After President Ryan called us to order we sang the National Anthem & O Canada. Wally Cole led us in invocation and Keith Olson was welcomed virtually from Arizona. Jamie Larson led us in singing, including a return to handshakes or bumps while singing "Smile."
The pledge sheet for sponsoring Laly in the Polar Plunge this past Saturday was passed around. She raised a total of $670, of which $540 was from our club or its members. Laly also announced that she did a presentation in Pelican Rapids for her host father’s Rotary Club yesterday. She said it went well but they asked a lot of tough questions!
Brags & Fines
o Deb paid a fine for missing meetings lately and she bragged on Laly. First for doing the Polar Plunge and second for being part of the district inbound meeting with the outbounds at Deep Portage. It was -24 temp when they went out to do the winter rendezvous outdoor events and not one of the kids complained, just dressed for it and enjoyed the day. Deb claims this is proof Laly can handle the Polar Plunge!
o Mark Bring bragged that his daughter graduated from Concordia.
o Katie bragged about spending the past week in Cabo with their kids and about picking such a good week to be away from Minnesota.
o Hal Leland threw in to celebrate his 89th birthday that very day! Then we sang Happy Birthday to him.
o Wally bragged about the student guests and the beautiful voices they contributed to our singing today.
Student Guests
Hal introduced M State Student Guests and explained that he sought out students who had received scholarships, noting the Rotary Club’s Wes Waage Scholarship sponsorship and the many Rotarians who also sponsor scholarships at M State. The students were: Jenna Allen from Detroit Lakes, who is a sophomore, studying music, in the choir and also plays softball and participates in theater; her future plans are to be a high school choir teacher; and Samantha Laney from Appleton, also a sophomore music student; she too is in the choir and also in theater and musicals. Samantha's future plans are to act and to sing.
Program
Lois introduced our program, a classification talk by Buzz Lundeen, by sharing her thoughts on the theme of heritage and her memories of Victor Lundeen’s bookstore since arriving in Fergus Falls in 1978.
Buzz was a guest on a podcast recently and he shared the first few minutes of that recording to open his classification talk. This piece included his reflections about the two generations before him. Buzz was born in 1936. His grandparents were born in Sweden and came to the US in the 1860’s with Fergus Falls as their destination. They heard about some homesteading land available in Watertown, SD and as one headed out in a caravan that direction. They only got as far as Foxhome and got stuck in the mire. So they got unstuck and decided Fergus Falls wasn’t so bad, returning here and settling permanently. His father was born in 1898 and started the business in 1914 at the age of 15. He moved to about three different locations (one where FM bank is now, one about where M&H is now, and one near where Kraning Jewelry is now). Then in 1919, at just 21 years old, he built the current building that Lundeens occupies at 126 E Lincoln Ave. He also wrote a book around that same time called “Otter Tail County in World War I” with pictures of those who served and history about the war. He and his brother were out selling the book in the eastern side of the County when the cyclone hit Fergus Falls. Buzz expressed how proud he is of his dad and all that he accomplished, especially at such an early age.
The pictorial history of Victor Lindens book was at each table along with copies of an old advertisement from the city directory in 1916. Buzz was sharing the evolution of production printing and other memories of the early years of the printing business when this writer had to leave for another commitment.
