Dusting off the Archives
News from Verndale's Past
75 Years Ago, March 2, 1950
• A strong northwesterly wind that hit this area Monday night, all day Tuesday and was still going strong on Wednesday, resulted in school being let out at noon Tuesday and remaining closed all day Wednesday. The strong wind and drifting snow made visibility bad and a number of side roads were closed. On Tuesday morning, mail carriers were able to make only a few miles of their routes.
• The Verndale Pirates entered the sub-district as defending champions with a season’s schedule record of eleven games won and four lost. Pictured is the team: Everett Dague, “Butch” Davis, Pat Mack, Charles Sharp, Billy Fisher and Billy Desrocher, Coach Earl Seaton, Jim Lepper, Frank Robers, Ron Doll, Bob Doll and student manager Melvin Peterson.
• Effective protection of the freedom of American individuals to pay their own way is combined with assurance against sudden crippling hospital and surgical expense in a sound, simple insurance plan soon to be offered to the residents of this community and of Wadena County by a representative of the American Republic Insurance Company of Des Moines, Iowa and Minneapolis.
40 Years Ago, February 27, 1985
• Reopening of the former Great Plains Lumber Yard will take place next month through the efforts of four local residents who have purchased the building site and are in the process of restocking it. They are Rich Brown, Rodney Bounds, Bob Neuerburg and Jim Kupitz.
• Two Verndale speech participants received superior ratings for their efforts in the Staples Lioness Invitational Speech Meet last Saturday at Staples. Cindy Crow and Jennifer Ninneman received blue ribbons for their entires in serious prose and original oratory. Shari McClure placed second, receiving a red ribbon for her original oratory, rated excellent.
• Eight wrestlers were entered in Region 6 Class A tournament competition. Bertha-Hewitt-Verndale (B-H-V) saw all but two places with two Bertha-Hewitt boys finishing in first place and another in second. Wrestlers included: Steve Carlson, Bill Wagner, Willie Bastian, Lee Truax, Don Zutter, Dan Carlson, Dan Smith, and Terry Ackerman.
15 Years Ago, March 4, 2010
• On Friday and Saturday, the Raiders traveled to New York Mills for the section individual tournament. Armed with 11 wrestlers, they took to the mat with hopes of qualifying many men for the state tournament. After all the dust settled on Saturday, the Raiders were left with three qualifiers for the state tourney. Jack Braaten was the champion, Amos Schmidt and Colin Turchin placed second and will be attending this week’s state tournament.
• Minnesota State Senator Dan Skogen recently had a chance to meet with Dave Johnson, director of Kinship for Todd-Wadena Counties, and Gail Honek, secretary of Kinship and retired social worker, to discuss the concern for lost funding and strategize a plan to keep the youth mentoring program going after 11 years serving this area. The Kinship Program recently received a devastating blow, lowering a two-year grant the program had relied on for 10 years that accounted for 66 percent of its revenue.
• The Verndale girls basketball team wrapped up the regular season this past week with a win and a loss. On Tuesday night, the team had a very nice win against the Laporte Wildcats, winning 66-34. The Pirates took a 29-22 advantage into halftime and with some aggressive defense were able to stretch it to double figures and take control of the game. The Pirates were led in scoring by Elizabeth Johnson with 15, Trista Finck with 12 and Teresa Moenkedick had 10.
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