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2803 Clearwater Rd. • St. Cloud, MN
NUMBER 4 • VOLUME 157
Herald Sauk Centre
THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 2023
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Growing
every year
PHOTO BY HANS LAMMEMAN
PHOTO BY BEN SONNEK
Sophia (left) and Eli Uphus paint rocks for garden row markers during the Children’s Garden Club session June 13 at the Conservation Park in Sauk Centre. The program was started in 2018 when the Sauk Centre Community Garden was established.
Children’s Garden Club program turns 5 BY BEN SONNEK | STAFF WRITER
With fair weather leading into the summer, the Children’s Garden Club in Sauk Centre is entering a promising fifth year. Volunteers, retired teachers and Stearns County Master Gardeners have been instructing local children of all backgrounds for the past few weeks on how to plant, grow and harvest their own produce at the Sauk Centre Community Garden. “The numbers of children registering has been steadily increasing,” said Doris Jennissen, Stearns County Master Gardener. “This year, we have 25 children signed up for the children’s garden. The number participating can vary depending on vacation trips and family commitments. Many parents also attend, participating with their children.” The Sauk Centre Community Garden with its children’s garden section was founded May 2018 by a local group of citizens, including the Sauk Centre Community Foundation, with the City of Sauk Centre providing the land and the water. Retired teachers Peggy Raitor and Roxanne Bergman taught the first children’s garden, and during the 2019 winter, Jennissen took a Children’s Garden in Residence class through the Minnesota Arboretum, learning how to help elementary school children learn science and nutrition through hands-on gardening experience. The Children’s Garden Club continued through the 202022 years, with students, teachers and volunteers wearing masks and using infection control recommendations from the University of Minnesota Stearns County Extension. Even so, the student numbers continued to increase. This year’s program started May 30 with the planting of the garden, and it continues every other Tuesday through Aug. 22. Most recently, during their June 13 session, students observed their garden’s growth progress and painted rocks for artistic row markers. For future sessions, students will be learning about flower parts and dissection, decomposers, worms, harvesting, the plant life cycle and pollinators. The importance of the sun, watering, weeding, thinning, trimming, monitoring and harvesting are also being emphasized.
Garden club page 2
The Kure Kickers – Tom Theis (front, from left), Ann Dean, Sue Hornick and Missy Hornick; (back, from left) Mark Hornick holding Liam Ritter and Scott Boser – begin the team lap June 16 at the Relay for Life of Western Stearns County at the Stearns County Fairgrounds in Sauk Centre. This was the 26th Relay for Life in Sauk Centre.
Relay for Life of Western Stearns County
surpasses fundraising goal
Volunteer shortage threatens event’s future
H
BY HANS LAMMEMAN | STAFF WRITER
undreds of walkers circled the Stearns County Fairgrounds track in Sauk Centre June 16, raising just over $50,000 for the American Cancer Society as part of the 26th Relay for Life of Western Stearns County. Despite surpassing their fundraising goal for another year, co-leads Missy Hornick and Marcy Johnson and com-
mittee members Joelle Anderson, Sarah Boser and Amy Lindquist participated in their last Relay for Life as event organizers due to the time commitment. Unless new volunteers fill their shoes, this year’s fundraiser may be the last hosted in Sauk Centre. ACS Senior Development Manager Sherri Maanum praised the resigning volun-
teers for their hard work and success during the opening ceremony. She said Hornick and Johnson received the Thunder Rolls award at the ACS statewide volunteer summit in February 2023 for exceeding event expectations despite severe storms during events for two consecutive years. Maanum called on attendees to consider volunteering to keep the tradition alive in Stearns County. Otherwise, the relay would change locations and merge with an event in a surrounding county. Amongst the teams to circle the track this year was Karen Rademacher and her friends,
who have returned annually to the fundraiser in Sauk Centre for more than two decades. Rademacher, a cancer survivor and team captain of Karen’s Country Friends, said she looks forward to the relay each June and hopes there is a future for the fundraiser in Stearns County. “We started here in 2000, so this is our 24th year,” Rademacher said. “I have three teammates that have been with me every year; the rest of them have been here pretty much every year.”
Relay page 3
Education aides wanted
ter, High School Principal Sheila Flatau “They’ll have another support system of Paraprofessional reported she and Elementary Principal someone they can ask questions and have Millard have interviewed about 15 them teach them the ropes.” mentorship program Amy paraprofessional candidates, and there are The district is discussing a change 18 spots that need to be filled. in paraprofessional requirements. Previapproved The school board also approved a ously, paraprofessionals have needed at BY BEN SONNEK | STAFF WRITER
Sauk Centre Public Schools is working on filling assistant principal and paraprofessional position openings in time for the 2023-24 school year. During the school board’s June 20 regular meeting in the school media cen-
paraprofessional mentorship program. According to Superintendent Don Peschel, the bulk of the program’s instruction will be toward the beginning of the school year and continue, as needed, as the year proceeds. “Our goal is to not have a revolving door of paras through here,” Peschel said.
least a two-year degree and a successful completion of a paraprofessional test, but it may be possible for certain positions in the future that the latter test may not be necessary.
School board page 2
Sewing since the ’60s
disappeared, but I remember the pattern and the
colors. I didn’t quilt again except for a few baby O Otte tt enjoys quilts for friends and some applique work.” continued making garments and cuscreativity of quilting tom Otte crea aat sewing projects, and it was not until 2000 BY BEN SONNEK | STAFF WRITER
PHOTO BY BEN SONNEK
ST R
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Marlene “Moe” Otte stops by her quilt at Great River Federal Credit Union June 5 in Sauk Centre. Otte has been sewing since 1961, making her first quilt a couple of years later.
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A blue quilt has been making the rounds through Sauk Centre businesses for the last month, the handiwork of longtime sewer and quilter Marlene “Moe” Otte. She donated the 104-square-inch London Blues quilt to the Sauk Centre Rotary Club so they could use it for a fundraiser, and her quilting projects are only expanding from there. “I just enjoy doing it,” Otte said. “I figure that, if I’m not doing something, I’ll sit in the chair and sleep.” Otte’s creativity in fabric started in 1961 after her first daughter, Jenny Otte, was born. Otte started by making clothing, but in 1963, she branched out to make her first quilt. “I don’t know where it is,” Otte said. “It’s
OBITUARIES Judith C. Hill Janice K. Trustheim
that she made another quilt, this one in a Bargello pattern, which involved many strips of fabric. She promised to give it to another of her daughters, Sandra Gray, who was in the military at the time, but she took it first to the Stearns County Fair where it won a grand champion prize. At the recommendation of her friend, Annette Hinnenkamp, Otte started quilting again in 2009, and she has been honing her craft ever since. Daughter Jenny has also taken up the hobby. “We just had a weekend a few weeks ago where we had three ladies from up north who came down,” Otte said. “My daughter came from St. Cloud (and we went to) a friend in town here, and we spent three days at her house sewing.”
Otte page 4
PUBLIC NOTICES
• City of Sauk Centre Variance Request - pg. 6 • City of West Union Notice of Environmental Assessment - pg. 7 • Mortgage Foreclosures (6) - pgs. 7 & 8 • City of Sauk Centre Public Hearing - pg. 8 • Assumed Name - Synergy Powerline Construction - pg. 8 • Ashley Township Notice of Schedule Change - pg. 8
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