It’s been lousy this spring, but remember three years ago . . .

By John Fragodt, Sports Reporter

Can you believe it’s been three years since we first heard about COVID-19?  And, while we all have been complaining (rightfully so!) about the poor weather to start out spring this year, all we have to do is think back three years ago and realize things are still a lot better than they were back then.

I’ll never forget the day I came to work and my boss at the Monitor-News in Benson asked me to go up to school and get a picture of students cleaning out their lockers because school was closing.  It was late March of 2020 and I didn’t realize the severity of the situation until a few days later.

I was commuting back and forth from Benson to Lake Pelican at the time so I listened to a lot of Public Radio back then.  It didn’t take long to realize that COVID-19 was very serious and the world as we knew it at the time was suddenly turned upside down.

A week or two later, it was determined there would be no more in-school learning and high school sports were canceled for the spring.  For a person who was a sports editor at a weekly newspaper, those were not words I liked to hear.

Suddenly, I thought, what was I going to do and what would I fill the paper with?  One option I went with was recapping seasons from past high school springs at Benson and KMS, and I also ran a “virtual season” in my weekly Speaking of Sports column.

In addition, I took lots of pictures and tried to run some feature articles to fill in the gaps.  No one knew how long this COVID-19 deal would last and thankfully, things started to wind down by summertime.

Yes, having a late spring this year is not the best . . . but, if you want something to compare it to, you only have to look back three years.  

Now, what a crappy spring that was!