DARE graduates Page P age 10 0
Herald Sauk Centre
NUMBER 47 • VOLUME 156
THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 2023
| WWW.STAR-PUB.COM
A forever bond
Money matters SCPS reviews financial developments, donations BY BEN SONNEK STAFF WRITER
PHOTO BY BEN SONNEK
The contingent of law enforcement vehicles is long as it escorts a hearse carrying the body of Pope County Deputy Josh Owen through Sauk Centre April 17. The flashing lights motorcade, which traveled down Interstate 94, was met in Sauk Centre by Pope County Sheriff ’s Department vehicles who provided an escort the remainder of the route to Glenwood.
Kowski, Tschida remember Owen, a fellow soldier, who loved to laugh
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BY CAROL MOORMAN | STAFF WRITER
enny Tschida met Joshua “Josh” Owen when the two joined the Sauk Centre National Guard unit at the same time in 1997. Both were juniors in high school, Tschida in Sauk Centre and Owen in Albany. They attended basic training together in Fort Benning, Georgia, and from 2005-07 served a 22-month deployment to Iraq in the same company. “If you heard his laugh, you knew it was him,” Tschida said. “Always smiling, always willing to do what needed to be done.” That laugh has now gone silent. Owen, an almost 12-year Pope County sheriff’s deputy, passed away April 15 following injuries received during an exchange of gunfire with a domestic assault suspect in Cyrus. PHOTO SUBMITTED Fellow soldier Scott Kowski, of Sauk CenPope County Deputy Josh Owen served with the tre, spent hours Sunday morning looking at phosheriff ’s office close to 12 years and had built a bond with his K-9 officer Karma. He was also a military tos of Owen during that same deployment.
“In every one of them he had a smile on his face. He was just such an easygoing guy and always had a sense of humor,” Kowski said, pausing before adding, “This (his dying) stinks, but we will always have the time we spent together.” They first met in 1998 also through the National Guard, serving the 2005-07 Iraq deployment together. That connection continued. “Me being a Sauk Centre firefighter and Josh a Pope County deputy, our paths would overlap when responding to like fire calls, and we’d catch up with each other,” Kowski said. “We’d Snapchat back and forth all the time.” Thinking about what happened to Owen, Kowski’s voice grows soft. “This doesn’t happen in small towns,” he said. “You think you are immune to it, until it happens.”
As their building project approaches, Sauk Centre Public Schools is continuing to monitor their financial conditions. In his report during the school board’s April 17 regular meeting in the school media center, Superintendent Don Peschel mentioned he would be traveling to St. Paul Monday, April 24, as there will be a bill on the house floor which would help the school’s upcoming renovation project recover the $176,000 it lost due to inflation. Although costs have been increasing, the state has not helped mitigate the effect it has had on schools. Business manager Beth Heinze reported the $289,000 the school received in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds will not go toward summer school as originally planned; other funds have come in to fund that. Instead, the ESSER funds will be used to reduce class sizes through hiring teachers and adding school readiness sections. The funds could also be used for training and buying out the buses the school plans to replace.
veteran.
Owen page 4
School board page 4
Finally retired Meyer resigns from longtime Riverview Manor maintenance position BY BEN SONNEK STAFF WRITER
April is volunteer month, and Dave Meyer has always enjoyed keeping himself busy through volunteering and work. After his initial retirement 24 years ago, he still needed something to do, so he became the maintenance man for Riverview Manor in Sauk Centre. Now 90, he has retired for real this time, although he is likely to continue being a familiar face as a church usher or fish fry volunteer. Meyer moved to Sauk Centre in 1958. He started working for the Sauk Centre Veterans of Foreign Wars annual Lenten fish fries in the early 1960s, and he has continued to help with them through this year. As a former infantry clerk typist, he is a veteran himself. He was also a member of the Sauk Centre City Council, serving for two terms in the 1960s, and in those days, councilmembers were not paid.
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Publications The newspaper of today is the history of tomorrow.
PHOTO SUBMITTED
PHOTO BY BEN SONNEK
Dave Meyer stops at Riverview Manor April 12 in Sauk Centre, the apartments where he worked as a maintenance man for 24 years. Meyer started working there in 1998 after retiring from the United States Postal Service.
“That was when we handled welfare in town,” Meyer said. “The last year I was on was when welfare went to Stearns County. It should’ve stayed in town where it belonged.” Meyer also served on the Sauk Centre Fire Department for 30 years, half of that time as the fire chief. He continues to volunteer today as an usher for Our Lady of the Angels Catholic Church in Sauk Centre. When Meyer first came to
OBITUARIES Violet V. Hansen Dennis N. Rykken
Sauk Centre, he worked for Sauk Centre Tire and Recapping, later owning it for a number of years. In 1978, he managed the club at the Sauk Centre American Legion Post 67 for four years, and then he worked for the United States Postal Service and drove a rural route for 26 years. When he retired from the USPS, he made it three months before deciding he needed to find something else to do.
Meyer page 4
Sauk Centre Economic and Development Authority members Jean Marthaler (left) and Heidi Leach visit a Nature Energy biogas plant March 29 in Holsted, Denmark. Nature Energy is interested in installing a biogas plant in Sauk Centre and flew Marthaler and Leach to Denmark to see their facilities.
EDA in Denmark Leach, Marthaler tour Nature Energy biogas facilities BY BEN SONNEK | STAFF WRITER
As members of the Sauk Centre Economic and Development Authority, Heidi Leach and Jean Marthaler are usually visiting areas in or around Sauk Centre. At the end of March, though, they traveled farther when Nature Energy, a Denmark-based energy company, flew them out to Denmark to tour their biogas facilities, one of which they are interested in placing in Sauk Centre.
EDA page 3
PUBLIC NOTICES • Mortgage Foreclosures (5) - pgs. 8 & 9 • Assumed Name - Spoondrift Adventures - pg. 9 • Assumed Name - WheelSetGo - pg. 8 • Assumed Name - New Tread - pg. 8 • Assumed Name - Country Acres South - pg. 9 • Assumed Name - Sign Design - pg. 9
• Assumed Name - Redhead Creamery Spirits - pg. 8 • Assumed Name - Redhead Creamry and Spirits - pg. 8 • Melrose Township Annual Road Tour - pg. 9 • City of Sauk Centre Water Report - pg. 7 • Kandota Township Property Assessments - pg. 8
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