Portraits of steele county

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 1

Welcome Portraits in Steele 2014: Pillars of Our Communities

I

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 for years to come.

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 2014 for weeks and months to come as we celebrate the pillars of our communities.

— Ron Ensley Publisher and Editor

PAGE 2

Contents

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

Harvey and Maxine Ronglien: Living History ................................................................................................. 4 Mike Jensen: Impeccable Impressions............................................................................................................... 8 Jeff Williams: Winning Tradition ............................................................................................................................12 Jim and Joan Herzog: Lifetimes in Education ..............................................................................................16 Tom Brick: The Right Fit..............................................................................................................................................22 Craig Kruckeberg: Maximum Mometum........................................................................................................26

Owatonna.com

Portraits 2014 A special project of

Keith and Carol Holman: Making a Home .....................................................................................................30 Julianna Skluzacek: At Home on Stage............................................................................................................36

Owatonna.com

Donnavon Eaker and Rachel Lee: Perfect Mix .............................................................................................40

135 W. Pearl St., Owatonna, MN 55060

Mark Biebighauser: A Fresh Light ........................................................................................................................46

Publisher Ron Ensley Advertising Director Debbie Ensley Managing Editor Jeffrey Jackson Media Specialists Betty Frost, Diane Gengler, Rachel Ebbers, David Weeks, Beth Barrett, Aaron Louks Ad Design Kelly Kubista, Jenine Kubista, Paul Ristau, Keeley Krebsbach, Nikkie Gilmore, Naomi Kissling Page Design Tony Borreson Cover Design Kate Townsend-Noet Contributing Writers/Photographers Jeffrey Jackson, Al Strain, Ashley Peterson, Kaleb Roedel, Jon Weisbrod

Barry Olson: Teaching, Learning ...........................................................................................................................54 Al and Laurie Lysne: Family Business .................................................................................................................60 Sandy Hardy-Hagen: Happily Busy .....................................................................................................................64 Doug Meyer: Towering Talent................................................................................................................................72 Keith and Jane Bangs: A Big Impact ..................................................................................................................77 Pete and Jackie Ostlund: Always Improving.................................................................................................80 Pete Connor: Here to Help.......................................................................................................................................84 Dave Berg: Intensive Care.........................................................................................................................................92 Wes and Amy Kain: Providing Comfort............................................................................................................96 Mike and Pat Noble: Road to Success............................................................................................................100

Portraits 2014 is distributed to subscribers and readers of the Owatonna People’s Press at no additional charge, and is available at area businesses, and the front counter of the Owatonna People’s Press.

All Rights Reserved ©2014

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 3

Advertiser Index 43rd Street Pub & Grill ................................... 17 A J Lysne Contracting Corporation ............ 103 A Touch of Charm ........................................... 31 Ag Power Enterprises, Inc. ............................. 49 Al-Corn Clean Fuel ......................................... 55 AmericInn Hotel & Suites Conference Center .................................. 45 Andiamo Italian Ristorante ............................ 69 Attorneys .......................................................... 75 B to Z Hardware .............................................. 31 Bosch ................................................................. 45 Boys & Girls Club of Blooming Prairie ........ 31 Brooktree Golf Course .................................... 97 Broskoff Structures .......................................... 61 Budget Tax Solutions, Inc. .............................. 43 Car Time of Owatonna ................................... 73 Cash Wise Foods ............................................. 19 Cedar Travel ..................................................... 25 Cedar Floral Design Studio .............................. 7 Central Park Coffee ......................................... 39 Central Valley Co-op ........................................ 5 Child Care & Preschool ............................90, 91 Christian Bros. Cabinets ............................... 101 Churches .....................................................52, 53 City Auto Glass ................................................ 83 City of Owatonna ............................................ 76 Clifton Larson Allen........................................ 41 Clubs and Organizations ................................ 63 Cole’s Electric, Inc. .......................................... 21 Community Education ................................... 81 Country Charm Ceramics.............................. 43 Country Goods ................................................ 49 Cumberland’s Northwest Trappers Supply, Inc. ............................................... 65 Cybex ................................................................ 67 Dean’s Smoke Shack ........................................ 61 Dean’s Westside Towing.................................... 7 Deml Heating & Air Conditioning ............... 41 Dow Chiropractic ............................................ 57 Dream Day Bridals by Marcia ....................... 19 Ellendale Muni................................................. 43 Ellis Body Shop ................................................ 97 Elwood Star Cleaners ...................................... 79 Express Employment Professionals............... 73 Express Pressure Washers, Inc. ...................... 31 Extreme Powder Coating ............................... 33 Farmers & Merchants Bank ........................... 33 Federated Insurance ........................ Back Cover

Fireplace Connection ...................................... 83 Frontier Communications.............................. 31 Gandy Company.............................................. 19 Garlick’s Water Processing ............................. 17 Geneva Bar & Grill .......................................... 61 Geneva Lumber Co. ........................................ 61 George’s of Geneva .......................................... 61 Heartland Animal Hospital ............................ 17 Holiday Inn & Suites ....................................... 49 Holman Agency, Inc........................................ 33 HomeTown Credit Union ............................ 101 Hy-Vee .............................................................. 41 In Touch Physical Therapy ............................. 49 Independent School District 761................... 81 Insty-Prints ....................................................... 13 Insurance ....................................................70, 71 J-C Press............................................................ 23 Jerry’s Owatonna Auto Sales .......................... 11 Joe’s Repair Service, Inc. ................................. 31 Johnson & Doerhoefer P.A. ............................ 33 Jostens ............................................................... 15 KSW Roofing & Heating, Inc....................... 101 Koda Living Community.................................. 7 Kottke Jewelers................................................. 65 Krejci Ford, Inc. ............................................... 33 Lerberg’s Foods ................................................ 43 Looks Unlimited .............................................. 43 Loken Excavation & Drainage, Inc. .............. 17 Main Street Dental .......................................... 89 Mark’s Repair ................................................... 99 Mayo Clinic Health System ............................ 49 McCabe Motors ............................................... 21 Metal Services ..................... Inside Front Cover Michaelson Funeral Home ............................. 49 Miner’s Outdoor & Rec................................... 29 Minimizer ......................................................... 35 Modern Metal Products ................................. 11 Morehouse Place.............................................. 57 Morton Building .............................................. 93 Nagel Sod & Nursery ...................................... 13 Nick’s Pizza Palace ........................................... 59 Noble RV .......................................................... 69 Northland Farm Systems .................................. 9 Northrop Oftedahl House .............................. 97 Owatonna Bus Company ............................... 39 Owatonna Country Club.................................. 5 Owatonna Floor Covering & Mirror ............ 39 Owatonna Foundation .................................... 19

Owatonna Granite & Monument ................ 103 Owatonna Groundsmasters ........................... 41 Owatonna Heating & Cooling ....................... 55 Owatonna Hospital ......................................... 59 Owatonna People’s Press................................. 23 Owatonna Physical Therapy .......................... 79 Owatonna Shoe................................................ 83 Pearson.............................................................. 55 Phone Station ................................................... 93 Pizza Ranch ...................................................... 89 Prairie Manor Care Center............................. 31 Prairie Plumbing & Heating, Inc. .................. 31 Prudential Advantage Realty ...................Inside Front Cover R. V. Services .................................................... 95 Randall’s License Bureau ................................ 57 Realife Cooperative ......................................... 79 Richard’s Wood Products ............................... 61 Riverland Community College ................Inside Back Cover St. Clair’s for Men ............................................ 59 Salinas Auto Repair ......................................... 31 Salon-e-Clips .................................................... 17 Sette Sports Center .......................................... 25 Southern Minn Digital ................................... 87 Sparetime Entertainment ............................... 95 Specialty Personnel.......................................... 21 State School Orphanage Museum ................. 73 Steele-Waseca Cooperative Electric ............ 103 Steele County Free Fair ................................... 99 Steele County Historical Society ................... 67 Steele County Landfill ..................................... 33 Steele County Public Health .......................... 45 Steve’s Meat Market ......................................... 43 Stewart Sanitation............................................ 57 Stockwell Accounting ..................................... 49 SunOpta ............................................................ 31 Sweet Towing & Repair ................................... 13 Technology Navigators ................................... 85 The Kitchen ...................................................... 11 Tonna Taxi ........................................................ 25 Travel Headquarters .......................................... 5 Tri M Graphics............................................... 101 V.F.W. #3723 ..................................................... 23 Viracon ............................................................. 47 Wells Federal Bank .......................................... 69 Wencl Accounting & Tax ................................ 95 Wenger Corporation ....................................... 89

PAGE 4

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

The founders of the Minnesota State Public School Orphanage Museum, Harvey and Maxine Ronglien sit in their Owatonna home. The couple has been married for more than 60 years. (Ashley Stewart/ People’s Press)

Living History Harvey and Maxine Ronglien

I

By ASHLEY STEWART • astewart@owatonna.com

f you were to ask Harvey and Maxine Ronglien 40 years ago about starting the Minnesota State Public School Orphanage Museum, they would have told you it never crossed their minds.

“I didn’t give a damn,” Harvey said. “Hell, for years I didn’t think of the State School.”

That was until Jan. 11, 1981.

It was a Sunday morning 33 years ago when Harvey’s family sat him down for an intervention.

“My brother Dale’s funeral was on Saturday so it was an opportune time for the kids, who no longer lived at home, to stay overnight and be home so Harvey didn’t think it was anything unusual, since it was a complete surprise to him when he got up in the morning to go to work,” Maxine said. “He came and sat at the table, and each one of us had to talk about how his drinking affected our lives. Harvey never argued.”

Harvey’s drinking started while he served in the U.S. Army in the mid-1940s, and it became a social event

after work and sporting events when he returned.

“I never missed work because of it, but I had a few car accidents and I started to blackout,” Harvey said.

That’s when the Rongliens’ son, Rob, started researching alcoholism and treatment centers. He thought it was time to break the family cycle — Harvey’s father and grandfather were both alcoholics After the intervention, Harvey went to the Hazelden Foundation in Center City, Minn., where he was treated for alcoholism but found so much more.

“It turned out to be a real blessing in disguise,” Maxine said. “For one, Harvey hasn’t had a drop of alcohol since, but most importantly, Hazelden really started to open his eyes to his life in the orphanage.”

It changed his life, and it soon would change others, too.

“Harvey kept saying to me in the late ‘80s, in another generation or two nobody is going to know West Hills was a State School Orphanage, and I said to him,

See RONGLIEN on page 5

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 5

RONGLIEN from page 4 ‘Nothing’s ever going to get done, so we’re going to have But the State School was operating at full capacity, so the to do it.’” children were lined up in front of the Benson Courthouse and And that’s when the work began. one by one locals stepped forward to adopt them.

“At the end of the day, Oscar and I were the only two Raised as a state-schooler left,” Harvey said.

Harvey and his brother stayed at county commissioners’ Although many years had passed since Harvey thought about the Minnesota State Public School for Dependent and homes until there were vacancies at the State School.

“The sheriff showed up with Oscar in the back seat to Neglected Children again, it was a part of him.

It’s where he spent his childhood. He was raised in an pick me up, and we went on a ride that seemed to last forever before stopping in front of C12, which is the brick building institution. on State Avenue, in the middle of the night,” he said.

And he’s not ashamed to admit it.

Harvey arrived at the State School in 1932 at 5 years old.

“I will say proud as can be that I’m a state-school kid. I never did look down on it,” he said. “I know it wasn’t perfect, He was one of 10,635 abandoned children who attended the but I think it was good for me. I don’t know where I’d be had state school between 1886 and 1945, and he was among the few who stayed in Owatonna.

I not had the state school.”

“Most of them couldn’t get far enough away,” Harvey said.

Harvey was born in 1927 in Appleton, Minn., and was At 16 years old, Harvey was sent to a home in St. Paul, one of eight children raised during the beginning of the but ran away.

Great Depression.

“I came back to Owatonna,” he said. “When I went to the In the late 1920s, Harvey’s mother was sent to the State Tuberculosis Sanitarium, and in 1931, his father was home I didn’t belong to those people. I didn’t fit into a family. sentenced to Stillwater State Prison for breaking into a I still belonged to the state.”

And he started working part-time so he could live on his country school. This left Harvey and his siblings on their own while attending Owatonna High School. own and on their way to the State School.

The Rongliens with their son, Rob, and daughter, Cheri, in December 2013 at Cottage 11 to celebrating the couple’s 60th wedding anniversary.

(Submitted photo)

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Harvey didn’t care much about academics, but he found his place in athletics.

“I played football, baseball and boxed,” he said.

But his passion for athletics started before high school.

“We had our own athletic teams at the state school. Our best athletes were playing on the high school team and the rest of the kids had a schedule at the state school,” Harvey said.

Harvey enjoyed boxing in the Golden Gloves program the most.

“The golden glove was great for kids who didn’t fit into the high school situation,” he said. “It wasn’t high school teams, so the state school set a team, and we would always win the Owatonna tournament each year.”

Although sports were a big part of Harvey’s teen years, the military became his focus at 17 years old.

“I couldn’t wait to get in. The Navy and the Marines drafted at 17 and the Army drafted at 18,” Harvey said. “I tried to get into the Navy, but I was color blind, so I gave the Marines a try but they wouldn’t take me so I waited until I was drafted into the Army.”

Harvey was sent to Italy in 1945 to relieve the U.S. troops fighting in World War II. “Oscar was in the war, and when I went over, I replaced him,” he said. “We got off the ship and 5,000 troops got on the train to go north to relieve the guys going home. We got off the train and marched the other way and Oscar and I ran into each other. Of all the people, we saw each other.”

When Harvey returned from the Army, he re-entered Owatonna High School to obtain his diploma and in 1948, he graduated at 21 years old.

And by the fall of 1949, Harvey had started full-time at Owatonna Public Utilities, where he would enjoy a 35-year career working up to first-class lineman.

“That was one of the best things that ever happened to me,” he said.

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

RONGLIEN from page 5 moving into Owatonna as a high school freshman.

Maxine was born in 1934 on the Grunklee Farm in a rural community southeast of Owatonna and attended a rural school near Blooming Prairie.

She was one of four children.

The summer before Maxine entered ninth grade, her parents sold the farm and purchased a 10-acre property on North Cedar Avenue in Owatonna.

“My family didn’t have a lot of money and I started working part-time at the age of 13 so I always had part-time jobs in high school,” she said. “I always remember when I was in ninth grade, my mother and I were downtown and I said, ‘Mom, I’d really like something new to wear to homecoming,’ and she said, ‘Max, I just can’t afford it.’”

Although her family wasn’t wealthy, she had been given something that would last longer than money.

“It was a very stable family, and I always credit that for what made our marriage work because Harvey knew nothing about a family, and I had grown up in a good family where faith and family were the most important things in our lives,” Maxine said.

Maxine participated in choir and orchestra in high school, and upon graduation in 1952, she started as a policy typist at Federated Insurance.

“I was very fortunate because I was promoted to Fred Austin’s secretary, and I remained in that job until we had our first child,” she said.

At the time Maxine only knew one thing about the State School.

“Some of the farms out there would take in some of the State School kids,” she said.

But Maxine would eventually learn more about the orphanage from one State-Schooler himself.

Keeping a promise

It started with a promise.

Harvey was grabbing drinks with a friend after spending the day working as a grunt with the line crew at Owatonna Raised in a family Public Utilities.

At the time Harvey graduated “At about 10:30 or so, we decided from high school, his future wife was to see what was going on out at the

The Rongliens lead a candlelight walk at the State School Orphanage grounds last September during the orphanage board’s inaugural “Lighting the Path” event to raise money for the museum. (Ashley Stewart/ People’s Press)

Monterey Ballroom,” he said. “We went out there and here’s this wedding dance and I come sashaying in and she’s sitting at a table with her friends and family.”

It’s the summer before Maxine’s sophomore and junior year of high school.

“I’m seven years older,” Harvey said.

“I’m robbing the cradle for crying out loud.”

But that didn’t stop him.

Harvey walked up to the table where Maxine was sitting.

“She tells me herself that I came up to her and asked, ‘What’s your name?’

She looks up and says, ‘Maxine,’ and I bent over and tweaked her little nose and said, ‘Maxine, from this moment on your life is never going to be the same.’”

And he kept his promise.

The two would meet again unexpectedly the next day downtown.

“I’m bringing my laundry to Cedar Street and here she is in front of Costas sitting in the car with her brother while her mother was shopping,” Harvey said.

“I bring my laundry in and I go over to the car.”

Maxine’s brother, Dale, who was mentally handicapped, was in the back seat.

“She said she thought, ‘If I ever had a chance, I won’t now because of Dale,’” Harvey said.

See RONGLIEN on page 7

Maxine said at that time people really looked down on people who were mentally handicapped.

“I was just so fearful that he’d never look at me again,” she said.

On Flag Day in 1949, the two bumped into each other at a parade.

“Harvey had asked me for a ride home because I could drive a car and he couldn’t, so I said I would give him a ride,” Maxine said. “That started us on our courtship.”

Due to their age difference, the couple tried to keep their romance secret but it eventually came out.

In December 1952, the two became Mr. and Mrs. Ronglien.

And their life didn’t go without challenges. After all, Maxine knew very little about the life of a State-Schooler and Harvey knew very little about what it meant to be a family.

“We’ve overcome an awful lot of barriers because we grew up so differently,” she said. “We’d go to family functions and it was very difficult for Harvey to fit in and he didn’t try too hard either. We had a lot of major obstacles to overcome because of our diverse growing up differences.”

But they made it through together and, today, have been married more than 60 years.

“I told Maxine when she married me

if she’d stick with me through the hard times, I’d put her right on Broadway someday, and that’s where we are now.

Again, I kept my promise,” Harvey said.

“Over all the turmoil we’ve had over the years, we’ve overcome all of it.

“I am so thankful that I met Maxine because she has shown me the way. I am seven years older, but she’s led me through life. There’s no question about it.”

After their wedding, the Rongliens had their son in 1954.

Maxine worked part-time at Federated Insurance until the Rongliens’ daughter, Cheri, was born in 1956, and after nine months, she returned as the payroll personnel clerk and later the assistant to the department and division manager.

She continued to work secretarial jobs until 1990 when she became a trainer.

“I developed a program for marketing representatives and secretaries to work together,” Maxine said. “It was rewarding work that took me all over the country for seminars.”

In 1984, Harvey retired from Owatonna Public Utilities, and in 1992, Maxine retired from training.

But their work was just beginning.

Starting a legacy

Now more than two decades later,

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 7

RONGLIEN from page 6 a museum remembering 10,625 State-Schoolers, including Harvey, with artifacts, photographs, audio stations and stories exists at West Hills in Owatonna and it’s been visited by people from all over the world.

“Our greatest legacy as a couple is the State School history because it has touched thousands and thousands of people in a positive way,” Maxine said.

And it started with one statue.

In 1992, Harvey went to the Owatonna City Council to ask permission to build a statue in front of the main building. The council agreed.

At that meeting, a city council member suggested starting a museum.

“We got more involved and more involved,” Harvey said. “We didn’t plan all this. Just as we went along it worked out.”

In late 1992, while the Rongliens were fundraising for the State School Kids Memorial, Bud Blekeberg asked if he could build a memorial for the cemetery to remember the 198 children who are buried there. Then, Blekeberg built wooden crosses for the 151 children who were buried with just a number.

And in 1996, the Minnesota State Public

School Orphanage was moved to the corridors in the main building.

“We’ve had groups from all over the Midwest as well as tourists from Hawaii, Australia and all over the country come, and they’re still coming,” Harvey said.

In 2010, the orphanage museum was put on the National Register of Historic Places.

“That was a great feather in our hat,” Maxine said. “We are very proud of that.”

In 2012, a restored Cottage 11, where Harvey stayed at the State School for a few years, was opened.

“They are very kind, very driven and passionate people, and very generous people,” said Shelby Zempel, orphanage board chair. “The orphanage museum was a tremendous undertaking, but it’s been successful. It would be a terrible shame to have it all go away.”

In 2011, the State School Orphanage Museum Board established the Orphanage Legacy Trust to fund the operations of the Orphanage Museum and Cottage 11, preserve historic records and provide touring and educational opportunities for the community and family members of those orphaned and remembered at the museum.

“It’s to ensure that the story will continue to be Zempel said the Rongliens’ legacy is how told even when we’re gone,” Maxine said. much they cared for the State-Schoolers and their The Rongliens have connected thousands of remembrance and the time it took to get there. former State-Schoolers’ families to their relative’s “We don’t want them to be forgotten,” Maxine orphaned past, and they couldn’t be more proud. said.

Harvey and Maxine Ronglien started the Minnesota State Public School Orphanage Museum in the 1990s in Owatonna. Harvey grew up as a state schooler. (Ashley Stewart/People’s Press)

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

Impeccable Impressions Mike Jensen

By JEFFREY JACKSON

jjackson@owatonna.com

Mike Jensen counts himself a fortunate man.

“I’m very blessed to live in a community with so many opportunities to get involved and to work for a company that affords me the time to do it,” he said.

And the list of those opportunities he has seized is lengthy indeed — a virtual resume of civic-mindedness stretching from work with such organizations as the Cultural Diversity Network, the Steele County Historical Society, the Owatonna Area Chamber of Commerce and Tourism and the Economic Development Authority to work with such agencies as Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Steele County, Parent Provider Connection, Steele County Clothesline and the United Way of Steele County.

And that’s just a few of the things he has done, a few of the organizations with which he’s been involved.

What’s more, it’s not just showing up to an occasional meeting. No, when Mike Jensen gets involved, he really gets involved.

He was a past president of the Owatonna Rotary Club and the Owatonna Business Partnership; the past president and board member for Parent Provider Connection; the past cochair for the Steele County History Center capital campaign; the past chair of the adult education commission for Trinity Lutheran Church in Owatonna; the current director of marketing and promotion for CulturFest; the current chair of the board for the Steele County Historical Society; the current co-chair of the hospitality committee for Trinity Lutheran; a current Ambassador for the Owatonna chamber; and a past board member of the Cultural Diversity Network, Little Theatre of Owatonna, Trinity Lutheran, the Owatonna chamber, the United Way of Steele County and Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Steele County.

There’s probably something — or even several things — left off the list, but with so many things that Jensen has done, so many ways that he has given of his time and his energy to the community, it’s difficult to remember or even know them all.

And that’s not even counting his work as president of Tri M Graphics.

In 2009, the United Way of Steele County honored Jensen and Tri M Graphics with the first-ever Small Business Lives United Award.

At the time, Evelina Giobbe, the executive director of the local United Way, said to those at the ceremony of the work that Jensen had done for the good of the community and why he and Tri M were being honored.

See JENSEN on page 9

Mike Jensen, the president of Tri M Graphics in Owatonna, counts himself fortunate that the company for which he works gives him time to be involved in the community. (Jeffrey Jackson/People’s Press)

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 9

JENSEN from page 8 “We considered individuals who have shared their time, talent and treasures with not only United Way, but whose advocacy and volunteer efforts have extended way beyond our community and our national borders,” Giobbe told the crowd that night. “And who else was there but Mike Jensen? I mean, God bless Mike Jensen. Whatever is going on in town, Mike’s got his hands in it.”

Not bad for a person who never considered returning to Owatonna once he graduated from high school and went off to college.

“I had no intention of coming back,” he said.

Coming home

The college he went off to in the autumn of 1985 was Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa. At first, he was an accounting major, though he soon grew weary of that.

“I didn’t want to be one of those persons stuck in a cubicle, pushing numbers,” he said.

What he wanted to be was out and about with people. So though he kept a business focus to his studies, he switched majors to marketing and management.

Still, he had no intention of returning to Owaton- ing and wondered if he also had a press. Jon Jensen na, the town in which he had been born and reared, did have a press and agreed to do the job that the man the town in which he wanted done. had graduated from That’s all it took. high school, the town in Soon people knew which his parents still that Jon Jensen had a lived, and the town that press in his garage and he called home. they began to approach T h at b e g an to him about printing change in 1989 as he jobs. neared graduation from “By 1985, he was college and began to working eight hours a consider coming back to day on siding and eight Owatonna and accepthours at night printing his father’s offer to ing,” Mike Jensen said. work together at Tri M. Then something The company was Shortly after he returned to Owatonna after he happened that changed started by Jensen’s fa- graduated from college, Mike Jensen became the dynamics. One day ther, Jon Jensen, on a the Big Brother to Trent Jacobs through the Big Jon Jensen and his partpart-time basis out of Brothers/Big Sisters program. (Submitted photo) ner were out hanging Jon Jensen’s garage. The siding when they both elder Jensen was working at a job putting siding on fell from scaffolding and landed very near to a stake buildings when he was approached one day by some- in the ground that could have easily impaled either one who knew that Jon Jensen had experience print- of them.

Fortunately, they were not impaled. But the event was a wake-up call for Jon Jensen.

“It was like God was talking to him,” Mike Jensen said of his father’s experience.

Jon Jensen thought he could make a go of it just with his printing business, so he quit his day job hanging siding and worked full-time with Tri M. Though Mike Jensen had worked occasionally with his father when he was still in high school and his father was doing all the printing work out of the garage, it wasn’t until 1989 — a year after Tri M moved into its current building and the very day that Mike Jensen graduated from college — that he came back to work beside his dad.

Well, sort of.

“Dad focuses on production,” Mike Jensen said.

“I focus on marketing and sales.”

Building relationships

Though he was coming back to Owatonna, for Mike Jensen it was not quite the same town that it had been a scant four years before. Oh, sure, most of the businesses that had been around in 1985 were still here in 1989.

See JENSEN on page 10

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

JENSEN from page 9 And he still recognized the same people, many of whom he had known all his life, though they did look older. Still, there were other changes.

“My friends were all gone, moved on,” he said.

Now, he said, he had to find his own way. But he found a guide on that way in his father.

“The thing my father believes in is entrepreneurship,” Mike Jensen said. “He believes in slow and steady growth through building relationships.”

By way of example, that when it comes to key clients with Tri M, the company can trace the business relationship all the way back to the first job that was done for them.

Relationship building — it was just the advice that Mike Jensen needed and heeded.

“I was born here and raised here,” he said. “But I was coming back to Owatonna from college. I needed to build new relationships.”

So he jumped right in, getting involved very early with Little Theatre of Owatonna both on the stage and behind the scenes. Sharon Stark, who he knew from the theater, invited him to join the Rotary Club. He became a Big Brother for Trent Jacobs through the Big Brother/Big Sister program — another relationship that he maintains till this day, though young Trent is now grown up with a Ph.D., a wife and a child of his own.

But it’s not just that he has seen relationships established through participation in such activities.

He has also seen them grow and change. Case in point: CulturFest, the multicultural celebration of music, dance, food and sports.

“I attended the first one,” Jensen said, “but I wasn’t a member of the committee. I made a few suggestions after that first one. All of a sudden, I’m on the committee.”

He doesn’t mind because it’s something he truly love with a mission that he supports — providing

“”

I want them to have the understanding that we are part of something bigger.

We do need to give back.

- Mike Jensen on raising his and wife Brenda’s three boys

Mike and Brenda Jensen, along with their three children, Cameron, 17, Sheldon, 14, and Ashton, 10, volunteer time as Salvation Army bellringers. (Submitted photo)

a safe, comfortable place where people with different cultural backgrounds can rub elbows with one another and learn something about each other’s culture, he said.

“It’s been fun watching it grow over time,” he said.

But there was one year in the history of CulturFest that Jensen marks as a pivotal year.

“The year of the flood,” Jensen said.

In late September 2010, Steele County, especially the communities of Owatonna and Medford, were hit hard with heavy rains and rising flood waters. The waters of the Straight River rose so high and so quickly that the town of Owatonna was virtually cut in half, keeping people on the east side of town from venturing and those on the west from going east. Worse yet, the waters weren’t receding very fast at all.

That was a problem for CulturFest, which was

slated to take place that very weekend.

“We were trying to decide what to do,” Jensen said. “We couldn’t get to the (festival) grounds.”

And it was doubly bad for the food vendors who were supposed to be selling their wares to the festivalgoers.

“They had purchased their food with no way of using it, of selling it,” Jensen said.

That’s when the idea came for CulturFest itself to purchase the food from the vendors and distribute it to the emergency workers and the volunteers who were busy sandbagging by the river. Jensen still remembers seeing Somali in their scarves working side-by-side with older white men in the kitchen of First Baptist Church, getting the food ready to distribute. And he remembers those receiving the food — sometimes food they had never tasted before — and enjoying it.

“That broke through more barriers than ever,”

See JENSEN on page 11

Jensen said.

So don’t tell him that CulturFest was canceled that year because of the flood.

“We had CulturFest that year,” he said. “It was just in a different form.”

Fitting into the tapestry

So what drives Mike Jensen to do all the things he does?

That’s easy, he said.

“The thing that drives me most is my kids,” he said. “With any of these things (that he participates in), I’m always thinking of the next generation.”

He recalled a time when he was visiting a museum with his children. There was an exhibition about communication and among the artifacts was an old rotary-style telephone. One of his boys was confused and questioned his father about how to use the phone.

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 11

JENSEN from page 10 “How quickly things change,” Jensen said. “We need to capture history and share it with our children. The youth of today have no understanding of how to fit into the tapestry of the community and the family.”

Even then, Jensen was talking about relationships, about connections, about family. And family is important to Jensen.

He met Brenda on a blind date at the Steele County Free Fair. They met outside the hog barn, he said.

“We dated for a year and were engaged for a year,” he said.

They married in 1995.

They now have three children, all boys — 17-year-old Cameron, 14-year-old Sheldon and 10-year-old Ashton. And Mike and Brenda Jensen are trying to rear their boys to understand how they fit into that tapestry.

“I want them to have the understanding that we are part of something bigger,” Jensen said. “We do need to give back.”

Jensen acknowledged that he has had many people in the community — Sharon Stark, Sharon West and Jim Brunner, to name just a few — who mentored him and who led him by their example.

“They continue to stay young and alive by staying involved, staying connected,” he said.

That’s what he wants for himself and what he wants for his children.

“I’m feeling so blessed, so fortunate,” he said. “I get to watch my children have the same opportunities I have had.”

Mike Jensen pauses to pose during CulturFest.

Rotarians Mike Jensen and Mary Kay Feltes work a booth in Owatonna’s Central Park during the Harry Wenger Marching Band Festival. (Submitted photos)

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Friday, March 21, 2014

Owatonna football head coach Jeff Williams smiles at the standing ovation he and his team receive during a welcome home rally at the Owatonna High School gym following the Huskies’ winning the Class AAAAA state championship in 2013. (Press file photo)

Winning Tradition

By JON WEISBROD • jweisbrod@owatonna.com

It’s the late 1960s and a house on Prospect and Cedar Streets is shared by a couple of families in Owatonna. Living in one half of the building is Jerry Peterson, the young head football coach for the Indians. Having taken the job in 1966, he’s only been with the program for a couple of years.

The other half of the house is shared by another young football coach named Jon “Snuffy” Williams. He’s the head man at Marian High School in town, taking the job in 1967 after moving from Rochester.

He and his wife, Jan — an RN, have a young son barely out of diapers named Jeff.

Peterson would go on to win 179 games at OHS, and when he decided to step down in 1995, a young, passionate coach from his staff would step in as his replacement.

His name?

Jeff Williams.

The same Jeff Williams that decades prior was bouncing around his duplex as a toddler. More recently, Jeff was one of his assistants having coached at essentially every level of the OHS program after taking a job as a biology teacher fresh out of college in 1989. Before that, he coached two years for his father at Rochester John Marshall.

“I applied for one job (after college),” Williams said. “And it was in Owatonna for a high school biology opening; and I got it.

So I guess I still have 49 other resumes in a stack somewhere.”

Before returning to Owatonna in the fall of 1989, Williams spent most of his youth in Rochester. Growing up a son of a coach,

See WILLIAMS on page 13

young Williams actually migrated to the baseball diamond before the gridiron.

“Baseball was really and truly my first love,” Williams said. “It was my favorite sport growing up. Interestingly I was a much better baseball player than I was a football player.”

In his youth when he wasn’t playing sports himself, Williams would hang around his dad’s practices as Snuffy coached several sports when Jeff was young. Later, from 1985 until 1993, he was the head football coach at John Marshall and helped bring along one of the best running backs in University of Minnesota history, Darrell Thompson. In his final season in ‘93, Snuffy lost to Apple Valley in the “big school” state championship.

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 13

WILLIAMS from page 12 “He was kind of the consummate year-round coach,” Williams said of his dad, who died in 2003. “We were always able to tag around at practice. We would be climbing in the bleachers and hanging out on the sidelines with the players. That appealed to me because the kind of guys you get to be around and I think I sensed that even as a little seven-year-old. These kids, who seemed like professional athletes at the time, were the guys I wanted to grow up to be. They were the role models.”

After spending two seasons at Lourdes, Williams transferred to John Marshall as a sub-170 pound offensive guard and defensive back. Aside from playing football, Willliams spent two years on the varsity baseball team playing for Lou Branca, whose uncle was the infamous pitcher who gave up the game-winning homerun to Bobby Thomson in the 1951 National League pennant in a moment coined The Shot Heard ‘Round the World.

Though talented on the diamond and good enough to earn playing time on the gridiron, Williams knew his chances of playing either sport at the next level were slim.

He always wanted to go to college and after falling in love with South Bend, Indiana and the campus of Notre Dame after passing through on an extended road-trip with his family, he applied to UND and Marquette as a A none-too-happy coach Jeff Williams scowls at a referee. (Press file photo)

senior in high school.

“It’s 1976 (and) my dad was a history teacher so we went out east for the bicentennial,” Williams said. “We were out there for the Fourth of July and South Bend was a logical stop for our first night. We walked the campus and sort of fell in love with the place. I was in sixth grade going into seventh so that was always on my mind. Then they went on and won the national championship in 1977 and that sort of solidifies it for me as a kid. They were always my favorite school…I didn’t have a fall-back school.”

Good thing for Williams Notre Dame accepted him and he spent the next four years reaching toward his bachelor’s degree. It was during his junior year that Williams made a pivotal decision. At the time he was contemplating medical school and needed to make his commitment. It was his dad, once again, that played a profound role in what happened next.

“About three-quarters of my way through my junior year when the rubber hits the road, I started thinking: ‘Am I going to med school, am I going to take the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test)?’” Williams said. “I started really thinking about it and I watched what my dad had done as a teacher and the impact that he was able to have on kids and the lifestyle that he’s been able to lead.

See WILLIAMS on page 14

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PAGE 14

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Coach Jeff Williams talks to his troops during football camp in August 2012. (Press file photo)

Friday, March 21, 2014

C g

WILLIAMS from page 13 It’s kind of a cool lifestyle with the summers off and you get to run around with the neatest kids in the community. I honestly believe that.”

Instead of going the medical route, Williams graduated in 1987 from Notre Dame with a degree in biology and spent the next two years working toward becoming a teacher, graduating with a B.S. in life science teaching from Winona State University in 1989. While in college he spent his summers getting involved with Rochester baseball, coaching at both the Legion and VFW level.

Williams also got heavily involved with coaching football, where he served as an assistant for his dad for two years until he graduated from WSU. It was then that he took the job at Owatonna and started his career with the Huskies as the assistant freshman coach before climbing all the way up to varsity assistant beginning in 1991. It was during this season that misfortune struck Peterson as the long-time coach developed cancer and spent most of the ’91 season away from the team getting treatment.

Though disheartened by Peterson’s condition, which would later improve, Williams was given what he calls a “unique opportunity” to run his own defensive unit in Peterson’s absence.

“I had a chance to assume some responsibility when he was out getting chemotherapy, radiation and surgery,” Williams said. “I guess that gave me an opportunity to show that I’m responsible and that I can game plan. It was a unique opportunity. Jerry called both the offense and defense and so to be able to get experience was something I’ll never forget.”

Peterson returned to the program full-time the next season and went on to coach four more years before deciding to step away in 1995. During his tenure with the Huskies, he won 63 percent of his games and guided Owatonna to multiple conference championships. Peterson, though, couldn’t quite reach the pinnacle, finishing second at the state tournament in 1982.

Williams thoroughly enjoyed his time with Peterson and when the opportunity arose for him to take his spot as the head coach, he jumped at the opportunity and almost instantly began to elevate the program. He won six games in his first season as head coach and quickly made a habit of winning the Big Nine and qualifying for the state tournament.

In 1998 and 1999, his Huskies made consecutive trips to state, coming up shy in the Class AAAA title game in ’98 before moving up to Class AAAAA (the

biggest at the time) in ’99 and losing to eventual state runner-up Hastings.

Williams would continue to keep the program on a steady path for the next decade or so, but during a playoff loss to Lakeville North in 2008, he had an epiphany of sorts.

“We had a really good team in 2008 and felt like we should have been section champions,” Williams said “We ran the ball very effectively, but when we piled our guys in and Lakeville North piled their guys in, they found a way to beat us. We felt like we were hitting a little bit of a ceiling, particularly against Lakeville North. I started thinking after that game that maybe we needed to do something that had a little bit more diversity.”

It was also during this time that the Owatonna basketball program and its exciting run-and-gun, up-tempo style began to intrigue some of the school’s best athletes. Knowing it was imperative to keep these kids in the football program as well, Williams and his staff were forced to make a decision: Adapt or die.

“We were starting to get the sensation with basketball on the rise and there was a lot of success with up-tempo schemes,” Williams said. “That really

See WILLIAMS on page 15

appealed to our basketball-playing kids and they were looking at what we were doing in football and saying ‘I don’t know if there is a place for me in this program’ and we just flat-out cannot afford to not have basketball players playing football, too. So we went out and started looking at schemes that appeal to everyone.”

By the beginning of the 2010s, the spread offense, with multiple receivers, wide spreads and shotgun formations had fully caught fire in college and was infusing itself into the high school game as well. Browsing the Internet one night, Williams discovered that the University of Oregon, one of the staples of the spread offense at the college level, had an annual week where high school coaches from across the country were allowed to migrate to Eugene and learn the art of the spread from the Ducks’ coaching staff.

Williams was all-in.

“I’ve been going for three years now,” Williams said “I spend basically the entire week with Oregon’s staff and we watch video and they teach their schemes. You can ask any question that you want; watch any video you want and cut it up however you’d like. They have been very gracious.”

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 15

WILLIAMS from page 14 Since fully integrating the spread, the Huskies’ program has And then there was 2013. reached new heights. In 2012, Owatonna ran the table all the way to Led by a class of seniors that had been on Williams’ radar since the Class AAAAA title game before losing to Totino-Grace 48-21. they were in fifth-grade, the Huskies fashioned the greatest season in the program’s history by winning the state championship with a convincing playoff run that featured a defense that was just as lethal as the offense. On November 30, 2013, the Huskies defeated Brainerd 24-0 in the Class AAAAA championship at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

In the team’s final four playoff games starting in the Section 1 title contest, it allowed a grand total of seven points while racking up 125 of its own.

In the immediate aftermath of winning the state title, Williams said he gathered with his staff at a “local restaurant/tavern” and simply enjoyed each other’s company. It was the first time in 16 weeks they would relax and the first time in 18 years Coach Jeff Williams walks the sideline during the state championship game in 2013 — a that Williams ended the season game that the Owatonna Huskies would win. (Press file photo)

with a victory.

“We ate and kind of enjoyed each other’s company,” Williams said. “It was kind of neat to be with the guys that you have worked with all year and not have to worry about a game plan. We could just relax and enjoy the moment. It was special.”

Since that night, Williams says he has already begun to contemplate next season and has remained busy teaching and running the off-season conditioning program.

He’s also had a little more time to devote to his immediate family. He’s a father of two (Matt, 12 and Nick, 10) and has been married to his wife Nancy — a school social worker — for almost 17 years. As always, he plans on taking them on extended vacations “to one of the oceans” in the spring and summer.

Williams admits he’s a terrible golfer and doesn’t have many hobbies outside of “offseason football.”

“I don’t feel like I’m missing out,” he said. “I think people would be surprised to know how much time football actually takes. It’s summer weight room, 7-on-7 camps and getting ready in the spring. It really is a full-time job.”

Aside from winning another state championship, the possibility of coaching his sons one day keeps him coming back. After that, who knows? Maybe things will come full circle and Nick or Matt will join his staff. Heck, they both seem to be doing exactly what their father did years ago: Hanging around the team, looking up to players like Andrew Stelter, Ty Sullivan and Sam Fenske while blissfully loitering on the sidelines during practice and games.

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Friday, March 21, 2014

Jim and Joan Herzog

Lifetimes Education T in

By Al StrAin • astrain@owatonna.com

hey’ve impacted thousands of students along the way, and even now are still finding ways to contribute to their communities after their “retirements.”

Jim and Joan Herzog have played several different roles within the Owatonna community, but many know them as a couple of educators who did their best to positively impact the students of Owatonna.

For the couple, love blossomed at the University of MinnesotaMorris, where they graduated together in 1967.

Jim Herzog said that while they had some classes together in college, they didn’t really get to know each other until they both happened to attend the same county fair.

“We actually met for the first time at the Steven’s County Fair in the cattle barn,” Jim Herzog said.

“A romantic setting, don’t you think?” added Joan Herzog.

Path to Owatonna

Owatonna wasn’t the couple’s first stop after graduating college, nor was it their second or even their third.

After getting married the summer after their graduation, the couple spent two years as teachers in Herman, Minn. After that, Jim Herzog attended graduate school in St. Cloud while his wife taught English to students at the high school.

After St. Cloud, the couple moved to Burnsville, where Jim took a job as a teacher in the Bloomington School District.

“That was where I got my first administrative position, as a principal in Bloomington,” Jim Herzog said, adding that his first gig as a principal was in the school year for 1974-75, seven years after his undergraduate graduation.

During that same time, Joan Herzog was teaching in Rosemount and Burnsville. But the young couple was soon on the move again, Jim and Joan Herzog have called Owatonna home since 1975. Since, they’ve raised three children, worn many hats as edumoving to Owatonna in 1975. cators for Owatonna Public Schools and invested themselves in the community where they’ve impacted thousands of lives.

The decision to move again came after one of Jim Herzog’s (Al Strain/People’s Press) colleagues, Charlotte Lehman, informed him of an administrative opening in Owatonna.

See HERZOG on page 18

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

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HERZOG from page 16 “She indicated that Owatonna was a very good school district. I re“They would need discipline, no doubt, but they also had an enthually wanted to get back into the high school setting because I was at a siasm to try things and do things that were kind of fun and off the wall junior high in Bloomington,” Jim Herzog said. “There was an assistant ideas,” Joan Herzog. “If you presented a fun project, they would grab principal opening. It was the year Marion High School closed, so all the hold of it and enjoy it. It wasn’t just paper-and-pencil, routine stuff.” students in that school that were of high school age came to OHS. It While she was teaching students at the junior high, Joan Herzog was became a much bigger school because of that, and they needed another also a staff development coordinator for the district. In 1987, she and assistant principal.” another teacher were put in charge of beginning a staff development During that same time, Joan Herzog had caught the eye of the program for the district.

Blooming Prairie School Dis“That was pretty scary, because I was teaching my trict, who wanted her because peers,” Joan Herzog said of of her training in helping students with learning disabilities. the position she held for nearly “That was really new at the 10 years. “It was a wonderful time, and there was a mandate growth experience for me.” to provide services to learningFurther making for an disabled kids, but there weren’t exciting life when the couple very many people trained,” came to Owatonna were their two children, Amy and Chris.

Herzog said.

Her time in Blooming PraiA third child, Matt, followed in rie was short, and after just a 1978. For the Herzogs, it was year Joan Herzog found a job a fun and exciting time to be as a teacher at Owatonna Juparents and educators. nior High School. Once again, “There was absolutely no the couple was back to teaching boredom there, because you in the same school district. work all day and then of course Making a career and a the kids are into activities,” Jim home Herzog said. “I went to almost Though they were in the every single activity at the high same district, the Herzogs’ school, so we were extremely paths didn’t cross all that ofbusy. It was a dynamic time in our life.” ten in the schools because they For Jim Herzog, it was imwere in separate buildings. Instead they talked about their portant for him to be as visible days at home. with his students as much as For Jim Herzog, Owatonna possible, and he spent a lot of represented his second adminnights at games, plays or other istrative role in as many years. student functions. He coached Some, he said, find it difficult wrestling before he came to Owatonna, and sometimes to make the transition from teacher to administrator. would join the teams in their “I found the teachers in workouts.

Bloomington to be quite sup“I used to actually go down portive,” Jim Herzog said. “And Jim and Joan Herzog were married in 1967, the same year they graduin the wrestling room and work out with the kids,” Jim of course coming down here to ated from college. (Submitted photo) Owatonna, I found the transiHerzog said. “I knew when the tion to be relatively easy.” day was right for me to disconHe admits the learning curve on administrative matters was “fairly tinue going into the wrestling room. As I got older, I was smart enough steep.” Jim Herzog added that there was a difference from learning about to do that before I got hurt.” being an educator and administrator in the classroom to applying that Throughout his time as an assistant principal and eventually through knowledge to real-life situations in the schools. his role as principal, Jim Herzog said his favorite thing was being able While at the junior high, Joan Herzog said she found the students to acknowledge the excellence of his students and staff through handwere open-minded and willing to test themselves, something she said written notes, something he did thousands of times. Along the way, he also had roles as the OHS Activities Director. she enjoyed about her teaching career in Owatonna.

See HERZOG on page 20

Friday, March 21, 2014

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 19

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PAGE 20

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUN TY

Friday, March 21, 2014

HERZOG from page 18 But being a principal also means you have to be willing to discipline, and Jim Herzog said the key to having a good environment was being visible to the students and staff.

“Getting out of your office is probably the most critical thing to do,” Jim Herzog said. “Moving around is absolutely critical. In fact, I ate lunch with the students in the cafeteria probably 80 percent of the time.

I rarely ate in the faculty lounge … it provides you the opportunity to be able to interact with them and a presence to ensure good behavior.”

Vilnis Giga, longtime member of the Owatonna School Board, said it was clear that Jim Herzog was interested in what was going on in his hallways.

“He was equally supportive of academics, athletics and music. He and Joan raised their three children—Chris, Amy and Matt—in all three of those areas,” Giga said. “Even today, being retired from the district from a number of years in any capacity, it’s not unusual to see Jim attending athletic events, class plays and music concerts. I think that’s a very impressive trait that he has, being so interested and so versatile

in all of these areas. He wasn’t one-dimensional, by any stretch of the imagination.”

It was that style that led to recognition among his fellow principals, both in the region and across the state, and in 2001, Jim Herzog was named the Minnesota High School Principal of the Year.

Retirement (Well, sort of)

Once Joan Herzog retired for good in 2004, she continued to find things that surprised her, most notably that she had quite the talent for painting.

“It started after I retired,” Joan Herzog said. “It was something I’ve always wanted to do, I think. I graduated with a class of 20, so there weren’t art classes. Plus, back in those days you had to take the college classes, so I never got to take art.”

Joan Herzog said she knew once she retired that she wanted to pursue water colors, and she dove right into it. Now, her paintings have become a part-time business and she participates in some art shows around the area where she showcases and sells her pieces.

She considers it a gift that she was able to learn something entirely new at that stage in her life, adding that it’s something she does out of pure enjoyment. She paints things that she wants to capture, be it a landscape, a cardinal or a moment of her husband holding their grandchildren.

“I’d say the common thing is that they always have great meaning to me,” Joan Herzog said. “I work mostly from a photo, but it has to capture something that is important to me. I find it kind like a puzzle. You draw it on, you start, you work one area and then you kind of go back and forth.”

Joan Herzog’s work has earned the respect and recognition of the art community around Owatonna. Silvan Durben, artistic director for the Owatonna Arts Center, said Joan Herzog is definitely a talented painter.

“When she retired from teaching, she really worked and turned herself into a visual art enthusiast,” Durben said. “She’s made great strides and accomplishments from the beginning stage to a very professional stage in understanding the medium, playing with it and creating beautiful pieces.”

Jim Herzog, right, accepts his award as Minnesota’s Principal of the Year. (Submitted photo)

See HERZOG on page 21

“”

Moving around is absolutely critical. In fact, I ate lunch with the students in the cafeteria probably 80 percent of the time. I rarely ate in the faculty lounge … it provides you the opportunity to be able to interact with them and a presence to ensure good behavior.

- Jim Herzog on relating to students

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 21

HERZOG from page 20

Joan Herzog holds a painting of her husband and one of their grandchildren. (Al Strain/People’s Press)

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In recognition of her artistic endeavors, Durben said Joan Herzog will be the featured artist during this summer’s Festival of the Arts, which brings dozens of artists to Owatonna every year.

“She will be featured at Wells Fargo Bank with her artwork, and we’re very happy to have her do that because she is an accomplished artist,” Durben said.

She’s the first to admit her first pieces were nothing spectacular, but Joan Herzog said she always knew she had a side of her capable of creating art.

As for Jim Herzog, “retirement” is really just a word. Though he retired from his position as principal at OHS in 2001, less than a year later he was back in another role with the school district, serving as public relations director for the district from 2002 to 2011.

During that same period, he also served as director at the Owatonna Alternative Learning Center from 2003 to 2005 and interim principal at OJHS during 2011 and 2012.

Since 2002, he has been an adjunct professor in the principal licensing program at St. Thomas University.

Giga took notice of how many different roles Jim Herzog had in the school district over the years. Giga compared Jim Herzog to former Minnesota Twin Cesar Tovar, who once played all nine positions on the baseball diamond in a single game.

“When the school board selected him to be the temporary principal of the junior high, I referred to him as the Cesar Tovar of the Owatonna School District,” Giga said. “The temporary principal job was probably the sixth or seventh different job that he held in the school district over his career.”

Though, they thought that they may end up back in the metro area at some point, Jim Herzog said there was just something about Owatonna that kept them where they were.

“I can’t think of a better place to raise three children,” Jim Herzog said.

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PAGE 22

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

Tom Brick, a second-generation owner of Owatonna Shoe, stands at the front counter of his store, located on Cedar Avenue. Brick, whose father, James, bought the store in the 1960s, has been in the family business for 42 years and counting. (Kaleb Roedel/People’s Press)

By KALEB ROEDEL

kroedel@owatonna.com

the

Right Fit Tom Brick

It was 1972, on a Friday, and Tom Brick was officially a college graduate.

With a business administration degree from Mankato State University clenched in his fists, Brick, born and raised in Owatonna, son of James and Fran, was ready to hit the ground running. So much so, he already had three job interviews lined up.

He didn’t make it to any of them.

Two days following Brick’s graduation, his father had open-heart surgery at St. Mary’s Hospital.

James was the owner of Owatonna Shoe on Cedar Avenue, so Brick knew what he had to do — and not do — next.

“I didn’t make it out the door (to the interviews). I stayed home and just kind of kept running the business,” Brick said.

And he’s been there ever since.

But being in the family business for 42 years and counting wasn’t the plan. Back in ’72, Brick may have canceled his interviews — he remembers two of them, IDS in Minneapolis and Federated Insurance in Owatonna, but the third escapes him — and helped fill in while his dad was on the mend, but that would only be temporary, Brick thought at the time.

It wasn’t until years later when he realized — pardon the pun — the shoe fit.

Slice of wisdom from the Big Apple

Early into lending a hand at Owatonna Shoe, Brick, on his father’s dime, went to a shoe industry seminar at New York University. A Midwestern sponge absorbing tips of the trade to be wrung out back in Owatonna.

“Of course I came back and my father wanted to know what he got for his money,” Brick said. “And the only thing that stuck in my mind was there was

See BRICK on page 23

one guy that owned two shoe stores and he employed himself as a sales clerk in one of them, and he had a manager and an assistant manager. His whole deal was, if the manager wasn’t making you money or making you happy, he’d fire the manager and promote the assistant manager.”

In essence, let’s use a sports analogy here, a manager was the starting pitcher and the assistant was on deck as the reliever in case the starter couldn’t deliver the goods, quite literally. Brick’s father was a fan of this concept, a bullpen of managers. Until then, James, who’d been involved with Owatonna Shoe since it first opened in 1946, became its manager shortly thereafter and bought the store out in the 60s, only knew an operation where the manager was the manager until, well, he decided he didn’t want to manage anymore.

However, that was about to change, unbeknownst to Brick, who remembers vividly the day the chain of command shifted.

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 23

BRICK from page 22 “Customer comes in and it’s, oh, Jim, just the guy I need to see, I’m having trouble with these shoes,” Brick recalled. “And he’d (Jim) greet him and smile and say, you are in luck, the manager is right here. He’d go get the manager and say, whatever his name was, Randy, take care of Mr. so and so, and he’d walk away and he’d go wait on another customer … And it wasn’t two hours later, somebody walked in the front door and said, Jim, just the guy I need to see, I’m having some trouble with these shoes. And he turned to him, and I about dropped my teeth because he said, you’re in luck, Tom is here, he’s the manager, I know he can help you, and he walked out the door and he went across the street to Costa’s like he always did.

“And I stood there and just went, oh my god, I didn’t just shoot myself in the foot, I blew it off …

And from that day on, it was just, alright, I’ll handle it. That was kind of the coming of age.”

gan feeling a familiar itch. One he had when he was handed his college diploma. An itch to dust off his cover letters, get his resume back out there, maybe get out of Owatonna and, as he says, “see the other side of the fence.”

But he didn’t have the heart to tell his father any of this.

As a matter of fact, Brick never even told his father about the interviews he had scheduled upon his graduation years before.

“He didn’t know about the interviews because he was kinda waiting for me to come back and take over,” Brick said. “So when you’re now working with your dad, you can’t go to him and say, I’m thinking about running away … I think it would’ve killed him.”

So Brick sought the counsel of a trustworthy family friend, Clarence Kennelly, an investment broker in town. Kennelly’s advice started with a question.

Considering the other side “He said, have you really explored every opBrick accepted his role as a store manager. Even portunity?“ Brick said. “And my response was, started to like it. Until, four or five years in, he be- I work hard. And he said, no, that’s not what I

See BRICK on page 24

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Shoe stretchers hang in the back room of Owatonna Shoe. (Kaleb Roedel/People’s Press)

PAGE 24

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

BRICK from page 23

asked you. He said, you know, you’re all worried about what your dad’s going to think if you walk away. There’s only one person that has to be happy when you walk away and that’s you.

He said, if you’ve tried everything you can do to make sure that this isn’t what you want, that it’s not going as far as you’d like to take it, then you can walk away with your head up and don’t have to answer to anybody. He goes, the worse thing you can ever do to yourself is to just jump, run and look over your shoulder with the bridge burned and you can never go back. And you go, oh my, I should’ve tried something different.”

Brick nodded understandingly. And then Kennelly handed him a proverbial blueprint.

“He said pick a timeline for the shoe store,” Brick said. “And I picked a year. I’ll give it the rest of the year, I said. And Kennelly said, if at the end of the year you can honestly look in the mirror and say this isn’t working, I’m going away, your dad’s not going to be sad.”

Brick stuck to his guns and rode out the remainder of the year. Naturally, when January hit, business wasn’t just good at Owatonna Shoe, it was better than ever. Shoes were practically flying off the shelves and popping onto outstretched feet of eager patrons.

“At the end of the year business was up 35 percent, it was insane,” Brick said.

So he pressed on, and the numbers kept climbing, and climbing. In three years, Brick doubled the business.

“I guess I just kind of entrenched myself in ways that I don’t even know if (my dad) planned in that way,” Brick said. “But he found the more he let go, the more I grabbed on.”

next door when it went up for sale. Knocked down the separating wall and, like what he did monetarily, doubled the size of the business.

Once again, senior Brick didn’t know of his son’s plans.

“I told my dad if we ever need to expand, we can just buy or rent it (the building next door) if we ever need it,” said Brick, throwing the idea out there until the building purchase was official. “And then the minute the papers were signed I was showing how I was going to knock a hole in the wall. He was all upset, he said, my god, finally your business is booming and you’re going to risk it all? And I said, so when do you expand, when business is great or when business is bad? Because you can’t when it’s bad.”

It paid off. More size for more shoes and it yielded more customers, just as Brick planned.

Over the years, leading up to the present, Brick, 63, husband to Anna Marie and father of five (Erin, Lacy, Daniel, Jamie, Jason), still keeps up with the upkeep, inside and out.

“A customer demands a good place to shop and if you don’t give it to them, they’re going to find it,” said Brick, a rolodex of business mottos to live by. “So if you’re not giving it to them, it’s you, not them. The whole ‘which comes first the chicken or the egg?’ It’s the chicken. I was always taught that you reinvest in your business and that’s why this store, we’re very proud of it, it looks good. You got to do it. You have to give them a place worth shopping and they’ll come.”

‘Is today the day?’

Before, during and after expansion, yes, the customers still steadily stream to 121 N. Cedar Expanding the Shoe’s size Ave. And Tom Brick and his staff continue to, as Now all-in on Owatonna Shoe, Brick started making real blueprints. With coaching from the he says, “work hard at having fun, and business ever trusty Kennellly, he bought the building just happens.”

See BRICK on page 25

“”

Tom Brick first started working full-time at Owatonna Shoe in 1972. (Submitted photo)

I guess I just kind of entrenched myself in ways that I don’t even know if (my dad) planned in that way.

But he found the more he let go, the more I grabbed on.

- Tom Brick, owner of Owatonna Shoe, on taking over the family business

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 25

BRICK from page 24

Nevertheless, he holds dear a daily reminder that keeps him honest. In black permanent marker on a torn off piece of college-ruled notebook paper, hanging on his desk for over the last 30 years, is written the question: Is today the day?

It’s a condensed version of wise words a friend, Jerry Wing, told him once.

“He was a pharmacist down on the corner and he said the smartest thing I ever heard,” Brick said, “he just said that his daily prayer was, when the day comes that he wasn’t having fun, he hoped he had the presence of mind to go the hell home.”

So inspired was Brick, the moment he heard that, he came back to his office, tore off a notebook sheet and wrote out his new daily reminder, and hung it at eye level.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stared at that sign and gone, not now,” Brick said. “Some days you look at it and just go, no, maybe tomorrow.”

The truth is, though, Brick hopes that day never comes.

“It’s a great way to make a living,” he said of being a retailer. “How cool is to be the master of your own destiny?”

Brick’s cover letters from ‘72 may have stayed tucked away and no interviews were ever taken, but over time it appears that, not only did the shoe fit Brick, moreover, Brick was fit for Owatonna Shoe.

Tom Brick, left, jokes around as he demonstrates how to size a customer at Owatonna Shoe.

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUN TY

Friday, March 21, 2014

Craig Kruckeberg has held different roles during the 30 years he’s been part of Minimizer, a business his father started. While his roles may have changed, one thing that hasn’t is his motto of “We’re haven’t even started yet.” (Al Strain/People’s Press)

Maximum Momentum Craig Kruckeberg

By AL STRAIN • astrain@owatonna.com

A lot of children take after their parents, but not many follow in their parents’ footsteps and take over the family business to turn it into a company that’s known around the world.

For Craig Kruckeberg, second generation owner of Minimizer in Blooming Prairie, that’s exactly what happened.

But for Kruckeberg, the success of the business since he took over in 2006 is a result of not only his work, but the work done by his father and his employees.

“Due to the team I have, it really doesn’t feel like I’m owning it. I don’t even put owner on my business card or in my title, I just don’t promote that,” Kruckeberg said.

Life in Blooming Prairie, start of a family business

Kruckeberg and his family moved to Blooming Prairie when he was 12 years old. His parents, Dick and Lorraine Kruckeberg, bought an old restaurant in town and reopened it. After a few years, they sold the restaurant.

After selling the restaurant, Dick Kruckeberg went back to a profession he loved, driving a semi-truck. There was a conversation between father and son that took place when Craig Kruckeberg was about 18, a conversation that still sticks with the son.

“I asked him, ‘What do I do? Should I go to school, go to college?’” Craig Kruckeberg said. “He said, “All you have to do is make your kids’ lives one step better than yours.’”

See KRUCKEBERG on page 27

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 27

KRUCKEBERG from page 26 At that time, Craig Kruckeberg wanted to drive truck like his father, and he still has his license as a semi driver so that he can connect with Minimizer’s customers.

“It’s a hard industry, but it’s a loyal, great industry,” Craig Kruckeberg said. “I understand why my father liked driving truck, because of the camaraderie and the people.”

Craig Kruckeberg can remember the exact moment his father came up with the idea that would become Minimizer’s signature product, hard plastic fenders that are virtually indestructible. He was about 16 years old, his dad had just come home and Craig Kruckeberg wanted to go out with his friends.

“He had a blue Ford Ranger, I’ll never forget it. It had these big, stainless, shiny fenders,” Craig Kruckeberg said. “I’m just sprinting down the driveway before he can open the door, be-

cause I know what the conversation is going to be. He got the door open too fast.”

Father and son ended up spending that Saturday night putting the new fenders on his truck. Less than 48 hours later, an accident while loading the truck led to an idea.

“When they were loading, a forklift slammed into the side of his fender and crushed it down to the tire,” Craig Kruckeberg said.

“All the way home he was going, “There’s got to be a better way.’”

As it turns out, he found a better way a few weeks later when Lorraine Kruckeberg backed over the plastic garbage cans in the driveway.

“We walked out to the curb, stuck his foot in and popped it out,” Craig Kruckeberg said. “He thought, ‘If I could make my fenders out of something like this,’ and now here we are. So really I have

See KRUCKEBERG on page 28

Craig Kruckeberg, right, gives a tour of the Minimizer plant to Sen. Dan Sparks and other political leaders. (Press file photo)

to give more credit to my mother, because she backed over the garbage cans.”

After taking a drawing to Harlan Easton of Easton Products and having a plastic fender molded for a truck, Minimizer was born.

Eventually, it got to the point that their fabricator couldn’t keep up with the demand.

That meant getting into the fender making business, which also meant Dick Kruckeberg had to sell his two semis to get the startup cash for the business.

“I was there the day his truck was sold,” Craig Kruckeberg said.

“When that thing drove away, there were tears in his eyes. He knew he was done driving truck.”

Though one chapter in the Kruckebergs’ lives had ended, another one was just beginning. The business grew from when Dick

PAGE 28

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUN TY

Friday, March 21, 2014

KRUCKEBERG from page 27

Kruckeberg began it in 1984, and that growth has Sen. Dan Sparks and Rep. Shannon Savick to discuss years. He currently holds the role as the business’ square footage.” continued under his son.

And as Hansen has learned from his boss, the ways to improve infrastructure in small towns like national accounts manager. The business has changed growth isn’t going to stop.

Blooming Prairie to allow them to compete to attract a lot since he was first brought on board.

Growth of a business “Craig’s mantra for the last 11 years, and he more industry.

“It’ s been incredible.

Things change fast, ” Hansen When Craig Kruckeberg bought the business “I’m not asking for free land. I’m not asking for said. “When I was hired, I was hired as the only sales always says it, is, ‘We haven’t even started yet,’” from his father, he said there was a period of five grants.

I’m not asking for (Small Business Adminis- person 11 years ago. I graduated college, I was living Hansen said. “When I was hired, and I was the or six years when his dad was disengaged with the only sales guy, he goes ‘We haven’t even started tration) loans” He said during the December meet- in Edina and they were looking for a sales guy.” business. Though now, Craig Kruckeberg said his yet.’ And now, we’re doing substantially more in ing.

“I’m asking for help for the cities in small town At that time, everything at the business was sold dad is getting bored. business, and it’s still ‘We haven’t even started America, because they don’t have the tax base to retail-direct, requiring Hansen to take the orders and But in less than 10 years since buying the busiyet,’ because there’s a ton more that we could be maintain their infrastructure like sewer, water, curb, then often go out and package the orders himself. ness, the production level at Minimizer would be doing.” gutter and streets.”

It’s much different now. unrecognizable to Dick Kruckeberg, said his son.

When is father started the company, it was an “I think now we’ve got 14 sales people. In 11 More than a business “If he saw where we were at today compared to when he sold it, it would scare the daylights out of idea and a few people working on creating fenders. years, we’ve seen that climb substantially each year,” Craig Kruckeberg has been successful in busihim, just with the size,” Craig Kruckeberg said. “It’s Now, Minimizer has nearly 60 employees, with room Hansen said. “When I was hired, I think we had 11 ness, no doubt. In fact, in 2013 he was honored as just crazy. Every day, it doesn’t feel like 30 years.” for more. employees and our office was in a trailer. Now we’ve one of 13 Entrepreneurs of the Year in the upperRight now, Kruckeberg find himself selling Steve Hansen has worked for Minimizer for 11 got this big building and we’ve added thousands of Midwest by Ernst and Young.

Blooming Prairie to his executive team, some of which live closer to the Twin Cities or even out of state.

There was a time, before his kids started school, where Craig Kruckeberg and his family lived in Rochester. But when it was time for his oldest daughter, Jesse, to start school, there was only one place to be.

“There was no option. I wasn’t going to put her in Rochester schools, so we moved back here,” Craig Kruckeberg said.

Eventually, there were four children — Jesse, Leanna and twin boys Tyler and Trevor. The twins now work with their father at Minimizer.

In a time when transportation is so easy, and allows for efficient travel to Minneapolis, Mankato or Rochester, Craig Kruckeberg is encouraging people to invest in Blooming Prairie.

“I’m a big believer in Blooming Prairie, that’s why we’re growing in Blooming Prairie,” Craig Kruckeberg said. “That’s why we’re building buildings here, our corporate office is here.”

Craig Kruckeberg is also active in the political process of trying to get legislators to understand the need to invest in rural development. He fully backs the quality of the workforce that he gets from rural Minnesota, he just wishes there were more people.

Last December, Kruckeberg held a meeting with Craig Kruckeberg, far right, accepts his Entrepreneur of the Year award from Ernst and Young with the other award recipients. (Submitted photo)

“”

See KRUCKEBERG on page 29

I’m a big believer in Blooming Prairie, that’s why we’re growing in Blooming Prairie.

- Craig Kruckeberg on his business, Minimizer

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 29

KRUCKEBERG from page 28 “There were more than 3,000 nominees, so this is pretty cool,” He said last year after receiving the award. “That means we must be doing something right.”

Beyond his own success and looking for ways to help other businesses in rural Minnesota, Craig Kruckeberg and Minimizer are very supportive of community charities and organizations in Blooming Prairie.

The company actively contributes to causes for the Blooming Prairie Cancer Group, the Blooming Prairie Boys and Girls Club and the Blooming Prairie Education Foundation.

“When we support locally, it’s to support the community,” Craig Kruckeberg said. “It’s not something we have to do, but if we’re going to continue to keep Blooming Prairie vibrant, and we’re going to continue to grow, those things have to happen.”

The contributions don’t go unnoticed. Earlier this year, the Boys and Girls Club honored Kruckeberg with its Gracious Giver award after he donated $5,000 to the club’s puzzle project in honor of LeMar Nelson, who was honored as Blooming Prairie’s Citizen of the Year in 2013.

There are other causes that have become near and dear to Craig Kruckeberg over the years. A few years ago, he got a dog from a local shelter.

He’s now a big supporter of no-kill animal shelters.

And that love of animals led to a business idea, a business that would see all its profits going to benefit no-kill shelters. The plan is to use 5,000 pounds of peanuts that Craig Kruckeberg has, and sell them through his distributors to help the cause.

“I asked them if I gave them a display and the peanuts, and I told them where the money was going to no-kill shelters, I asked if they’d help me out,” Craig Kruckeberg said.

He still spends a lot of time thinking about the business, even when he’s away. He said having his sons with him at the business helps, and he tries to have his daughters home as often as possible.

Craig Kruckeberg said that when his father was in charge, it was all about moving at a controlled pace. Now, perhaps the best way to describe the inner workings at Minimizer is controlled chaos.

For someone whose motto is “We haven’t even started yet,” that’s just fine.

“Externally, we look like we’re calm, cool and collected. But you get inside here, and it looks like the popcorn machines where the balls are flying Minimizer has called Blooming Prairie home for 30 years. (Al Strain/People’s Press) around,” Craig Kruckeberg said.

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PAGE 30

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUN TY

Making a Home Keith and Carol Holman

By ASHLEY STEWART • astewart@owatonna.com

Keith and Carol Holman in front of their business on the corner of East Main and Highway 218 in Blooming Prairie. (Ashley Stewart/People’s Press)

When Carol and Keith Holman attended North Dakota State University in the 1960s, they had different interests.

But for the last 40 years, the Holmans have shared an interest in insurance.

“We have a big history of insurance here,” Carol said. “It must have been right.”

And their history in insurance began before Holman Insurance took off in Blooming Prairie in 1985.

Carol was born in Bottineau, N.D., and attended a parochial school in her hometown, Willow City, for 12 years until graduation in 1963.

After graduation, she attended a junior college in Bottineau for two years and transferred to North Dakota State University for a short time.

“I decided I’d rather work for the Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota.

I didn’t have to study then,” Carol said.

See HOLMAN on page 32

“I stayed with it until we got married.”

Keith was born about 70 miles away from Bottineau in a little town called Wolseth, and graduated from high school in Glenburn in 1961.

That fall he attended North Dakota State University and graduated in March 1966 with a degree in business and a minor in English and history.

“Within eight days, I was drafted into the U.S. Army,” Keith said.

Friday, March 21, 2014

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

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PAGE 32

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUN TY

Friday, March 21, 2014

HOLMAN from page 30

“”

The Holmans attended the 2010 State Softball Tournament to support the Awesome Blossoms. (Submitted photo)

I think we both recognize that in order to have a thriving community somebody’s got to get involved in the unpaid volunteer jobs and do them. If it weren’t for volunteers, there wouldn’t be anything like the big Fourth of July celebration or any of the local activities in Blooming Prairie.

- KEITH HOLMAN

The Holmans at the 2011 Blooming Prairie Chamber of Commerce Banquet where they received the “Citizen of the Year” award.

(Submitted photo)

“I spent two years in the Army,” he continued. “One year was spent in Vietnam.”

After his deployment, Keith returned to the real world and started looking for work.

In 1968, he interviewed with the Veterans Administration.

“The job slot didn’t open up for six months, and I came out of the Army with no big pile of money so I took a temporary job as an insurance adjuster in Fergus Falls,” Keith said.

Carol and Keith met in college through mutual friends, but didn’t start dating until after Keith returned from the Army and was heading off to Fergus Falls as an insurance adjuster for the General Adjustment Bureau.

And the couple commuted back and forth about 60 miles until May 1969, when they tied the knot in Willow City.

The road to Blooming Prairie

The next 15 years were filled with new faces and new places as Keith’s role in insurance continued to change.

After their wedding, the couple lived in Fergus Falls while Keith continued to work for the General Adjustment Bureau and Carol worked at Lake Region Hospital in the insurance department.

In 1970, the bureau transferred Keith to Virginia, Minn., where the Holmans’ daughter, Erin, was born.

And in November 1971, the couple moved to St. Cloud as Keith became branch manager with the bureau.

“We spent eight years in St. Cloud and our son, Jon, was born in 1973,” Carol said.

Keith switched companies during that time and was asked to transfer.

“They actually gave us a choice to live in the Twin Cities, but we chose Owatonna, which was a very good move,” Carol said.

Keith said Owatonna was one of the areas he enjoyed working as a field representative for Integrity Mutual.

“It was just a nice town, and we got more house for the money then at that time than the other communities,” he said.

As a position opened up at the First National Insurance Agency in Blooming

Prairie, the Holmans relocated again.

“We figured if we were going to own a business in town, then we better live there,” Carol said. “It was a good move, too.”

That would be the last move for the Holmans — almost.

Serving Blooming Prairie

If you were to ask Keith how he’s managed to stay in the insurance business for 40-plus years, he’d likely tell you that it’s no different than any other job.

“There are good parts and bad parts,” he said. “I guess the good parts have outweighed the bad. Otherwise, we would’ve done something else.”

Keith and his wife moved to Blooming Prairie in February 1983 to manage the First National Agency.

We have to service the local people well otherwise we wouldn’t be around this long.

“Shortly after that they wanted to sell it, so we bought it,” Keith said.

In 1990, the Holmans relocated to a new location at 419 E. Main St., where the business has been for more than 20 years.

“We have almost 30 years of experience here in Blooming Prairie,” Keith said.

After the Holmans’ children graduated high school and attended college, they decided to make another move.

But this time, it would be much, much closer to work.

“It finally donned on us, if we’re going to maintain a building, why don’t we do the one where we work? So we sold the house and remodeled the upper floor here,” Keith said.

Carol admits sometimes during the winter, she doesn’t step outside until the weekends.

“It’s very nice to be so close,” she said.

“It’s very convenient if we have to come in on a weekend or an evening or something.”

This generally means Carol and Keith spend a lot of time together.

“I think sometimes people have this fantasy about what marriage is all about,” Carol said. “Marriage is wonderful but it’s not always perfect but we work at it because we want to.”

See HOLMAN on page 34

Friday, March 21, 2014

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PAGE 33

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PAGE 34

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUN TY

Friday, March 21, 2014

HOLMAN from page 32 And to keep the peace at work, they respect each other’s territory.

“We’ve gotten to the point where Keith does the property and life insurance, and I do the health and over and under 65. We’ve found that those are our domains,” she said. “And we never touch each other’s desks without permission. I think we’ve mellowed out throughout the years though.”

The Holmans enjoy spending time camping in Wisconsin, visiting their children and grandchildren in Massachusetts and Alaska and supporting the community.

Supporting Blooming Prairie

volved in the Blooming Prairie Chamber.

Keith served as the president of the chamber. Carol served as the button committee chairperson, which raises money for the Fourth of July celebration, and still serves on the beautification committee.

“We are still involved in the chamber,” Carol said. “When I’m involved, Keith is, too.”

Carol also served on the Boys and Girls Club of Blooming Prairie’s board for six years while it was still considered the Blooming Prairie Center.

“I was on the board the year that we signed the contract with Rochester for it to become a Boys and Girls Club so that’s something I look back on and say I’m so glad that happened and to see how successful it’s been,” she said. “That’s still our favorite. We still like to actively promote it.”

Keith has worked with the Blooming Prairie Economic Development Authority and served on the Steele County Board of Adjustments for six years.

The Holmans are also involved in the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Knights of Columbus in Blooming Prairie and support the Blooming Prairie Education Foundation, the Blooming Prairie Cancer Group and Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Litomysl.

And their work doesn’t go unnoticed.

In 2011, the Blooming Prairie Chamber named the Holmans, “Citizens of the Year,” and in 2012, the United Way of Steele County presented them with the LIVE United community award for their commitment to the community.

“If I had five more of them, I can’t imagine how much more we could do in the community,” Noble said. “They don’t need to help, but they keep working.

They’ve become good friends. I’m glad they landed here in Blooming Prairie to raise their children and develop their business.”

Ask Becky Noble, director of the Blooming Prairie Area Chamber of Commerce, to describe the Holmans in one word and she will tell you they’re “helpful.”

“If you ever have a problem or need something, they’re always there,” Noble said.

The Holmans said their parents instilled volunteerism into their lives growing up.

“In those little communities, they had no choice,” Keith said. “I think we both recognize that in order to have a thriving community somebody’s got to get involved in the unpaid volunteer jobs and do them. If it weren’t for volunteers, there wouldn’t be anything like the big Fourth of July celebration or any of the local activities in Blooming Prairie.”

In Owatonna, the Holmans served as home and school association officers.

“At that time they didn’t have the big auction they do now, but they had an antique show. It was very successful,” Carol said. “We thought we made good money then, but compared to the Night of Knights, it was just a drop in the bucket.”

While the Holmans’ children attended school in Blooming Prairie, they supported various activities, including Reach reporter Ashley Stewart at the music boosters.

And since they bought the insurance 444-2378 or follow her on Twitter.com business, Carol and Keith have been in- @OPPashley

Carol and Keith Holman with their children, Jon and Erin, in St. Cloud in the early 1970s.

(Submitted photo)

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 35

PAGE 36

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUN TY

Friday, March 21, 2014

Julianna Skluzacek the director at a rehearsal of the play “The Price” at Little Theatre of Owatonna. (Huckle Media file photo)

Julianna Skluzacek

Home Stage at

on

By JEFFREY JACKSON

jjackson@owatonna.com

A lifelong love of theater began for Julianna Skluzacek with a plot straight out of the old Andy Hardy movies — that scene where a bunch of kids get together in an old barn after one of them cries, “Hey, kids, let’s put on a show.”

The only thing missing for Julianna was the barn.

“We did musical shows and charged our parents admission,” she said. “Hey, Mom had five kids and it kept us busy. If you’re singing and

dancing in the back yard, how much trouble can you get in?”

Flash forward several years, though she won’t say how many years.

“None of your business,” she said, a twinkle in her eye.

Now Julianna has established herself as one of the premier directors, if not the premier director, of theater in southern Minnesota, one of the founding members of the Merlin Players theatrical company, and a long-time board member and current president of the Minnesota Association of Community Theatres.

See SKLUZACEK on page 37

Still, despite all of her individual accomplishments — and there are plenty — she stresses the collaborative nature of the theatrical arts in general and what she has done in particular.

“I have been blessed to work with musically and technically gifted people,” she said. “I have had hundreds of people who have made me look good and really smart, and I thank them all.”

But perhaps that’s too fast of a flash forward and doesn’t account for how she — a girl born in St. Louis, Mo., and reared in Davenport, Iowa — got to Owatonna in the first place.

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 37

SKLUZACEK from page 36 For that, you have to thank her husband, a native of the Northfield area.

“I met Roger in Davenport,” she said.

It was the late 1960s, and roughly eight months after they met, Roger Skluzacek had a choice to make. The Vietnam War was raging and he could either join the Air Force or be drafted into the Army. He chose the Air Force, became a pilot and did a tour of duty in Vietnam.

While he was overseas, Julianna, now his bride, went to Indiana, where she entered college.

“I was going to Indiana University and doing theater,” she said. “I had done some in high school, but never had the lead.”

That changed in her freshman year at the university when she landed the female lead in “J.B.,” a verse drama written by Archibald MacLeish that is a modern retelling of the story of Job. Though she said her landing of the part as a freshman brought out some of the jealousy in the other actresses on that university stage, it also cemented the growing love she had for the theater.

After Roger was discharged from the Air Force, they began to look for a new place to live, and they looked to southern Minnesota.

Roger still had family in and around the Northfield area. And since the couple and their young daughter had lived away from family for so long, they decided that he, an engineer, might look for a job in southern Minnesota.

“He had a number of offers,” Julianna said.

But they looked at more than just the job itself. They looked at the town itself.

Because of their daughter, they considered the school system. And there was one other thing.

“We were looking for a town that had community theater,” Julianna said.

That’s when Owatonna caught their eye.

On stage and backstage

Little Theatre of Owatonna was still relatively young, if not in its infancy, when the Skluzaceks moved to town.

Founded in 1966, the theater group was just in its ninth season when Roger took a job with the Owatonna Manufacturing Company and the family moved to town.

That was in November. By January 1975, Julianna was auditioning for her first role in an LTO production — the play “The Matchmaker” by Thornton Wilder and

directed by Sarah Foreman, a production that was also Foreman’s first in the LTO director’s chair.

“It was the beginning of my relationship with LTO,” said Julianna, who still calls Little Theatre of Owatonna the “best community theater in southern Minnesota.”

“The organization itself is run so well,” she said. “It’s so financially stable.”

And it helped that, unlike some other area community theaters, LTO had a tradition, still present today, of encouraging women to direct. In fact, in the eight seasons before Julianna came to Owatonna and started working with LTO, 14 of the 20 shows produced by the theater company were directed by women. In its history, nearly 80 percent of the 184 shows produced by LTO have been directed by women. It’s a statistic that’s not lost on Julianna.

But first, she paid her dues both onstage and backstage.

“I leapt in and did everything,” she said of her early years with LTO, including running lights, running sound, painting sets, making costumes and being the technical director of the comedy “No Time for Sergeants” in 1976, just her second year in town.

See SKLUZACEK on page 38

Julianna Skluzacek and Craig Berg enact a scene from The Merlin Players’ production of “Misery.” (Submitted photo)

Little Theatre of Owatonna productions directed by Julianna Skluzacek 1977-78 “Sylvester and the Magic Pebble” 1980-81 “Blithe Spirit” 1982-83 “The Prisoner of Second Avenue” 1984-85 “Death of a Salesman” 1985-86 “Guys and Dolls” 1986-87 “Mornings at Seven” 1987-88 “Crimes of the Heart” 1988-89 “Lion in Winter”

1989-90 “Foxfire” 1991-92 “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” 1992-93 “Miss Firecracker Contest” 1994-95 “Cemetery Club” 1995-96 “Into the Woods” 1996-97 “Broadway Bound” 1998-99 “Biloxi Blues” 1999-2000 “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

2000-01 “How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying” 2001-02 “Secret Garden” 2003-04 “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” 2005-06 “Enchanted April” 2006-07 “Company” 2008-09 “The Price” 2011-12 “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”

PAGE 38

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUN TY

Friday, March 21, 2014

“”

I love the deep, long relationships you can develop in theater.

I have friends of all ages because of theater.

- Julianna Skluzacek

SKLUZACEK from page 37 And, of course, the demands of the theater took her away from home.

“I’m lucky I have a very supportive husband who doesn’t gripe,” she said.

Then, in her fourth season with LTO, Julianna got the opportunity she had been longing for.

“LTO was generous enough to let me direct,” she said.

At the time, the theater company had a policy that novice directors would cut their directorial teeth on a children’s show. Julianna directed “Sylvester and the Magic Pebble,” an adaptation of a children’s book

by William Steig.

Three years later she directed the classic Noel Coward comedy “Blithe Spirit,” and from there, she said, it was “off to the races.”

“Then I was directing every other year,” she said.

Not quite.

At first it was every other year. Then, beginning with the 1984-1985 season, Julianna directed an LTO production for six straight years and for eight of nine years. In the midst of all her productions, she went back and finished her college degree — not in elementary education, which is what she had originally majored in back in Indiana, but a degree in her first love, theater and more specifically in directing.

As for the productions she mounted in Owatonna, what productions they were — “Death of a Salesman,” “Guys and Dolls,” “Mornings at Seven,” “Crimes of the Heart,” “Lion in Winter,” “Foxfire,” “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” and “Miss Firecracker Contest.”

“I can’t believe they let me direct that, green horn that I was,” she said of Arthur Miller’s classic “Death of a Salesman,” the first drama she ever directed.

It’s a play she says she would like to have another crack at, just to see how she would direct it now Julianna Skluzacek takes notes while directing her first musical, “Guys and Dolls,” for Little Theatre of Owatonna in 1985. (Submitted photo)

compared to how she directed it nearly 30 years ago.

The magic of Merlin

A lot has changed in her creative life in the intervening 30 years. Though she still directs an occasional show for Little Theatre of Owatonna — her last was the musical “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” in 2011-2012 season — most of that time that has passed she has focused her efforts on the Merlin Players, a theatrical company that she helped found, and one for which she is still the guiding spirit — the muse, if you will.

But again, she emphasizes the collaborative spirit of the venture.

“There were a number of us who had done plays — people who wanted to work on their skills and to act or direct more than once a year,” she said.

At first, a group of theater people — about 10 to 15 — would get together for a weekend at her house for a workshop. Friday nights would be for improvisation. On Saturdays they would work on scenes, presenting them to each other and getting feedback.

Some would work in the kitchen, others in the living room, still others in a bedroom.

“It was always about process,” she said, “what was working, what was not working.”

During that time, Julianna was directing shows in other communities as well — Albert Lea, Faribault, Kenyon, to name a few — with many of the occasional LTO actors working with her. In 1995, she was directing “Fiddler on the Roof ” in Kenyon, several of her friends in tow, when she was approached by representatives from Shattuck-St. Mary’s in Faribault, who asked Julianna if she would be interested in producing a show. The show they produced — and it was very much a collaborative effort, she said — was “Driving Miss Daisy.”

See SKLUZACEK on page 39

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 39

SKLUZACEK from page 38

Julianna Skluzacek, left, and Lois Vranesh in Little Theatre of Owatonna’s 1983 production of “Suspect,” directed by Sarah Foreman. The production marked Vranesh’s first time on stage. (Submitted photo)

“The whole group came together,” she said.

So successful was the production that fall that Shattuck invited them back for another production that very next spring. The production was Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple.”

As it appeared the group was beginning to evolve from simply a bunch of friends who enjoyed theater into an actual theater company, one of the first things they looked to do was to find a name. They chose “Merlin” and soon dubbed themselves “The Merlin Players.”

“The summer before I had directed ‘Camelot,’” said Julianna.

The musical tells the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. And, of course, there’s the character of Merlyn the Magician. Yes, Merlyn with a “y.”

But there’s the other merlin — the name for a small, put powerful falcon. Between the magician and the falcon, the Merlin Players had found their name. The group’s logo is a small falcon.

For the first 11 years, the players produced two shows a season at Shattuck before that relationship ended.

“Then we went on the road for three years,” Julianna said.

In the time since, the Merlin Players have found a permanent home at the Paradise Center for the Arts, though many among its number have roots in Steele County.

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Julianna believes she knows the attraction of the group.

“We have an opportunity to do challenging work in an environment set up to be really good to actors,” she said.

“We take risks.”

In fact, she said, part of the mission statement of the Merlin Players is that the theater company intends to challenge the actors, to challenge the technical people behind the scenes, and, yes, to challenge the audience.

“We want the opportunity to do good work,” she said.

“And we do it together because we trust each other.”

Though her commitment to Merlin keeps her busy — directing a show or two a year, plus helping in the production in its other shows — that doesn’t mean she has divorced herself from other theater companies.

“I’m not limiting myself to Merlin,” she said. “But the downside with Merlin is we do four shows, and I’m not able to get out.”

And she hopes to get out to work in more theaters again, not just because of the theatrical opportunities it will afford, but more importantly because of the friends she has made in the various theaters in which she has worked.

“I love the deep, long relationships you can develop in theater,” she said. “I have friends of all ages because of theater.”

PAGE 40

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

By AL STRAIN • astrain@owatonna.com

Perfect Mix

Donnavon Eaker and Rachel Lee

It all started as a small grocery store with an even smaller meat counter, but it became pretty clear early on that meat was going to make the Eaker family successful.

And as Donnavon Eaker puts it, she knew how to sell it. Her husband, the late Steve Eaker, knew how to make it.

“He had his area of expertise and I had mine,” Donnavon Eaker said. “His area was to make sausage mine was in selling the product. He would always say, ‘Honey, I’ll make it. You sell it.’”

The Eakers started their business, Steve’s Meat Market, in Ellendale in January of 1973.

Now, more than 41 years later, plaques, trophies and award certificates line the walls of their shop in the city’s downtown.

Though they’ve had plenty of success and seen their business grow over the years, Don-

navon Eaker says she and her staff don’t forget where it all started, with loyal customers. In fact, she says waiting on the customers that come into the store is still her favorite thing to do as an owner.

“I enjoy waiting on the customers. I enjoy visiting with the customers. I enjoy making them happy when they leave by providing a good product,” Donnavon Eaker said. “It’s just been a progression of us making our customers happy.”

Rachel Lee, Donnavon’s daughter and partner in business now, said though she grew up in the business, the time has seemingly flown by.

“It’s kind of hard to think about 41 years. It’s kind of like when you get married, I guess,” Lee said. “You get married and all of the sudden, it’s 10 years down the road, then it’s 15 and then it’s 20. Where did it go? It just keeps on happening.

It’s just a part of you.”

Finding love

Donnavon Colee and Steve Eaker both grew up in the Blooming Prairie area, as it turns out just down the road from each other.

“I graduated from Claremont and he graduated from Blooming. It was 1968,” Donnavon Eaker said. “I lived on one farm. A mile-and-a-half down the road, his folks lived on another farm.”

Though the two were around each other often as they were growing up, it wasn’t until high school that they started dating.

“We went to junior prom together. It was junior prom, senior prom and then we went to different vocational schools and then we got married,” she said. “That’s what you did back then.”

See EAKER AND LEE on page 42 Donnavon Eaker, right, and her daughter Rachel Lee have continued to make Steve’s Meat Market a success in Ellendale. They pride themselves on remembering the customers that helped them get their start 41 years ago. (Al Strain/People’s Press)

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

EAKER AND LEE from page 40 The couple was married in 1969 in Claremont. After working and living in the Twin Cities, the couple returned to Steele County to raise their family.

“Our oldest daughter (Michelle) was six months old, and I said, ‘No. We’re not going to raise our family in the Twin Cities,’” Donnavon Eaker said.

Once they bought Pete and Rubes Market in Ellendale, the couple went to work building the business up. Donnavon Eaker said that while they were married to each other, she and her husband were also married to the business, something she said they had to be in order for the business to be successful.

There were times when they thought they may have bitten off more than they could chew, but at the end of the day they knew they had each other and a solid product. Though, she said she knew they had to adjust their business to go with the changing times.

“We knew that if we did not diversify what we were doing, we would not be here on Main Street for very long. That’s what has happened to all our small towns,” she said.

Donnavon and Steve Eaker both knew that the customers had other choices for where they could buy meat, and they made sure their employees knew it too.

“They do not have to come in that door. That person who comes in in that door pays for the lights, pays the wages, pays for everything that is here,” Donnavon Eaker said. “They do not have to come in here.

They choose to come in here, and there’s a reason they choose to come in here.”

And come they did, at times from great distances.

Donnavon Eaker said customers will travel from as much as 30 miles away to come and buy meat at the Ellendale store.

As a small business, it was also important for the Eakers to invest in the Steele County community. Over the years, groups have sold the store’s products in fundraisers for various causes. Donnavon Eaker said a typical year will bring about a dozen fundraisers.

Laura Resler, friend to Donnavon Eaker and executive director of the Steele County Historical Society, has asked for Steve’s product for historical society events over the years.

A community-oriented family business “She has been very beneficial with providing product for different fundraisers and has been very supportThere are days when working with your spouse is ive through the History Center building campaign,” fun and everything runs smoothly. Then there are the Steve and Donnavon Eaker started Steve’s Meat’s Market after buying a small grocery Resler said. other days, the days when no one can seem to do any- store in Ellendale with an eight-foot meat counter in 1973. (Submitted photo) Resler first started working with Donnavon Eaker thing right. For the Eakers, there were plenty of both. when she worked with the Pork Producers. Over the make hams at the store. For Donnavon Eaker and her daughter, it “It’s not always easy working with your spouse and/or your family members. You learn your space,” Donnavon was a unique opportunity to see meat making extend to its third years she got to know both Donnavon and Steve that has gone beyond a working relationship.

Eaker said. “I can read people pretty good. It wasn’t always the generation in the family.

“She’s very energetic and a very community-oriented person,” “It’s pretty cool,” Lee said. “He was paying attention and he was most fun working with your spouse, and it’s not always the most fun working with your family members, but at the end of the day really into it. He was right there doing what he needed to do next. Resler said. “She’s always got lots of ideas for their business … she’s we could go home and say, ‘Yeah. We did another good day.’ At When we got all done, he was all excited. He was quite the helper just a go-getter.”

When Johnson’s business, Johnson & Doerhoffer, was able to relothe end of the day, you’re still family, and there is something to be for the day.” cate to its own building, Johnson and Amy Doerhoffer wanted to have said for that.” a customer appreciation event for their clients. They needed to feed Teamwork was something that helped Donnavon and Steve several hundred people, so naturally she called Steve’s Meat Market.

Eaker keep the store successful, and something that wasn’t lost on While agreeing to provide the food, there was a catch. Steve customers and friends. wanted to cook the brats, hamburgers and pork patties.

“When I first think of Donnavon, I think of her and Steve as a “We had a heck of a party. People from Blooming Prairie know team,” said Tamzen Johnson of Blooming Prairie. both of them very well and how busy they were. They’re very inBut it wasn’t just Donnavon and Steve that were busy in the store. volved in the Ellendale community” Johnson said. “They kept The couple’s daughters, Michelle and Rachel, were quite active in coming up to me and saying ‘How the heck did you get Steve Eaker the business from the time they were young. to come over here and do this?’ I said, ‘I didn’t. Steve insisted.’”

“They grew up in the store. They knew what it was to work, they learned what it was,” their mother said. “They were linking Loss of a legend sausages, packaging hot dogs and waiting on customers before they were 10 years old.”

It all happened very fast. In fact, it took just slightly more than And for Lee, it went beyond waiting on customers. She’s grown three months. to love the business her parents began and has taken on the roll her At the end of December in 2005, Steve Eaker wasn’t feeling sick, father once had, making the meats in the back of the store. but something wasn’t right. Doctors discovered he had cancer, “For us, because our parents lived here and were working all the which had spread to his brain, lungs, bones and lymph nodes. time, the store was just a part of you,” Lee said. “It’s just kind of one Just three months and three days after his diagnosis, Steve Eaker of those things, that if we didn’t have the store, it would feel like a died in Ellendale at the age of 55 on April 1, 2006. whole part of you that was lost.”

In a 2007 story done by the People’s Press, Donnavon Eaker said Steve’s Meat Market has called Ellendale home for 41 years.

Last November, Lee’s son Daxter wanted to help his mother (Al Strain/People’s Press) her husband didn’t want to know how long he had.

See EAKER AND LEE on page 44

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 43

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PAGE 44

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

EAKER AND LEE from page 42 “Steve told them ‘I don’t want a timeline,’” Donnavon Eaker said in 2007. “He always said, ‘The doctor’s timeline is different than God’s.’”

When her father died, Rachel stepped in to fill his role in the business. The transition could have been much harder, but Steve Eaker made sure to pass on some knowledge and some recipes before he died.

“It went really good because of the cancer that he had. Because he had to get treatment right away, they pretty much said, ‘You’re done working,’” Lee said. “We were really fortunate that we had a good crew here all this time. We’ve had people here for 15, 20 years. The biggest transition was me going into my dad’s job, because my dad was the only one who did that job.

“My dad would take care of this and take care of that, any breakdown or anything that needed to be fixed.

All the sudden we knew we had a lot to deal with. Everybody picked up and stepped in.”

Though, from Donnavon Eaker’s perspective, her daughter has grown and can now tell how things are going at the store as soon as she walks in.

Others have noticed how well Lee has done in filling her father’s role at the shop. “(Steve) was the one who would develop the product and Donnavon was pretty much the marketer,” Resler said. “It’s wonderful to see that family business continue, because it truly is a legacy. For many years they worked so hard to build the business and they’ve been successful. To see Rachel take that on is amazing.”

As for the recipes, Steve Eaker helped write them down for his daughter before he died. Lee said that her father felt bad about not being at the store while he was sick, though now, nearly eight years later, she said she can still feel his presence in the store.

“Even when I’m leaving, I’ll say, ‘You better watch the place, because I’m going home now,’” Lee said. “I’m always talking to him, and sometimes yelling when something’s not working right. I always feel like he’s here.”

Through the years, Steve Eaker earned the respect of the people of

Steele County and peers in his field.

He was inducted into the Cured Meats Hall of Fame by the American Association of Meat Processors in 1996 and was inducted into the Steele County Livestock Hall of Fame in 2012.

Big business

Once the shop went under the USDA, a lot more people and companies started taking notice of the quality product that the staff at Steve’s Meat Market was turning out.

That attention led to the shop, which started as a grocery store with an eight-foot meat counter on Ellendale’s main street, to doing private labeling for meat producers across the country.

To put it plainly, it meant that companies liked the meat so much, they wanted to put their name on it.

One thing Donnavon Eaker has taken note of is that when dealing with large companies who want her store’s product, it’s got to be a good fit for everyone. Those companies also have to know that retail customers are still very important to the business. ABOVE: Donnavon Eaker, center and her daughters, Michelle, right, and Rachel hold a portrait of Steve Eaker after he “We so cherish our retail custom- was inducted into the Steele County Free Fair Livestock Hall of Fame in 2012. BELOW: Rachel Lee and her son Daxter, ers because they helped us get started, right, work on hams at the store. (Submitted photo) and they continue to come back every time,” Donnavon Eaker said.

The quality of the product speaks for itself, and Donnavon Eaker notes that she, her daughter and her staff never seek out large companies to do business with. Those companies all hear about them, and make the first move.

“They’ve found us out and sought us out, and now they’re coming to us for their product,” Donnavon Eaker said.

Donnavon Eaker is the first to admit that when she and her husband bought the business, they had no idea of what it would turn into.

“We were young. We knew we didn’t want to live in the Twin Cities,” Donnavon Eaker said. “He wanted to make sausage, and now it’s turned into this.”

Reach reporter Al Strain at 4442376 or follow him on Twitter.com@ OPPalstrain

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 45

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

A Fresh Light Mark Biebighauser

Pastor Mark Biebighauser on a bowling outing with the youth of Trinity Lutheran Church in Medord shows that he is not what he calls a “stereotypical” pastor.

(Submitted photo)

By JEFFREY JACKSON • jjackson@owatonna.com

Mark Biebighauser readily admits that he loves — really loves — to play golf.

But his passion for the game had led to some, shall we say, interesting encounters on the course.

“Sometimes, if I’m playing by myself, I might get paired up with someone I don’t know,” Biebighauser says.

Then, somewhere around the third or fourth hole, the inevitable conversation comes up — the conversation where his playing companion asks him what he does for a living.

“I tell them I’m a Lutheran pastor,” he says, “and they start to change.”

Especially, he says, if their language has been rather coarse over

a missed putt or a bad shot.

But by now he’s grown rather used to it.

“First and foremost, I’m not a stereotypical pastor,” he says.

But as quickly as the words are out of his mouth, he pauses as if he were trying to pull them back, or at least reconsider them.

“I guess in lots of ways I am stereotypical,” he says.

And by that he means in his love of God and his love of his congregation — Trinity Lutheran Church in Medford, a congregation that he has led just since June 2012.

Already in that short amount of time, Biebighauser — or Pastor Mark, as his parishioners and others within the Medford community call him — has made a difference in the church. The number of people coming to Sunday morning worship services has grown,

See BIEBIGHAUSER on page 48

and that growth includes younger families with small children.

“We love to worship with one another,” he says.

Then he pauses.

The church, he says, like any other church has had its struggles, its ups and downs. Then he notes that there are members of the congregation who have been members for 70 years or more.

“And when you’ve been here for 70 years, you see everything that the church has been through,” he says What thrills him, though, is to watch those older parishioners as they see what has been happening in the church lately — a time that’s been more of an up than a down.

“And they’re saying, ‘God is still working here,’” Biebighauser says.

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

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PAGE 48

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

BIEBIGHAUSER from page 46 A ‘shocking announcement’

In the summer before his senior year in high school, Biebighauser’s father called the family into the living room in White Bear Lake for family meeting and made what Biebighauser now calls a “shocking announcement.”

Faith had always been an important part of his life.

“My parents made sure that it mattered to everyone in the family,” he says.

He was born in the faith and raised in it. And he saw the example of his parents — his father a Sunday school teacher, his mother a pianist for the church.

What’s more, during his high school years, a new youth leader for the church — a young woman named Tracy — had been challenging the kids like him to take their faith more seri-

ously. With that challenge, Biebighauser was beginning to feel the first callings to be involved somehow — he wasn’t sure how — in church work.

“I wanted to do for others what had been done for me,” he says.

With that grounding in faith and sense of purpose and calling that he was experiencing, even at a young age, one would have thought that perhaps, just perhaps, he would have intuited the announcement his father was about to make. But he didn’t.

He still remembers what his father had to say.

“He said, ‘Your mother and I have been talking about this, and we feel that God is calling me into ministry,’” Biebighauser says, a smile coming across his face as he remembers it.

The announcement meant changes — up-

rooting his family and moving to St. Louis, Mo., where his father would be a student at Concordia Seminary — the same seminary that Biebighauser would attend just a few years later.

“Dad’s now a pastor,” he says.

And, he adds, that for the last 10 years or so, his father has become his role model.

“I did not grow up a pastor’s kid, but I am one now,” he says. “I’m super close to my parents, and I’m so thankful.”

A family affair

When the Sunday morning worship services have concluded and Pastor Mark stands at the back of the church, greeting people as they leave and shaking their hands, his 3-year-old son, Andrew, stands with him, also shaking hands.

“The whole church is involved in the life of

my family,” he says.

And in fact, when the Biebighausers came to Medford less than two years ago, the sign on the side of Trinity Lutheran welcomed not only Pastor Mark, but also his wife, Joni, their daughter, Kristen, and their son, Andrew.

The only family member they didn’t welcome was their daughter Lauren. And with good reason. Lauren, now just a year old, was born only after they came. So when the congregation welcomed her, they welcomed her not only to Medford, but to the world.

Of course, the Biebighausers themselves were overjoyed to welcome their third child into the world as well.

“I always wanted to be a dad. I thought it would be cool,” he says. “And it is as cool as everyone said it was going to be.”

See BIEBIGHAUSER on page 50

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

BIEBIGHAUSER from page 48 But as much as he loves his children and his family — and make no mistake about it, he loves them dearly — he could never be a stay-at-home parent like his wife is.

“It’s something I could never do,” she says. “She loves those kids so much. She’s the best mommy I’ve ever seen.”

That’s not to say that Joni Biebighauser hasn’t worked outside the home. In fact, when he was a student at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, she took jobs cleaning houses in suburban St. Louis just to put him through school and to give him the time he needed to devote to his studies.

“When she’s had to work, she’s worked hard,” he says. “Now that she’s a mom, she ‘moms’ hard — if that’s a word.”

And it is she whom he credits for leading them to Medford in the first place.

They had been living for four years in Beverly Hills, Mich., a suburb of Detroit and his first parish, when they got the call to come to Medford. Though he welcomed the prospect of coming back to Minnesota and to be closer to his parents, who live in Chaska where his father pastors a church, he wasn’t quite sure how he would take to living in a small town. He was used to suburban life or even life in a big city.

Joni Biebighauser wasn’t.

She had grown up in a small community in Wyoming, a town about the size of Medford.

“She was excited to go back,” he says.

And once she convinced him to visit the town, he, too, fell in love with the town.

“I like the people, like the church, like the town, and like the school,” he says.

“Of course, that happened in spring and summer, not in something like this,” he adds with a smile, gesturing toward the snow-covered ground and the frigid early March air.

In some ways, as he describes it, it was almost like love at first sight with the community. Even on the trip back to Michigan from visiting the Medford congregation, they knew the decision they were going to make — the decision to come to Medford.

freshman to whom he refers only as “Jake.”

Jake was, in Biebighauser’s description, “a ladies’ man.”

“He said, ‘Watch this,’ and popped a Disney VHS in the machine,” he says.

Biebighauser still remembers the movie. “Beauty and the Beast.” But it had the desired effect, he says, as freshmen girls started showing up at their door — eight in all, all intrigued by the freshman boys who were engaged in a “Disney-athon,” as Biebighauser describes it.

One of the girls was Joni, the woman who would become his wife.

“It may not have been love at first sight, but it was something at first sight,” he says.

The two began dating almost immediately. They were engaged in the summer after their sophomore year and married shortly after graduation.

And Jake? He was the best man at the wedding.

As Pastor Mark looks at the future of Trinity Lutheran, he says that in some ways the path that the church takes will not be that different than the path it has always walked since it was formed.

“The church is going to continue doing what it’s always done,” he says, “and that’s being a church that’s all about Jesus Christ.”

A major priority, if not the major priority, for the church will be their worship — something that he says won’t be difficult because Trinity Lutheran is a congregation Mark Biebighauser, pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Medford, talks to the children and youth of the that loves to worship with one another and congregation during the church picnic in July 2013. (Submitted photo) loves to sing during its worship.

“We’re a church that takes God’s word seriously,” he says, “just like Tracy encouraged us to do in high school.”

And he said, the congregation is one that ministers to all ages and reaches out to the community, asking how they can be the church for the community.

“We are a church that gets along with one another and a church that knows one another,” he says.

And if he — a younger pastor than - Pastor Mark Biebighauser on the future the church is used to seeing — can help to bring a certain amount of energy to of Trinity Lutheran Church in Medford the congregation, then he is ready to supply it.

‘Something’ at first sight Above all, he wants to help them to But Pastor Mark knows something be a family. about love at first sight.

Reach Managing Editor Jeffrey Jackson When he was a freshman at Concordia University in Seward, Neb., just west of at 444-2371, or follow him on Twitter.

Lincoln, he was the roommate of another com @OPPJeffrey

“”

The church is going to continue doing what it’s always done, and that’s being a church that’s all about Jesus Christ.

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 51

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Church Directory COUNTRYSIDE CHRISTIAN CHURCH OWATONNA, MN 55060 CHURCH OFFICE 451-5547 JIM AVERY - MINISTER - 456-3040 CELL EMAIL: countrysidechurch@q.com WEBSITE: www.countrysidechurchowatonna.com Meeting at Victory Christian Center 1320 E. Rice Lake Street Sunday 9am Worship Family Movie Nite 5:30pm Last Sunday of the Month

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Fall Ham Supper Youth Group Chili Cook-Off Dartball Cookie Walk Vacation Bible School Community Luncheons Picnic in the Park Bazaar And a lot more!

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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

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

Mass Time: Sun. 8:30am (call to verify Mass time)

4083786 St. Joseph Church sig page Portraits 2014 OPP 3.21 pr

800 Havana Road ▪ Owatonna, MN 55060 Phone: 507-451-1546 ▪ Fax: 507-451-3578 www.AssociatedChurch.org

Emmanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church (WELS) 750 SW Jeffrey St. • Owatonna • 455-2729

Thomas Smith, Pastor

Sunday Worship - (Sept.-May) 9 a.m.

Christian Education Hour - 10:15 a.m.

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

Sunday Morning Schedule: (During School Year)

9:00 AM - Worship 10:00 AM - Fellowship 10:15 AM - Church School & Adult Conversations

Wednesday Night Activities: For schedule, visit our website, www.AssociatedChurch.org

Trinity Lutheran Church 609 Lincoln Ave. So., Owatonna Phone 451-4520 Fax 451-1348 Pastors Peter Strommen, Dean Smith, Julie Malone Visitation Pastor Charles Espe

Services - Sat. 5:00 p.m., Sun. 8:15 & 9:45 a.m.

Contemporary Service 11:15 a.m. Sunday School 8:15 & 9:45 a.m.

Adult Education Forum 9:45 a.m. Sundays and most Wednesday nights.

Please call for details.

Cable TV Channel 8 - Mon. 10 a.m., Wed. 6:30 p.m., Sun. 11a.m.

www.tlcowatonna.org

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

A Place of Real Grace • Live Worship Band • Contemporary Worship

PAGE 53

St. John Lutheran Church, ELCA THURSDAY 5:00 p.m. Vesper Service SATURDAY 5:00 p.m. Contemporary Service SUNDAY 8:00 a.m. Traditional Service 10:30 a.m. Blended Service 9:15 a.m. Sunday School for All Ages Children to Adult SUMMER SCHEDULE Memorial Day–Labor Day 8:00 a.m. Traditional Service 9:30 a.m. Blended Service

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Pastor Dave Klawiter Nursery • Handicapped Accessible • Air Conditioned Communion At All Services • Worship will broadcast over AM 1390 KRFO at 10:30 every Sunday

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1301 Lincoln Ave • Owatonna • 451-7293 • www.stjohnowatonna.org

REDEEMER LUTHERAN CHURCH

Our Savior’s Lutheran Church-ELCA P.O. Box 423, 1909 St. Paul Rd • Owatonna 451-4853 • www.oursaviorsowatonna.org

Pastor John Weisenburger Associate Pastor Karl Korbel Associate Pastor Lauren Baske Davis Sunday Worship 8:15 a.m. Traditional • 10:45 a.m. Contemporary Education Hour 9:30 a.m.

Summer Sunday Worship 9:15 a.m.

Holy Communion At All Services Air Conditioned

LCMS 1054 Truman Ave, Owatonna 507-451-2720 Rev. Kirk Griebel Worship Sundays at 9:00 a.m.

Educational hour from 10:15 to 11:15 (Sunday School & Adult Bible Study) September thru May Wednesday mornings at 9:30 to 10:30 a.m.

Adult Bible Study e-mail: rlcowat@smig.net www.redeemerowatonna.org

First Baptist Church 123 E. Main | Owatonna 507-451-2803 Next to the Courthouse in Downtown Owatonna

Sacred Heart Catholic Church

810 Cedar Ave S • Owatonna • 451-1588 Saturday Mass at 5:00 p.m.

Sunday Masses at 7:30 a.m., 9:00 a.m., 10:30 a.m.

1:00 p.m. Spanish Liturgy • Confessions Saturday at 4:00 p.m.

Rev. John Sauer • Rev. Michael Cronin www.sacredheartowatonna.org

Sunday Schedule 9:30 a.m. Fellowship Time | 10:30 a.m. Worship Rev. Cindy Halvorson “Loving God; Loving People” www.firstbaptistowatonna.com

“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus...”

Hebrews 12:2

Bethel Church of Owatonna Worship Services at 9AM and 10:45AM 1611 Hemlock Ave (507)451-8548 www.BethelOwatonna.com

PAGE 54

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

Barry Olson sits in his office at Blooming Prairie High School. Olson has been the principal and superintendent of BPHS since 1999. He has worked in education in Steele County for over 30 years. (Kaleb Roedel/People’s Press)

Teaching, Learning

Stacks of papers are strewn across Barry Olson’s desk.

Some are everyday memos, others important messages, all in need of Olson’s eyes. Not to mention, the abyss of electronic documents dinging in like clockwork, demanding his attention.

And yet, Olson, slightly reclined in his leather chair, peering down at the heap of work staring up at him, exudes a sense of tranquility even as he states: “Days are kind of chaotic.”

You see, Olson has been working in education long enough not to be overwhelmed by his work load, no matter how many 8.5x11 sheets of paper land askew on his desk during the day.

For Olson, the superintendent and principal of Blooming Prairie High School, it’s just another day at the office — one that he’s been

Barry Olson

By KALEB ROEDEL • kroedel@owatonna.com

occupying in various forms in Steele County for 31 years.

Early interest in educating

Growing up in Minnetonka, Olson, son of a businessman and stayat-home mother, knew early on that he wanted to be a teacher. He saw it as an avenue to pursue multiple interests. A sports-loving kid with natural athletic talent, especially on the sandlots and blacktop, Olson initially was drawn to the coaching aspect that dovetails with teaching. This is not to say the shaping-lives-of-children element wasn’t an appeal, either, because it most certainly was.

“I just always enjoyed athletics and coaching — coaching kind of drove me into education,” Olson said. “Also, knowing that you can af-

See OLSON on page 56

fect kids that you teach and make a difference; that’s what you always try to do, make a difference. And then as an administrator our goal, too, is to provide the best education possible for our kids.

“I just felt that would be a good way to spend my life. And it has been. It’s a great way to raise a family and it’s a great profession to be in.”

Upon graduating from Minnetonka High School, Olson, one of four kids in his family, migrated west to Blair, Nebraska, to pursue an education degree from Dana College, a private ELCA baccalaureate school. In addition, he played four years of basketball and baseball — as a pitcher and forward, respectively — for the Dana Vikings, orchestrating a career that later earned him induction into the school’s athletic hall of fame.

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 55

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PAGE 56

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

OLSON from page 54

Barry Olson speaks at one of his daughters’ weddings. (Submitted photo)

Getting to continue his athletic prowess was just a bonus, though, for the Minnetonka native. Olson’s primary reason for choosing Dana College, defunct since 2010, was simple.

“One of the reasons I went to Dana was they placed 96 percent of their teachers,” said Olson, who naturally fell in line with the majority.

Degree in hand, Olson didn’t have to travel far to initiate his career. In fact, he basically walked out the door, cutting his teeth right there in Blair for six years at the town’s junior and senior high.

Then, in 1983, Olson, and his wife Diane who he met at Dana, packed up and circled back to Minnesota, landing in a small town tucked on the southeastern edge of Steele County — Blooming Prairie. A teaching position at the high school waited for Olson.

Diane, meanwhile, got her nursing degree and subsequent masters and continued working her way up the health care ladder. She’s currently a Value Program Manager at Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

The Olson’s flag has been staked in Blooming Prairie ever since. The fact of the matter is it didn’t take long for the Olsons to see the town as a destination, not just a pit-stop.

“It’s a great place to live. We raised our three kids here and they all graduated from Blooming Prairie,” said Olson. They have two daughters, Kristin and Kari, and a son, Kraig. “My wife and I have thoroughly enjoyed the community and the town, and the school system is very good, very solid.”

son who had an impressive Division I career for the Golden Gophers. Tricia Hoffmann, in her second year as the head coach of the Huskies, played for Luther College.

The basketball court wasn’t the only place Olson hung his whistle. He spent a few season as the OHS baseball coach and was an assistant football coach while also serving as head coach for the junior high team.

Olson was immersed in Owatonna’s sports culture even outside of the school year. For six summers, starting in ’84, the Owatonna Aces had an ace pitcher in Olson.

“That was fun, a lot of fun. Charlie Fuller ran a good program and he allowed us to play ball,” Olson said. For the few unfamiliar with the name, Fuller, an Aces fixture, managed the team for 37 years, played for 44, and the ballpark – formerly Dartts Park – was renamed “Fuller Field” in his honor in 2003.

“I played with some awfully good baseball players,” Olson said. He also appreciated the rivalries with opposing dugouts, many filled with top notch sluggers and hurlers just the same. “There were always good games. The battles that we had with Waseca were fun. And obviously the region games were fun.

“It was just a great team, a good group of guys to play ball with and play in some awfully nice fields. I thoroughly enjoyed it; a lot of good memories there.”

Olson now spends his summers either wielding a golf club, holding his grandchildren or embracing Making an imprint in Owatonna life on the lake — sometimes all in the same weekend Twelve years of Olson’s life residing in Blooming — at his cabin in Brandon.

Prairie, however, were spent in classrooms 18 miles Unfinished business north in Owatonna.

After four years of teaching in Blooming Prai- in Blooming Prairie Despite enjoying his time in Owatonna drawing rie, Olson took a position in Owatonna as a science lessons on the chalkboard and X’s and O’s on the clipteacher at the junior high school. In addition, he was hired as the coach of the Owatonna High School girls board, Olson, 22 years into his teacher/coach tenure, saw an opportunity open up in Blooming Prairie that basketball team.

For those familiar with Owatonna’s girls basket- he couldn’t pass up.

“Owatonna is a great school system. Obviously ball history, the 12 years under Olson’s watch were filled with a slew of time-capsule worthy seasons. I had great people to work with and athletics comOlson’s OHS teams averaged close to 20 wins a sea- petition was great and we had very good teams, so son during his tenure and he led three teams to the it was a good time,” Olson said. “It was just time MSHSL state tournament. The ’99 squad was the to move to administration for me, and I had the highlight, Olson said. They finished 26-2, won the opportunity to come back to where I was living so Big 9 Conference and advanced all the way to the it made it easy.”

With that, in 1999 he shifted from his teacher/ Class AAA championship game.

“Probably the proudest I was of that whole 12 coach seat and settled into an administrative chair years was that we averaged 18 wins a year, which is at Blooming Prairie High School. Where he sits now, hugged against his desk overtaken with paperwork. pretty consistently good teams,” Olson said.

The former OHS coach certainly had a knack He initially took over as the BPHS principal before for grooming talent, too. A handful of his players adding superintendent to his nameplate two years went on to play college ball, headlined by Angie Iver- later.

See OLSON on page 58

Friday, March 21, 2014

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PAGE 58

It’s a juggling act of responsibilities for the school and community that keeps Olson on his toes in a fulfilling way.

“You just don’t know what to expect is going to come at you,” he said. “And yet you have to still try to manage to keep up on all those things that your district needs. So like, board meetings and budgets and staffing, all of those things are always on your desk. But then you also have to deal with the student issues that come up. Plus, you have to constantly be PR-ing your school district to the community, doing those things.

“There really is no normal day; every day is a little different, which makes it kind of fun. It can be challenging, but at the same time rewarding.”

Since taking on this specific give-and-take role, Olson has been a cornerstone of the stability and progression of the Blooming Prairie school district. One example that sticks out, Olson helped spearhead a bond that was passed in 2007 for the renovation of the high school.

Along with the total renovation, a multipurpose room was chiseled in, and the media center, library and commons were added on to. The final nail was hammered in September of 2009.

“The renovation of our school has been a great addition to our community and we take pride in how it looks,” Olson said. “I think our district has done a very good job here the last 15 years, just been very consistent with our funding. Our budget has been for the most part good.

We’ve had great boards to work with so that makes it easy. I think just overall, it’s been a very good educational system and I think the community should be proud of what we have.”

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

OLSON from page 56

Barry Olson in a meeting at Blooming Prairie High School. (Press file photo)

Winding down

Barry Olson, who turned 60 on March 1, isn’t sure when he’s going to leave the stack of paper for the next person in line. Though, Olson, under contract through 2015, said that he wouldn’t mind if that pile started to thin out.

“If there’s a way that I can stay involved and slow down a little bit I would like that,” he said.

“I don’t know if I can keep this pace up much more than the 2015 year. I’d like to still be involved, but I’ll have to see the situation and if the board wants to have that happen. I like our (school) system. I like working in Blooming Prairie.

“The highlight for me in my career has been watching our students, watching our athletes, watching our graduates from school here go on and do well in whatever the profession they choose.”

And even when he decides to step away from the office, one can be sure Olson will still be watching on the proverbial sideline.

The shelves in Barry Olson’s office are filled with family photos. (Kaleb Roedel/People’s Press)

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PAGE 60

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

Al Lysne, owner of A.J. Lysne Contracting Corp., with his wife, Lori, at the business. Lysne has owned it for about 30 years. (Ashley Stewart/People’s Press)

Family Business Al and Lori Lysne

By ASHLEY STEWART • astewart@owatonna.com

For the Lysnes, you could say construction and contracting are in their blood and you wouldn’t be wrong.In fact, it’s been a part of the family since 1898. That’s when Al Lysne’s grandfather started the Lysne Constructon business in Blooming Prairie.

And since, it has been passed down from one generation to the next.

Lysne’s work in the family business started at an early age. In elementary school, he spent his breaks sorting nuts and bolts — bins and bins of them.

“I think I made a buck an hour and made $40 a week,” he said. “I would’ve much rather been hanging out with friends, but I was making money.”

But Lysne’s parents had him save the

money for college.

After graduating from Blooming Prairie High School in 1974, Lysne attended Minnesota State University, Mankato for business administration and graduated in 1978.

And he always knew he’d be back.

“I didn’t know what else I’d do,” Lysne said.

Lysne returned to Blooming Prairie and started with project management.

“I did estimating and managed projects,”

See LYSNE on page 61

he said. “I’d say within the first year, we’d formed a new company, and my dad and I went off on our own.”

The father-son duo started A.J. Lysne Contracting Corp. along County Road 45 in Owatonna.

It wasn’t long after relocating that Lysne became the president of the company.

“My father started to phase himself out, and now I am the owner and president of A.J. Lysne,” he said.

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

LYSNE from page 60 And he has owned the company for more than 30 years since.

Making a mark

Over the last three decades A.J. Lysne has seen its share of ups and downs, but Lysne says that’s part of the construction business.

“I’ve gone through a few recessions,” he said.

“We were never out of work. You hope you save enough for the rainy days and keep going and be patient. The good customers will always be there.”

Recessions have limited work and resources and increased competition.

But the business has adapted.

“You have to figure out ways to be competitive,” Lysne said. “It’s about relationships and bidding.”

A.J. Lysne has done a variety of local construction projects, including the Steele County Administration Building, Steele County Detention Center, Kids Korner expansion and the Owatonna Veterinary Clinic as well as some area projects, too, including the Austin Country Club, Rochester Recreational Center, KassonMantorville schools and work for the Kahler Corporation.

“Those have been some of the highlights, some of our big local projects,” he said.

But the biggest relationship Lysne has built is with Hormel Foods, Inc. “We do a lot of continual work at Hormel Foods, seven days a week for the last 25 years for maintenance,” he said.

And this includes the recent construction of the data center in Blooming Prairie.

Last year, A.J. Lysne received recognition from Hormel for the 2013 Spirit of Excellence Award.

“In 2011, 250 businesses were chosen out of 7,000 vendors and basically they look at all the suppliers having a relationship with them,” Lysne said. “We get quarterly report cards from Hormel. We want to make sure there is mutual respect, mutual trust, and that we are communicating well.”

From 2006 to 2010, the business received the Hormel No. 1 award.

“They look at the best of the best of the best,” Lysne said. “Only 23 companies got this award.”

Shawn Meschke, construction operations manager at A.J. Lysne, has been working with Lysne since the summer of 2013 and said Lysne’s relationships are what has made him successful.

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See LYSNE on page 62 A Lysne Construction crew working in the early 1900s.

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PAGE 61

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

LYSNE from page 61 The A.J. Lysne construction crew works at a Hormel Foods, Inc., site. (Submitted photo)

“He has set up a good company structure, and he has built such a good relationship with Hormel,” Meschke said. “He has huge respect from his clients and me.”

Working together

Relationships not only developed at work, but outside of work, too.

And that’s when he met his future wife, Lori.

Lori was working full-time in the Twin Cities when the two met.

“Al and my brother had a business together,” she said. “They owned a bunch of popcorn shops around the country.”

Lori’s brother decided he was going to open a popcorn shop in Minneapolis in December 1983, and he wanted her help.

“I didn’t want to go,” she said.

But Lori did, and she ended up carrying around 50-pound bags of sugar.

“Al and his friend were standing outside watching, and I went outside and said, ‘Either you will come in and help or you’re going to leave because you’re not going to stand there and watch,’ so Al’s friend went to the bar downstairs and Al

came in and helped.”

And the two started dating.

However, she ran the dietary department at a Twin Cities nursing home, and he worked in Owatonna, so they only saw each other every other weekend — for three years.

The couple married in 1987.

Lori said moving from the cities to the small community of Blooming Prairie was difficult.

“It was really hard. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” she said. “I left all my friends and family and my job. It was hard, but I survived and now it’s home after 26 years.”

It took two years for Lori to adjust to the small-town lifestyle, but that’s when she decided to get involved.

“I started volunteering,” she said.

Lori volunteered with vision and hearing at the elementary school and became involved with Blooming Prairie Country Club.

And she was still able to visit home.

“At the time, my mom was sick so I would go home four days every other week to take care of her, and sometimes more, depending,” Lori said.

“It worked out well that I wasn’t working.”

Over the years, Lori has volunteered with the Exchange Club Center for Family Unity as an advocator and board member, donated an hour a week to a kindergarten classroom in Blooming Prairie and had children read to her at Washington Elementary School in Owatonna as well as helped the Blooming Prairie Education Foundation.

But Lori has spent the last six years working part-time at A.J. Lysne with her husband.

“Al always wanted a separation between our work life and our personal life, so he wouldn’t let me work here,” Lori said. “I’ve actually only worked here for a little while.”

Lysne said after the recession and downsizing, he needed the extra help so she comes in during the afternoon each day to help out.

And it’s worked out well. The couple has been married for 26 years.

“We get along. We never fight. We like doing the same things,” Lori said. “And we have great families and good friends.”

But it isn’t all work and no play for the Al

and Lori.

Lysne has found success in his hobbies — one of which is boating.

In the late 1990s, Lysne and his boating buddy decided to make an alternative to the traditional camper backs installed on their boats and invented the FastBack, sold by Taylor Made Systems. The product was formerly known as the BubbleBack.

The friends found some flexible tent poles in an Army store and worked with the frame shape until they found something just right, and in the early 2000s received a patent for it.

During Boating Week 2000, FastBack was named runner-up to Invention of the Year.

“Not many people know about that, but it’s neat,” Lysne said.

The Lysnes enjoy traveling together, golfing at the Blooming Prairie Country Club and boating on the Mississippi.

They don’t have any children, but Lysne said he believes when he retires someday, the company will remain but it won’t have a Lysne involved for the first time in more than 100 years.

The Lysnes work together at A.J. Lysne. Lori started working at the business about six years ago. (Ashley Stewart/People’s Press)

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

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GFE members tell us that they get more out of volunteering than they feel they give.

April 25, 26 & 27 May 1, 2 & 3

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Friday, May 16 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm Steele County History Center Live music • hors d’oeuvres Live and silent auction items

Tickets: $20 Pat Heydon, Executive Director Habitat for Humanity of Steele-Waseca Area 507-446-0112 www.habitatswa.org Help us to raise funds for our next home build starting this spring in Owatonna

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PAGE 64

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUN TY

Friday, March 21, 2014

Sandee Hardy-Hagen gives the children who were in ‘My name is Rumpelstiltskin’ a few pointers on how to show emotion on stage, as one of the young jesters in the show stands to ask a question. Hagen has directed three shows for Little Theatre of Owatonna, all children’s shows, and will be directing a fourth children’s show this summer. (Press file photo)

Happily Busy Sandee Hardy-Hagen

By JEFFREY JACKSON • jjackson@owatonna.com

Sandee Hardy-Hagen knows that she keeps busy.

Very busy.

Perhaps too busy, she admits.

“Sometimes you get so much on your plate that you can’t eat it all,” she says.

And there are drawbacks, to be sure.

She doesn’t see her husband, Dean Hagen, as much as she would like. Nor does she sleep much more than six, six and a half hours a day.

But there are reasons she is constantly on the go with one activity or another, going

from one job to another.

“Sometimes I think I want to do all these things because I don’t want to miss out,” she says. “I know some day I can’t be doing these things.”

So she does them now.

Perhaps that accounts for the fact that though she has lived in Steele County less than 20 years, hers is a ubiquitous face, seemingly showing up in so many places — on the stage or backstage at Little Theatre of Owatonna; working with CERT — the Community Emergency Response Team

See HARDY-HAGEN on page 65

— to sandbag during floods; working at the Owatonna Public Library; driving a school bus; conducting a firearms safety class; helping out the Steele County Historical Society; and being a member of SKYWARN. Those are just a few of the things that are on her plate. And there’s a reason for her piling her plate so high. It stems from her faith and her belief that God has given her what talents she has and God expects her — and all of us, for that matter — to use those talents wisely.

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 65

HARDY-HAGEN from page 64 “I am the person I am because God has given me different abilities,” she says.

“If I’m given different talents and abilities and don’t use them, they might be taken away from me.”

That is something she does not want.

On stage and back stage

Ask Hardy-Hagen what her dream is and the answer may surprise you.

“An entertainer calling bingo numbers on a cruise ship,” she says, a broad smile coming across her face.

The entertainer because she enjoys being in front of people making them laugh, the cruise ship because she likes to travel.

“When I was young, I wanted to be an archeologist or a brain surgeon,” she says, then shrugs. “It didn’t pan out.”

The way the entertainment bug has bitten Hardy-Hagen is mostly seen in her involvement with Little Theatre of Owatonna.

“It helps me pull out my inner thoughts and talents, and I enjoy being around people and surrounding myself with talented people,” she said.

Though she has appeared on stage in many productions — “Nunsense II,” “The Music Man” and most recently as a pregnant former nun (one of her favorite roles) in “The Dixie Swim Club” — she has spent even more time behind the scenes, running lights or sound, being the stage manager for a show, being the technical director or being in charge of the whole show itself as the artistic director.

She has directed three shows thus far for LTO and will be directing her fourth this summer — all of the shows children’s theater productions. She directed “Rumplestiltskin,” then “Charlotte’s Web” followed by “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.” This summer she is slated to direct “Ramona Quimby.”

And how does she find the patience Sandee Hardy-Hagen, president of Steele County CERT, poses with children from Wee Pals after discussing needed to direct children — a job that safety issues in August 2012. (Press file photo)

See HARDY-HAGEN on page 66

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PAGE 66

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUN TY

Friday, March 21, 2014

Everybody has strengths and weaknesses. I hope my strength is being mindful of others.

- Sandee Hardy-Hagen

HARDY-HAGEN from page 65 even season veterans shy away from?

It’s in her attitude.

“I think children are somebody else when they’re away from home. It brings out good things in shy children,” she says.

Then there are the other rewards, like hearing from parents a few years later — parents who thank her for allowing their child to be in her production, and parents who talk of what a positive experience it was for their children.

“It’s a nice thing, a family thing,” she says. “And I enjoy children a lot.”

Pretty amazing for a wicked witch.

A long road

Cast members of the Little Theatre of Owatonna’s production of “The Dixie Swim Club” pose for a photo. Directed by Larry Ostermeier, the heart-warming comedy, which stretches across 43 years, tells the story of five women — the Dixie Swim Club — who come together every year for a reunion.

The veteran LTO cast included (front row, from left to right) Sandee HardyHagen and Kathy Purdie; (back row, from left to right) Gaylene Steckelberg, Bev Cashman and Vidette Ostermeier. (Submitted photo)

The road to Owatonna was a long one for Hardy-Hagen with a few bumps along the way.

Born and reared in Indianapolis, she left home when she was 17 years old. She had joined a church and traveled with other church members to Rochester, Minn., for a youth conference that was being held at what was then called Minnesota Bible College.

When she graduated from high school she came to Rochester and enrolled in the school. Two years into school, she got married who started out to be a pastor and even served a church in that capacity in Faribault.

After 18 years of marriage, they divorced.

She stayed in Faribault, getting involved in what was then called FACT — Faribault Area Community Theatre — where she played the Wicked Witch of the West in a production of “The Wizard of Oz,” a role that is still one of her favorites.

She met another man — a man from Clinton Falls — and married him, though that relationship lasted only about three years.

The abrupt ending of that marriage had a profound effect on her and the way she related to others.

“He opened the door and told me to get out,” she says.

It led to her being homeless for a while, and that, coupled with the stories she had been told about her mother and grandparents, made her look at the way she could help others.

“My mom and her parents went through the floods in the ‘40s in Kentucky,” she says.

The floods devastated their lives and left them in need.

So now, Hardy-Hagen says, whenever she has an opportu-

See HARDY-HAGEN on page 67

nity to help others, she feels like she’s taking care of family.

“A lot of people just need help,” she says.

And, she says, when she gives help, she gives hope.

“Everybody has strengths and weaknesses,” she says. “I hope my strength is being mindful of others.”

Emergency response

It was a chili feed at the Owatonna Firehall that took her life yet another — a direction of not simply helping others who needed help, but responding to emergency situations in an organized way.

At the chili feed, Hardy-Hagen met Shirley Woodfill, the coordinator for CERT, the organization that was created to help in times when emergency responders cannot respond because of the breadth of a disaster. Woodfill encouraged Hardy-Hagen to take the classes and get involved.

And get involved she did.

Not only did she take the classes to learn how to respond to an emergency, she eventually became a CERT trainer herself as well as the president of the Steele County CERT. Her duties as CERT’s president have included talking to groups of children about responding to disasters and emergencies.

It hasn’t always been easy.

Once, when speaking to a group of children at Wee Pals in Owatonna, she was reminded of how sometimes children don’t focus as well as adults.

“What would you do if all the lights went out?” HardyHagen asked all the children.

One child answered back, “I was born in Waseca.”

Not exactly an appropriate answer.

Other avenues

But that hardly touches the number of activities in which Hardy-Hagen is involved.

She tried to get her husband, Dean Hagen, involved with some of her activities as a way of doing something together. She signed up to become a firearms safety instructor thinking they might do that instruction together.

“Deans guns and rifles in the house,” she says. “I thought he might like it.”

She thought wrong.

Still, she went ahead and taught the course, which is mostly for youth, and will teach another course in April.

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 67

HARDY-HAGEN from page 66 “The kids probably know more than I do,” she says.

In the afternoons, she works as a part-time school bus driver — something that may seem odd for a woman who is, as she describes herself, “fivefoot-nothing.”

“But I’m up high and I can see,” she says. “It gives me a sense of power.”

And sometimes the avenues she travels intersect.

Once, this past autumn, while she was working the desk at the Owatonna Public Library, a customer looked at her carefully and said, “Weren’t you in that play?”

Yes, she was.

“It’s neat to be recognized,” she says.

Purpose in life If there’s one thing that moves Hardy-Hagen to act, it’s her faith.

“Jesus is the most important person in my life,” she says. “And I want to be a godly person. My purpose in life is to be Christ-like.”

In the meantime, she is grateful to her husband for not minding that her plate is so full.

“If it weren’t for Dean being OK with this, I wouldn’t do everything I do,” she said. “He says as long as I’m happy.”

Sandee HardyHagen, an employee of the Owatonna Public Library, goes through books in preparation for the annual After Christmas Book Sale at the library this past December.

(Press file photo)

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PAGE 68

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Towering Talent

Friday, March 21, 2014

Doug Meyer

MIT graduate and Owatonna native Doug Meyer laughs at the slide rule as he remembers perplexing some younger engineers when he pulled out the old-fashioned mathematical device that he used to use to find logarithms and answer other mathematical questions quickly. (Jeffrey Jackson/People’s Press)

By JEFFREY JACKSON

jjackson@owatonna.com

Saunter through Douglas Meyer’s home office, take a look at the photographs on the wall and you can’t help but be impressed.

The photographs are mostly of buildings, many of them skyscrapers, including the IDS Center in downtown Minneapolis, the state’s tallest building. The others are equally magnificent structures, each one located in one of the 12

cities in which Meyer has worked — Manhattan, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Columbus, Ohio, Chicago, Milwaukee, Denver, San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Long Beach and, of course, Minneapolis.

“These are buildings that I’ve done,” Meyer said matter-of-factly. “For 37 years, I worked from uptown Manhattan to downtown Long Beach and covered the upper half of the United States.”

And the buildings he built across the country are impressive.

See MEYER on page 72

“I built the largest bridge in Korea, the biggest underground room in the world, the tallest building west of the Mississippi and the Morehouse Dam,” he said.

The Morehouse Dam? In Owatonna?

Yep. And Meyer is glad he was part of it.

“I’m particularly proud of it because it came out really good,” Meyer said. “It came out extremely well and became a model for other people trying to do something similar.”

But we get ahead of ourselves.

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

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Friday, March 21, 2014

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

MEYER from page 68 Building bridges

and work on his master’s degree. He was there to engineer to project manager and eventually to check out the program at MIT when he ran into vice president of the international construction Two days.

That was all the time that Doug Meyer had a friend who told him to check out a company company. But he went even higher than that.

Literally. between his college graduation and the time when called Turner Construction Company based in midtown Manhattan. he was to report for duty, be commissioned and “They hired me on the spot and I spent the Topping out start to serve in the Army Corps of Engineers. He next 37 years with them,” he said.

There is a photograph that Doug Meyer keeps had received two degrees when he graduated — a His first job was on the Rockefeller Institute of himself at the Topping Out ceremonies for the degree in math from Ripon College where he had for Medical Research in uptown Manhattan.

First Interstate World Center in downtown Los spent his first three years and a degree in science The hustle and bustle of Manhattan, the city Angeles on April 18, 1989. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that never sleeps, was worlds away from OwaThe building, now called the US Bank Tower, where he had spent two more years.

“The Army Engineers sent me directly to Ko- tonna, especially the Owatonna of Meyer’s child- measures 1,018 feet tall, making it the tallest rea,” he said. “I was supposed to have 90 days of hood, when the town was small, very small — just building in California and the tallest building 8,000 to 10,000 residents. west of the Mississippi, the 10th tallest building troop training.”

“Everybody walked, ” he said, remembering in the United States and the 65th tallest building But the Army was in a hurry and so took the what Owatonna was like back then.

“No place in the world. It has 73 floors above ground as top 10 percent of his class of newly commissioned had two cars. ” well as two parking levels below ground. It’s one engineers — a class that included graduates from That included his own family, meaning that of Meyer’s proudest achievements.

West Point and Virginia Military Institute — and his father, who ultimately became president of 1st In the business of constructing skyscrapers shipped them out to Korea with no training.

“I was a raw second lieutenant,” Meyer said. National Bank in downtown Owatonna, walked to with steel beams, “topping out” refers to placThe urgency on the part of the Army was and from work from their house on East School ing the highest steel that goes into the building, Meyer explained. It’s a big deal because it means perhaps understandable. An armistice had been Street.

Meyer speaks proudly of his father, Julius that a major part of the construction has been signed on July 27, 1953, between the two warMeyer, who was able to rise to the position of accomplished. ring factions in the Korean War and that meant bank president with but an eighth-grade educaNaturally, there’s a celebration. rebuilding the countries — both South and In the photograph, Meyer stands with his hard North Korea. Meyer’s commission came on July tion.

Doug Meyer rose even higher — from project hat held in his right hand, the arm extended.

31, 1953, four days after the unofficial ending of the war.

Soon, Meyer found himself “way above the 38th Parallel,” the dividing line between the two Koreas, and found himself involved in building not just any bridge, but the largest bridge in North Korea.

When the bridge was completed, he found himself designing more structures — schools, hospitals — for the war-torn countries.

“I came back to the states in 1955,” he said. “I was supposed to have gone after 13 months, but they kept me in Korea for 17 months.”

They told him, he said, that they had lost his papers. Even today, he shrugs, wondering if that was true.

Once back in the states and discharged from the Army, even with all of his experience and even with degrees from Ripon and MIT, he found himself looking in vain for work.

“I couldn’t get a job,” he said.

“No jobs were available.”

So he went back to Boston, thinking he might go back to school Doug Meyer leads a Heritage Tour through rural Steele County in September 2009. (Press file photo)

See MEYER on page 74

In his left hand, he holds the American flag. He stands on two steel beams at the top of the building. Yes, that’s 73 floors above ground 1,018 feet above the ground. Sure there are a few cables around the edges to make certain no one falls.

But in front of where Meyer is standing there is nothing to catch him if he slips Didn’t it bother him to be up so high?

“No,” he said, then shrugged. “You grow with the building.”

Despite its height, the building was built to resist an earthquake that measures 8.3 on the Richter scale. That’s good because it’s the second tallest building in a major active seismic zone.

“If there’s a major earthquake, it will stand,” Meyer said.

The top will sway, perhaps quite a bit, but the building won’t fall.

But the real problem for Meyer as project manager was coordinating the logistics.

The vertical steel had to be made in Japan, then shipped to Korea where it was fabricated in big box sections, and finally shipped to the United States. The horizontal steel was coming from Pittsburgh. And it all had to be coordinated so the vertical and the horizontal arrived at the same time.

And that was just part of it.

Marble had to be quarried in Sardinia, then rough slabs made in Italy and it all shipped to Los Angeles.

And on and on and on.

Still, he said, from the moment the project began to when it was finished was only 28 ½ months.

By way of comparison, the Steele County History Center took 24 months.

“But they had different challenges,” Meyer said.

Challenges have never seemed to bother Meyer. Rather than dreading them when he was on a project, he came to anticipate them.

“Something goes wrong every day,” he said. “You’re waiting for the next problem. Something was always happening.”

That was the case with the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, another of the structures he is most proud of and the one structure that he calls the “most challenging” from an engineering standpoint.

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PAGE 74

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

MEYER from page 72

The part of the center that Meyer worked County, but beyond. Though ultimately he beon is a huge underground hall, one football lieves he will produce a book of some kind out field wide and two-and-a-half football fields of his work, he’s beginning with the interactive long. That space is contained beneath large portion that he believes will attract younger concrete arches. people to read it and get involved with their And don’t take just his word for it. Meyer heritage. keeps in his office an old Ripley’s Believe It Or “I think young people today don’t give a Not clipping that refers to the Moscone Condamn,” he said. “Kids today are only interested vention Center as the largest manmade underin what’s on the pad,” he said, referring to elecground room in the world. tronic devices.

But it’s more than just the size of the buildIf he provides the right kind of information ing that is impressive. It’s also the way it was — not simply the what but the how — and he built. provides it in a medium that younger people Because of the nature of the ground on find more accessible, then, he hopes, he might which the center sits and the seismic activity pique the interest of those younger, those “kids” that is known to happen in the San Francisco as he calls them. Pretty soon, they might give area, the conventional hall was built to act like a damn. a huge boat floating on the water.

And speaking of dams, one legacy of which In fact, Meyer said, during the last large he remains most proud is the Morehouse Dam, Douglas Meyer describes some of the engineering challenges that he faced when he San Francisco earthquake in 1989 — known a dam in the Straight River that, more than a helped build the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. The photograph of the as the Loma Prieta earthquake — the Moscone dozen years ago, the Minnesota Department of center is just one of several photographs hanging on his home office walls of projects he Convention Center became a point of refuge Natural Resources wanted the city to remove worked on in his career. (Jeffrey Jackson/Owatonna People’s Press) for many. It was, Meyer said, because of the because it was hindering the movement of fish way the building was built — like a big boat from Point A to Point B. And when the DNR floating on the water. starting pushing and the city looked like it was book of the rural heritage of Steele County.

“The earthquake could be as seismic as it wanted to be, and And at one point, he led some guided bus tours of rural Steele ready to acquiesce, a group of people, Meyer among them, began this boat just floated,” he said.

County, letting those on the tour know of some little known facts to push back.

The original dam in the Straight River by what is now Moreabout the county.

Preserving history Currently, he is working on a project for the Steele County house Park served a purpose. It was there to create power for the After 37 years with Turner Construction Company in a job Historical Society — an interactive history not only of Steele mill that was there.

But the mill is no longer that quite literally took him there and, by Meyer’s own to heights he couldn’t have admission, the dam is no imagined as a boy growlonger necessary to create ing up in Owatonna, Doug power. And since the dam Meyer and his wife, Alice interrupted the flow of the — both graduates of Owawater and the movement of tonna High School, class of the fish, the DNR wanted 1948 — came home. it gone.

“We debated whether to Not so fast, said those stay in California, but we who supported the dam. decided, ‘Let’s go home,’” That dam had been a part Meyer said. “So we came of Owatonna’s history and back and reinserted ourheritage for years. To take selves in the community.” it out would be like knockIf during his career ing down the statue of PrinMeyer seemed to focus on cess Owatonna or cancelthe future and building new ing the Steele County Free things, then in his retireFair. The supporters liked ment he began to focus on the dam and they wanted the past and preserving the it to stay. history and heritage of the It was a controversy that place he still called home. would rage for years and “I came back and did Doug Meyer stands on steel beams atop the First Interstate World Center in downtown Los Angeles during topping ceremonies would have political implithat book,” he said, referon April 18, 1989. The building, now called the US Bank Tower measures 1,018 feet tall, making it the tallest building west of the cations for the city. ring to a self-guided tour Mississippi. (Submitted photo)

See MEYER on page 76

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 75

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PAGE 76

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

MEYER from page 74

Doug Meyer, Morehouse Dam project engineer, explains the construction process to a crowd at the stucture’s offical opening in November 2006. (Press file photo)

“We had to change the complexion of the city council,” Meyer said.

At least one council member who went along with the DNR would have to go in order to change the balance of power on the council.

“We had to vote one out,” Meyer said.

And that’s exactly what happened. In the 2003 election, the makeup of the council changed to a configuration that was more supportive of keeping the dam.

Still, the fight wasn’t over. The DNR continued to want the dam out unless there was a way to keep the dam and allow the fish to move to Point B uninterrupted by the dam. In other words, a bypass around the dam.

That’s exactly what Meyer conceptualized.

“The original concept for the dam was mine,” Meyer said.

And, in fact, if you look at the river beneath the bridge in Morehouse Park, you will see that a small section of it is the actual dam — about 5 percent, Meyer said. The rest — 95 percent, by Meyer’s estimate — is a bypass that Meyer calls “nothing more than a series of rapids.”

“The dam today is purely aesthetic,” he said.

Even then, the DNR kept asking for change after change after change in the design. Finally, a design was agreed upon and the dam was built.

And Meyer is proud. Dam proud, you might say.

“The reason Alice and I came back was to reconnect with Owatonna,” Meyer said. “We have a special connection with this town, and it’s our effort to give back.”

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Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 77

Jane, left, and Keith Bangs in their home in Owatonna. Both retired OHS teachers, Jane first moved to Owatonna in 1969 while Keith came to town in ‘74. (Kaleb Roedel/People’s Press)

A Big Impact Keith and Jane Bangs

By KALEB ROEDEL • kroedel@owatonna.com

Retired Owatonna teachers Keith and Jane Bangs are in Arizona and I’m trying to set up an interview with the affable couple. Being an hour ahead (oh and about 70 degrees behind), a game of phone tag ensues for a few days.

At last, we catch each other. They are fresh from a golf course.

Naturally.

The Bangs cover a lot of ground — locally and nationally — and show no signs of slowing down. In fact, if you’re looking for Keith and Jane Bangs, you either A: haven’t checked the local golf courses, or B: aren’t in the right state.

“We travel in January and February and we love to play golf,” Keith said.

But that comes later. First, they both had to move to Owatonna from neighboring Midwest states for teaching positions before venturing, golfing and the other myriad of things they do as a tandem came to be.

Owatonna fulfilled it. Following her graduation from Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, Jane took an interview, her very first, in 1969 for a teaching position in the business education department at Owatonna High School.

When offered the job, she couldn’t accept it fast enough.

“It was a dream come true,” she said.

Now, you’d be hard pressed to find an educator with one school listed on their resume. More often than not, teachers start at one school and end at another.

Not Jane. Simply put, she saw no reason to leave OHS. “I just never thought about leaving Owatonna,” Jane said. She went on to teach at OHS for 34 years, retiring in the fall of 2003. “I loved it. I had made so many friends there. The school system is great. I loved working with the kids. It was just a phenomenal experience.”

‘A dream come true’ What’s more, early on in Jane’s career, her mother, unprompted, gave it Growing up in Belmond, Iowa, Jane Hill had a crystal clear vision of a stamp of approval.

“She thought it was a neat place for me to be,” said Jane, whose family what she wanted to be when she grew up.

“As a little girl I used to play school,” she said. “My mom taught country would grab breakfast in Owatonna on the way to Grand Rapids, where they school. I don’t know if that had any bearing, but I always wanted to be a vacationed. “The people they visited with at the Village Buffet just warmed her heart.” teacher. That was just a dream.”

See BANGS on page 78

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

BANGS from page 77 Doing the career-math

Keith, on the other hand, took a longer route to Owatonna.

Hailing from Bottineau, N.D., Keith’s career vision was much fuzzier than Jane’s. He didn’t know what his chosen profession would or should be, he just knew he liked sports. A lot. As an undergrad at Concordia College, Moorhead, where he played for the basketball and baseball teams, he had an aha moment.

“I realized I wanted to coach, and if I coached I had to be able to teach,” Keith said.

So Keith did the math and became, well, a math teacher.

He got his feet wet in Paynesville, Minn., finding a spot in the classroom and on the basketball and baseball coaching staffs. From there he bounced from Fairmont (one year) to Blue Earth Area (four years) before docking in Owatonna in 1974, five years after Jane had already settled in.

He soon realized he could put a final period on his resume, too.

“What I’ve always said about Owatonna is that it’s a large school with a small-school mentality,” Keith said. “Everything kind of centers around what is going on around the school. When your football team is up at the state tournament, nobody follows like Owatonna does. Same for the music and the arts programs. Parents instill in their kids that education is important and they instill in their kids work ethic, and we just have great kids in Owatonna to work with.

“It’s a community that’s just a hidden gem.

Without having the hassle from the cities; it’s not in the metro rat-race.”

Keith taught for 25 years at OHS and and continues to coach the boys golf team 33 years later.

In addition, he served as the head volleyball coach for four years, reffed basketball and football in the area for decades and has taken stats for the OHS football team for over 30 years.

Finding each other in the halls

This isn’t a Keith-and-Jane-locked-eyes-in-thehallway-and-fell-in-love story. The fact is, both newly hired OHS teachers were married and had budding families.

It wouldn’t be until the 90s when Keith, widowed, and Jane, divorced, gravitated toward each other inside the OHS halls. They married in 1999.

The couple has a blended family of six kids, four on Keith’s side (Nate, Greg, Scott and Allison) and two on Jane’s (John and Jarrod).

But the Bangs aren’t ones to talk about their marriage with each other, they’d rather talk about

Friday, March 21, 2014

marvelous experience.”

Best ‘Bang’ for your buck

Nowadays, the Bangs are known as the ones shepherding locals to vacation spots in the Midwest and beyond.

Arranging bus tours through the Owatonna Community Education, Keith and Jane have taken busloads of area citizens to destinations such as Door County (Wis.) Mackinac Island (Mich.), the Canadian Rockies, and, most recently, New England.

The idea came to the Bangs during a vacation with friends on Mackinac Island. (Even when they’re states away, Owatonna is on their mind.)

“While Keith and I were there we said, this would be a great place to bring a group from Owatonna,” Jane said.

Upon their return, they ran the idea by Debbie Karaus of community education program and she signed off on it.

The Bangs have been venturing out with locals for the last five years.

“We do it because of our love of traveling and we just enjoy people,” Jane said. “Our goal when we travel with those groups is to try to get them to travel like a family.”

On top of that, “We enjoy the planning and the organization. We always say that we try to get the best ‘Bang’ for your buck. We try to get good deals for our tour groups.”

Fixtures on the fairways

The Bangs’ Christmas card from this past year filled with their children and grandchildren.

(Submitted photo)

their relationship with Owatonna and the memories they’ve made.

A particular one that leaps out at the Bangs couples as an example of their penchant for traveling.

It was fall 2002, Keith was already retired and Jane was in the early stages of her final year teaching. The late Al Zinter, OHS’ longtime choir director and good friend of the Bangs, was taking the school choir to perform in the Austrian Alps at a music festival in Austria. Of course Keith and Jane

were going to volunteer to be part of the chaperone brigade for the nearly 100 kids. Travel, Owatonna students and singing were three of their favorite slices of life.

“Those kids just responded whenever they had a chance to sing,” Jane said. “They were phenomenal. They would come to me after they sang, it was so emotionally positive, they would ask me ‘did we make you cry?’ because it was so beautiful.”

Added Keith: “They behaved themselves so well and they performed just marvelously. It was just a

See BANGS on page 79

During the spring, however, Keith and Jane Bangs are predominantly on the golf course. With Jane serving as his assistant, Keith will enter his 33rd season as the Owatonna boys golf coach. It will also mark a milestone of 50 years in coaching.

“I’m just very thankful that I’ve been able to do it this long and that my health and energy allows me to do it,” Keith said.

Though a basketball and baseball coach until he came to OHS, Bangs enjoys the black-and-white nature of golf coaching, especially at this point of his life.

“It’s a more relaxed situation,” he said. “I don’t have any subjective decisions that I have to make.

Everything is the numbers, they speak for themselves. I don’t have parents asking me why isn’t my kid playing.”

Meanwhile, Jane handles the busywork behind the scenes — keeping scores and stats, coordinating with coaches or parents and everything in between. Tasks, by the way, she doesn’t see as work.

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 79

BANGS from page 78 “I enjoy helping Keith out.

He would rather be working with the kids on golf so I help with the computer work,” said Jane, who is referred to as Mrs. Coach or Mama Bangs by the golfers. “It keeps me with the kids and gives me a sense of what they are doing — and I love it.”

That’s not the only time they can be seen on the golf course.

The Bangs often run the chutes at the cross country meets at Brooketree Golf Course. They also assist with other races throughout the year when possible, like the Steele County Free Fair 4-Mile Run and Kids Run. “We just like helping out with things whenever we can,” Jane said.

Even when they are, wisely, on a golf course in Arizona in February, the Bangs are beaming through the phone when asked about this town. You can tell in their tones they miss it, snow, sub-zero temps and all, and couldn’t wait to come home.

“There’s just a lot to be thankful for,” Keith said. “Were thankful at this point in our lives for our health and the opportunities to continue to be able to do all these things and live in Owatonna.”

They’ve given a lot to this town, sure, but they don’t see it that way. To them, Owatonna is the giver — of dream jobs, of lifelong friends, of each other.

“We just love Owatonna,” Jane said. “And it’s just been a very rewarding opportunity to Adopted community be here. We’re very thankful that Sure, they may be town transwe are a part of Owatonna and plants, but Keith and Jane Bangs its school.” are very much Owatonnans.

Every inch of the Keith and Jane Bangs’ fridge is covered with family photos.

(Kaleb Roedel/ People’s Press)

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PAGE 80

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

Peter and Jackie Ostlund (center) pose with two of their daughters who work with them at Insty-Prints in Owatonna, Polly Shives, left, and Rebecca Somers, right.

(Jeffrey Jackson/Owatonna People’s Press)

Always Improving Peter and Jackie Ostlund

By JEFFREY JACKSON • jjackson@owatonna.com

They used to have a customer who would show up at their front door every business day at 7:30 a.m. just to make 10 copies of this document or that even though the door clearly was marked that their copying business didn’t open until 8 o’clock.

No matter, said Peter and Jackie Ostlund, the owners of the Insty-Prints store in Owatonna. If he needed in at 7:30, they’d let him in at 7:30. Even more, they’d change the business hours.

And change they did. The business is now listed as opening at 7 a.m.

It’s just their way, the Ostlunds say, of doing busi-

ness. In fact, the mission statement of the Ostlunds’ Insty-Prints is short, sweet and aimed at the customer: “Striving to improve the quality of our customer’s day.”

The whirlwind and the dream

“It was a whirlwind,” said Jackie about the beginnings of the Insty-Prints business in Owatonna.

Peter had been working for the Wenger Corporation in Owatonna for the previous 15 years when he left the company.

“I left amicably,” he said.

See OSTLUND on page 81

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

OSTLUND from page 80 But that left the Ostlunds with a decision on what came next.

“Jackie and I, with the girls at home, wanted to find a way to stay in Owatonna,” said Peter.

Even though they were both from metropolitan areas — he from the Cities, she from Duluth — they had grown to love the city, and still do.

“Owatonna is a wonderful community and just the right size,” Peter said. “For me, rush hour is two cars at the stop signs on Cedar Avenue.”

But though the desire to stay was there, no immediate job opportunities seemed to be presenting themselves. That is, until that Easter.

They were having Easter dinner with family members when a brother-in-law started talking about opening an Insty-Print franchise in Poland.

The Ostlunds had no desire to move to Poland, but they saw an opportunity for a similar shop right here.

One small problem: Neither had been in the

printing business before.

But the more they began to look at the opportunity, the better and better it looked. And finally Jackie told Peter that if they could swing it, they ought to do it.

“Every good idea has come out of her mouth,” said Peter.

Easter fell in mid-April that year. The Ostlunds had their financing and business plan together by June of that year. In July, they took their training so they’d be ready for all the demands of the printing business. The store opened at its original location in downtown Owatonna — where Party Plus is now located — on Aug. 7, less than four months after they got the idea.

Whirlwind, indeed.

And it didn’t slow down.

“We lit the world on fire,” Jackie said, noting that the Owatonna shop was one of fastest growing franchises in the Insty-Prints chain.

See OSTLUND on page 82 Something in a scrapbook causes Peter Ostlund of Insty-Prints in Owatonna and Faribault to laugh. But that’s not uncommon.

His philosophy toward works is, “You might as well have fun.” (Jeffrey Jackson/ Owatonna People’s Press)

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

OSTLUND from page 81 They set a record in the company for first-year revenue and were named the company’s “Rookie of the Year.”

“We realized this was our dream,” said Peter.

Extended family

What you first notice when you’re around the Ostlunds for any time whatsoever is the laughter.

“This is supposedly work,” he said. “But the way I look at it is that everybody has to put time in in order to have a roof over their heads and food on their tables. You might as well have fun.”

That is something of the philosophy with which the Ostlunds run their business and the way they treat their employees. It’s good for business, they say.

“We wanted to create an atmosphere where people come to work here and were listened to, respected and knew that family comes first,” said Jackie.

And they mean what they say. If a family issue comes up for any employee, that employee knows that he or she can go any place at any time, no questions asked.

“Our tenets are based on what we believe which is to keep our employees no. 1,” Peter said.

It may seem counterintuitive, but the Ostlunds say the philosophy is the right one because if you keep your employees happy, then those employees in turn will be better employees. From that will flow satisfied customers.

“Our employees are our extended family,” Peter said.

And those aren’t just words.

Jackie “retired” in 2008. She had been working at their shop in Faribault — yes, they’ve been successful enough to open a second shop — when the economy began to worsen. Like many businesses, Insty-Prints began to see a decline in people using their services.

And like many businesses, that meant that they needed to cut back in expenses with the biggest expense being labor.

With typical self-deprecating humor, Jackie explained the Ostlunds’ solution to the problem.

“We wanted to keep people who had talent,” she said. “Since I was the one who had the least talent, I decided to take the high road and retire.”

And, she added, she knew that many of the employees were supporting families, so it was important that they kept their jobs.

Peter said that idea of treating employees like extended family was something he learned when he first came to Owatonna to work for Wenger and he met Harry Wenger himself.

“He was in a plaid shirt, greeting me that first day,” Peter said.

“We had gigantic family Christmas dinners and developed camaraderie. That’s why family is so important.”

The visionary and the pioneer

It was a problem looking for a solution.

That’s how Peter Ostlund described a dilemma that most printing companies run into at some point in time.

A small organization, most often a non-profit working on a very tight budget, needs some printing done, but there’s no money in the budget for printing. So the organization will come to the printer requesting help. But how can the printer know when to do such a

Jackie Ostlund tries her hand at bowling during a Bowl for Kids’ Sake event. The team from Insty-Prints had a Hawaiian theme for the charity event. (Submitted photo)

job or when not to?

As he said, it’s a problem.

Back in 2003, Peter came up with a solution when Insty-Prints here established what they call the “Shine Grants.”

It works like this: the local Insty-Prints set aside $20,000 in a funding pool. The pool of money will go toward paying for printing jobs at either the Insty-Prints shop in Owatonna or in Faribault. But in order to receive the funds, the applicant — a non-profit group, agency or charitable organization with a main or branch office in Steele, Waseca, Rice, Goodhue, Dodge, Mower or Freeborn counties — must fill out a grant application form, placing a dollar figure on the amount of printing that they need (up to $1,000) and saying how that printing money will be used. A panel of five people — two Insty-Prints employees and three members of the community — reviews the applications and awards the printing grants.

“In the first year, we received $60,000 worth of requests,” said Peter. “Now we’re able to spread that money across a wide spectrum.”

On its literature about the program, Insty-Prints says that the grant program “is meant to ensure there is an objective way for all qualified organizations to have an opportunity to receive grants.”

And the company challenges the applicants “to think about how these grants can be used, not just as a donation, but as a way to build

See OSTLUND on page 83

a better community.”

It seems to be working. In the 11 years the program has been in place, the local Insty-Prints has given $220,000 in grants to the community.

The program has also become a model for the Insty-Prints corporation.

When Peter was at a conference with other franchisees and representatives from the corporation, he began to tell others how he handled requests for printing, and soon ears were perking up.

“The corporate franchise people were saying, ‘Tell us more about that,’” Peter said.

Since then, the Insty-Prints corporations have instituted a similar program, rebranded as the Footprints Fund. And the idea earned the Ostlunds national recognition from the corporation.

“Peter is a visionary,” said Jackie.

He smiled.

“It’s probably my proudest business moment,” he said, “to see something that we did to benefit the community blossom throughout the whole country.”

Then there’s Jackie.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” said Jackie as she stood before the crowd at the 2012 Woman of Achievement award ceremonies.

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 83

OSTLUND from page 82 During the ceremonies, Ostlund was honored with the Pioneer Woman Award — an award bestowed by the Owatonna Business — on a woman over the age of 60 who “by her perseverance and leadership carved significant footprints in the community and world at large.

“By doing so, she created positive role models for women coming after her.”

But in true Jackie Ostlund style, she made light of her Pioneer Woman status, again with self-deprecating humor.

“I should have come here in a covered wagon,” she told the crowd that night. “The Pioneer Award.

Wow, I’m old.”

Despite her protests to the contrary, there were reasons she received the award, reasons clearly spelled out by the Owatonna Business Women. Specifically, they cited the role she played in creating the Crisis Resource Center.

And when asked privately about it, Jackie is proud of the part she played in the center, originally called the Women’s Resource Center.

“Recognizing the need, paving the way through the justice system, writing the grants and securing funding, training advocates, hiring staff, and to see how it has served this area and community is a real source of accomplishment for me,” she said.

And why do they give the way they give?

“We’ve gotten back more than we’ve ever given,” said Peter. “What we’ve given may be in monetary form. What we get back is appreciation and thanks. And that goes back to family.”

And his eyes tear up.

“You spend all kinds of money raising kids,” he said. “But my personal proudest moment is my three stepdaughters — they all call me ‘Dad.’”

Jackie Ostlund applies some last-minute touches to her makeup in preparation for her role in the Little Theatre of Owatonna’s production of “She Loves Me.” Jackie and her husband, Peter, met through LTO. (Jeffrey Jackson/People’s Press)

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

Pete Connor

By JEFFREY JACKSON • jjackson@owatonna.com

Pete Connor lives by a code — a mantra, if you will — that was instilled in him when he was growing up.

That code? That mantra?

“You’ve got to do stuff.”

That was the lesson he learned from his parents, a lesson he has never forgotten. Even now, he can still hear his parents’ voices reminding him.

“They’d say, ‘Peter, you’ve got to help,’” he said, then paused.

“This is not a ride. We’re not on a bus. You’ve got to do stuff.

You’ve got to help.”

That is something Connor has tried to do in one form or another since he first came to Owatonna as a sixth grade teacher in 1967, and it is something that he, now 70 years old, continues to this day.

Learning accountability

Connor grew up in Gilbert, Minn., a town of about 2,500 people — sometimes more, sometimes less — in the years of his childhood. Smaller now.

It was a town where understanding cultural diversity simply meant determining what part of Europe your ancestors were from.

“We were really sequestered,” Connor said. “It was pretty much Western European and Eastern European, first and second generation.”

There were the Finnish and the Ukranians, the Russians and Norwegians, the Italians and the Croatians. That, he said, was cultural diversity on the Iron Range.

But one thing that was valued among all ethnicities on the range was education. In fact, he said, that of all the things valued on the Iron Range, education was the most important because parents did not want their children to live and work in the mines.

“The overall objective was to do good and be better than your parents,” Connor said.

His mother’s education ended after the eighth grade. His father graduated from high school and attended junior college, but no more.

“Their quest was always, ‘Do better than we did,’” he said. “That’s why education was extremely important.”

That respect for education led him first to Virginia Junior College, then to Winona State University — following in the footsteps of his older brother.

“If it was good enough for Jimmy, it was good enough for me,” he said.

He was taking courses to become a certified teacher, but even then he had lessons to learn, he said, about the importance of education.

He recalled one instance from his college days when he and his classmates went into an education class totally unprepared with an assignment that was due that had been left undone. The professor — he still remembers his name as “Dr. Munson” — was none too happy with his students.

See CONNOR on page 86

Former Owatonna city councilman and mayor Pete Connor returns to the city council chambers where he spent so much time.

(Jeffrey Jackson/People’s Press)

Friday, March 21, 2014

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PAGE 85

PAGE 86

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

CONNOR from page 84

Pete Connor and Ted Ringhofer break ground for an addition to the Owatonna High School in the 1990s. Connor was mayor and Ringhofer was the president of the Owatonna Chamber of Commerce. (Submitted photo)

“He leveled us by saying, ‘You think you can just come here to sit here?’” Connor recalled. “It was so profound. He was instilling in us that if we were going to do this, to be teachers forming young minds, then we needed to understand this isn’t child’s play.”

It’s a lesson he never forgot — a lesson in accountability.

A change in direction

Though he is inching toward his 50th anniversary in Owatonna, the city he came to because he was going to be a teacher, Connor taught in the Owatonna school district for just six years.

“I had some wonderful students, excellent thinkers,” he said. “I still have contact with some.”

By 1971, he was a resource teacher at Wilson Elementary School and was negotiator for the teachers union, a position he held for two years. And in that time he was given the task of negotiating the first union contract in the Owatonna school district.

“Not so successfully,” he recalled. “I thought it was successful, but the teachers were not so sure.”

Of course, he was also negotiating with the chair of the school, none other than R.W. “Buzz” Kaplan, the man who, in the nearly 50 years he managed the company, took the Owatonna Tool Company and its subsidiaries from 30 employees to more than 3,000. Buzz Kaplan knew how to negotiate contracts.

That summer, however, Connor received a call from Jerry Dawald, the industrial relations manager for Owatonna Tool Company. In his position, Dawald took care of personnel matters and he called asking Connor to come in.

It was summer and Connor was a teacher, so he was certain he knew what it was about.

“I thought it was to work a job in the summer,” said Connor, who added he was always looking for a way to pick up a little extra money in the summer.

Connor, whose father worked selling auto parts on the range, knew about Owatonna Tool Company. His father had spoken highly of OTC products. So Connor was ready to take the summer job if they offered to him.

They didn’t offer the summer job.

What they offered instead was a different job. Dawald, it seems, had just been named general manager of Truth Tool. With the shifts in jobs, there was now an opening at OTC for an employment counselor.

Connor remembers Dawald telling him about the job and saying, “And we want it to be you.”

And Connor still remembers the day: June 29, 1973. In fact, there’s not much he doesn’t remember about those events — events that would change his life.

They told him to think about it over the weekend, to talk to his wife, Sheila, about it, and to come back Monday when they would make him an offer.

“I left there in a swirl,” he said.

Apparently, he was still in something of a swirl on Monday. When he looked down during the meeting, he realized he was wearing one black sock and one blue sock.

“Profound? These were memorable events,” he said.

And so was the offer. As a teacher, he had been making $10,600 a year. They were offering him $12,000 a year — just a $1,400 a year

See CONNOR on page 87

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 87

CONNOR from page 86 difference. But by today’s standard, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, that’s a difference of about $7,500.

He told Sheila that he had to take it and that he’d be filled with regret if he didn’t take the job. There was only one thing he worried about. He had signed a teaching contract for the next year. What if he couldn’t get out of it?

Dawald just looked at him, Connor remembers, then said, “Inasmuch as Buzz (Kaplan) is the chair of the school board, I don’t think you’ll have any trouble getting out of the contract.”

He didn’t. And it began an 18-year relationship with the company.

Public life

Running for public office was the last thing from Pete Connor’s mind.

Perhaps it shouldn’t have been. Back in Gilbert, he had been the president of his ninth grade class and on the student council. And he was president of both his junior and senior classes. He even attended the National Student Council Convention in 1961.

“So did I see that pointing me to a life in politics?” he now asks. “Absolutely not. There was no strategy.”

But that mantra, that code, kept echoing in his ear. You’ve got to do stuff. You’ve got to help.

In 1984, he was appointed the City of Owatonna’s planning commission for a four-year term, an appointment that he loved.

He was then approached by Ted Ringhofer, who served as both president of the local chamber of commerce and a city council member at the same time — a service that Connor found to be a terrible conflict of interest.

“But the thing about Ted was that at the core of his heart was the well being of the city of Owatonna,” Connor said.

Ringhofer came to see Connor about running for the city council. The then current 2nd Ward councilman, Hugh Miller, had decided to run for mayor instead of city council, and left an opening on the council, an opening that Ringhofer wanted Connor to run for.

He did and he won.

Some years later, when the mayor’s seat became vacant, Connor decided to run for mayor. Again, he said, when it came to strategy, he didn’t haven’t any. No strategy except one.

“You never forget the old lessons,” he said. “‘Peter, you’ve got to help.’”

It is, he says, something that fits in with his convictions as a Roman Catholic, especially a favorite biblical passage — the parable of the sheep and the goats from Matthew 25, a parable that reminds practicing Christians that when they feed

When he was mayor, Pete Connor was a strong supporter of the Cultural Diversity Network, as evidenced by this plaque, given to him by the city’s Hispanic community.

(Submitted photo)

See CONNOR on page 88

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PAGE 88

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

CONNOR from page 87

Pete Connor speaks to the crowd during the ribbon-cutting officially opening Cabela’s in Owatonna back in the 1990s. Pictured on the right of the photograph are the two Cabela brothers. (Press file photo)

the hungry, give shelter to the homeless, clothe the naked and welcome the stranger, they are doing those things to God. It is a passage that led him to work with others in the community to found Hospitality House — the local homeless shelter for men. It was that passage that led him to begin teaching Bible studies at the Steele County Detention Center — “re-entry stuff,” he calls it. It is even that passage that leads Connor, an avid bicyclist, to teach bicycle safety classes to children.

And it is that passage that led him to welcome a group of people to town that many natives still find unwilling to accept.

After Connor had left OTC — by then renamed SPX — he started Petrus, a human resources consulting firm named after Connor’s grandfather. He had a small office in one of the buildings in West Hills. He still does.

Back then, nearly 20 years ago, it was unusual to see a person of color in the city limits of Owatonna, let alone one wandering the halls of a West Hills building.

Connor went out to see what the man needed — a man who barely spoke English and who was in the wrong building.

“And I knew that things were about to change socially in Owatonna,” Connor said.

The man was one of the first Somali refugees Welcoming the stranger to come from that war-torn country to Owatonna, It was 1995, shortly before his first election as but Connor knew he wouldn’t be the last.

This was not like the cultural diversity that he mayor, that Connor saw a black man wondering in the hallway of the building in which he has an office. had known growing up on the Iron Range — a

diversity that limited itself to regions in Europe.

This was true diversity. So he called together a group of people — people who would become what is known as the Cultural Diversity Task Force — to see what they could do for these refugees who had few clothes, no place to stay, no furniture, nothing.

And when he asked himself, even then, why Owatonna would be the city where so many Somali refugees came to live, he remembered that passage from the parable: “When you saw the least of my brothers, you saw me.”

“I took heat for that, a lot of heat,” he remembered.

And in fact, he said, even to this day, nearly 20 years later, people will still stop him and hassle him, asking if he’s the one who brought the Somalis here.

“I tell them, ‘No, I’m not the one who brought them here, but I’m the one who made them feel

welcome here,’” he said.

And now, he said, the Somali people are a part of the history and the fabric of Steele County.

“Anyone who came to this place for as much as a day is a part of the history of Steele County,” he said. “They left their mark.”

But what about the mark that Pete Connor will leave?

He paused as he pondered the question, then spoke slowly, deliberately.

“I would like to think that my time in government, when I finished that, that we were better for the experience,” he said. “I know I’m better for the experience. And I hope people will remember me as a good man who did welcome the stranger.”

Still it echoes, that code: You’ve got to do stuff.

You’ve got to help.

“So I’m 70,” he said. “And there’s more yet for me to do.”

Friday, March 21, 2014

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PAGE 89

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PAGE 90

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

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PAGE 92

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Intensive Care Dave Berg

Dave Berg is the administrator at Mayo Clinic Health System in Owatonna, and has been for nearly 20 years. (Ashley Stewart/People’s Press)

Friday, March 21, 2014

By ASHLEY STEWART

astewart@owatonna.com

Some children aspire to be firefighters, professional athletes or doctors when they grow up.

But all Dave Berg knew was that he wanted to make a difference.

“My parents were very involved in the community and they did things that mattered. They had a commitment to good work and to give back,” Berg said.

“Those values were really strong growing up and that’s what I was trying to find in terms of work.”

Berg was born in a small South Dakotan town of 400 people called Willow Lake in the late 1950s.

His father owned a small business, his mother was a teacher and his grandparents farmed.

“It was a great place to grow up,” Berg said. “I got to do everything growing up including all the sports and the newspaper. You got to do a little bit of all of it because you just needed to in a small town.”

Berg graduated from Willow Lake High School in 1977, and attended Northern State College in Aberdeen, S.D. to be a teacher and a coach.

“I decided mid-way through that I wanted a business degree, so I ended up with a degree in business management and finance,” he said.

While at Northern State College, Berg became involved in student government.

“We had a really good group of Senators and student association membership and we were able to bring back some respect for student government,” he said.

And Berg’s involvement in government would continue after graduation.

“My goal was to be involved in government because I thought that was a good way to change things and have an impact,” he said.

See BERG on page 93

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 93

BERG from page 92 After graduation, Berg interned with the South Dakota Department of Education.

But his sights were set on working for South Dakota Gov. Bill Janklow at the time.

“I used to bug the director all the time and give him my resume and then I would wait in the outer office for an interview,” Berg said.

“Finally, I got an offer when I was about to start looking somewhere else. I wanted the job so bad. It was my dream job. I thought it would just be the best.”

Berg worked with the finances for four departments, including Game, Fish and Parks; Regulation, Transportation and Social Services until 1984, when he found it wasn’t what he thought it would be.

“I got about two years into that and realized that working in government sometimes made it difficult to change because of the political nature of change, and so I decided I would go back to school,” he said.

Beginnings in health care

Berg and his wife, Sharleen, were married four weeks before they moved into a co-ed dorm hall at the University of South Dakota with about 450 students as Berg served as a resident adviser starting the fall of 1984.

“It was great,” he said. “I don’t think Sharleen needed to cook the first two years we were married.”

At the University of South Dakota, Berg was working toward his master’s degree in business administration.

And it’s there that he found an interest in health care.

“In the program, I got into a study group and one of the people in the group had a health care background. He really liked his work and talked about it a lot,” Berg said. “My goal then became to get a job in health care, and then I really aspired to be in a position where I could influence what was happening and have some

input in decision-making and strategy to provide some direction.”

Berg said a career in health care seemed connected to making a difference and it offered a little bit of everything.

“It had a lot of appeal because I didn’t want to do just one aspect of it,” he said.

In 1986, Berg, upon graduation, became the associate administrator at Interstate Medical Center in Red Wing, Minn.

“During the time I was there, they joined the University of Minnesota. It was a good merger for them and the community. It made sense for them,” Berg said. “Through that process and my first eight years with practice management and medical administration, I got to meet a lot of administrators in the region.”

That’s when Berg met Terry Tone, the administrator at Owatonna Clinic.

And that relationship would eventually lead Berg to his future.

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My parents were very involved in the community and they did things that mattered. They had a commitment to good work and to give back...Those values were really strong growing up.

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See BERG on page 94

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PAGE 94

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

BERG from page 93 “He decided that he was going to move and take another job, so he called me and asked me to interview here in Owatonna, and I have to say I just built a new house and a 25-foot retaining wall,” Berg said. “We thought we’d be in Red Wing for 20 years. We were really sort of committed to staying there.”

But he did the interview anyway.

“I came to Owatonna really as a courtesy to help a friend out, and when I met the staff and physicians, there was just something unique about the group of people here,” Berg said.

It took an hour and 15 minutes for Berg to complete the interview and his mind was changed.

“Wow, this is pretty cool that they would take that much time to think about who they wanted to be the administrator of this group,” he said.

“We made a decision over the course of that summer — about the time the grass was starting to grow on top of our retaining wall and the concrete was dry in our driveway — to put our house up for sale and moved here so we were able to start school in the fall.”

That was 20 years ago.

Coming to Owatonna

Berg, his wife and their three young children, Emily, a second-grader; Mike, a kindergartener; and Liz, who was learning how to walk, arrived in Owatonna in August 1994 during the Steele County Free fair.

“The first thing the kids saw was the free fair, and they thought, ‘Man, this has got to be the best place ever,’” Berg said. “We were really excited to be here.”

But come September, Berg looked out his office window and saw his second-grade daughter standing alone on the playground at St. Mary’s School.

“I was thinking, what have we done to poor Emily? She doesn’t have a friend in the world anymore. She’s so lonely,” Berg said. “Of course through her second grade and high school years she made terrific friends here, and we became committed to the community over that period of time.”

And those commitments spanned across education, athletics and the clinic.

Since the Bergs moved to Owatonna they have been involved with St. Mary’s School fundraisers, volunteer activities and field trips.

“The school was a huge part of our commitment and continues to be today,” Berg said. “We’re very involved in all aspects of St. Mary’s School.”

Sports also became a big part of Berg’s life.

“There were a lot of kids’ activities, primarily soccer, but also tennis, lacrosse and track and field,” he said.

Berg played a key role in fundraising for the development of the

Berg, far right, with South Dakota Gov. Bill Janklow in 1984. (Submitted photo)

Owatonna Soccer Complex.

“Over the last 20 years, soccer has really taken off in this community,” he said. “All my kids played soccer, and I helped coach.”

Berg also finds time to dedicate to the United Way of Steele County.

In college, Berg created a personal mission statement to keep his life balanced.

“It is to have a meaningful like by making a lasting difference in family and community and in work and try to find a balance between those things with the health balance being on family,” he said. “That helps me stay centered because it is really easy for those things to get out of balance.”

But that has happened.

While Berg was in Red Wing, he was serving as chamber president, the president of the Kiwanis Club and a member of the United Way board as well as raising a young family.

“We were sitting around, and one of the guys said to me, ‘You know the world needs a lot of work, and there are a lot of opportunities for you to participate in that. The real challenge is to find those

See BERG on page 95

things that won’t happen unless you do them,’” Berg said. “That’s really helped Sharleen and I to focus on what isn’t getting done and what needs doing.”

Developing the Clinic

Berg used to tell people he didn’t know how long he’d work in Owatonna.

“This is a great job, but I don’t know how long I’ll be in Owatonna. Maybe three, four or eight years and I will be looking for more of a challenge,” he said.

But serving as the administrator of Mayo Clinic Health Systems in Owatonna continues to challenge him.

“It’s more challenging than it was and the organization has grown and the dynamics are different,” he said. “The work I do today is not the same as when I started.”

And more than Berg’s work has changed, the clinic, itself, has.

When Berg arrived to the clinic in 1994, he was paired with Brian Whited, the former president and CEO of Mayo Clinic Health System in Owatonna.

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 95

BERG from page 94 “The clinic believes in paired leadership, where the physician takes the lead and makes clinical decisions and helps form business strategy and operation, and they are partnered with someone like me, who is trained with business and operation,” Berg said.

The two worked together until 2005, and during that time, the clinic had started to evolve.

“We started to talk about what would the most significant thing

we can do to start to change the way care is provided in the community? Everyone around the table agreed that a place to focus was our emergency care and our after-hours care, so we started to recruit and staff the hospital emergency room and urgent care staff at the clinic,” Berg said. “Our goal was to be open every day and to staff it with people that were committed to Owatonna and the patients here.”

The clinic served about 4,000 patients in emergency services from 1996 to 1997.

“That was really the start of getting serious about looking at Owatonna as a community and saying, ‘What do we need? What’s the right thing? What’s the appropriate care for this community?’” Berg said. “The community is incredibly vibrant, so it really responded to that.”

In March 1997, the clinic joined Mayo, and the staff continued to examine ways to provide the community appropriate care.

The staff purchased 120 acres of land, where the clinic currently sits, in 1998 to develop a health care campus.

“One of the first things we did was give seven acres to Owatonna area hospice, and they built that house and developed the grounds around it,” Berg said. “That’s where the whole development started.”

In 2001, phase one of the clinic began, and in 2009, phase Dave Berg, left, answers questions during a news conference announcing the merger of the clinic with Mayo Clinic Health System two did.

“We talked to the hospital staff over time, and they decided in 1997. (Press file photo)

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it would be best for them to move away and start another hospital,” Berg said. “But Allina built a new hospital and agreed on ways the two of us could work together.”

And in that time frame, the clinic doubled in size to connect to the hospital.

In 2008, the new clinic’s doors opened, and in 2009, Owatonna Hospital, part of Allina Health System, opened.

Then, in 2013, the Mayo Clinic Health System in Owatonna merged its services with Faribault.

But you won’t hear Berg taking all the credit for the development.

“One of the things I would say about any success I’ve had is it’s really related to working with somebody else,” he said. “I really can’t think of anything meaningful that didn’t include other people or a team of people working together.”

Dr. Brian Bunkers, president and CEO of Mayo Clinic Health System in Owatonna, has worked with Berg since his arrival in 1994, and said Berg has played a huge role in the clinic.

“The administrator role is very, very important and it requires some humility because the physician is always at the forefront,” Bunkers said. “There’s a lot of work behind the scenes by the administrator and he has been humble. He’s effective.”

Bunkers said Berg is dedicated and adaptable.

“He has tremendous dedication to the community and his work with Mayo,” he said. “He’s a tremendously well-rounded person.

He has such a balance that’s so admirable. We are lucky to have him here.”

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PAGE 96

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

Providing Comfort Wes and Amy Kain

For Wes and Amy Kain, Owatonna has been home for 25 years. They’ve not only grown their business here, but they’ve made themselves members of the community that have a far-reaching impact. (Al Strain/People’s Press)

By AL STRAIN

astrain@owatonna.com

Owatonna hasn’t always been home to Wes and Amy Kain. But now, nearly 25 years after they got married and raised three children in the city, there’s nowhere else they’d rather be.

Over the years, the couple has found that Owatonna offers a nice balance between big city living and a small town atmosphere. They’ve seen their children and their business, Owatonna Heating

and Cooling, grow in the city they now call home. in the middle of the night to go to a home where a family had lost heat when their furnace went out.

Making it to Owatonna “Somebody’s got no heat and you take care of Wes Kain grew up in a small town around Manka- their problem, it’s just a great feeling,” Wes Kain said. to, as it turns out not far away from his future wife “It’s rewarding to know the customer is appreciative and you’re giving them a great service at a fair price.”

Amy, who grew up in Mankato.

After meeting through a mutual friend, the couple Owatonna Heating and Cooling started in 1978.

Six years later, Wes Kain joined the crew taking on seriously dated before becoming good friends and the typical roles that an air conditioner and furnace then eventually dating again over the course of seven years. repairman did.

“We did stuff together, we did stuff apart and then He took his turns on call, sometimes getting called

See KAIN on page 97

we got back together,” Amy Kain said.

The couple got married in 1989 and made the decision to move to Owatonna, where Wes Kain had been living for the last five years. Amy Kain was working in the Twin Cities at the time.

“This was a happy medium,” Amy Kain said.

When Amy Kain was growing up in Mankato, she lived in the same home throughout the first part of her life. It was important to her that their three children – Christa, Nicole and Tyler – be given that same chance.

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 97

KAIN from page 96 “I was basically in the same house my whole life, and I appreciate that we’ve been able to give that to our kids,” Amy Kain said. “To me, that was important.”

Over the years, Amy Kain said she’s found that Owatonna has been a nice location that has allowed her children to participate in a lot of activities.

Being about a 45 minute drive between the Twin Cities, Mankato and Rochester means they’re close enough to those cities to participate in some regional activities. Their daughters have participated in choir and dance activities throughout the area, which was made easier by Owatonna’s central location.

But there is something to be said for what Owatonna does offer, Amy Kain said, ranging from the strength of its schools to the friendliness of its people.

“You walk down the street and people say hello. You don’t always see that.

I do like that,” Amy Kain said.

Busy family business

As the owner of a business that requires so much interaction with its customers, Wes Kain said being the owner of Owatonna Heating and Cooling has been rewarding.

“We’ve got relationships with people in the community,” Wes Kain said. “We forecast and help them alleviate some of those anticipated expenses or help them with an expansion or whatever their needs are. They’re business relationships, but they’re also more than business relationships. It’s got that small town handshakes and stuff like that. It’s a neat community to be a part of.”

Amy Kain joined her husband’s business and now runs the office after previously doing work as a public accountant.

The move, she said, allowed them more flexibility with their family.

That same sense of flexibility and sense of family has been incorporated into their business model.

See KAIN on page 98

Wes Kain, center, gives away a bat signed by a member of the Minnesota Twins to an Owatonna family.

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PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

KAIN from page 97 While being a successful business is important, it’s also been important to the Kains that they are able to operate close to home.

Similar companies may send their employees four or five hours for a service call, something both Wes and Amy Kain are thankful they don’t have to do.

“We really have been fortunate that we’ve kind of narrowed our business model to make sure our staff can get home at a reasonable time and don’t have to do the traveling,” Wes Kain said.

Part of what makes that business model possible is the variety of clients their company can serve right here in Owatonna. There are plenty of residential customers to be had, but there are also a lot of companies in places like the Industrial Park that can provide a lot of work too.

“That’s been great, not all communities have that. Owatonna has a mix, which is wonderful,” Amy Kain said.

When he first took over ownership of the business, Wes Kain said he was splitting time between going out on calls and handling administrative duties.

Though most of his duties now are centered around his administrative role, there are times when Wes Kain still makes it out on a service call.

“If somebody has something going on, I’ll pinch hit and go out there. I enjoy it,” Wes Kain said. “I was a service person and I was the guy that repaired. Making that transition from the truck and going out to fix it to relinquishing it and doing the business aspect, it was a transition to sit here and be here in the office.”

Both Wes and Amy Kain are ready to say that they know working with a spouse is not something that would work for every couple.

But they make it work.

Working together has allowed them to spend more time together during the days and means less time having to talk about work once the day is over.

“For us, it’s worked. We freely acknowledge that it is not for every couple, but for us it has worked,” Amy Kain said. “Our kids hear about work more than they probably should, but at least they don’t hear about it all the time. We try to make a separation between work and home. It doesn’t always happen.”

After 18 years of owning the business and 30 years in Owatonna,

“”

For us, it’s worked. We freely acknowledge that it is not for every couple, but for us it has worked.

- Amy Kain on running Owatonna Heating and Cooling with her husband, Wes

Wes Kain has owned Owatonna Heating and Cooling since 1996. (Al Strain/People’s Press)

Wes Kain said he’s grown to love the community.

“Owatonna felt like it had that small town environment, but it had the large things to it also,” Wes Kain said. “It had that small town feel, but it’s a big city also when you grew up in a town of less than 1,000 people. One of the things I really enjoy about this community is the involvement of everybody supporting each other.”

Community involvement

That sense of community and spirit of involvement is something that the Kain’s have taken to heart. Both Amy and Wes Kain make a point of being active in several community organizations.

Both are active members for the Young Life Adult Committee after their oldest daughter Christa was heavily involved in the organization while in high school.

For Young Life Area Director Chuck Jamison, the Kain’s have been welcome additions to the organization.

“They’re just great people who are heavily vested in the community,” Jamison said. “They have been hugely involved in the music program locally and supporting music in Owatonna. They also have been huge supporters of Young Life.”

Jamison said after Christa Kain was active and made her way through the Young Life Program, the organization looked to Wes and Amy Kain as potential solid additions to the adult committee.

“We kind of identify couples in town that are fun people, hard

See KAIN on page 99

workers and stack up with you about what your mission is,” Jamison said. “We identified them and invited them to come to our community. They’re in the second year with the Young Life Adult Committee. In that role, they’ve been great.”

In their role with Young Life, Jamison said the Kains have been important in the success of events like the Young Life Cake Auction.

Their dedication to the group shows what type of people they are.

“There are just hard-working, fun, salt-of-the –Earth great people,” Jamison said.

Amy Kain is also active in the Owatonna Music Boosters, something that’s near to her heart after all of the couple’s children have been involved in musical activities throughout their time in Owatonna.

“A friend at church said to come to the meeting with her, and I really didn’t know what I was getting into,” Amy Kain said with a laugh. “Music is something that our kids enjoy. It has a lot of benefits.

It’s kind of a natural fit to be involved in that program.”

In addition to time on the Young Life Committee, Wes Kain is also an active member of the Owatonna Planning Commission, the Habitat for Humanity board of directors and the Owatonna Rotary Club.

The family has also hosted an international student from Colombia, named Diana, through the Rotary Club, something that Wes Kain said is a cherished experience that is still providing benefits.

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

KAIN from page 98 “She communicates with us still.

When she gets married, I know we’re going to go down for the wedding,” Wes Kain said.

Another thing Wes Kain is proud to be involved with is the Owatonna High School robotics team, where he serves as a mentor for the students.

Last year, the team nearly made it to the national competition. Wes Kain said this year, he wanted to make sure the students worked as hard as last year.

When attending a robotics competition, Wes Kain said the event has the look and feel of an athletic contest.

“They announce it almost like boxing. It’s either red or blue, and there’s three robots going against three robots. You’re always with different robots, different teams,” Wes Kain said.

“It’s so loud, you almost have to have ear plugs. We’re in an arena.”

Though he’s a familiar face to the people of Owatonna, Wes Kain’s face may also be familiar to other people

across Minnesota, though they don’t know it. Because his shop is a licensed supplier of Carrier HVAC products, he’s been in commercials with Minnesota Twins great Kent Hrbek, a spokesperson for Carrier.

“He’s a big kid that likes to have fun,” Kain said of Hrbek.

In fact, Wes Kain and other Carrier suppliers will be shooting another commercial shortly in Fort Myers, Fla. With three kids still to put through college and possible weddings someday, the Kains aren’t planning on retirement anytime soon. At the end of the day, the Kains are glad to have made Owatonna their home.

“Every day, it’s fun to be involved with something,” Wes Kain said. “I think we’ll be around for a long time.”

By the same token, it’s likely Owatonna is glad they decided to stay.

Reach reporter Al Strain at 4442376 or follow him on Twitter.com@ OPPalstrain

Wes Kain assists members of the Owatonna High School Robotics Team. (Submitted photo)

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PAGE 99

PAGE 100

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Pat and Mike Noble

Road Success to

By JEFFREY JACKSON jjackson@owatonna.com

It started with a leaky roof.

Ten years ago, Pat Noble had purchased a used pop-up camper straight from the farmer who had owned it. It was in good shape, so Pat was certain it would stay that way.

Think again.

Looking back on the purchase, he notes that if he had bought it from a dealership, there would have been someone at the point of sale who would have filled him in on the basic maintenance of the camper.

Not necessarily so when you buy it straight from the former owner, he says.

“Nobody told me how to take care of it,” he says.

So when it rained, Pat noticed a brown ring forming at one point in the camper’s pop-up roof.

Not knowing anything about fixing leaking roofs on pop-up campers, but not afraid to find out, Pat popped on the computer and Googled “camper roof sealer.” Thousands of websites came up, including one from Houston, Texas, on which Pat Noble found the sealant he was looking for.

But he found more — oh, so much more.

“Looking at the website, I couldn’t believe how massive it was,” Pat says.

That’s when he picked up the telephone and called his big brother, Mike, and told him to take a look at the website.

“It piqued his interest,” Pat says.

Friday, March 21, 2014

Awakened early

When Mike Noble was 10 years old, he took a daily paper route in his hometown of Blooming Prairie. He didn’t necessarily like pulling himself out of bed early every morning and delivering those papers no matter what the weather, but that was the expectation.

What he did like was collecting the money that subscribers to the paper owed.

“Collecting that money was the highlight of my life,” he says.

That’s right — collecting money.

It was the highlight, he now says, because he always knew there would be some people who would say they couldn’t pay, even though back then, 42 years ago, the cost figured out to be about 15 cents per week.

“If they wanted to keep the newspaper, they’d have to dig around in the couch to find that 15 cents,” he says.

And why did that 10-year-old boy love collecting that money?

“Because it really makes a person strong,” he says.

Not that there was much question of Mike or his brother, Pat, or their two sisters, Michelle or Amy, being anything but strong. Their father was there to ensure that.

He wouldn’t let his children sleep late, but had them up early working at one job or another, often jobs that he helped arrange.

“He wanted us to be financially independent at a young age,” Pat remembers. “It was the best thing he ever did for us. We started working young and it set us up for the future.”

See NOBLE on page 102 Pat (left) and Mike Noble on a staircase landing overlooking the parts department at the Noble RV location in Owatonna. (Press file photo)

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 101

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PAGE 102

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

Friday, March 21, 2014

NOBLE from page 100 Mike nods in agreement. “No question,” he says.

And the list of jobs the boys had was long — baling hay, working at Green Giant, painting houses and barns in the summer, and, of course, delivering newspapers.

“Dad took my paper route money and bought me a lawnmower and a gas can,” Mike recalls.

With his new lawnmower, Mike started his own lawn-mowing business.

The Nobles came by their work ethic naturally, it seems. Not only did their father rouse them out of bed early in the morning to start working, but their father and his twin brother had the same sort of experience when they were boys growing up on a farm, being awakened early by their own father to do some work.

“He and his twin had to milk cows at a young age,” Mike says.

And Mike’s and Pat’s grandfather did the same for them. But those houses and barns that Mike and Pat used to paint in the summer, their grandfather would arrange that.

When they weren’t working or in school, they were busy playing sports. You name it — football, basketball, baseball, skiing, hockey, if they could find some ice, and golf. Lots of golf. To this day, golf.

“We didn’t sit around much,” Mike says. “We didn’t have time for that.”

The road to RVs

Few cars drove down the interstate frontage road near Clinton Falls that Wednesday morning, and understandably so. In what had already been a cold and snowy winter, Mother Nature had dumped another five inches or so of snow on Steele County, and the roads, though not treacherous, were still not fun to drive. Who would want to drive on that?

But at Noble RV of Owatonna, there is a flurry of activity, especially in the service area where all the bays are full with recreation vehicles of every size and kind.

“We’re the last 20 feet of the assembly line,” Mike says, noting that at a recent RV dealers show in Louisville, Ky., the company ordered 300 campers and they will all go through the service area at the Owatonna shop to get them ready.

It wasn’t the first time that Mike Noble had been to the Louisville show and it won’t be the last.

The first time he went, however, he really wasn’t supposed to be there — not technically.

Every December since 1962, the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association — or RVIA, as it is

The Noble family (from left to right): Sister Michelle, dad Bill, sister Amy, mom Margaret, brother Mike, and, in the back, brother Pat. (Submitted photo)

commonly known — hosts the National RV Trade Show, an industry trade show that is closed to the public. Only RV manufacturers and suppliers or RV dealers are supposed to attend.

This past December, when the Nobles ordered 300 more vehicles at the trade show, more than 7,750 people were in attendance, according to a RVIA press release.

But back in December 2004, when the Nobles had not yet started their RV dealership, Mike Noble attended the trade show as a representative of Nelno Enterprises, a dealership that does not actually exist.

“I formed a fake company,” he says, smiling, shrugging.

It was, they say, the only way they could find out what they needed to know about the RV business to decide if they could be successful.

The work ethic that their father instilled in them from an early age had paid off thus far in their life. Mike and Pat had been successful.

After a little bit of college and an electrical degree in hand, Mike took a job fixing copy machines and soon moved into sales as well.

He soon moved into the electrical contracting business, and in 1992 partnered with Steve Kath to form Retrofit.

“That lasted until 2003, then he bought me out,” Mike says.

In the meantime, Pat was in the car business.

Like his older brother, Pat had begun his career in copy machines, specifically, selling them as well as other office supplies and furniture. But he moved into the Twin Cities automobile business, ending up as the general manager at Krejci Ford in Blooming Prairie.

See NOBLE on page 104

The impetus for the move back to his hometown was that his wife’s mother was having health issues and his wife, Julie, wanted to be closer to help her out.

“I always said I would never move back to Blooming Prairie and fix up an old house,” says Pat. “I guess I ate my words.”

After Mike sold his share of Retrofit he budgeted some time — two years — to do a little research and figure out what his next business endeavor would be.

“I played golf by day and researched by night,” he says.

It was during those two years that Pat discovered the leaky roof on his old camper, sought out some roof sealant and discovered the website of the massive Houston RV company that piqued his brother’s interest.

Friday, March 21, 2014

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

PAGE 103

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PAGE 104

PORTRAITS IN STEELE COUNTY

NOBLE from page 102

The employees of Noble RV line up for a photograph at Christmas time in 2013. (Submitted photo)

Nothing to chance

An old slot machine sits in Mike’s second-floor office of Noble RV of Owatonna. The slots used to sit in a rec room of his home, but when he and his family moved, they needed to find a place for the old machine. He’s sure it still works, though it may need new batteries, he says.

And why a slot machine sitting in his office?

“Because the RV business isn’t a big enough gamble,” he jokes.

But the Noble brothers have left little, if anything, to chance, to the roll of the dice.

After Pat had piqued his brother’s interest with the Houston RV website, Mike began his research — research that filled six quite large binders with information, binders that he still keeps in the credenza by his desk.

“I knew more about the RV business than those who were in the business,” Mike says.

He had even walked through all the RV dealerships around the area and had taken inventory of what was on their lots.

There was just one thing he was missing in his research — talking to people in the business to get a better idea of what would work and what wouldn’t.

But where could he find a lot of people who were in the business?

There was always the National RV Trade Show in Louisville, but you had to be in the RV business to be allowed in. That’s when Mike Noble formed his fake company, Nelno Enterprises, and went to the convention in Louisville.

“I got down there, checked into the hotel, sat in the bar all day

Friday, March 21, 2014

and talked to everyone,” Mike says.

It clicked because Pat remembers the enthusiastic phone he received from Mike that December telling him that they were going to clean up in the RV business.

That was December 2004. By September 2005, after an extensive search for suitable properties from Lakeville to Albert Lea, they settled on some property in Owatonna. On April 1, 2006, the business opened.

“We are lucky we started when we did,” says Mike.

The business was small, but growing. So when the economic downturn happened, the country into a major recession and the market for RVs started tightening, their company didn’t have to downsize like some of the bigger RV dealerships had to do.

“We were already small,” Mike says. “There was only one way for us to go and that was to grow.”

Things could have gone differently.

When the business first opened, Noble RV carried only travel trailers and fifth-wheels — the “towable” type of RVs. But there was one manufacturer, whose name the Nobles wouldn’t divulge, who wanted them to start selling high-end motorized RVs, known in the industry as “heavy metal.”

“People kept telling us that we needed to start selling the heavy metal,” Mike said.

The brothers always intended to add the motorized RVs to their inventory — eventually. The manufacturer even offered the brothers a $4 million line of credit, telling the brothers, “We can get you the money,” Pat recalls.

Though they were tempted, reason won out in the end and the Nobles declined the offer.

“Had we gotten way too emotional and went ahead, we would’ve been bankrupt today,” Pat says. “Someone was watching over us.”

Mike takes it a step farther.

“It was divine intervention,” he says.

And the manufacturer of the “heavy metal” motorized RVs who offered the Nobles the $4 million line of credit? That manufacturer went bankrupt.

And Noble RV? It has grown.

In September 2011, Noble RV completed an expansion of its lot on East Frontage Road — a.k.a., Highway 45. The expansion of the lot was necessary because of how the business was growing. As it grew, so did its inventory — so much, in fact, that even the 20 acres that the business sat upon wasn’t big enough to hold its inventory.

At first, the brothers hit upon the idea of renting some nearby space. After the Heritage Hall Museum closed, Cabela’s for a time rented the museum space. But when Cabela’s no longer needed it, the museum property sat empty and for sale. The Nobles approached the property owner not to buy the property, but to rent its parking lot. That would give the brothers the extra space they needed for their inventory and would keep grass from growing in the parking lot.

The arrangement worked well until Christian Family Church purchased the former museum property with the idea of moving the church there. Of course, with the church established there, the arrangement with Noble RV needed to change because members of the congregation needed a place to park.

Eventually, the Nobles purchased an additional 10 acres of land and expanded their Owatonna location — something, they say, that they had always intended to do.

But that wasn’t the only expansion that Noble RV had.

In April 2012, the Nobles opened a second store in Rochester — a store about a third of the size as the Owatonna store.

Then, in 2013, Noble RV opened two new locations, one in Madelia in southwestern Minnesota in January and one in Jordan, known as Noble RV in Minneapolis, in the Twin Cities metropolitan area in March.

Then, spring 2013 proved to be the worst spring since the business opened. The reason? The weather.

“We had 17 ½ inches of snow in May,” Mike says.

Those who had purchased RVs in the winter couldn’t take delivery because they couldn’t get their older RVs back to Noble.

That has meant that the brothers haven’t taken time off in the winter this year like they normally have because their sticking around to make sure they’re ready for the high season this year.

“We haven’t gone south to play golf,” Mike laments. “Our handicaps are going up.”

But they believe that 2014 will be a great year for them and their business because just recently Noble RV has been named the exclusive dealer in Minnesota, northern Iowa and western Wisconsin of the RV Warranty Forever program, which offers RV owners, as the name of the program suggests, a warranty forever, or at least for as long as they own the vehicle.

As for the brothers themselves, they enjoy working together.

“Family is important to us,” Pat says.

And there seems to be little, if any, sibling rivalry. Like their father and his twin brother, who remained “attached at the hip” even when they grew old, so do Mike and Pat stay close.

“We’re here together, aren’t we?” Mike says.

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