Dusting off the Archives
News from Verndale's Past
75 Years Ago, December 4, 1947
•The annual village election was held Tuesday of this week. Lester Marquardt was elected over Arnold Voelk to take over the reins of village mayor for the next two years. Marquardt received 113 votes to Voelk’s 50. For village treasurer, E.W. Orr was re-elected to this position over his opponent Alan Pettit, 123 to 54.
•The fight card promoted by Art Attleson of Verndale in Wadena on Monday last week drew a good crowd and fans enjoyed the 10 rounds of interesting fights. The Monday night cards were a warm-up to the elimination matches of the Golden Gloves meet to be staged in Wadena on December 18 and 20. The first fight was a request match by Dick Grewe of Verndale who had lost a close decision match a few weeks previous to Ray Gordon of Brainerd. Grewe evened the count against Gordon when he drew a judge’s decision in this return bout.
•The grand opening of the new Waterhouse Company, in its new building on Highway 10 at the east edge of Wadena, will be held Friday and Saturday of this week. Homer Waterhouse, a former Verndale businessman, is the owner. The firm deals in Dodge trucks, Dodge and Plymouth cars and Allis-Chalmers farm equipment, and offers the latest equipment for the repair of tractors, trucks, farm machinery and automobiles.
40 Years Ago, December 9, 1982
•A patron of the Verndale Laundromat reported to the Verndale Police that a woman’s medium size jacket and two pairs of jeans, size 14, had been taken from the establishment between 12-1:30 p.m. last Thursday. They had been dried and neatly folded and placed on top of other clean clothing in a laundry cart. The owner reported she had gone to run an errand and when returning to pick up her clothes the items were missing. The police reported there are suspects and they are investigating the theft.
•Local volunteers from service and farm organizations will assist the Otter Tail-Wadena Community Action Council to distribute 27 tons of surplus dried milk and cheese on Wednesday, December 15. The dairy products, valued at $87,600, were left over from other parts of the state after the October distribution. The sites will open at 10 a.m. which are the Verndale Fire Hall and Wadena Memorial Auditorium.
•Taking an active part in some of the many crafts provided for youngsters during the Christmas Festival held in Wadena last weekend were two Verndale lasses, Rita Schluttner and Donna Goeden. They chose to make bird-shaped sun catchers using construction and tissue paper. Other activities provided for youngsters were storytime, sing-a-longs, easel painting, dramatics workshops, etc.
15 Years Ago, December 19, 2007
•A few months ago at a Verndale City Council meeting, City Engineer Jim Hines spoke to the council about a project Mn/DOT had been planning for Verndale. Two intersections through town were to be closed to left-turning traffic—Ron Sundby’s west entrance to his horse trailer sales and the entrance at Thompson Street. This put the council in quite a tizzy of confusion and anger. They argued that they did not see any reason why these intersections needed to be tampered with. This would cause a hassle for Sundby’s customers driving long horse trailers in and out of his business. Two Mn/DOT representatives did not exactly listen to the community’s concerns and were on their way home with nothing changed in their plans. Several angry Verndale citizens left in their wake.
•The Raiders started the week off wrestling at Pine River against PL/PR-B. Although the Raiders are wrestling better every week, they still lost to a very rough Road Crew squad 39-30. They won six matches and were very close in a few others. The Raiders have shown great improvement in some of the more inexperienced wrestlers and have yet to get their full line-up on the mat due to injuries.
•The varsity Pirates boy’s basketball team continued its season with a match against Nevis on December 11 in Verndale. The home team lost the contest but played a great game. At the buzzer, the score was 66-49.
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