Gas Mart parking lot work begins  

August 22, 1963 – The Glenwood Retirement Home announced that it would begin accepting residents the first week of September. The announcement was made by the Rev. H. S. Strand, superintendent of the home. Cost of the nursing home, when finished, was expected to be $400,000.

Assembly Homes, Inc. had said that it would build an office structure near its Lakeview Nursing home to house the State Assembly Homes Offices and the accounting department of Assembly Homes International. 

August 23, 1973 – Dr. Ted Reichmann, a Glenwood veterinarian and pharmacist at Corner Drug, was killed when his pickup truck left his parents, the Clarence Reichmann’s, to make a couple of veterinarian calls at about 10:30 p.m. and apparently was returning to the farm when the accident occurred.

New members of the Glenwood Public School faculty for the 1973-74 school year included Richard Hanson as counselor, Anita Hellie in junior high English and Reading, Charles Munsch in boys’ Phy Ed, Colleen Lofberg in first grade, Alpha Ihnen in sixth grade, Wayne Feller in Instrumental music, Eileen Peterson as speech therapist and “Red” Mathre as the new high school principal. 

Funeral services for John Hanson, a Glenwood resident and former mayor of the city were held. He was 64 at the time of his death. He had served two terms as mayor of Glenwood and had served on the Glenwood City Commission and on the hospital board. He was active in Lions and the Glenwood Lutheran Church, where services were held. He had most recently been district manager for the Farm Bureau Insurance Co.

August 25, 1983 – Pope County was to be among the 29 Minnesota counties to be sprayed for mosquitoes in the fight against encephalitis. The Minnesota Department of Health had decreed that the spraying was important to battle the culex tarsalis mosquito, major carrier of Western encephalitis. Douglas, Pope and Swift Counties were among the first to be sprayed. 

Concrete was poured for the new Cyrus Elevator loading facility at the Soo Line Railroad yards in Glenwood. Cost of the project was expected to be $800,000. Workers were maintaining a 24-hour-a-day schedule on the structure which would have four towers, and adjoining storage bins. 

August 23, 1993 – Ella Ingrens and Walter Gullickson were named outstanding senior citizens in Pope County during the Pope County fair. The two residents were honored during a special program on senior citizens’ day at the fair. 

If the county wished to hold the line on the 1994 budget, many cuts were going to have to be made from the proposed budgets which totaled $3,276,410. The Pope County Board of Commissioners had begun to prepare the 1994 budget during a special meeting and discussed holding the budget as close as possible to the 1993 levy of $2,857,623.

Minnewaska Area High School was to have one less administrator with an administrative realignment approved by the District No. 2149 Board of Education.  The realignment was the result of the acceptance earlier in the evening of the resignation of MAHS principal, John Hornung, who has resigned to accept the superintendency at Triton schools in southern Minnesota. The realignment put former junior high principal and curriculum director, Richard Ofstedal, as assistant principal. The junior high principal position was eliminated. 

August 25, 2003 – The Minnewaska Area School District would seek a five year, $1.1 million a year operating levy in November. The levy, which would be decided, was to be used to offset school funding shortages due to declining enrollment and cutbacks in state aid, according to school officials. 

“We want the Ballroom built” was the chant coming from the group of area card players who had met at the site of the Lakeside Ballroom in Glenwood. The women said they met at the ballroom and played cards every other Thursday for over 20 years. The group included Vi Miller, Esther Babcock, Millie Zavadil, Maurine Fjoslien, Lynn Thomsen, Jackie Merrill and Betty Noyes. 

August 19, 2013 – The Minnewaska Area School Board of Education met in a special session last week to further review and discuss a list prepared by Johnson Controls of repairs needed now and in the future for three MAS buildings: Minnewaska Area High School (MAHS), Minnewaska area Day Treatment in Starbuck (MADT) and Minnewaska area Elementary School (MAES). 

Work began last week on the parking lot of the Glenwood Gas Mart, located near Dairy Queen on Minnesota Avenue in downtown Glenwood. The entire parking and gas pump area, as well as the sidewalk in front of the Gas Mart building and along the street are being replaced with concrete. The gas pumps canopy will be relocated to the west side of the lot so that they will be in front of the current building That will allow expansion of the building that will be started at a later date.

Heading to the store for back-to-school shopping? Don’t forget to save receipts from all of your school supply purchases. Doing so could qualify parents and guardians for tax credits or subtractions on your 2013 state income tax returns.