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Greater White Bear Lake Community Foundation celebrates decade of giving BY SHANNON GRANHOLM MANAGING EDITOR
Over the past decade, the Greater White Bear Lake Community Foundation has grown to $5.4 million in total assets and awarded $3.1 in grant funding. 2025 marks the 10-year anniversary of the foundation. “In the beginning there wasn't any funding, and now we have $5.4 million in assets … from zero to $5.4 million is pretty impressive,” said Meredith St. Pierre, who took over as executive director of the organization in Nov. 2024. Jackie Reis, a founding members who served as executive director of the foundation until 2019, says the planning for the foundation really took off in 2014, but the idea was born long before that. In 2001-2002, Reis did a feasibility study to gauge community interest in creating a community foundation in the White Bear Lake area. “Most people said yes, they thought it was a good idea ... but one of the questions was, ‘What communities would it include and who would be the leaders of it?’” Reis explained. She said that she and Mark Sather, then city manager of White Bear Lake, continued to have meetings with people and float around the idea until 2014, when the two talked to Bill Foussard, owner of Best Western Plus White Bear Country Inn/Rudy's Redeye Grill, about the idea and he responded, “Let’s do it.” In March 2015, the foundation was
CONTRIBUTED
Bewitching lake tour Members of the Bald Eagle Paddle Board Club (aka SUP’er Club) from left, Janeen Evenson-Javogelaar, Melissa Bertling, Stacy Fields Janick, Anna Lindholm, Mary Lindholm and Melissa Telsrow recently took a twilight paddle board tour on Bald Eagle Lake dressed in witch costumes.
SEE FOUNDATION, PAGE 11
New leaders tee off as KMan Open enters its next chapter BY SHANNON GRANHOLM MANAGING EDITOR
After 40 years of never missing a golf tournament, the founding trio is handing it off to the next generation and hopeful that it will continue for many more years to come. What began as a going-away party with 24 golfers in 1986 has now grown to an annual tradition — 80 golfers participated in the 40th annual KMan Open last month. In 1986, George Kimball and his family decided to relocate from White Bear Lake to Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, so George could take a teaching job.
George’s friends, Dennis Mork and Steve MiddletonKoller, organized a golf tournament at the golf course at the University of Minnesota for George to say farewell. They called it the KMan Open Golf Tournament Farewell to the Kimballs. The trio played fastpitch softball together for many years, where George’s nickname “Kman” came about. “For whatever reason, Steve and Dennis decided to continue doing the tournament, and they continued to use the name KMan,” George explained. “It was interesting, and kind of ironic, that they chose a golf tournament for the farewell
SEE KMAN OPEN, PAGE 20
CONTRIBUTED
A picture of George Kimball at the first KMan Open in 1986.
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