Dusting off the Archives
News from Verndale's Past
75 Years Ago, October 28, 1948
• The Halloween party, sponsored by the commercial club, school, legion, council and firemen is all set for Saturday evening of this week. Fun for all includes prizes for best costumes, best jack-o-lanterns, and prizes for winners in the shoe scramble, apple-bobbing, pie eating and kangaroo hand-on-toe race. Treats for all the children will be given as they leave the auditorium. The children in costumes will meet at the village park at 7:30 p.m. for a parade to the auditorium led by the fire truck with Mayor Marquardt in charge.
• “Sharkey” Payne has the suspenseful story “Cass Timberlane” by Sinclair Lewis, starring Spenser Tracy and Lana Turner, booked for his Verndale Theatre on Sunday and Monday. For Friday and Saturday of this week it’s “Sin Town” starring Constance Benney and Brad Crawford.
• Three Wadena County boys enlisted in the U.S. Army last week: Earl Sams of Nimrod enlisted for three years in Europe; Pete Kern Jr., also for three years in Europe, and Bob Tullgren of Wadena enlisted for three years in the fifth army band. The recruiting officers Sgt. John McPartlin and Sgt. Sinclair who have been coming to Verndale every Monday reported that next Monday will be their last visit here.
40 Years Ago, October 26, 1983
• The newly-formed Verndale Lioness Club will be officially recognized as such following Certification Night this Saturday, October 29 at a banquet held at the River Inn in Aldrich beginning at 6 p.m. Twenty-four charter members will be honored. The program is being planned by the Verndale Lions Club, sponsors of the Lioness, and they have invited a number of dignitaries for the occasion, including District Governor Dick Waby of Crosby.
• On September 30, 1983, MaryLu McClure and Alyce Seaton attended a Minnesota Historical Society field service department workshop at Park Rapids. The work areas were around choosing and learning about museum artifacts. MaryLu had brought along some examples of old books from the Verndale Museum some of which were adhered to the shelves by mold. Pat Coleman of field services advised that no further exhibits should be added to the local museum until the mold spores were controlled.
• Trailing in the second quarter, 12-0, the Verndale Pirates managed to score with 30 seconds left in the second quarter to give them the incentive to try harder to overcome the strong defense of the Eagles, winning 13-12 over the visitors from Eagle Bend. Fine offensive play by Dan Smith and Brian Jacobson, and solid tackling by linebackers Mark Perish, Mike Wutzke and Craig Beaver accounted for the victory.
15 Years Ago, October 30, 2008
• Matt Moenkedick surpassed 200 yards rushing again to lead the top seeded and second-ranked Verndale Pirates past fifth-seeded Underwood 48-0 Saturday in the semi-final round of Section 4 playoffs. Moenkedick carried 26 times for 218 yards and two touchdowns. Amos Schmidt added 115 yards and three scores and Zack Meidinger and Nathan Wiese each scored in the second half for the 9-0 Pirates.
• The Lady Pirates ended their season 9-15-2 overall and 2-4 in the conference. Coach Johnson and myself (Coach Youngbauer) would like to thank all of the girls for all of their hard work and dedication this season. We are proud of how you played this year. I would especially like to thank my seniors Taryn Fuller, Kelsey Booth, Nicole Bart, Tina Uselman, and Alicia Johnson for being great team leaders and for always giving their best.
• A new mathematics class offered to Verndale High School students this year is Introduction to Statistics. The course is designed to give students the critical thinking skills to interpret information that is presented to them in their daily lives. Newspapers, magazines and television news programs present the public with reports based on some amount of data and often incorrect conclusions or correlations are made based on how the data is presented.