Crappietown, the best-advertised village in MN

March 24, 1955 – The neighborhood in Rolling Forks township is sponsoring a benefit party for the Alton Erdahl family who were unfortunate enough to lose their barn as well as their livestock in a fire that occurred last week. The benefit will take place Friday evening, March 25 at the Sportsmen Club in Terrace. Ladies are requested to bring doughnuts. This party is open to the public and all are welcome to attend to give encouragement to a family in need.

The best-advertised village in Minnesota is Crappietown on Lake Minnewaska, a village that appears when the ice gets strong enough in the fall and disappears again as quickly as the last days in February. Glenwood people will remember that at the time when the annual election was held in Crappietown the Associated Press came here and took a large number of pictures and also sent their feature writer, Jim Klobuchar to write a story. The pictures as well as the story were sent to the New York office of the American Press and from there distributed all over the nation.

Pope County farmer, Louie Hlinksy of Glenwood, was honored at a banquet held at Alexandria in honor of northern Minnesota corn-growing champions. Unable to attend the banquet he was proclaimed county corn growing champion with a yield of 106.31 bushels per acre, the top yield in the county in the 1954 National Selected Five Acre DeKalb Corn Growing Contest. Herman Schluter of Pope County was the runner-up winner with a yield of 102.83 bushels per acre. Also unable to attend the banquet were the Ordahl Bros of Clontarf who produced a yield of 89.39 bushels per ace and fourth-place winner Donald Gaard of Kensington with a yield of 87.27 bushels per acre.

March 25, 1965 – Glenwood residents were still digging out after an 11-inch snowfall which closed school for three days and blocked roads as well as canceling or postponing other events in the community. Gale-like winds up to 40 miles per hour blew the snow into drifts which covered houses and cars.

Around 70 students from grades five through eight were to participate in the annual county spelling bee. Clara Bjerke, county superintendent of schools, said that the champion county speller would go to Minneapolis to participate in the state bee. The 1964 winner had been Rhonda Beuckens. Runners-up were David Olson, Judy Walline, Sharilyn Olson and Rosemary Svec.

Mrs. Robert Waxlax was elected president of the Glenwood Mrs. Jaycees. Other officers were Mrs. Donald Hurd, Mrs. Richard Oeltjen, Mrs. Harlan Long, Mrs. Howard Lecander and Mrs. James Lepper.

March 27, 1975 – More stormy weather paralyzed Glenwood and the area for another two days. Thirty visitors spent two nights in the Glenwood Municipal Building. Winds up to 50 mph were accompanied by more snow.

The Glenwood Jaycees won several major awards at the West Central Dist. No. 1 meeting. Among those were best chapter in the district for community work, best president (Butch Taschner) and outstanding state director (Roger Salonen) as well as other individual and project awards.

Five Glenwood students were among the winners in a speech meet at Southwestern State University. They were Jackie Christman, Gwen Mortenson, Jennifer Nicholas, Sandy Peterson and Mike Stackpool.

March 28, 1985 – Over 1,000 people met the Lakers boys’ basketball team as it returned from the state tournament. About 100 cars had greeted the team at the airport. The team claimed the consolation trophy and the sportsmanship trophy. Coach John Holsten said, “We have 26 victories and only two other Class A teams in the state can say that.”

Groundswell, the grassroots protest organization designed to fight farm foreclosures, announced that it would protest for a third time the sale of a Pope County farm. Twenty-three protesters had been arrested at an earlier sale attempt when they tried to prohibit Sheriff Gerald Moe from crossing the street to conduct the sale. 

Dick Mollers had operated the Wards Sales Agency in Glenwood, and though he had set a five-year sales mark for the firm the previous year, was told that the agency would close in June. Mollers announced that he would close the store immediately instead.

March 27, 1995 – It cost Pope County over $93,300 to bring salaries of its employees up to the comparable worth scale as mandated by the state of Minnesota.

“It is safe to say that all residential property values increased,” said Wayne Anderson, Pope County assessor. Anderson was referring to the 1995 property valuation cards which were recently mailed to all property owners in the county. These valuations will be a factor in the property taxes paid in 1996.

There were 125 residential sales in Pope County in 1994 and in most cases the home sold for more than the market value placed on the property by the assessor. The sales ratio was 85.9 percent of the estimated market value. The estimated market values of most residential properties was increased 10 percent. The increase may have been even higher if the property had improvements made to it. Anderson said that sales in the city of Glenwood and Glenwood Township had a big impact on the market values. 

March 28, 2005 – Three Minnewaska Area High School students earned the honor to attend the Business Professional of America’s national competition held in Anaheim, Calif. Scott Gullickson, Scott Faehnrich and Joe Swartz placed first in the Small Business Management Team competition. Joe Swartz and Sam Goracke also earned State Torch Awards.

Minnesota’s longest-ever pheasant hunting season was a success with both the Department of Natural Resources and hunters. “One of the more interesting observations from this past season was that 1,111 hunters purchased pheasant hunting stamps after Dec. 19, when the season would have closed under the old frame work,” Kurt Haroldson, DNR wildlife search biologist, noted. When the extended season was first proposed, support was not unanimous, some were concerned the season would be too long and that roosters would be over-harvested, hens would be impacted and the following years population would be hurt. Haroldson said the extended season likely resulted in a “modern increase” in hen mortality but “certainly not enough to affect future populations.”

March 23, 2015 – Glenwood residents and downtown business owners were invited to the second round of public meetings on Glenwood’s downtown complete streets project slated for 2018. These meetings would be much like those conducted the previous summer by the Comprehensive Community Improvement Initiative (CCI) committee. More design work and engineering plans had been completed and residents would have a chance to see those plans and offer suggestions and voice concerns.

Steve Bodeker of Glenwood received one of the Scouts’ highest honors: the Silver Beaver Award, given to him on March 14 at the Northern Lights Council annual recognition banquet in Fargo, N.D. Bodeker was also the recipient of the Lakes Area District Carl Johnson award just two days earlier.

The Pinewood Derby for area Scouts was held on Friday, March 13. Pictured in the Tribune were the 24 Cub Scouts who participated, along with the Boy Scouts who volunteered to run the derby. Award winners were: Fastest Cars: 1st place, Ike Spychalla; 2nd place, Colten Schroeder; 3rd place tie, Ashton Sanvig and Chase Wacker. Best Paint Award: Ryland Martin. Best Design: Mason Taufen.