WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 2017
Serving Polk County’s St. Croix Valley since 1897
VOL. 119 NO. 38 www.osceolasun.com $1.00
GIVEBIG: Donate to your favorite nonprofit on April 25. PAGE 13-16
giveBIG makes selfie ‘selfless’ BY SUZANNE LINDGREN EDITOR@OSCEOLASUN.COM
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Patrick Moriarity, co-owner of Bend Punch Shear (BPS) in Farmington, dances with instructor Nadine Messenger. Moriarity took his first ballroom dance lesson seven years ago, the payment for a lost bet.
The unlikely dancer BY SUZANNE LINDGREN EDITOR@OSCEOLASUN.COM
By his own admission, Patrick Moriarity is one of the last people you’d expect to see on a ballroom floor. The co-owner of Bend Punch Shear (BPS) Inc., a steel working company in East Farmington that custom makes everything from fire rings to construction supplies, Moriarity was in the steel business for decades before he took his first dance lesson, the outcome of a lost wager. “I have a sailboat at a marina on Lake Superior,” he explained. “I made a bet with a friend up there, and if I lost I had to take the introductory ballroom dancing
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lesson. I thought he’d never make me pay off the bet, but he nagged me for four or five months until I finally relented.” And it was not love at first step. “I took the first lesson and hated it,” he said. “But there were an interesting half dozen people to hang around with.” He started going to weekly lessons at the Cinema Ballroom in St. Paul, even though he still didn’t like the activity. “I used to sit in the car and dread going in the door,” he remembered. He tolerated the lessons for about four months, then took a break to sail from Cornucopia, Wisconsin, to St. John’s, SEE DANCER, PAGE 8
To many, the selfie is irredeemably synonymous with narcissism. But this year the organizers of giveBIG St. Croix Valley are hoping to use the popular form of snap and share self-portraiture to inspire something else: benevolence. “We’re promoting a Selfless Selfie this year,” said Sue Gerlach, director of the Osceola Community Health Foundation, which hosts giveBIG St. Croix Valley. “Everyone seems to love taking selfies, so we’re capitalizing on that.”
Bridget Miller and Franklin the cat encourage support for the Arnell Memorial Humane Society.
Bob Wolf of Osceola Medical Center shares his love for OMC. giveBIG St. Croix Valley organizers hope this year’s Selfless Selfie campaign will help raise $290,000.
Devin Orton uses a template playing on this year’s theme, “You can be a hero!” to advocate for the Polk County Special Olympics.
Here’s how it works. After giving to the charity of their choice, donors are invited to print a template from the giveBIG St. Croix Valley website
(click “Get Involved” on the homepage for templates and instructions). “You can handwrite the name of the organization you love on the template,”
Gerlach explained, “then take a selfie holding your sign and post it to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram SEE GIV BIG, PAGE 25
Veterans’ monument ‘coming together’ BY SUZANNE LINDGREN EDITOR@OSCEOLASUN.COM
Work will likely begin soon on the Veterans Recognition site set for installation in the southern extension of Mill Pond Park, according to Larry Jepsen, chair of the group organizing the project. Construction is expected to start shortly after the Department of Natural Resources approves a grading permit for the site. “It’s only been 10 or 11 years since John (Jenkins) started this thing,” Jepsen told the Osceola Village Board last week, wryly. “But it’s coming together and we have some contractors who are ready to move some dirt and pour some cement.” An eagle sculpture donated by local artist Wally Shoop and family, of American Bronze Casting, will be the “crown jewel of the project,” said Jepsen. Set 14 feet above the site on a 4,000-pound trap rock
stone, the 350-pound eagle will look out over a 25-foot cement star representing the five branches of service. Around that, a 50-foot circle will
‘It’s important right now to recognize our vets as they’re coming home.’ Larry Jepsen hold about 300 pavers inscribed with (or ready for) names of veterans from the river valley. The plan also includes benches, three top lit flagpoles, landscaping and lighting “I think it’s going to be a very comfortable place,” said Jepsen, who thinks of the project less as a memorial than as an active monument. SEE MONUMENT, PAGE 10
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A 350-pound eagle sculpture donated by local artist Wally Shoop will “fly” atop a 14foot, 4,000-pound trap rock stone at the veterans recognition site. Project organizers say work will begin soon.
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