It's been a while since there has been a post here. Could it be due to a certain virus that is causing havoc worldwide? In any case, there have been some items of concern that may be of interest to us.
July, 20, 1969, was an historic and some might say "looney" day. That was the day that man first landed on the moon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11). July 20, 2020 was also a memorable day (not because of the three 20's) here. A number of BHS grads from the class of 1969 were able to "loosen the bonds of self-quarantine" so to speak and gather at Hillcrest Park for a few hours of socializing. Those locals in attendance included Anne (Aanderud) Luthy, Peggy Bush, Emmett Earley, Paula Hoffman, Jim Kohler, Mark Kratochvil, Vern Olson,Darlene (Sanders) Kuechenmeister, Nanette Schroeder, and Patty Vick. A couple of surprise members were Tom Salonen, who left the beautiful shores of Lake Poinsett to meet with us and the surprise guest named at the end of this paragraph, while Roch Watson tooled up the interstate from his Flandreau abode. Most surprisingly, though, was the classmate who traveled some 1,500 miles to grace us with his presence. David Helfinstine had made arrangements to spend a week or so with Tom at Lake Poinsett, and was thus able to join us for a most enjoyable time. Plans are in the works to have another such gathering in the near future.
In March, just about everything shut down. Classes at the schools went on-line, and all extra-curricular activities were eventually cancelled. Many of the local businesses were forced to close temporarily, some of which never reopened. It was eerily quiet around town for many weeks.
After much discussion during city council meetings, some activities have been taking place this summer. Baseball for all ages started in early June, and concluded by the middle of August. One of the activities that was not opened up this summer was swimming. No one was able to enjoy the water slides, the diving boards, and the open water at the Hillcrest pool this summer. Hence, many portable pools were seen in backyards around town.
Lastly, on a sad note, some noteworthy people have passed away. Among them are Laurie Ness, Harold Neuberger, Molu Zarpeleh, Midge (Mary Lou) Mills, Kristi (Voss) Houtman, Ron Thompson, Les Tuma, Betty McAdaragh, Roger Julian, Tom Davis, Clayton Sloat, John Miller Dwayne Kruse, Bernie Stewart, Dolores Ostroot, and Claudia Dinkel.
Laurie Ness (https://www.rudesfuneralhome.com/obituary/laurie-ann-ness) was an 8th grader in my homeroom my first year (1973-4) of teaching at Brookings Middle School. At that time in the middle school, homerooms consisted of roughly equal numbers of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. It did make scheduling for conferences somewhat easier, as siblings were in the same homeroom.
Harold Neuberger (https://www.rudesfuneralhome.com/obituary/harold-neuberger) was a long-time highway patrolman stationed in Brookings. His son Jeff was a year ahead of us, and was a student trainer for many of the athletic teams. His son Cliff was a few years behind us, and was a fine hurdler for the track and field team. After retiring from the patrol, Harold was a substitute teacher, and filled in for me on a number of occasions.
Molu Zarpeleh (https://www.rudesfuneralhome.com/obituary/molu-zarpeleh) was a young boy who, on July 3rd, tragically drowned in a pond near his residence by the Boys and Girls Club. My niece works at First Lutheran Church in the education department, and knew Molu quite well. The whole community, not only at First Lutheran, but also in Brookings, grieved his passing.
Midge (Mary Lou) Mills (https://www.rudesfuneralhome.com/obituary/mary-lou-midge-mills) was the wife of Harvey Mills. In the late 1940’s, Harvey started building houses. He eventually constructed many of the houses in the Hillcrest area. Was it then referred to as “East Acres?” In the 1960’s, he began developing what is now known as “Indian Hills.” In grade school, Bill Sherman lived in one of the few houses in that area. It seems that there were two other homes out there, including that of Scott Julian’s family. Those corn-fields have now been replaced by numerous dwellings, including some monstrous houses. In the 1970’s, we had a small group of men that met just about every morning to get in a run of about seven miles. On Sundays, work schedules (or lack of) permitted a few more to join us. Sometimes we had as many as 20 there. Depending on the time of the year, our runs would be 10 to 20 miles. Harvey was a Sunday regular. Although he was about 25 years older than I, we were about the same caliber. We ran a couple of marathons together back then. My youth allowed me to best him by a minute or two. I had always thought that if I continued to run regularly, I could maintain those performances when I reached Harvey’s age. How wrong I was. My times at age 50 could not even come close to what Harvey ran. I am still in awe of what he accomplished those many years ago. When his marathon days were over, Harvey turned to biking, and had great success at the national level.
Kristi (Voss) Houtman (https://www.rudesfuneralhome.com/obituary/kristi-houtman) was born just a few days after we graduated from BHS. She was a niece of Doug Voss of our class, and was a student of ours in the early 1980’s. She was real sweetheart then, and remained so for the rest of her life.
Ron Thompson (https://www.rudesfuneralhome.com/obituary/ronald-thompson) was a couple of years older than we were. Was he a cousin of Rick Thompson of our class? Some of our older siblings may have been in Ron’s class. My recollection of him is that he was quite a baseball pitcher. We were able to reminiscence a few years ago at a funeral for one of his cousins.
Les Tuma (https://www.rudesfuneralhome.com/obituary/leslie-tuma) may be familiar to many of us as his years SDSU coincided with our years there. He was an outstanding fullback on the football team, and was inducted into the SDSU Athletics Hall of Fame last November 9, 2019, just four days after his 67th birthday. Two of his teammates that were present recalled some college moments for me. One of those players was Randy Roth. We were in the same first-aid class, and often practiced techniques on each other. We were about the same height, but he was much more massive than I. His arms and legs were twice as big as mine. In the fall of 1972, I was student teaching for a man named Terry Schwenk. On weekends, he and his band played at local venues and also for weddings. One member of the band was this same Randy Roth. Evidently, he had a fine voice, and knew just about every popular song of that time period. Les’s other teammate was Jim Decker. He was a fierce running back who had great speed and power. The football programs at the time described his as “a slashing runner” who could easily break tackles. During our college years, Bernie Hendricks organized an intramural team, and asked me to be on it. Of course, I readily agreed. I believe our name was “Sex Life Zero,” an indication of Bernie’s wit. We had a pretty good record, and in the play-offs, drew a team made up of football players. We gave them a good game, but came up short. They must have scouted us or heard about us, because Jim Decker guarded me and stuck on me like a cold sweat. He was much quicker, faster, and stronger than I, and really exposed my lack of talent. I did happen to be at that Hall of Fame banquet and also the ceremony at half-time of the football game, and had a nice time reminiscing with those two, with Jim Decker reminding me that his main responsibility was blocking for Les.
Les taught at BHS for a few years after graduating from SDSU. He was a PE teacher, and assisted in gymnastics, track and field, and of course, football, where he eventually became the head coach. For personal reasons, he left the profession and went into farm equipment sales. He eventually returned to Brookings in the 1990’s and managed the Case implement dealership.
Betty McAdaragh (https://www.rudesfuneralhome.com/obituary/elizabeth-betty-mcadaragh) may not be a familiar name to most of us, but her son Dan was two years behind us in school. He was good basketball player on the team that placed third in the 1971 State “A”Tournament. That meant that in four years (1968, 1969, 1970, and 1971), the Bobcats were 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the state. Not a bad record.
The name of Roger Julian (https://www.rudesfuneralhome.com/obituary/roger-julian) may ring a bell. He was part of Julian’s bakery in downtown Brookings for many years. Someone once told me that Nick’s Hamburgers were so tasty because of the bun, which came from Julian's. Anyone know if that is true?
Tom Davis (https://www.eidsnessfuneralhome.com/obituary/thomas-davis) was about five years older than we were, and graduated in 1964. His father had been a vocational ag teacher at BHS in the 1940’s and played an instrumental role for Sokota Hybrid seed corn ("Sokota Hybrid Producers, Inc. made available to farmers in South Dakota and the surrounding states hybrid seed corn.
Sokota began in 1924, when Clifford Franzke, a South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station agronomist, started inbreeding local varieties of corn in an effort to produce a hybrid which could withstand the Dakota weather. In 1942, a new hybrid seed was released to farmers by the experiment station. Fred Baldridge, a retired farmer, began to standardize grading of the hybrid seed. In 1944, Sokota Hybrid Producers incorporated as a cooperative and 24 farmers purchased certificates of equity to get the organization going with E.G. Sanderson as president.
W.L. Davis, who was a vocational agricultural instructor at Brookings high school, became manager in 1945 and the cooperative was able to erect its own plant in south Brookings. Davis served as the manager of Sokota for nearly 35 years." From the website https://www.sdstate.edu/sdsu-archives-and-special-collections/sokota-hybrid-producers-inc-records)
As his obituary indicates, Tom was well-known as a classic car buff. When we were younger, it seems that he was always driving around in a high-powered Chevy of some kind.
Clayton Sloat (https://www.eidsnessfuneralhome.com/obituary/clayton-sloat) was familiar to just about everyone in Brookings. He was the father of eight wonderful children, including Donna of our class. He has been featured on our blog before: https://classof69bhs.blogspot.com/2015/01/1941-yearbook.html; https://classof69bhs.blogspot.com/2014/01/; https://classof69bhs.blogspot.com/2013/11/. After we graduated, he, his wife, and Ed and LaVonne Fuller were regular attendees at Bobcat athletic events. At basketball games, they enjoyed sitting a few rows behind the scorer’s table and politely reminding the officials that they may have been mistaken in their judgments.
John Miller (https://www.eidsnessfuneralhome.com/obituary/john-miller) is probably not familiar to us, as he began a teaching career at SDSU in 1974. He was considered an expert on South Dakota history, and wrote several books on that subject. His children were students of ours in the late 1980’s, and his daughter Ann was inducted into the BHS Hall of Fame last year.
I believe he was working on or wanted to update a history of South Dakota that could be used in the grade schools as part of the curriculum. We had that brief course in 6th grade for the first quarter of school (is it now taught in the 4th grade?). In our class (Mrs. Walker), some of us made a map of South Dakota out of bread dough. We used food coloring for the different features: blue for water, green for lower elevations; yellow for medium elevations; brown for the Black Hills. I seem to recall that some of the map was actually quite tasteful in more than ways than one. Below is our 6th grade class. Are they all readily identifiable?
My recollection: 1st row Stew Linn, Lee Colburn, Brian Johnson, John Iverson, Larry Wilson
2nd row Tom Osterberg, Leannd Hirschman, Barb Hauff, Duane Larson, Jerry Moad, Janice Brigs, Donna Sloat, Brad Rufer
3rd row Gerry Albright, Susan Stamp, Ginger Thompson, Cecilia Kellogg, ???, Robyn Connelly, Sonia Miller, Barb Heeren, Dan Holm, Arlan Meske, Jim Egeberg, Mrs. Walker
John’s children played on our 8th grade basketball teams, and if he would pick them up after practice, he and I would have pleasant conversations, especially about baseball in the 1950’s and 60’s. Religion, too, was not a forbidden topic.
Dwayne Kruse (https://www.eidsnessfuneralhome.com/obituary/dwayne-kruse) was the brother of Ron in our class. His children were students of ours at the Middle School, and his brother just lived a house away from me and right next door to the mother of Brad Rufer.
Bernie Stewart (https://www.eidsnessfuneralhome.com/obituary/earl-bernie-stewart) was a couple of years ahead of us, and was in the last class to graduate from the old high school downtown. Bernie was the groundskeeper for the athletic fields at the Park and Rec department, and later for SDSU. The baseball fields at the high school were acclaimed as some of the best in the area, indicating Bernie's great pride in having a well-manicured playing surface.
Dolores Ostroot (https://www.eidsnessfuneralhome.com/obituary/dolores-ostroot) perhaps has no direct connection to our class, but her daughter Linda was a year behind us in school, so many of us may have become acquainted with Linda through our classes or extra-curricular activities. A distant connection for me is that her granddaughter Stephanie is married to Matt Bebensee, a former student of mine.
Claudia Dinkel (https://www.eidsnessfuneralhome.com/obituary/claudia-dinkel) was the mother of Sharon, also a member of 1967 class that was the last to graduate from the old high school. The annuals from those years indicate that Sharon was quite the athlete. Had interscholastic for girls been around back then, she would have likely been one of the best.
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