones plans to spend more time outdoors and at his cabin south of Blooming Prairie.

But his list of to-dos doesn’t end there even though it’s a couple years out.

He said he’ll be helping his sonin-law at Geneva Lumber, assisting his best friend with an auction business, doing some individuals’ books and being a “babysitting grandpa” for his four grandchildren.

Jones, who turns 62 this year, said he plans on retiring the summer after he turns 64.

“I originally planned on retiring on my 64th birthday, but it’s in December, and I just felt it wouldn’t be proper to force someone to take over my job that late and have to deal with my books for a whole year,” he said. “I came in, in October, and had to work with someone else’s books for a year. I don’t want to do that to the next person.”

And when that day arrives, Jones says people will likely see a different side of him.

“I’d like to go back to some of my roots and start wearing a flannel shirt, a hat, boots and blue jeans and not shave,” he said.

Those days aren’t too far away.

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 61

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PAGE 62

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Friday, March 20, 2015

Edith and Jean Zamboni

Sisters, Symbols

By KIM HYATT

khyatt@owatonna.com

It’s a challenge to write something about the Zamboni twins, Edith and Jean, that hasn’t already been written before because they’re both broadcasted as if the unofficial spokes-duo or icons of Owatonna.

Then again, their combined 180 years of life means an informal, innocuous conversation over a cup of coffee can end up lasting two hours. Their stories are endless, which is why Edith keeps old trunks in her office full of paperwork, journals, impressive resumes and notes to begin working on an autobiography.

It will be a top-seller in Owatonna.

After the big 90th birthday bash hosted by friends with the mayor proclaiming Oct. 21, 2014, as “Edith and Jean Zamboni Day” and friends giving 10-pounds of cards and shaking their hands for three hours straight, the two said it was a “terrific tribute.”

“Interesting” is one word to describe the two, “historic” another. They have an image and are easily recognized in public, and they are because of how heavily involved they are in the arts and religious and civic communities in Owatonna.

The symbolic sisterhood is special, and it’s a good thing historians and writers tried to eat up every bit of wisdom, wit and experiences, because there will never be another twosome like the Zamboni twins.

“We’re the last of the Zambonis,” Jean said, and Edith nodded in accordance.

Undoubtedly, they’re the oldest twins in Owatonna, and they probably know more about this city than a Google search could ever inform someone.

Honestly, the two even predate their church, Saint Joseph’s. They were born in 1924 and the church was built in 1929.

Although the community knows them as twins, the sisters have separate identities and personalities.

“Dede [Edith] is much more quiet and more reserved. Jean is more flamboyant and outgoing,” said Silvan Durben, artistic director for the Owatonna Arts Center.

See ZAMBONI on page 64

In this photo, Edith hugs Owatonna Mayor Thomas Kuntz as Jean waves to the crowd at the presentation on Oct. 21, 2014, as Kuntz declared the day “Edith and Jean Zamboni Day.” (Press file photo)

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PAGE 64

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

ZAMBONI from page 62 Of course they have similarities; they do live together after all. But for twins, one can distinguish between the two. That doesn’t mean mid-conversation you won’t end up turning to one and say, “You’re Jean, right?” It depends on how many times you’ve been blessed with their presence.

“We don’t look much alike at all,” Jean said.

“But people get us mixed up anyways,” Edith added.

The Zamboni twins have been petite their entire lives, but Jean is a few inches shorter.

“They’re small but mighty and among some of the youngest in spirit that I know,” said {span class=”st”}Sister Franchon Pirkl. “They really just have the kind of energy and conviction coupled with a sense of humor that is a rollicking joy.”

Edith claims she was always taller.

In fact, the instruments Harry Wenger has available at the time they played in high school were determined by who was taller.

“Because I was bigger, I got the cello. Jean had the viola,” Edith said.

It wasn’t until Sister Edith returned to Owatonna in 1999 after years of ministering around the globe as a Sister of St. Francis that Jean realized she was shorter.

“I’m old but she’s the taller one,” Jean said, though she only trumps her sister by 15 minutes.

“I’ve always been taller,” Edith said,” Jean didn’t realize it. She thought she was shrinking.”

One glimpse at a childhood photo proves it was always the truth.

Before reaching high school, they and Carol Kottke published the Newsette and Carol’s mother typed up the master sheets. They were a collection of recipes, bithday parties, coming and going events of their readers and their families--by bus, train, in every direc-

a bi-lingual teacher at the Sisters’ first foreign foundation and Jean signed up as a volunteer there for a year while teaching at Mankato State University.

Mary Edith Zamboni

The Zamboni sisters hold the sign that was attached to the car they rode in during Owatonna’s Sesquicentennial parade in 2004. (Kim Hyatt/People’s Press)

tion — cartoons and ads. The three girls would deliver copies for a nickel and sing their song at the doors. It was sung to the tune of the 1937 hit song, “Oh, the merry-go-round broke down.”

The jingle went: “Oh, the Newsette paper’s brought around to every door.

If you read it once, you’ll all call up and ask us for some more.”

Knowing them as individuals and a pair

It’s no doubt the Zamboni twins are legendary, and not just in Owatonna.

“They’re unique,” Pirkl said.

“They’ve gone to different parts of the world, but they came home to roost.”

In 1990 the twins visited Poschiavo, Switzerland, the family’s origin. They learned they have two relatives still living there, cousins of grandma Tome.

The cousins were still living in the family home and have since died. Now the house is a museum for rural life of 400 years, known as Casa Tome.

Just as synonymous as Owatonna is with the Zamboni twins, is the idea of global service.

After graduating from OHS in 1942, the two girls went to college at Winona State Teachers College. They graduated in 1948 and during Edith’s junior year she left to enter the convent and ended up graduating from the College of Saint Teresa — eventually.

“All the men were in the war, so it practically turned into an all-girl school,” Jean said.

From then on they lived separate lives, reconvening in Owatonna and once, way up in the Andes in Bogotá, Colombia in 1993. Edith was there as

When Edith retired and came home in 2000 from Assisi Heights in Rochester, she felt like she “was riding on Jean’s coattails. People didn’t know me.”

“Jean had been here in Owatonna for at least 45 years, and I was mistaken for Alice,” Jean’s partner at OZ Press, and their oldest sister, Betty, because they had often been seen together.

“Most of the time we’re not together. I’ll go to the store and they’ll say, ‘Where’s your sister?’” Jean said.

In 1947, Edith became a religious sister with the Rochester Franciscans.

Until Vatican II, she was known as “Sister Baylon,” but since then, she has been “Sister Edith.”

“I felt compelled. I just wanted to know what to do. It’s like I had amnesia and didn’t even think about it,” she said.

Her years in active ministry have largely been as a bi-lingual teacher and as a volunteer with a variety of organizations--from refugee camps to Habitat for Humanity, to Arizona Indian communities to a Mexican orphanage.

She bopped around the U.S. — Arizona, Wyoming, West Virginia, Ohio and Texas. She was recognized as a Honorary Texas Citizen during her 15 years working as a certified psychorientologist.

“She exemplifies the spirit of Jesus and the mission of Francis,” Franchon said. “It really boils down to how she brings so much vitality and joy in a world with so much brokenness and heartache.”

See Zamboni on page 65

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 65

ZAMBONI from page 64 While Edith is a vowed Franciscan, Jean is a cojourner, or what Pirkl describes as someone to “journey or walk with.”

“They’re both women who think globally and act locally concerning justice issues,” Pirkl said. “They live life with a conviction and resounding sense of humor.”

In thinking about her varied ministries in so many different places, Edith said the image of a paper chain has come to mind — connecting to create a long, cherished piece of art, her life, and she “thanks God for the adventure.”

Mary Jean Zamboni

Jean had her fair share of adventures as well. She moved around quite a bit teaching art throughout southern Minnesota and a stint at Illinois State University.

Alice Ottinger and Jean met when teaching at Mankato State University and when they returned to Owatonna they opened OZ Press in 1964.

The silk-screen prints are just as famous as the twins themselves, gaining a worthy reputation of two women hard at

work. Ottinger died in 1999, but sometimes people still mistake Edith as her.

Regardless of who was with her, Jean was there and always made a presence.

“Jean…Jean…Jean is the kind of person we should all be. She’s kind, caring, hard worker,” Durben said, trying to find the right words to describe her. “Jean is very special to me because she’s an artist and has lived through a lot of things at the arts center.”

Jean interviewed Durben when he was applying to be the artistic director at the Owatonna Arts Center, so he said Jean is very special to him because of their mutual connection and appreciation for the arts center.

Jean was also a mail carrier for 15 years in Owatonna in addition to her artistry at OZ. The printing press on Bridge Street continued the Zamboni small business presence downtown.

When her grandparents moved here in 1871, they opened a sporting goods store on Cedar Avenue.

The Zamboni business legacy is still around in 2015. Above Kristi’s Boutique the tiles read “ZB.” Their father Silvy was in the business of selling cars during the Great Depression.

“We’d go from farm to farm to collect money. One time we came back from going farm to farm seeing if anyone could pay their bill,” Edith said. “We came back with a half dozen eggs. No one had any money.”

“Good thing we had this house,” Jean added.

But that was the end of business for the Zambonis.

For heaven’s sake, do not ask them if they are the family responsible for the almighty ice rink savior, the halftime show and shine — the Zamboni Machine.

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See ZAMBONI on page 66

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PAGE 66

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

ZAMBONI from page 65 cuckoo clock still chirps the same.

They’ll cut you off mid-sentence if you start to ask, “Are you relatEdith smiles when it goes off every ed...” with a quick “No,” because 15 minutes until the hourly finale of they know the question is bound a pleasant, familiar sound. to surface when first becoming acMaybe she loves it so much bequainted. cause it reminds them both about The CEO of Zamboni did visit just how much older she is, or simtheir house once a few years back ply because it’s nostalgic. when he ordered Christmas cards They stand in front of the large from OZ Press (yes, the prints are windows in the kitchen that stretch that renowned). He rolled out a from the sink all the way up to the family history like a scroll, but their ceiling practically every morning was no link. to eat breakfast. The sisters peer Neither got married, and for out into their backyard watching two entirely different reasons. Edith the squirrels run by the birdbath made oaths to many things when when thawed. following her calling to serve the That’s one of the reasons for people of this world for God. She longevity the sisters said, the fact couldn’t own a car or house, or get that they lived simply. Many times married. comfortable, other times in foreign “I don’t think guys are very intercountries thousands of miles away ested in me and I never was in them from home. either. I just never really cared,” Jean “We don’t drink, we don’t said. “Dee Dee was always the cute smoke, we don’t swear,” Edith said. one and went on dates. I never got “Usually, ” Jean replied, to which them so I was never interested.” the two gave each other a playful A print of the Zamboni house from the OZ Press, the business Jean owned with Alice Ottinger.

The house Instead, she was dedicating her has always been yellow, as long as the twins can remember.

Contrary to what many people have said, they look and laughed. life to student for over twenty years; “We eat simply. We have good to sharing productive work with Ot- didn’t live in the house their entire lives. They were both away teaching or ministering for stints, Edith being away from Owatonna for nearly five decades.

However, the home has always had Zambonis living there genes.

This Jean and those other tinger for 45 years through all those genes,” Edith said. years of Ottinger’s reoccurring can- since the twins’ parents bought the house shortly before the girls were born in 1924. (Submitted photo) Making it to 90 years isn’t uncer; to serving rural Owatonna as a that was gathered around for all those years of meals at the mail carrier for routes one, two and five. She also was taking Zamboni household. common for the Zambonis. In fact, they said it’s uncommon care of their sister Betty and their mother Although the twins grew up here and live here today, they for the opposite. Their mother was the last of 10 to die and their ‘I said when Dede entered the convent and I didn’t that God admit the town is a lot different than it was before. father was the last of four. Their oldest sister Betty lived to 83. must have made two of us for some reason,” Jean said. “It is And now they’re the last of them, the last of the Zambonis.

But one thing that has not changed is the bond between evident to me it is true.” the sisters A worthy legacy “After I entered the convent in 1947, then our lives parted Traces of the twins and the entire Zamboni family will ways. But we always kept in touch. Jean was my faithful correspondent and support,” Edith said. remain in Owatonna for years and years to come.

The house they were born in is still bright yellow and the Go to the Dunnell House and sit at the old dining table

See ZAMBONI on page 67

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 67

ZAMBONI from page 66 “I hope they live forever and they will. They bring such spark to the community,” Pirkl said. “When you think about how many years they’ve walked the earth, they’re not about to slow down and quietly retire. They just are always there, living life fully in so many ways.”

It’s worth noting the twins have one guilty pleasure, if only very slight: gambling.

“We like to play the penny machines,” Edith said.

They live together till this day. Not only do they share the same house and car, but they have the same email address.

“None of the social media things, just email,” Edith said.

They go to church together every Saturday and to art exhibits and open houses all around town. In their office, they have news flyers and notes, corresponding letters and remnants of 2014, the

year of the Zamboni twins.

It’s an ongoing joke between the two of them as they’re out in the community, hanging out or hitting the slots.

“Are we having fun yet?” they ask each other, the question both rhetorical and cheeky.

One has to think, after all these years being side-by-side — although separated for nearly five decades — do they ever get sick of one another?

“Do you have siblings?” Jean asks me.

“Yes,” I say.

“Do you get sick of them?” Jean follows-up.

“Yes,” I repeat.

“Well, we do, too,” Edith says.

Inside the Zambonis’ kitchen sits the proclamation and a card from a friend comparing the twins to Thing 1 and Thing 2. (Kim Hyatt/People’s Press)

The Zamboni girls on their way to music lessons. The instruments Harry Wenger had available at the time they played in high school were determined by who was taller. Edith had the cello and Jean had the viola.

(Submitted photo)

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PAGE 68

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

Charlie Herrmann

Life of Laughter

Charlie Herrmann addresses a crowd at the former Gainey Conference Center in October 2012. (Press file photo)

By JEFFREY JACKSON • jjackson@owatonna.com

There’s a twinkle in Charlie Herrmann’s eye as he starts to explain why he occasionally will thumb through a Playboy magazine.

“I read Playboy for the same reason I read National Geographic,” he says. “I like to look at colored pictures of places I’ll never visit.”

Once the laughter dies down in the room — and it takes a moment — he smiles.

“I’m big on one-liners,” he says.

And he is, though that’s just of many tricks in his bag — a repertoire that he has polished and honed for decades and that has not diminished over the years.

In fact, as far back as Charlie Herrmann can remember, he’s always been a funny guy and has always been comfortable being

up in front of an audience.

“Speaking, singing — I enjoyed that,” said Herrmann. “You get some warm fuzzies.”

Of course, not everyone appreciated his sense of humor as his audiences did, especially his teachers who told him he ought to spend a little more time with his head in a book rather than trying to make his classmates laugh.

Funny how things work out.

Flash forward nearly 70 years — Herrmann, 86, graduated from New Ulm High School in 1946 — and its clear that that ability to stand up in front of people, make them laugh and inspire them has served him well, even as it has touched the

lives of those in his audiences.

Across the country

Herrmann came by his ability naturally.

“My father was a good public speaker,” he said.

Herrmann spent most of his early years in Windom, Minnesota, where his father was the school superintendent. Later, his family moved to New Ulm, where his father took the superintendent’s post for that district.

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PAGE 70

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

HERRMANN from page 68

When he was a junior in high school, he had to choose between two options — a full year of English or one semester of English and one semester of speech.

His father, who knew the importance of public speaking, encouraged young Herrmann to take speech.

After his high school graduation and a two-year stint in the U.S. Navy, Herrmann enrolled in Macalester College in St. Paul, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in economics with a minor in political science. But even then, he would occasionally appear before audiences as a participant in the all-college talent show as the emcee.

“I did it just for fun,” he said. “I love the applause.”

Still, he never imagined that a good deal of his professional life and the fame that he has gained nationally would be because of his speaking before audiences. And that part of his life may not have happened had it not been for his 38-year association with Jostens — a job he almost didn’t take.

During his junior and senior years of college, Herrmann began thinking seriously about his life after Macalester.

“I said to myself, ‘A year from now you’ll be graduating. You’d better do some prospecting,’” Herrmann said.

He drew up a list of potential employers and set out to find a job with one of them. Eventually, he would interview with 25 companies, including 3M and Studebaker. He even landed a summer job with St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company, one of the major predecessors to The Travelers Companies.

He wanted to be a claims adjustor and so was tempted when the insurance company offered him a job.

In the end, however, he opted to sign on with the Owatonna-based Jostens.

“It was clearly more chancy,” he said.

His first job with the company was taking a sales territory in southeastern Wisconsin, based in Oconomowoc.

He stayed there for three years, then moved to Owatonna in 1955, where he was the assistant sales manager. Part of his responsibilities in the job was to bring in new sales associates to talk to them about the history of Jostens and product information and to help them practice sales presentations.

Charlie Herrmann speaks at the Sheraton-Ritz, one of many speeches he has given over the years. (Submitted photo)

See HERRMANN on page 72

Friday, March 20, 2015

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PAGE 71

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

HERRMANN from page 70

A man of many talents, Charlie Herrmann croons a tune with Miss Minnesota during the opening show at Jostens Scholastic Division’s national sales school. Herrmann was a vice president for Jostens when he retired. (Submitted photo)

“I did fairly well at that,” he said.

And with his success, he was given more and more responsibility for the sales school training.

Indirectly, his work with sales personnel with Jostens led to Herrmann’s branching out as a public speaker.

One of the Jostens salesmen, a man whose territory included the Dover-Eyota school district, came to the Owatonna office of Jostens, looking for Herrmann. That district’s superintendent was looking for a commencement speaker for their graduation ceremonies. And he didn’t want a politician.

Herrmann agreed.

“It went well,” he said.

Apparently, because other superintendents heard about it and started signing Herrmann on. And his bosses at Jostens liked it, too, Herrmann said, because it reinforced the business that Jostens did with schools.

But the superintendents weren’t the only ones who came to Herrmann about public speaking engagements.

“In that first commencement, there was a guy from New Ulm in the audience,” Herrmann said.

The man said he ran sales meetings for his company and wanted someone who could talk about successful selling and customer relations — two things that were right down Herrmann’s alley.

It was the beginning of what would evolve to become an endeavor he calls “Speeches Unlimited.” His work in public speaking has included making speeches before IBM, 3M, Philip Morris, General Foods, Pillsbury, Oscar Mayer, Caterpillar, Chrysler, Moore Business Forms and Monsanto. And it has taken him at least once to each of the 50 states of the union.

It hasn’t always been easy.

There was the time when he was booked to

speak at the Iowa Motorcycle Dealers Association at a hotel in Des Moines on a Sunday. And not just any Sunday.

It was Super Bowl Sunday — a day when the hearts and minds of the football fanatics, including members of the dealers association, were really glued to the gridiron more than focused on listening to a motivational speaker no matter how inspiring and funny that speaker might be.

But Herrmann was determined to go through with the speech if they wanted him, even when he got to the hotel and discovered that the association was unable to book the private meeting room it wanted.

“All the space was taken,” he said.

The association had come up with an alternate plan, Herrmann said. They moved the speech to the hotel’s indoor swimming pool area. Of course, the pool was open for other

guests at the hotel, including lots of kids who were doing what kids do around swimming pools — run and jump, hoop and holler, and splash, lots of splashing. Add to that the fact that the hotel had set up a number of television sets around the pool so the parents of the kids in the pool could watch the big game, if they wanted to.

And they wanted to.

Then, immediately before Herrmann was to stand up and speak, he gets a most unusual introduction.

“This guy gets up and reads the names of dealers killed the past year riding motorcycles,” Herrmann said.

Not the most inspiring setting for his speech, but he got through it.

See HERRMANN on page 74

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 73

Clubs & Organizations Friday, May 15 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm Steele County History Center 1700 Austin Road

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We feature: • Indoor Archery & Air Rifle Leagues • 3D Archery Shoots • Bowhunter & Advanced Bowhunter Education • 10-60 Yard Outdoor Archery Range • Fall & Winter Rendezvous • MN DNR & NRA Firearms Training programs • 50/100/200 Yard Firearms Ranges • We support & donate to local schools To become a member visit www.20riflepistolclub.org Or contact Rod Mauer 507-451-8358 Email president@20riflepistolclub.org Introduce youth to shooting sports!

SENIOR PROGRAMMING Programs & services geared toward adults ages 50 & better • Education • Health & Wellness • Support Services • Volunteer Opportunities • Recreation and Trips

Senior Programming is based out of Senior Place 500 Dunnell Drive • Owatonna • 444-4280 Hours: Monday-Friday 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM http://ci.owatonna.mn.us/parksrecreation/senior-place www.facebook.com/SeniorPlace e-mail: bradley.dushaw@ci.owatonna.mn.us Like us on Facebook

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The Steele County Food Shelf exists to: • provide food to the hungry • promote client self-sufficiency • coordinate with other poverty and hunger related services If you are having difficulty meeting the basic needs for your family or yourself, your local food shelf is here to help you and your family.

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To find out more information on any upcoming performances or becoming a part of Little Theatre call 451-6156 or go to www.littletheatreofowatonna.org 202 -1/2 N. Cedar Owatonna, MN 55060 (507) 451-9401 www.owatonna.younglife.org

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PAGE 74

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

HERRMANN from page 72 Giving back

An article, “Charlie Herrmann: In a Class by Himself,” that appeared in a Jostens trade publication summed up what Herrmann meant for the company: “We’ve come to associate his face with a Jostens sales meeting, service awards banquet, training seminar, a management development program, high school commencement address, or some other kind of special occasion for Jostens or the community. To many people throughout the organization and the United States, in fact, Charlie Herrmann is Jostens.”

In 1970, he was named vice president of corporate sales development. He also served for 20 years as a member of the board of directors of an American Stock Exchange Company and served as an instructor for the University of Wisconsin Management Institute.

But there is more to Charlie Herrmann than his work with Jostens or other companies and organizations or his public speaking. And there’s more than his wry sense of humor.

He’s also very much a man of the community.

For 27 years, Herrmann served on the Owatonna school board, most of that time as the board’s chair. He also was elected by the Minnesota School Boards Association to serve as one of the six members of the All-State School Board for 1979. And he’s a longtime member of the Owatonna Foundation Board of Trustees.

And there’s also what the public speaking has allowed him to do.

“I’ve developed some discretionary income with the money [received for public speaking],” Herrmann said.

He charged, of course, for most speaking engagements,

though not a lot by comparison with the fees that some speakers charge nowadays. If he were doing a commencement speech, he would let the schools decide how much to pay, though it averaged about $300 a speech.

For commercial enterprises, it would be more. In some cases, he has taken a check, endorsed it and handed it back to the school or organization.

“It has allowed me to do some things with the money that have made some differences,” he said.

And he said he is driven by a social responsibility and a religious response.

“I’m a firm believer in that passage, ‘To whom much is given, much is expected,’” he said.

And he quotes a passage from a parable of Jesus where on Judgment Day, God will say to those who have done good and those who have not, “inasmuch as you did this unto one of the least of these, my brethren, you have done it unto me.”

And that’s one reason he has continued speaking over the years.

“The money has a human investment component,” he said.

But there are other reasons he has continued.

“It’s fun,” he admits.

Then there’s the third reason.

“I think it can be helpful to the people who hear it,” he said.

Herrmann doesn’t speak publicly as much as he used to.

“Just a little,” he said. “I’m out of the loop. I’ve been retired from Jostens for about 20 years.”

Still, his voice is strong, his wit is sharp, and his ability to recall and recite an inspirational poem is as strong as ever.

And that twinkle in his eye is not likely to be going anywhere soon.

Charlie Herrmann and his wife Emily pause to pose for a photograph. (Submitted photo)

BE THE BEST OF WHATEVER YOU ARE If you can’t be a pine on top of the hill, Be a scrub in the valley — but be The best little scrub by the side of the rill; Be a bush if you can’t be a tree.

If you can’t be a bush be a bit of the grass, And some highway happier make; If you can’t be a muskie then just be a bass — But the liveliest bass in the lake!

We can’t all be captains, we’ve got to be crew, There’s something for all of us here, There’s big work to do, and there’s lesser to do, And the task you must do is near.

If you can’t be a highway then just be a trail, If you can’t be the sun be a star; It isn’t by size that you win or you fail — Be the best of whatever you are!

This poem, written by Douglas Malloch, is what Charlie Herrmann calls the “wrap up” of his public speeches.

Friday, March 20, 2015

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 75

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PAGE 76

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

Tara and Chad Gimbel

Teachers at Heart

Tara and Chad Gimbel pose in Chad’s classroom at Blooming Prairie High School. From teaching to coaching, the Gimbels have played a big role in the development of Blooming Prairie’s youth for a combined 32 years. (Kaleb Roedel/People’s Press)

Chad Gimbel’s voice catches as tears well up in his eyes.

Gimbel, a longtime Blooming Prairie football coach and business education teacher, sitting in his classroom, is talking about why, in fact, he leads a life of educating and coaching.

“You coach and you teach to see the reaction on the kids’ faces,” Gimbel said. “And that’s something … to see the kids’ faces of accomplishment. I mean ... that’s worth it.”

Chad’s wife Tara, also a teacher and former coach in the Blooming Prairie school system, echoes that sentiment. Tara is currently the reading specialist at the elementary school and coach of the 5th-8th grade academic triathlon team.

By KALEB ROEDEL • kroedel@owatonna.com

“It’s definitely because of the students,” Tara said. “They can be struggling in the classroom, but when they come and work with me at their level, they’re a totally different child. They feel successful.

They meet their goals along the way that they’re trying to make. It’s rewarding.”

Needless to say, the Gimbels are integral to the development of Blooming Prairie’s youth in countless ways.

And they wouldn’t have it any other way.

This isn’t the case.

Both were teachers when they met, but Tara was an educator 60 miles away in Mankato. The two of them — each a single-parent of one from previous marriages — met through the wonders of the Internet.

Tara had a cousin who lives in Blooming Prairie who said that she “heard Chad’s a good guy,” so Tara thought she’d see for herself.

Quickly, an email correspondence was developed.

Most assume that Tara and Chad Gimbel first met inside the halls of Blooming Prairie High School.

See GIMBEL on page 77

An email goes a long way

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

GIMBEL from page 76 “We talked for a month online and then he finally asked me out,” Tara said. “And we’ve been together ever since.”

As their relationship progressed, an opportunity for Tara to move to Blooming Prairie opened up. The Blooming Prairie Schools had a vacancy for a special education teacher at the high school. Tara had a master’s in special education that she earned from Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Now, if that wasn’t a sign, well, then signs don’t exist. “[BPHS principal] Barry Olson encouraged Chad to ask me to apply,” said Tara, who was promptly offered the job upon applying. “It was kind of a big step.

I owned a home and had a perfect job in Mankato. So it was a hard decision.”

With that, Tara accepted the job and moved to Blooming Prairie in the summer of 2005. A year later, she became Mrs. Chad Gimbel.

Chad’s early interest in education, athletics Chad Gimbel gives a pep talk to the Blooming Prairie football team during a preseason practice last August. Gimbel has been the Awesome Blossoms head coach since 1998. (Kaleb Roedel/People’s Press)

0 f e

t .

PAGE 77

Growing up in the small town of Browerville, Chad Gimbel, son of a real estate broker and printing pressworking mother, knew early in life that after he left school — that is, graduated college — he wanted to

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return to the classroom as a teacher.

“I always liked the high school atmosphere, even when I was a kid,” Chad said. “I always wanted to be a teacher when I was in high school.”

But, after graduating from Browerville High, Chad, one of three kids, enrolled at Moorhead State University as a business administration major, not education. The reason? Chad’s uncle dissuaded him. He was a teacher.

“He said there’s not enough money in it,” Chad said. “So when I went to school I first started in business administration. I love business. I love accounting.

I really enjoy those classes.”

But after the fall and winter quarter of his freshman year, the education itch was too strong to ignore.

“I switched over to what I really wanted to do, which was business education and coaching and become a teacher,” Chad said.

Shortly after graduating from Moorhead State, in the summer of 1993, Chad applied for an open business education teaching position at a school located 215 miles southeast — a high school in Blooming Prairie.

See GIMBEL on page 78

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

GIMBEL from page 77

Tara and Chad Gimbel enjoying some vacation time in Wisconsin Dells last summer.

(Submitted photo)

Tara’s penchant for teaching

Born and raised six miles from the Minnesota border in Estherville, Iowa, Tara, daughter of a hogbuyer and stay-at-home mother, knew she wanted to be a teacher as early as third grade.

“I loved my third grade teacher and I wanted to be a third grade teacher just like her,” said Tara, who’s the youngest of four kids (she has three older brothers).

Tara got her first glimpse of the profession earlier than most. In high school she would use her study hall time to help out her beloved third grade teacher.

“I went down to the elementary every day, and I kind of knew that that’s what I wanted to do,” Tara said.

Certain of her destined career, Tara went to the University of Northern Iowa as an education major, eventually shifting her focus to special education.

“I went into special education,” Tara said, “because when I was in college I babysat for a professor and her daughter was — she called her — borderline behavior disorder. So I got a lot of practice with a lot of different techniques in behavior. So she sent me the special ed route.”

Tara spent a few years as the special education teacher at Blooming Prairie High before she switched over to become the reading specialist at the elementary school, the position she holds now.

Additionally, a year ago she helped start Blossom Academy, an after-school program — running three days a week during the school year, and three weeks during the summer — set up to help kids with reading, math and developing social skills.

“It’s an effective program,” she said. “Our kids made some very good jumps in scores.”

Tara is also a former PTO president and Boys and Girls Club president and a current member of the Blooming Prairie city council. In short, she’s wired to get involved in her community.

“My mom was that way,” she said. “The more you get involved, the more people you meet.”

Chad works up the coaching ladder

As Chad cut his teeth as a teacher — of subjects ranging from word processing to personal financing — at Blooming Prairie he also wanted to get a taste of coaching.

Football most of all.

Starting as the 5th-6th grade tackle football coach, Chad, after two years with the little gridders, took over as the defensive coordinator for the big boys, the Blooming Prairie varsity football team.

Another two years later, in 1998, he was given the keys to the program. Head coach.

“It was exciting. It was nerve-racking,” Chad said. “The thing that probably helped out was the football program was struggling at the time. So it was a building program. I had to build it. So prob-

ably not as much pressure that way.”

The first few years, small strides were made.

One win his first season; two his next; a pair of fivewin seasons in a row. And then, Coach Gimbel and the Awesome Blossoms took a giant leap.

After running a traditional run-heavy wishbone offense his first few years at the helm, Coach Gimbel flipped the script and went to a modern pass-attack spread offense. A number of reasons played a role in the change, according to the coach.

“I decided I’m tired of trying to run the ball at people,” he said “We weren’t going to be very big on the line, so we needed to change to what our personnel was. And we wanted kids to get excited about football, that was the other thing.”

On top of that, Coach Gimbel had a 6-foot-4 quarterback with a big arm in Craig Olson. Olson’s senior year the Blossoms had their best season under Gimbel, finishing 7-3 and winning a playoff game.

“That was kind of the turning point there,” he said.

From there, the Blossoms continued to flourish in Coach Gimbel’s spread offense, culminating in an undefeated regular season in 2006. BP, however, was upset by Medford, 36-28, in the second round of the Section 1A playoffs. Gimbel earmarked the loss as a growing lesson.

“I hate to say it, but I got out-coached in that game,” he said. “That was one of the things where I look back on it and go, I won’t let that happen again. I learned a lot from that game looking back at it. I grew a lot from a coach’s perspective — not to take anything for granted and not let the kids take things for granted.”

Three years following that loss, and 11 years after he took over the struggling program, Gimbel led the Blossoms to state. BP lost its season-opener to NRHEG by one point and then went unbeaten all the way to the state semifinals, where it fell to Minneota, 49-26, at the Metrodome.

“That first year [at state] we were able to get to the dome, so that was quite the feeling,” he said.

“Watching them run out on the dome, and the community support, that’s why you coach. It’s for the kids, and teaching them lessons. And the same thing in the classroom.”

This past fall, Gimbel led the Blossoms back to state, punching their ticket with a win over topseeded Rushford-Peterson in the section title game.

“Everybody was telling us we had no chance to beat Rushford,” Gimbel said. “We kept hearing it all year. We knew better. We knew what kind of team we had, but just to go out there and prove it, that’s what motivated us.”

See GIMBEL on page 79

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 79

GIMBEL from page 78 Gimbel also coached BP softball for four years and is in his second stint as the Blossoms wrestling coach. Though the team often struggled to compete due to a lack of experienced wrestlers and overall numbers, the program is showing signs of progress. Another building project for him to tackle.

“It took six years to build the football program,” Coach Gimbel said. “And I just need to be patient and keep doing what we’re doing. The biggest thing is keeping those kids out and keep them improving and bring some other kids along with them.”

‘A great place to raise kids’

With two young sons, Eliot (6 years old) and Owen (4), Chad’s daughter Gina (16) and Tara’s son Seth (14), the Gimbels are teaching, guiding, keeping children in line ‘round the clock.

They both agree that Blooming Prairie is the ideal place for it. The Gimbels built a new home on the south side of town last summer.

“It’s a very close-knit community that watches out for each other,” Chad said. “A great place to

raise kids.”

“I can know what my child does between home and school before they get home,” added Tara, laughing.

During the summer weekends, they spend time at their permanent campsite on Round Lake near Elysian. Wisconsin Dells is also a spot they like to kick up their feet.

Last summer was the first since they’ve been together that neither Chad nor Tara coached their kids’ summer softball or baseball teams.

“It was a little easier just in the fact that we weren’t coaching,” Tara said. “It was kind of nice.”

After all, the Gimbels want to savor their time off. Having two kids in elementary school, and two more a few years away from college, they know that retirement isn’t anywhere in sight yet.

And the Gimbels are just fine with that.

“That’s the great thing about teaching,” Chad said. “Getting up in the morning, it doesn’t bother me to come to work at all. I truly enjoy the kids and coming to work and working with the staff.

I couldn’t see myself doing anything other than teaching.”

Chad and Tara Gimbel pose with their kids, from left to right, Eliot, Gina, Owen and Seth.

(Submitted photo)

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

Law in the Family Mark Walbran

By JEFFREY JACKSON • jjackson@owatonna.com

Mark Walbran points to a photograph that hangs in his office — one snapped back in the 1956 when he played T-ball on a team sponsored by Harland’s Tire and Auto Center of Owatonna.

He soon is identifying familiar names and faces, though much younger faces, of friends with whom he grew up and who played on that ball team. There was Tom Shea and Packy Cashman and Barry Gillespie — all still familiar names in town.

Then Walbran smiles.

“That’s the last time I was a champ,” he says, poking fun at his self-confessed lack of athletic prowess.

Then, he launches into a story laced with self-deprecating humor.

His father, John Patrick Walbran, himself a lawyer, came home for lunch the day that young Mark was placed on that same baseball team, and the son could not wait to tell the father.

The news piqued his father’s interest, enough so that the elder Walbran asked what position his son would be playing on the team.

“Out by the telephone pole,” replied young Mark.

The team played in nearby Morehouse Park and it didn’t take Mark’s father long to figure out that “out by the telephone pole” meant that Mark had been relegated to right field, a position notorious in the younger levels of baseball to be reserved for the lesser skilled players. After all, how many players in T-ball hit the ball way out to right field.

See WALBRAN on page 81

A younger Mark Walbran (far left) poses with his parents, brothers and sisters, their spouses and their children. Walbran comes from a family steeped in the law in Minnesota, dating back to his great-grandfather and continuing through five generations.

Mark Walbran poses in the law library of Walbran and Furness law offices in Owatonna. (Submitted photos)

Friday, March 20, 2015

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PAGE 81

WALBRAN from page 80 The position prompted the father to ask another question of his son.

“And what do you do out there by the telephone pole?” asked the father.

“Read my book,” replied the son.

And Mark Walbran smiles again.

There is his law office — an office that had been his parents’ as well and is now the home of Walbran and Furness — surrounded by volumes upon volumes of law books, some still marked with makeshift bookmarks stuck in them by his father and grandfather before him, there it is clear that Walbran is comfortable, even happy, with that bookish image that he had even as a boy. It’s part of his heritage.

It’s in his blood.

The early days

Mark Walbran was appointed city attorney for the City of Owatonna in 1977, when he was just three years out of Creighton Law School in Omaha, Nebraska. It’s a position he’s held ever since — nearly 40 years.

But even that, he downplays, preferring to remain humble about his accomplishments and to talk the tradition of the law in his family.

Take, for example, his early days as an attorney.

“I started practicing in the fall of 1974,” Walbran said. “When I started, the public defender’s office didn’t exist.”

Mary Walbran. (Submitted photos)

See WALBRAN on page 82

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Friday, March 20, 2015

WALBRAN from page 81

law school graduating class.

So if a person came before the court on charges and could not afford an atIn 1938, she married John Walbran, torney, Walbran said, the judge would himself an attorney, and the two moved appoint a lawyer — any lawyer — to serve to Owatonna and began practicing law as the person’s legal counsel. The lawyer together — Walbran & Walbran, a pracwould then be notified by the court of the tice that would continue for more than appointment.

50 years.

And how did Walbran do as a defense They worked well as a team, Mark Walbran said, with his father handling attorney in criminal court?

“My acquittal rate was generally poor,” the trial work and his mother tending to he said. wills, trusts and real estate matters, though Nor in those days did he care much for there were times when she went to court. family law — the type of law that includes Fairly early in his career, John Walbran handling divorce cases. Still, he would was appointed county attorney when the handle those cases as well. then county attorney was appointed judge.

“In those early days, everyone handled But in 1944, he was called up to the military to serve in World War II. family law,” he said matter-of-factly. “We would encourage people to reconcile.

Mary Walbran was appointed to serve Owatonna was not a mecca for single as acting county attorney in her husband’s people.” absence. That very year, she prosecuted the What he enjoyed the most in those landmark case of State v. Bolsinger, one of days were the workmen’s compensation the first vehicular homicide cases in MinMark Walbran (back row, far right) poses with members of the Owatonna City Council and other city officials nesota. She won the conviction. cases and the medical cases, though he during the early days of his tenure as city attorney. Walbran was appointed city attorney in 1977, when he admits being like a first-year medical was just three years out of Creighton Law School. He has held the position ever since. (Submitted photo) In 2007, the publication Minnesota student who assumes that he has every Law & Politics published what it called disease that he studies.

“Minnesota’s Legal Hall of Fame,” a listThe book notes that Moonan was most known least the first two terms of the FDR administration.

“I came down with every condition of ing of what it called the 100 top lawyers as a trial lawyer with a specialty in negligence suits “Grandpa Moonan was a brilliant lawyer, but in Minnesota history. my clients,” he said. a very humble man,” Walbran said.

Despite his downplaying of his work as a against the railroads.

“All attorneys. All from Minnesota. All with And he cared about people.

“Lucius A. Smith, a Faribault attorney, recalled young attorney, when that vacancy in the city Sasquatch-sized legal footprints,” the publicaDuring the Depression, Walbran recalled a tion says. attorney’s office came open in 1977, Walbran was that Moonan once recovered a record verdict on behalf of a hapless victim of a railroad accident family story, Joseph Moonan would go to the appointed.

Among the legal giants on the list are former who, shortly after the verdict, was found by a railroad station where a lot of poor, hungry and Supreme Court Justices Warren Burger and Harry A tradition in law neighbor adjacent to the railroad tracks once unemployed men would be.

Blackmun, former Vice President Walter Mon“And he would take them to dinner,” Walbran dale, former governors Harold Stassen and Orville The book “For the Record: 150 Years of Law & again in a bloodied, dirty, helpless condition,” Freeman, and current Minnesota Supreme Court Lawyers in Minnesota,” published in 1999, con- the book reads. “When the neighbor offered to said. “An all-you-can-eat diner.”

Though Joseph Moonan had no sons to carry Justice and former Vikings superstar Alan Page. summon the doctor, the unlucky victim replied, tains a section entitled “An Irish Legacy.”

“When 21-year-old John Moonan of Waseca ‘Hell no! Get John Moonan over here as quick on the family name or the family tradition in the And on that same list, at number 95, is Mary Wallaw, he did have five daughters, including Wal- bran. But don’t let the number make you think was admitted to the bar by Judge Buckham on as you can!”

Moonan had three sons — Joseph, Ray and bran’s mother, Mary. that it is a ranking. The list is in alphabetical order.

March 27, 1887, he started a tradition in law that Paul, all of whom followed their father to CreighBorn in 1915, Mary Moonan did an audacious And among the 50 runners-up for the hall of now spans five generations,” the book reads.

John Moonan, the son of Irish immigrants, ton Law School and to the practice of law, though thing, at least for the time, when in 1935, she reg- fame is John Moonan, Mark Walbran’s great-grandwas Mark Walbran’s great-grandfather and Wal- Joseph waited a couple of years before he started istered for classes at the University of Minnesota father and the patriarch of this family of lawyers.

Law School — something women just didn’t do Those are just a few of the family members bran is a part of that five-generation tradition practicing.

It wasn’t that Joseph, Mark Walbran’s grandfa- in 1935. who are lawyers, Mark Walbran said. in law.

As the family story goes, the dean of the law And how many lawyers are there in the family?

It is a tradition of which Walbran is very proud ther, didn’t want to practice law. Just the opposite.

Rather, it was because Joseph Moonan was a mere school wrote Joseph Moonan, Mary’s father, suggest“I’ve lost count,” Mark Walbran said. “At least and one that he can recite easily.

Great-grandfather John Moonan was admit- lad of 19 years of age when he graduated from law ing that law school wasn’t the right place for a woman a couple of dozen.” ted to the bar in 1887 and was elected mayor of school in 1910 and Minnesota statutes required and further suggesting that she might consider taking Waseca, county attorney for Waseca County and that he be at least 21 years old before he could be a course in music. Her father wrote back, “I already A legal lifetime tried that. She’s no good. You keep her.” state senator, representing the county, and where admitted to the bar.

There was a time, however, though just perJoseph Moonan was, as Walbran put it, “quite Mary Moonan remained at school for one haps a fleeting moment, when Mark Walbran he was dubbed “Napoleon of the Senate” for the way he pushed through legislation during the six involved in the Democratic party” in Minnesota, year before transferring to Creighton, where she considered a different career — a career in jourserving as the chairman of the state’s party for at graduated in 1937, the only woman in that year’s nalism. years he served.

See WALBRAN on page 83

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 83

WALBRAN from page 82 It’s was the summer of 1970 and Walbran was hired to be the summer sports editor for the Owatonna People’s Press.

“I’m sure they were familiar with my brilliant athletic career,” he said, smiling.

The night editor, Tarl Tarlson, who was also a history teacher at Owatonna High School, had left for health reasons, so young Walbran was quickly taught how to get copy off the news wire and get it into the paper.

“It was a great job. I thoroughly enjoyed the job,” he said. “It was good discipline — working on deadline. It’s a big deal to get the paper out.”

But long before he flirted with journalism, Mark Walbran was working in his parents’ law office.

“I started working here in seventh grade, running errands,” he said.

Most of what he did was running legal documents back and forth between the law office, which sits on Main Street, and the Steele County Courthouse, which sits almost directly across the street.

Mark Walbran and his 1956 T-ball teammates. Walbran, who stands in the back row, second from the right, is between two other recognizable Owatonnans — Barry Gillespie and Tom Shea. (Submitted photo)

“I couldn’t get lost,” he said.

And, he added, not only did he get to know people in the auditor’s and recorder’s

offices — they were located in the courthouse at that time — but he got to know most of the attorneys, which would prove benefi-

cial when he first started out in his practice.

Looking back over the days from when he first started until now, especially in his time as city attorney, there are several cases that stand out, he said, including, most recently, the $1.85 million settlement with DuPont over a DuPont-produced herbicide that killed or damaged hundreds of city trees at Brooktree Golf Course.

But even there, Walbran downplays his own contribution and credits Parks Director and Brooktree Course Manager Rick Smith.

“He was very organized,” Walbran said.

Walbran acknowledges that, with the exception of handling adoptions, the workload for lawyers is filled with handling problems and dealing with difficulties. Still, he has no plans to stop practicing any time soon.

“My grandfather worked until his death,” he said. “My father worked until he was 78, my mother until she was nearly 80.”

And that is another tradition he plans to uphold.

“I enjoy what I do,” he said. “It’s a fulfilling career.”

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

Many Hats Tom Shea

Tom Shea, an Owatonna native, has been Steele County administrator since 2012, but before he took the position, he had a variety of jobs. (Ashley Stewart/People’s Press)

By ASHLEY STEWART • astewart@owatonna.com

OWATONNA — Tom Shea has worn a lot of hats in his life — both old and new.

“I’ve had a variety of jobs,” he said.

But that wasn’t always the plan.

In fact, when Shea graduated from Marian High School in 1969, he intended to attend the University of Minnesota to become a social studies teacher.

“That was my original plan,” he said. “But I didn’t get a job and the beer business was growing significantly, and I had a job and I was well-experienced. It wasn’t like

I needed any training because I had been doing it since I was 5 years old.”

The family business

One of the first jobs Shea remembers having was sorting returnable bottles at his father’s beer distribution business, Shea Distributing Company, Inc. in Owatonna.

“There were three types of bottles: brown bottles, green bottles and white bottles, and when you sent them back

See SHEA on page 85

to the brewery they had to be all the same color,” he said.

“But when you picked them up from the bar they’d be all mixed up.”

Shea, who was born and reared in Owatonna, was the second of six children to Joe and Doris, and spent weekends working in different areas of the company that was located at the corner of North Street and Cedar Avenue.

“It’s a parking lot now,” he said. “It was a family business, so we spent Saturdays there working and hanging out.”

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

SHEA from page 84 And after attending the University of tions to Rochester in the late 1990s.

Minnesota and Minnesota State University, Mankato, Shea returned to the family business ‘Choice rather than default’ as general manager with It was 1974 and Presihis older brother, Tim, and dent Nixon was in the only sister, Sara.

White House as impeach“My dad was very much ment was at the table in the involved the whole time I aftermath of Watergate. was also,” he said. “He was “We had a Congresssemi-retired. Anybody man named Al Quie, who who’s in a family business was a very good, honorknows what that means.” able man, but he was a But when Philip MorRepublican and wouldn’t ris purchased the majorcommit to impeachment,” ity stake in Miller Brewer Shea said. “And so I knew Company in the late 1960s enough from being into enter into the beer busivolved in the Twin Cities ness, Shea said the whole that the way to organize industry changed coma party is through candipletely. dates.”

And his future with the And because no one business seemed to change, was running against intoo. cumbent Rep. John Biers“I really hadn’t thought dorf at the time, Shea deabout it, but when things Tom Shea at 2 years old in front cided to. changed and I was acutely of his family’s duplex on East “Then Nixon resigned aware of that and what the Pearl Street in Owatonna in 1952. in August, and I thought, business would actually be (Submitted photos) ‘What the hell, let’s go for able to support, I got out,” it,’ and I put out some of my Shea said. “We did a stratethings, including informagic plan and I planned myself right out of a job.” tion about Highway 14,” he said. “I damn near Shea’s brother, Tim, continued to operate won, but it was Watergate year, so you can’t the business and consolidated the two opera- really count that.”

See SHEA on page 86

ABOVE: Tom Shea started working in the family business, Shea Distributing Co., at a young age sorting beer bottles and sweeping floors before joining his father, Joe, and brother, Tim, after college in 1974. Shea served as general manager until 1989. LEFT: Tom Shea speaks on the Minnesota House of Representatives floor in the early 1980s. Shea served as a representative from 1980 to 1984.

PAGE 85

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

SHEA from page 85

But Shea returned in 1976. something else to do, so I thought “I kind of refined my message what the heck, I read newspapers.” and cleaned up my act a little bit, At one time, Shea was the writbut I was still single in a still very er, photographer, page designer, Republican area and I didn’t do as sales representative and owner of well,” he said. “So I sat out in the the Owatonna Photo News. next election in 1978.”

“I literally did everything at the In 1979, Shea met his future end,” he said. “I was the only fullwife, Stephanie Tisdale, an Owatime employee.” tonna school teacher, as the result And with his time, Shea added of a DFL caucus. local news.

“I went to my first caucus and “There were a lot of clutchI asked a friend at the school who and-grab pictures, and I would I knew was friends with him, if just ride around and take pictures she thought he could tell me what of things taking place in the comI got myself into,” Stephanie said. munity. I really enjoyed that,” he “I was selected as a delegate to the said. “Everything was local.” convention.”

Shea recalled writing a story So, Stephanie called him. about the 1989 San Francisco “We met and the rest is hisearthquake. tory,” he said.

“It was a big deal, and, of So in 1980 when no one was course, it was during the World going to run against Biersdorf Series,” he said. “I did a local story again for Minnesota District 32A and got all these angles of people Representative, Shea did. that lived in the area. My story “I was married and respectable featured nine different people and by this time,” he said. “So at the they were all local connections. last minute I went and filed for That’s the kind of thing I wanted Tom Shea coaches an Owatonna Park and Recreation basketball team at Owatonna Junior High School in January. Shea office, and I put out a statement has coached girls’ basketball for more than 20 years. (Ashley Stewart/People’s Press) the paper to be.” that said, ‘I filed because no one Those are the type of stories few local stories,” Shea said. “If you were to go two kids,” he said. else is running but we deserve to Shea was most proud of.

Shea and his wife had their first child, Joe, in back into the archives and look at 1987 and 1988, be represented by choice rather than default.’”

“The thing about it is any strong community Shea said he wasn’t going to run an active cam- 1982, their second, Kerry, in 1984, and their third, the year I believe that tipped me over, there was has a couple things in common; one of them is a hardly any coverage of the legislative race and the very engaged community that is a result of a very paign unless people indicated to him that they Maggie in 1986. front page was all wire service.” would support his candidacy. strong and engaged newspaper that results in a Before delving into the newspaper business, very strong and engaged school system,” he said.

“Let’s just say I raised more money in two The local business weeks than the other two campaigns combined, Shea even included the first Todd Hale colShortly after Shea’s departure from the beer Shea and others asked the publisher of the Waseca County News to start it up in Owatonna. and then, I won,” he said. umn. business, he found a new endeavor.

“He said it was too much and asked if there Shea ran again in 1982 and won, and he ran “He got me going,” Hale aid. “I was a radio This one was also local — or it was going to be were any local owners,” he said. “At that time, it guy, so I never really got into writing until then.” again in 1984 and lost. when he was done with it.

“I already decided I wasn’t going to run in 1986 And when Shea sold the Photo News to Jim “At the time the [Daily People’s Press] had just was when we were doing the strategic plan in the that 1984 was going to be my last because we had become a wire service newspaper. There were very beer business and I was going to be looking for Huckle in 1992, Hale stayed with the newspaper.

See SHEA on page 88

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Friday, March 20, 2015

SHEA from page 85 “I just kept on,” Hale said. “It is a total joy, and all the credit is due to Tom for getting me started.”

Shea worked for the People’s Press for about a year after selling it. “[It] was great,” he said.

In 1993, Shea left the newspaper for Premier Bank in Owatonna.

“It was always a transition thing,” he said.

Fifteen years of could-haves

Over the course of the next 15 years, Shea held positions in three different organizations.

In 1993, Shea was approached by representatives of Premier Bank.

“I was asked if I ever considered going into the banking business, and I said of all the things I’ve thought of doing that’s the last thing I thought,” he said.

But the bank was relatively new in Owatonna and was looking for some local connection.

“I liked that,” Shea said. “I could’ve easily continued being a banker. I enjoyed it, I enjoyed the people, and I enjoyed the work and all that, but when that opportunity at Riverland came up, I really couldn’t pass that up.”

And he didn’t.

In 1995, Shea left Premier Bank to take a position at Riverland Community College as a small business management instructor.

“It took me back to my passion, if you will, which is teaching and coaching, and it combined with my business experience,” he said.

“From running a very healthy business in the beer industry to doing a start-up and all the struggles with that and being in the banking business on the other side of the table, so I had a lot of real life experience that served me very well in that role as small business management instructor.”

Instead of a classroom setting, Shea worked directly with businesses.

“I could’ve also done that easily for the rest of my days, but there wasn’t enough enrollment, so the position was cut,” he said.

For a couple years, Shea did independent work until a loan officer position opened up at the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation in 2002.

“The loan officer at the initiative foundation is a lot like what I did at the college as well as the bank. I did the loans but I did a lot of instruction and coaching,” he said. “That was a good position.”

But in 2007, Shea’s parents, Joe and Doris, declined quickly.

“I took a leave of absence and they both passed away within four months of each other, and I just never went back,” he said. “I just did independent work then.”

Serving the county

In the late 1980s, Dick Day, the District 5 Steele County Commissioner at the time, told Shea he was considering running for Minnesota State Senate.

“I said, ‘Why would you do that, you have the best political job there is,’ He said, ‘Yeah, I know, but...,’” Shea said. “And I said, ‘If you do that and win, I’m going to run for your job.’”

So in a special election in 1990, Shea became Steele County Commissioner and served in that capacity until 2011 when he stepped down to take a run at the vacant administrator position after longtime county coordinator Dave Severson retired.

“We had it all set when Dave retired. We were going to do a search, strategic plan because we knew it was going to be a big deal to transition from coordinator to administrator,” he said.

Then, one of the commissioners suggested Shea apply for the position.

“I didn’t know about that, but I did,” he said. “I didn’t get an interview.”

And six months later, Riaz Aziz, who was hired as the county’s administrator, stepped down in September 2011.

Then Shea, longtime commissioner, was hired in February 2012.

“I just kind of felt that I should, right or wrong.

I felt I could be of best value if I was in this position for a short period of time to get through the strategic plan and the transition process,” he said.

“So that’s what I did. I took a chance.”

This February marked Shea’s three-year anniversary as county administrator.

And last summer, he announced his intention to retire before July 2015.

March 27 marks his final day as full-time administrator.

“It’s time,” he said. “I’m slowing down.”

But he won’t be completely.

“I have a list at home of things to do,” Shea said.

And although they may not be on his list, he plans on continuing some of his favorite pastimes.

Since high school, Shea has been coaching Owatonna Parks and Recreation teams, and for more than 20 years, he’s been coaching youth girls’ basketball with Jeff Kramer.

“I really enjoy that,” he said.

In May, his wife, Stephanie, will retire, too, so he said they plan on playing a little golf and taking a few trips this summer.

Some of those trips will be to Target Field to watch the Minnesota Twins play, which is something he’s done since the very first game in the Met. And he’ll likely wear another hat, but this time, a baseball cap.

“I’ve had a good life,” Shea said. “I keep telling people I’m the luckiest man in the world, and I believe it.”

Tom Shea with his family. From left to right, back: Kerry, Shea, Jackson and Maggie. Front: Joe and Stephanie, Shea’s wife. (Submitted photo)

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PAGE 90

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Friday, March 20, 2015

Joe and Ev Stransky

A Thriving Tradition

By KIM HYATT • khyatt@owatonna.com

To see how much a family dairy farm up on dairy farms and were active, and has evolved since its inception in 1890, still to this day, they’re mentoring youth.

They’ve judged in more than 40 difjust look at the medicine and technology of precision agriculture and herd growth. ferent Minnesota counties and have To see how successful a family dairy served on the State Holstein assistant farm is after 125 years of operation, check committees. They’re the longest running out the office where every square inch dairy exhibitors at the Steele County of wall and counter space is covered in Free Fair. purple and blue ribbons, truckloads of Joe, 68, was named National Outhardware from medals and plaques to standing Young Farmer in 1981 and is trophies. Or scroll down a seemingly in- currently a member of the Minnesota finite list online of awards from Holstein, Corn Growers and Minnesota Soybean Jersey and Brown Swiss shows, both state Association. and national.

Ev was the State Jersey Queen in 1967 and 1st runner To see how much pride and work goes up for Princess Kay of into a family dair y the Milky Way, otherwise known as the farm, visit Stranshome.

Stran home HolMinnesota State Dairy steins, located off AusPrincess — you know, We’re humble and tin Road in Owatonna, all the butter sculpgals — in 1988. was founded by Joe we’re representatives ture Stransky and his faShe was one of Minneof a great industry — sota’s first female dairy ther Joseph Stransky in 1960, but the life of the judges and won agriculture — that’s cattle farm goes back another first place in the Na70 years to Grandpa crucial to this country. tional Women’s Dairy Joe, who came to Steele Showmanship Contest Ev Stransky County from Czechoin the late 1960s.

This year, they were slovakia when we was 18 years old and cared for a herd that’s a inducted into the Minnesota Livestock fraction of what it is now.

Breeders Hall of Fame. Over the years, “There are so many good livestock Strashome Farm has had 50 All-American people in this county. We’re just repre- and Junior All-American nominations in senting them. A lot of people are doing four different breeds of dairy cattle. what we’re doing in this county and doing And can you guess where they met? it well,” Ev said. “We’re humble and we’re At the 1966 Dakota County Fair in Farmrepresentatives of a great industry — ag- ington where Ev grew up and her family riculture — that’s crucial to this country.” raised Jerseys.

“This guy was so shy and I asked him, Livestock legacy ‘Are you a county agent? Do you have Joe and Ev didn’t meet each other until kids in 4-H?’” Ev said. “He was so serithey were in their 20s, but they both grew ous.”

“”

Joe Stansky was honored with the 1981 National Outstanding Young Farmer Award. His wife, Ev, stands next to him.(Submitted photo)

See STRANSKY on page 92

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Friday, March 20, 2015

STRANSKY from page 90 The next week, Ev and her Jerseys ventured south to the Steele County Free Fair and she was told that Joe’s birthday — his 23rd that year — always fell on the week of the fair. So, Ev decided to bake a cake, but not just any old cake. She took a plain sheet cake and a photograph of Joe’s cow named Kim that was, she said, “classified excellent, which is a big deal,” and transposed it on the frosting.

“So I had this cake with his prized cow on it.

He fell in love with me then,” Ev said laughing, half-joking, though obviously it was true.

So together they continued working with cattle.

Joe and Ev live right next to the old schoolhouse Joe attended and just down the road is the homestead still full of Stranskys.

Keeping a family farm going for five generations, with the sixth already roped in, requires a balance of work and leisure. However, the two aren’t equal.

Farmers don’t have a lot of days off, and “they don’t retire,” said Reid Stransky, fifth generation

Stranshome farmer.

“My dad still comes and helps with the cow shows and still helps with chores,” Reid said. “My grandpa did it till the day he died, and my dad will do the same.”

For someone who knows zilch about cows, heck, even fellow farmers would be blown away — utterly impressed — by the sheer recognition the Stransky family has in the livestock world.

They’re featured in national magazines and advertisements, inducted into halls of fame and recognized for their dedication to agriculture in more ways that just milking a couple of cows.

“We just do our thing,” Ev said. “We’ve had to make our work our fun.”

In fact, Ev has either shown dairy cattle or judged consecutively for the past 60 years at county, state and national shows.

The best analogy the family has come up with to tell the naïve or novice is this: The Stranskys have had cows that are to the National Holstein Show what the New England Patriots are to the National Football League — a really big deal.

Reid said the National Holstein Show is like the cow Super Bowl. His sons, Joseph, Zach, Jerome and Darian are on the team, too.

The ages of all four boys combined doesn’t exceed their grandpa, but already they have experienced success at Junior All-American shows and fairs at the state and surrounding counties.

By the time they were old enough to walk, the boys were leading cows into arenas, showing off their cow that’s 10 times bigger than they.

Isn’t that terrifying?

“Heck no,” said 10-year-old Jerome, sporting a brand new pair of glasses and cowboy boots.

And Joseph, 14, the oldest of the sixth generation living at the homestead, just like all the Joes before him, with his brothers and their parents Reid and Daria. He said he’s already committed to carrying on the family business.

Two years ago, young Joe Stransky was showing his grand champion cow at the World Dairy Expo with people from 80 countries watching and a big spotlight on him. When Ev talks about her grandkids’ showmanship, she glows.

Not too long ago at the SCFF, Ev was curious and concerned, like any 4-H grandma would be, when she realized Joseph wasn’t going to compete in the showmanship contest at the end of the day.

When she asked him why, he said, “Grandma, I’ve won enough.”

“How mature is that?” Ev said, “I always say he’s 14 going on 40.”

But by that time when her eldest grandson is running the homestead and family farm, she is concerned what kind of challenges that next generation will face.

Ag evolution and obstacles

Will Rogers, the American cowboy, actor and comedian, described the perspective and perseverance of a farmer best: “The farmer,” he said, “has to be an optimist or he wouldn’t still be a farmer.”

The number of family dairy farms, which are family owned 89 percent of the time, have been decreasing over the years.

See STRANSKY on page 93 A 21-yearold Ev (Wolkow) Stransky in the Farmington newspaper with her Jersey cow. Her grandfather started raising Jerseys in 1903 and she’s been in love with the breed ever since.

(Submitted photos)

Reid, Joe and Joe Stransky at the farm. Reid said that “farmers don’t retire.” Just like his grandfather who worked on the farm ‘till the day he died, his dad will do the same.

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 93

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Owatonna Junior High School 500 15th Street NE • 444-8700

McKinley Elementary School 423 14th Street NE • 444-8200

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Owatonna ALC 130 E Vine Street • 444-8000

Wilson Elementary School 325 Meadow Lane • 444-8400 Willow Creek Intermediate School 1050 22nd Street NE • 444-8500 District Office 515 West Bridge Street • 444-8600 The Stransky farm house in Owatonna. The first Joe Stransky — two Joes came later in life — moved to Steele County from Czechoslovakia in 1890 when he was just 18 years old. Now, Reid Stransky and his family are the fifth generation to live in the very same house. (Submitted photo)

STRANSKY from page 92 “The ability to support the family became more challenging,” said Hugh Chester-Jones, professor at the University of Minnesota. “We lost a lot of family herds which is telling of the times and due to the rise in cost of production and profitability and changes in the family not going back to the farm.”

Chester-Jones does his research and teaching in dairy and beef production systems and works at Southern Research and Outreach Center in Waseca. He’s from England and moved to Waseca 30 years ago. That’s when he met the Stranskys.

And when he arrived in Minnesota, he said there were about 20,000 herds in the state. Now, there are less than 3,500.

As the number of farms decrease, those who have stuck it out have increased herd size. Joe said his grandfather milked 13 cows. Now there are about 130 cows and instead of propping up a stool, workers hook up equipment to do the milking.

“What you need to do to compete and stay viable in the ag industry, the way technology has become so expensive, is that if you’re going to be a participant, you’ve got to have enough volume to justify owning the technology to do everything,” Joe said.

Technology and endless data makes precision agriculture a big part of farms like Stranshom

because it allows the farmers to focus on each individual cow, corn or bean field, which increases profitability and decreases risks of disease and detriment.

The barns have changed, or at least one of them in particular, the hoop barn. Joe and Reid designed and built it in 2006. Rather than a wood or tin roof, it’s canvas to allow more fresh air to circulate and sunlight in.

The high level of care contradicts what some whistleblowers say and the stigma created by political groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, commonly know as PETA. “These show cows are treated like royalty. I tell them to come look at this if they think we abuse animals,” Reid said.

Chester-Jones said messages within the media on agriculture gaffes cast a negative light on the entire industry.

“The only thing to do is to never be defensive. Tell them ‘I’ll show you we don’t abuse our animals,’” Chester-Jones said, “They’re our bread and butter.”

Joe said some city folks’ only exposure to agriculture is at the county or State Fair, so their view is very limited. They question if a cow is comfortable in a halter and ask, “How can you treat them that way?” he said.

See STRANSKY on page 94

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PAGE 94

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

STRANSKY from page 93

The Stranskys kept these name tages from a Holstein convention. (Submitted photos)

The entire family is rather flabbergasted when those negative situations occur — and they always do — because they are treating the cow with the utmost care.

They groom and clean them, feed them and take care of their health.

And as Ev said, her grandsons are “learning the relationship of raising another living thing.”

“It’s important for us still in agriculture to promote what we do. Too often all you see is the negative side of things,” Joe said.

The general public is “further removed from agriculture” Joe said because people don’t realize where their food comes from, how much work and resources goes into raising crops or cattle. The lack of participation and experience still doesn’t deter people from voicing their concerns and opinions in opposition to what Stranshome and thousands of other familyowned farms do daily.

“Too many people think you can turn the faucet on and make more corn or more milk. But that isn’t how it works,” Joe said.

“It’s a process. Crops are grown to raise livestock. Mother Nature regulates the size of the crop. We do what we can.”

He said agriculture is sometimes used as “a pawn in government relations and the stock market,” so producers suffer the consequences of the political pendulum swing that’s out of their control, just like Mother Nature.

Farmers have faith that all of these uncontrollable things won’t negatively “affect the ability to produce and stay alive financially,” Joe said, adding that they have to work hard and smart.

“We’ve been around livestock our whole lives. It’s our livelihood. We wouldn’t be in this business of agriculture for very long if we didn’t take good care of the cattle as well as the land,” Ev said.

“In order for us to have a viable livestock operation, we have to take good care of those animals. They have to be healthy, they have to be comfortable.”

See STRANSKY on page 95

Friday, March 20, 2015

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 95

STRANSKY from page 94 PETA will go out and find a rare farmer that breaks the rules, Ev said, “but the majority of us in livestock production make a supreme effort to take responsible care of the livestock, from birth to maturity.”

Regardless of regulations being made in St. Paul and Washington, D.C., and the misconceptions of the general public on the process and livelihood of how food goes from Stanshome to the table, Joe wakes up everyday at 4:20 a.m. to do chores.

Visiting Stranshome, the rich history is visible as well as growth. More sheds are built to store more equipment for larger fields and herds. Semis full of soybeans are about to be hauled. Beyond the grain bins baby calves cuddle in their little huts.

The boys are up in the haymow playing basketball.

Meanwhile, Ev is back at home, sorting through newspaper clippings from a lifetime of livestock.

Her and Joe’s house is full of farm memorabilia, and they just keep collecting.

The sixth Stransky generation, Darian, Jerome, Zach and Joseph. (Submitted photo)

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

Growing Dedication Ron Van Nurden

By JEFFREY JACKSON jjackson@owatonna.com

It was the 1980s and farms in America were in crisis.

Land prices had been on the rise, and farmers were borrowing based on land prices — borrowing to the point that the farms were leveraged to the hilt. Then, the unthinkable happened. Land prices collapsed, and farmers had no cash to pay their bills.

It happened here in Steele County, too, and Ron Van Nurden remembers it well. A lot of farms, he said, collapsed.

“And if they didn’t collapse, they were tested in a lot of ways — financially, emotionally. It was difficult,” Van Nurden said. “It’s more than just a business. You invest your life.”

Some of those farms had been in families for two or three generations, maybe more, he said, which added to the burden and the guilt that farmers felt if the farm failed during the crisis.

“They felt like they were letting down the whole heritage,” he said.

About that time, Van Nurden was hired to be a farm business management instructor at Riverland Community College — a position where he was, in those years, part teacher, part counselor.

“Cash flow was the key. You have to have the cash to make the payments,” he said. “We did a lot of cash-flow planning.”

It was something that Van Nurden understood firsthand. It was something that he had lived.

The family farm

Ron Van Nurden grew up on a small dairy farm near the small unincorporated community of Rosendale, Minnesota, about 14 miles southwest of Litchfield.

When he was growing up, there was not much there — a creamery, a general store, some houses. There’s less there now.

Oh, the town is still there, he said Back in 1893, the Danielson Creamery in Rosendale was awarded first prize for creamery butter — separator process — at the World’s Fair. Now the creamery is gone, as is the general store.

Van Nurden attributes it to the change in the dairy industry.

He attended a country school, the only kid in his grade for seven years.

“Whether that’s bad or good depends on the teacher,” Van Nurden said.

For him, he said, it was not so good, particularly because he had the same teacher for several years and he started falling behind. It wasn’t until his last two years in that school that he got a new teacher who recognized that he was behind where he should be and worked to bring him up to speed.

When he got to high school in nearby Grove City, he had an ag teacher who recognized not only his passion for farming, but some abilities in him that no other teacher had spotted.

See VAN NURDEN on page 97

Ron Van Nurden dons his Riverland Community College shirt, announcing that he is connected with the Farm Business Management program. Van Nurden taught in the program for about 20 years. (Submitted photo)

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 97

VAN NURDEN from page 96 “He said, ‘You’ve got some talent. Have you ever thought of becoming an ag teacher?’” said Van Nurden.

“I was 14 or 15.”

And if you ask him if he still has that spark, that passion, for agricultural and the farm, his face will light up.

“It’s so important to our country, to the world,” he said. “Everybody’s got to eat.”

And what is there about the farm that sparks that passion?

“It’s the connection to nature, to the animals, to wild life,” he said. “It’s the independence it gives you, the freedom it gives you to be creative.

He was the oldest of four boys in the family, and, he said, each of the brothers had a specialty on the farm.

He was the “livestock guy.”

When he did his chores in the morning — tending to the hogs and the chickens — he did everything by hand.

As such, he had very little time in school for extracurricular activities.

“I didn’t get involved in much in high school,” he said. “I felt obligated to the farm.”

In fact, he characterizes himself in those years as a “quiet, shy country boy.”

Life on the farm was not easy, and he said he grew up poor. Very poor — a condition he attributes to his father.

“Dad was not a very good farm manager,” Van Nurden recalled. “He didn’t want to use modern technology.

As a consequence, when Van Nurden was a freshman at Willmar Community College — “It was all we could afford,” he said — his dad took a job working for the highway department in Chatfield, something that brought the family to southeastern Minnesota.

On the leading edge

When Van Nurden came to Steele County and got involved with the Steele County Free Fair, he at first felt some of the same resistance toward technology that he had seen in his father.

Van Nurden, who had been teaching ag and agribusiness — some to high school students, some to adults — since he had graduated from college, saw the need for farmers to be up-to-date if they were going to survive. In his days at Riverland, he introduced farmers to computerized record-keeping — something taken for granted nowadays.

Now retired, Ron Van Nurden is considering becoming a beekeeper. (Submitted photo)

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Friday, March 20, 2015

VAN NURDEN from page 97 And if farmers needed to be, the He moved to Lanesboro, where fair — run by the Ag Society, after he would stay for six years, the last all — should be so, too. four in the Veterans Ag Program for He tried introducing electronic servicemen returning, many from record-keeping to take the place of the Vietnam War. After those years in Lanesboro, everything that had been done by hand. He tried to introduce computhe returned in the mid-’70s to farmerized judging and payment of preing himself, raising hogs for four or five years in Fairfax, Minnesota. miums. Eventually, as technology continued to evolve, he introduced “I love livestock,” he said of his online entries. reasoning for going back to the And, just as with his father, he farm. Though he chose not to try met some resistance. a dairy farm, which he called “too “There were some superintenmuch” trouble and too much exdents who had been with the fair pense. for 50 years who didn’t like it,” Van “Hogs are less expensive,” he Nurden said. “They’d say, ‘This said. guy’s coming in and computerizing During that time, he met Lynn, things.’” a Bible camp counselor who would One person who didn’t resist become his bride. Eventually, he it, however, was Elmer Reseland, took a job with the Cenex Corp. the then-secretary/manager of the in Owatonna as a record-keeper in Steele County Free Fair. agronomy and financial services.

“I sat down with Elmer, and he After a couple of years, he took a position teaching farm manasked me if I wanted to be on the board,” Van Nurden said. agement at what was then called He’s been on the fair board ever Austin Technical College. It’s now since, about 20 years.

Riverland.

In 2010, he was named the Ron Van Nurden, a member of the Steele County Free Fair Board of Directors, speaks during dedication ceremonies of the “It was right during the farm Allan R. Radel Pavillion at the Steele County Free Fair in 2014. (Press file photo) Steele County Free Fair/KDHL crisis, and it was a program for beagement with the goal of helping farm was education. us a very positive outlook on life.”

Southern Minnesota Ag Ambasginning farmers,” he said. “It was So Van Nurden pursued his dream of absolutely the wrong time to do that.”

“Dad didn’t want me to go to college,” sador of the Year — an award given families reach their goals. He took spebecoming an ag teacher, landing his first to honor individuals who promote cial interest in helping families reach he said.

With the farm crisis in full tilt, othBut fortunately, he said, his mother — job in Balaton, a small town in western er schools — South Central College in agriculture all around Minnesota. In their goals.” whom he calls the most influential person Minnesota. But for a young, unmarried Faribault, Minnesota State University, announcing the honor bestowed on of his life — was “big in education.” man, being that far away from family and Mankato and Winona State UniverVan Nurden, the fair noted that Van Road to Owatonna “She was a very independent, very friends had him yearning to move, which sity — were dropping similar programs Nurden was “on the leading edge of Another area where Van Nurden technology and Farm Business Man- found himself at odds with his father compassionate person,” he said. “She gave he did after two years. for a simple reason.

See VAN NURDEN on page 99

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 99

VAN NURDEN from page 98 “No one was interested in agriculture,” he said. “Farmers were saying, ‘I do not want my son to go through what I’m going through.’”

With dwindling enrollment, Van Nurden soon found himself facing layoff. He managed to secure a job teaching farm management for two years, but that, too, found him in a shrinking program without the security of seniority.

Then came an opening at Owatonna’s Riverland campus in the Farm Business Management program. And he’s been here ever since.

“It was 1988, the year of the drought,” he said. “That’s how you mark things in farm management.”

The passions live on

Van Nurden has never lost his passion for agriculture or for education.

Though technically he retired in 2008, he continued on for five years in the Professional Excellence program through the Minnesota State Colleges and University System, commonly known as MnSCU, helping new people who are looking at teaching farm management.

“It’s an easier way to retire rather than just quitting,” he said.

He has also channeled his love of education into public service. In 2012, he ran for the Owatonna school board.

“Some friends talked me into doing it,” he said. “It was not an easy decision for me to make.”

He’s debating whether he will run again.

“My wife would like me to retire,” he said. “She says that I haven’t really retired with everything that I’m doing.”

And he keeps an orchard — apples, pears, grape vines and raspberries.

He’s even been taking a class this winter to satisfy his thirst to learn new things.

And this, too, would be like raising livestock of sorts.

“I’m looking at becoming a beekeeper,” he said.

ABOVE: Van Nurden flyfishes at Williwaw Ponds in Alaska. LEFT: Van Nurden shows off a stringer full of pink salmon. (Submitted photos)

PAGE 100

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 20, 2015

Dave and Kim Ramsey

Volunteering, Naturally

By KALEB ROEDEL

kroedel@owatonna.com

If you’ve ever been to a fundraiser, charity event or nonprofit organization in Owatonna, Dave and Kim Ramsey should be familiar faces.

Actually, the Ramseys — often the ones holding the camera for group shots — may have taken your picture.

The charitable couple knows no other way than to get involved and give back — lifelong volunteers, you could say. If they have the time, they’ll pitch in and help. And even when they don’t have the time, they’ll often squeeze it in.

Quite simply, it’s in their nature.

“I came from a mom who volunteered all the time, so I didn’t know any other way,” Kim said.

“My siblings and I, as soon as we could walk just about, we were doing literature drops. My mom was big into politics. We just grew up doing that. You don’t even think to say no. You just do it. That’s just how our life was. We just always volunteered … And when our kids were little I was Boy Scout leader, Girl Scout leader … You just do it all. I didn’t know any other way.”

Dave had a similar upbringing.

“My dad did a lot of volunteering,” Dave said. “He helped with every sports team. He wasn’t the coach, but he cared about the kids and always wanted to help out.

“I don’t think you consciously think about volunteering, but you saw that there was a need and you said, I got a little spare time. It’s two hours a month? Yeah, let’s go do it.”

And they have.

For more than 30 years in Owatonna, the Ramseys have lent — and in many cases continue to lend — a hand to a laundry list of nonprofit organizations in and outside of Steele County.

Dave and Kim Ramsey have been a part of organizations that shape and support children such as Young Life Owatonna and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southern Minnesota, which led to them nurturing a young boy turned teenager for 12 years. They participate in programs that feed the older generation (Meals on Wheels, serving hot lunches to homebound senior citizens) and the younger age group (Feed My Starving Children, a Christian-based group that takes meals

Dave and Kim Ramsey pose in their Owatonna home. The Ramseys have been active volunteers in Owatonna for more than three decades.

(Kaleb Roedel/People’s Press)

packaged by volunteers and ships them to 70 countries around the world to help feed children). They’ve raised homelessness awareness for Transitional Housing of Steele County by sleeping in boxes in Morehouse Park — in November. They both play pivotal roles for United Way — Dave, as a director on the board, Kim

as a member of the women’s leadership council.

The truth is, there’s probably more. They can’t keep track of them all. Which they see as a good problem to have.

“I think the one thing that’s nice about this place (Owatonna) is a lot of people get involved in a lot of different things,” Dave said. “There’s

See RAMSEY on page 102

something to volunteer for every day of the week.”

Added Kim: “We love Owatonna and we love helping out where we can.”

This all while working, raising two children, and occasionally carving out free time for themselves.

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 101

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Friday, March 20, 2015

RAMSEY from page 100 City kids come to town

Dave and Kim, both from the Twin Cities, met while the two were attending Bemidji State University in the 1970s. Dave went to Southwest High School in Minneapolis and Kim went to Alexander Ramsey High in Roseville.

Following Dave’s graduation in ’78, the couple — who married in St. Paul — headed down Interstate 35 South to Owatonna, where Dave had a job as a commercial lines underwriter with Federated Insurance waiting for him.

Dave was an education major but he said the teaching prospects were sparse following his graduation. Thrust into the post-grad real world, he wasn’t about to pass up a way to pay the bills.

“I met somebody and he said why don’t you come down (to Federated) and take a peek,” Dave said. “And next thing you know, yeah, I’ll give it a shot.”

Thirty-seven years later, Dave — working his way up the ladder — is the Director of Insurance Alliances at Federated.

He said he’s done a little bit of everything during his time at Federated.

“I really enjoy the business,” he said. “I enjoy trying to find solutions to people’s problems. I get a lot of pleasure when we find something that makes sense and you can protect somebody. Otherwise, I’d quit. I’d get out. But it’s a great company. They’re a class outfit. I’m not ready to hang up the cleats yet.”

As for Kim, who graduated from Bemidji State in 1977, a year before Dave, she was a social worker prior to their arrival in Steele County. However, she wanted to shift into a different field when they made Owatonna home. (Kim found that as a social worker, all too often she brought her patients’ problems home with her, figuratively speaking.) After working at First United Bank and Federated, Kim decided to go back to school to get her teaching certificate. She found her calling as a substitute teacher.

And for 25 years she’s spent time subbing at Owatonna’s elementary schools and in the special education classes at both the junior high and high school. And when she’s not substitute teaching, Kim might be making her way through the school hallways anyway, volunteering in the resource rooms of the schools. She was also the treasurer of Lincoln’s Parent Teacher Organization for a year and given her time to numerous school committees.

In short, Kim Ramsey is weaved tightly into the fabric of Owatonna’s school system.

“I love it,” Kim said. “I think maybe the older I’m getting the harder it is for me to be a disciplinarian and you have to be that as a sub. I don’t want to be the bad cop all the time.”

On top of that, she’s been a Sunday school teacher at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church for 25 years.

ABOVE: Kim and Dave and their children, Erik (far left) and Erin (far right), welcome their first exchange student Sigrid from Estonia.

BELOW: Kim (back left) with girls at Young Life Camp in Owatonna. (Submitted photos)

‘We like a small community’

Despite hailing from the bustling streets of the Twin Cities, the Ramseys found that a smaller city such as Owatonna was more their speed.

“We like the small community,” Dave said.

“It sticks together. I know I can find somebody fair week every year. I know I can find somebody at a ballgame. I’ll go to a high school game and run into 40 people a night that I know. If I went to a game in the Twin Cities I might not see anybody in the community because they’re so scattered. It’s a community. It’s buried in here and I think people like that.”

But, through Dave’s transfers with Federated, the Ramseys had to uproot from the Owatonna community for chunks of time. They spent roughly five years living in Faribault, had a short stint living in Springfield, Missouri, and shipped back to Minneapolis for four years before boomeranging back to Owatonna.

See RAMSEY on page 103

Friday, March 20, 2015

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 103

RAMSEY from page 102

Kim and her “Little” Taylor through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program in Owatonna. (Submitted photos)

“We were happy when the last move brought us here,” Kim said.

“Owatonna is home.”

Plus, they felt it was the perfect place to raise a family. The Ramseys have a daughter, Erin, who is 33, and a son, Erik, who is 32. Erin is currently a product manager for Traveler’s Insurance — “our (Federated Insurance) competitor,” Dave says with a laugh — in St. Paul. Erik is finishing his master of business administration at Ohio State University.

Needless to say, they’re proud parents and glad that their kids had such a good education in Owatonna paving the way.

“Our kids just had wonderful teachers,” Kim said.

The Ramseys have also welcomed Rotary Exchange students into their homes. They’ve hosted a total of four girls over the years who came from Estonia, Indian, Ecuador and Japan.

Each one lived with them for four months.

Making the most of their time

It’s no secret, the Ramseys like to keep busy.

When they aren’t working or volunteering, one can find the Ramseys on the golf course or up north or visiting their children or attending OHS athletic events, among other leisure activities.

But those windows of time are small in comparison to the lengths at which they give their time to charitable causes. To the Ramseys, volunteering is a defining characteristic of what makes Owatonna a tight-knit, caring community. They feel it’s only natural to do all they can to help keep it that way.

“That’s what I think makes Owatonna such a wonderful place to live,” Kim said. “There are so many people willing to volunteer to make it a better place.”

Added Dave: “It’s an active community. People want to make it thrive and grow.”

Dave with his “Little” — through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program — Albaro at his graduation.

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