Dusting off the Archives
News from Verndale's Past
75 Years Ago, February 10, 1949
• Amos Brown, Lee Sowder, Milton Brown and Wilbur Seaton shot a wolf near the Seaton farm about two miles northeast of Verndale last Saturday. Several fox have been shot in the vicinity but that was the first wolf this season.
• One hundred and ten thousand volts of electricity surged through 50 miles of three phase high line last Monday when the big switch at the Minnesota Power and Light Riverton Substation closed the circuit which will bring a new supply of electricity to the steadily growing region of which Verndale is a part.
• Reverend and Mrs. H.A. Kingsriter have just launched a new radio program over the Wadena station. The program can be heard each Sunday afternoon at 4:15. The program has been named, “The Gospel in Poetry and Song”. Reverend Kingsriter is the pastor of the Verndale Assemblies of God Tabernacle.
40 Years Ago, February 8, 1984
• Practice for the April 7 Queen Pageant has begun in earnest. Candidates this year are: Shelia Notch, Ericka Schenk, Danelle Colby, Michelle Stinar, Sherrie Thurston and JoNeen Rousslang. Maurie Finck heads up the pageant committee, along with his wife, Marlene, who has planned the choreography for several production numbers. The participants are presently conducting a fundraising event to help defray the cost of the production. The production is expected to be bigger and more exciting than last year’s gala event.
• February 15 is the deadline for signing up eligible young ladies between the ages of 5-7 as candidates in Verndale’s Little Miss Petite Contest. Those interested are asked to call Lois Gould. To qualify, girls must have been five years old as of September 1, 1983. The competition is in conjunction with the Miss Verndale Pageant.
• While many are paging through seed catalogs with visions of a bountiful harvest next summer, Eva Barrett is enjoying fresh tomatoes from a vine she picked up at a flea market last spring. She was told that if she took the plant indoors in the fall, it would bear for her—and it has. Not counting little ones, Eva counted 22 tomatoes reaching the ripening stage which are about an inch and a half to two inches across.
15 Years Ago, February 12, 2009
• When coronation time arrived, former Homecoming Queen Tina Albin crowned Jody Kenyon the queen of Sweetheart Days. Former Homecoming King Caleb Seals crowned Jay Runyan the king of Sweetheart Days 2009.
• Mrs. Brandi Anderson sent in an application to the Science Museum of Minneapolis for an assembly at the school and an overnight trip for the fourth and fifth graders. Mrs. Anderson won really big. The Minneapolis Science Museum is coming to Verndale to do an assembly for the elementary grades. In addition, the fourth and fifth graders won an overnight trip to the Science Museum. Seventy kids and seven chaperones leave April 2. The theme is water. The museum will send a charter bus to pick up the group and a pizza buffet will be served for dinner.
• On Friday, February 6, Verndale High School hosted its first Career Expo Day for grades 9-12. The afternoon was kicked off in the auditorium with a short introduction by Principal Brownlow on the afternoon’s events to come. Students were then released to attend the sessions that were presented. The career and speakers were as follows: business management and administration, agriculture, food and natural resources; arts, communication and information systems; human services, heath science technology; and engineering, manufacturing and technology. Each session had several speakers.