Titans Page 8
Herald Sauk Centre
NUMBER 6 • VOLUME 157
THURSDAY, JULY 6, 2023
WWW.STAR-PUB.COM
Holy A different hole in one
red, white and blue
Allen from England ngland d enjoys rural Ameri America ca BY BEN SONNEK | STAFF WRIT WRITER TER
PHOTO BY BEN SONNEK
The Rev. Mark Botzet (left), Parishes on the Prairie parochial vicar, and the Rev. Greg Paffel, Parishes on the Prairie pastor, get out some golf clubs June 28 at St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Sauk Centre. The Priest, Deacon and Seminarian Golf Outing was held at the Old Course in Sauk Centre for 25 years until it moved to Lynx National Golf Course in 1998.
Priest golf outing celebrates its 50th year BY BEN SONNEK | STAFF WRITER
Catholic clergy from all across the St. Cloud Diocese will soon be converging for the annual Priest, Deacon and Seminarian Golf Outing, July 17 at Lynx National Golf Course south of Sauk Centre. The event is in its 50th year and has been organized by the Sauk Centre Knights of Columbus since 1999, giving the religious time to catch up over some friendly competition. The Rev. Greg Paffel, pastor of Parishes on the Prairie – the Area Catholic Community including Sauk Centre, West Union, Belgrade, Brooten and Elrosa – has been to 22 golf outings, and this will be the third outing for the Rev. Mark Botzet, ACC parochial vicar.
Golf page 2
Not alone
PHOTO BY BEN SONNEK
Paula Bromenshenkel (left) and Lainie Berg, co-owners of Alternative Senior Care, hold pictures of their grandmothers who had dementia – Betty Schneider for Bromenshenkel and Sue Black for Berg – June 30 at Alternative Senior Care in Sauk Centre. A dementia support group from the Dementia Community Action Network of St. Cloud will be held at Alternative Senior Care at 10 a.m. on the first Tuesday of every month, starting Aug. 1.
Dementia page 3
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The Fourth of July ly is not as a big of a holiday for Ashley AlA len, but the native of England l d ha hhas as only lived in Sauk Centre forr the last nine years, obtaining ship last his American citizenship October. While adjusting to rural American life is a constantt he process, he has grown to like the friendliness of the small-town wn community and is glad to raise a family here. The people Allen meets do tend to notice his accent, but for some reason, they usually assume he is Australian. ly “The accent has probably If changed a little,” Allen said. “If I call family back home, they’ll ll ou sometimes comment, ‘Man, you sound so American.’ Obviouslyy not, because people here can tell. l. le Maybe it’s a weird in-the-middle thing.” Allen was raised in the county of Kent, England, born in Canterbury and raised for most of his childhood by the seaside in the town of Ramsgate. As a high school student, he attended Chatham House Grammar School. “When I explain it to people here, they start thinking of Harry Potter,” Allen said. “They don’t realize it’s a real thing that we actually have houses (and) different colored ties for each house.” In England, instead of getting an overall high school diploma, high school students receive a General Certificate of Secondary Education for individual subjects they pass, and Allen graduated at 16 years old with 10 GCSEs. Allen would often visit his United States friends in the summers, staying in Princeton, Minnesota. There, he met Lisa Becker, from Long Prairie; they married Feb. 7, 2013, and Allen moved to Minnesota. “We got married in Gibraltar, a British overseas territory in the south of Spain,” Allen said. “(Lisa) had a large family around here, based around Long Prairie, so we moved over here.” The Allens settled in Sauk Centre
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in April 2014. 2 Today, theyy have a 2-year-old son, Mylo, and Allen works for North American Software Associates tes in town. The Allens try to make ake a trip back to England every other year, and this summer, Allen has members of his family coming to visit Sauk Centre. Before moving to the area, one of the best pieces of advice Allen received was from a friend from Michigan who now lives in England. He told Allen that it would be unpleasant moving to a new country at first because the differences would be obvious. “It stands out and you start getting homesick and thinking, ‘Things aren’t done right,’ because it’s different than what you’re used to,” Allen said. “I was told, ‘You just stick with it, and eventually, that will become your new normal and it becomes home.’ That was definitely the case.” As someone who had always lived in larger cities, it was a significant adjustment for Allen to live in rural America. “As a kid growing up, there was always plenty to do,” Allen said. “You were always hanging out with friends outside of school, playing sport, going bowling, to the movies or to the beach because I always lived near the coast. You could do that, so at first, when I moved here to Sauk Centre, I was like, there’s nothing to do and no public transport.” Being an area high school soccer referee, Allen has gotten fairly used to not calling the sport “football,” but he is also aware of how he sometimes changes his words dependchild in s Allen as a ing on who he is A photo showhigh school student, he a talking to. s ar A m d. m ra an G gl En tham House “If I’m attended Cha . talking to famol ho Sc
OBITUARIES Donald J. Lemley Joseph M. Metcalf Jr. Lucille M. Orth Ricky L. Ross
The Allen family – Lisa (from left), Mylo and Ashley – dress up for family photos June 27 in Sauk Centre. Ashley grew up in Ramsgate, England.
ily back home, a grandparent for instance, I know I’d have to say, ‘I was walking down the path and had to throw this in the bin,’ whereas over here, I’d say, ‘I was walking down the sidewalk, had to throw something in the trash.’ You get used to the different phrases.” Allen does sometimes find himself correcting his English friends’ perceptions of American culture they have picked up from TV. “You’d think every American lives in a mini-mansion somewhere in the big city or by the beach,” Allen said. “It’s definitely not like that, and no, not everyone is enjoying a road trip every other week; they don’t have the time off work to do that.” While there is also plenty to do in America, everything is spaced farther apart than it is in England, so without public transport, driving time has to be factored into excursions. America’s historical attractions also generally do not date back as far as England’s. “When you’re walking around London, you’ll have a 1,000-year-old castle across the street from a modern skyscraper that was built a couple of years ago,” Allen said. “You don’t have as much of the history that’s easily accessible over here.” Allen has also noticed England to be more of a secular, liberal country while rural America tends to be more conservative and religious. Americans are broadly characterized as left- or right-leaning, but in his experience, it is not often so black and white. “A lot more people might be somewhere in the middle,” Allen said. “Not that it doesn’t happen in England, and Brexit has definitely shown how divided people can be on certain issues in the U.K. too, but it’s a shame it’s gotten more divisive here over the
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PUBLIC NOTICES • Mortgage Foreclosures (3) - pg. 4
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