JCC puts the hammer down vs. our Tigers

A dreary day today, Wednesday, for reporting on MACA Tiger athletics. Both our softball and baseball teams had their season come to an end yesterday. 

The day's competition started out good enough for our Tigers of the softball world. This was Section 3AA action at Marshall - too far away from here IMHO. How has Marshall been able to corner so much section-level action? This happens in winter too. Obviously the task of getting on the road can be more concerning in winter. And then the drive back can be late at night too. 

I remember the days when so many big post-season basketball games were at the UMM P.E. Center, filling the place sometimes. Today we have to head south for a lot of this. 

People my age can remember when the travel burden was not so great. Games played closer to here would attract more casual-interest fans from here. That's opposed to the "hardcore," a word some are inclined to use. Bless the parents for their interest (though sometimes maybe they are a little overzealous). It's better to have a mixed crowd of both the "hardcores" and the casual-interest, don't you think? 

What might the future hold? Well in the present, Tuesday, the MACA softball team played two games and split. Because we had lost once previously in this double-elimination affair, our season was done. 

The Tuesday highlight was our 4-2 win over Dassel-Cokato. Key hits were off the bats of Brianna Marty and Kaylin Steen. Marty socked a two-run double in the fifth that got the score tied two-all. Then Steen delivered an RBI single in the sixth. Now we had the lead. Marty's double was one of two hits she had on the day. 

Pitcher Haley Kill worked past the two-run D-C rally of the first inning. Kill went the whole way in the pitching circle. She shut down D-C after the first. 

Section softball can demand a lot of the athletes. So the Tigers' work was not done on this day. Unfortunately they did not fare as well in their second game. It has always been tough trying to be competitive against the southern Minnesota teams. I have called it a "hex" we have. Perhaps this factor bubbled up toward the end of the day yesterday. I'm sure the coach would not subscribe to that. Whatever the explanation, we succumbed to the Huskies of Jackson County Central. The score was 12-2. 

A downcast feeling among MACA fans, to be sure. We actually gained the first lead. This was with Cate Kehoe's squeeze bunt. Lauren Hottovy was the Tiger coming home on the play. Encouraging, yes, but it would not last. The Huskies took command. The southern Minnesota mystique on the softball diamond? JCC plated six runs in the fifth frame. That ended the game promptly. JCC was up by ten. Sigh. 

JCC's Bailey Finck was a nemesis for us. Finck was a perfect four-for-four and drove in two runs. "Nemesis" also describes Brittany Tuffevson and Hadley Wachol, each of whom had three hits. In all the Huskies rapped 15 hits. Six of those hits were two-baggers. 

The Tigers' season may be done but there's considerable satisfaction with our 21-4 record. My coverage of the Tigers' first two post-season games was placed on my companion blog, "Morris of Course." These home wins were over Montevideo and Litchfield. Here is the permalink:

http://morrisofcourse.blogspot.com/2023/05/softball-tigers-at-19-2-look-to-next.html

 

Baseball: New London-Spicer 2, Tigers 1

It's all over for our baseball Tigers too. Tuesday saw the Tigers in action at one of those places to the south of here. Not really a routine drive - it was to Montevideo. This Section 3AA action had the Tigers matched against NL-Spicer. 

We got the 1-0 lead thanks to Ozzy Jerome's single that scored Andrew Marty. That was in the first inning. The Wildcats answered with a run in the third and then scored what would prove to be the game-winner in the fifth. Final score: 2-1.

New London-Spicer got key offensive spark from Bennett Schultz: two hits, an RBI. On the mound for the victor: Grant Paffrath who allowed just the one MACA run on four hits in seven innings. 

Riley Asmus pitched the whole way for our Tigers. Please note that both the runs he allowed were unearned. As with Paffrath, he allowed just four hits. Riley walked two batters, struck out two. 

The Tigers closed out 2023 with a won-lost over .500, at 12-11. My coverage of the Minnewaska and Paynesville games is on my "Morris of Course" site. It was a split for us. Here is the permalink for my Tuesday post:

https://morrisofcourse.blogspot.com/2023/05/three-event-champs-for-maca-in-sub.html

 

Transitioning into summer

Parents of the student-athletes should realize that all the post-season competition with its various layers, structures and schedules can get confusing for the more casual fans and school supporters. Be gentle with those of us who can get disoriented sometimes. 

It would help greatly if we had a newspaper that availed itself of its own website to keep all of us informed. The means is there: the paper has a website all set up, in theory could be a real asset. Maybe someone on the newspaper staff could start a video podcast focusing on sports. This is being done in some places now like in Bonanza Valley (for BBE). It's not all that hard. 

It's easy to come up with a theory as to why the paper does not do this. The newspaper company wants people to buy the paper. The huge problem with that is that the print paper only comes out once a week. When I check the paper's website I see tons of links for UMM Cougar sports and the "UMAC." But that news is reported comprehensively on UMM's own website, so I really don't get it. 

We all ought to feel natural enthusiasm for our MACA Tiger teams - these kids have their roots right here in Stevens County. In fact, you should not even need to feel financial incentive to report on the Tiger teams. I have natural, organic enthusiasm for doing it. How can you not feel that? 

I have two blog sites because I decided long ago that I needed an alternate site for when I got really invested in sports coverage. Sometimes politics demands my attention, not that I can change any minds on political matters. We are deep red Trump country here in Stevens County. 

You know why UMM has become so challenged on enrollment? It was explained to me at the Willie's Cafe the other day, by a very well-placed UMM person, that "Trump got rid of the foreign students, and that was our cash cow." 

When you get right down to it, Trump destroys everything he touches. Our fascination with the orange man is an outright national disease. So I can keep writing about this here online, even though my thoughts do not break through. Just listen to the older guys in the middle section of DeToy's between about 6 and 8 a.m. Republicans good, Democrats bad. I guess that's all you need to know about life, here in Morris. I have to be cautious.

 

A thank you

Look, I really do not know how many MACA fans reach my sites to consume my sports coverage. Numbers are available but I'm not totally sure how valid they are. But I'm delighted if a few fans visit and maybe get a smile on their faces reading what I have to offer. 

I am not penned in with having to write "newspaper style." I could do that if I had to. But I inject some color, which was how I was taught to write way back when in my school years, the Watergate era. It encouraged candor but also some cynicism. Cynicism is sometimes quite constructive. 

I need to look for an update on Charlie Hanson's golfing. Are some of the track and field kids still going?

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Two close games for softball at Marshall

Is this the laziest day of the year? Memorial Day? The end of a three-day weekend that is supposed to represent the "start of summer." It seems time almost gets suspended. I imagine there will be a Memorial Day program this morning (Monday) as I am typing this. 

Thank God for Caribou Coffee being open. I'm well-infused with caffeine now. Got a nice breakfast too. DeToy's used to be open on Memorial Day morning, as I recall, but no more. Perhaps it's a hushed-up secret that Morris is not doing well when it comes to hospitality establishments or "amenities," the term used by college campus proponents when talking about a town's assets. 

Amenities? Let's hush that up please. 

High school sports is not quiet on Memorial Day weekend. Our softball team was quite active on Saturday. Not one but two games, both in the post-season. This comes post-graduation. I have to fight a little bit of depression this time of year. For more years than I could even count, I covered for the Morris newspaper the Friday night graduation, the Sunday Chokio-Alberta graduation in Alberta and then the Memorial Day program. All that ended for me abruptly in 2006. 

I left the paper under great duress in June of that year, June 2 to be exact. Of course it was an involuntary departure. I won't argue that with anyone. Many of you will get my drift, without requiring explanation. Human beings can be so heartless. Be that as it may, I have the online world still available where I can report about MACA school activities. Especially sports. 

So on this Memorial Day weekend of 2023 - where does the time go? - I can report that MACA softball held its own Saturday against those southern Minnesota teams that so often have been a thorn in our side. We played two one-run games, winning one, dropping the other. We're in a double-elimination situation. Double-elimination can be complicated for a lot of people, including me! 

So we lost to Jackson County Central and then defeated Windom. Action will resume on Tuesday. 

Let's start here with the win over Windom, score of 5-4. The site was Marshall, a distance too far away in my opinion. So much of the section-level action these days requires a trip south. Can we hope the day comes when some of this will shift (back) to Morris? 

Brianna Marty was a hero in the Windom game. She socked a double that cleared the bases. Kortney Sanasack made noise with the bat with a home run. Marty's clutch hit put the orange and black up by a run, 3-2. The Sanasack round-tripper made the score 5-3. We held off Windom the rest of the way. 

Has the Stevens County Times reported on the game yet, in any way, shape or form? Can some people maybe give me some credit? I mean, why not? 

I can report that Haley Kill pitched 5.2 innings. Nora Boyle's pitching arm was called on for the conclusion. The win pushed us up to 20 wins on the season. Someday coach Mary Holmberg will retire with a win total that the late Willie Martin would describe as "astronomical." 

Windom is known as the "Eagles." Their Anya Nielson fanned 12 batters.

Jackson County Central 5, Tigers 4

This game went nine innings. The bottom of the ninth saw Mady Wachal of JCC hit an RBI single. Brett Miller used the term "walk-off win" for the JCC Huskies. Marshall has what they call a "softball complex." I'm willing to wager it's a higher-quality place than what we have in Morris. 

The Tigers were dealt heartbreak in the JCC game. My goodness, we were leading 4-3 in the seventh and just a mere one strike away from finishing things off. But Alexis O'Reilly delivered a run-scoring single to left. Bring on extra innings! 

Lauren Hottovy supplied a game highlight for the Tigers, as she connected for a two-run inside-the-park home run. Brett Miller tells us that Brianna Marty and Kenzie Anderson each delivered an RBI single. Nora Boyle was tagged with the pitching loss. 

JCC had the kind of pitching we have come to expect from those southern Minnesota teams. Husky Hadley Wachal fanned 20 batters over nine innings. Husky O'Reilly had a perfect four-for-four boxscore line.

Addendum: A bittersweet Memorial Day weekend for yours truly. I went out to the cemetery Saturday to touch up our family monument, wipe off any bird excrement etc. But I noticed that the people who put out the veterans flags missed us! We have one of those little cement circles that has a hole in it for a flag. They just didn't see it. 

My late father was a lieutenant in the Navy in WWII, the Pacific theater. We all make mistakes. I'm not pointing fingers. I'll make up for the oversight by running again a photo of my father with his crew in WWII. He's at right in the photo below, wearing the special uniform. His name was Ralph. How wonderful if we could know the names and hometowns of all the other guys in this photo! The crew was assigned to guard a merchant vessel, an oil tanker. 

I wish my father had gotten involved in veterans service organizations in Morris. He simply chose not to. When I first started with the Morris newspaper there was a Memorial Day parade that used main street (Atlantic Avenue). I remember the "VFW junior unit."

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

No more head-hanging for "not working"

Picture yourself in the 1980s. I'm basically thinking pre-digital times. So hard for many of us to do, of course, even those of us who lived it. We are propelled into the future and focus our thoughts there. 

"Well of course," you might say, as if to suggest we needn't think so much about the past. 

If we had no inclination to think about the past, we wouldn't have high school reunions. My 50th is coming up in September, yes a fall reunion. Fall reunions are probably more common with the older alums, wouldn't you say? Our thoughts will dive back to 1973. America had spent years being lulled into a sort of complacency - we had allowed the war in Vietnam to rage on. Stats every night on the news about the war dead, us vs. them. 

The people had the power all along to do something about it. We were inhibited. The people who fancied themselves "conservative" were attracted to jingoism. Strange. Seems to be the opposite today. 

But I began this post thinking of the 1980s. My first full decade of adulthood. Specifically I am thinking of how we viewed "work" then. You might wonder: How many ways are there to understand "work?" 

My old friend Tony O'Keefe RIP told me "you only have a job if you have to." Raw wisdom coming from someone who really understood human nature - he was a car salesman. 

Tony figured that I stuck to my full-time job mainly so I could present the proper image. Working full-time gave you a stamp of legitimacy amongst the public. On Christmas Eve at about 4 p.m. I'd retreat to the Met Lounge for my complementary Tom and Jerry cocktail and rub shoulders with all the other "working people." I would have shied away, were I not known to be a working person. 

Up through the '80s - the last fully pre-digital decade - you'd be marginalized if you were an able-bodied middle age person who didn't have a job that was pretty close to full-time. A term that might get thrown around was "slacker." 

So you're asking yourself "well, how would you support yourself?" Well look around today. The attitude today is so non-judgmental. We can see someone at the diner at 2 or 3 p.m. and not ask "why aren't you working?"

A trait of today is that people have no inhibitions about telling others that they are not working. The estimable Mike Rowe sees the idle trend among men in particular. Even Mike seems to grope trying to explain how all these men are really supporting themselves. Living with girlfriends? He tossed that one out. 

 

The comic strip character "Dagwood Bumstead" symbolized the American working person of his time. Not exactly unhappy but still on a rather miserable little treadmill. He answered to his boss "Mr. Dithers." Dagwood was expected to work on "contracts" like "the Grimsby account." He and his wife "Blondie" dealt with ennui in their lives. I can also recall the cartoon character "George Jetson" who answered to "Mr. Spacely."

  

I suppose people can apply for all sorts of benefits. Easy thing to complain about unless you're suddenly in a position where you need it. Oh, and "need" is a fungible term, right? 

We talk up "conservative" political candidates who might assail the "slackers." But many of us butt up against life's daunting realities. It is not so easy to "pay your own way" as you might think. The prospect of doing that in earlier times was easier because of substantially lower prices for everything. Is it baked into stone that prices accelerate higher? 

I feel that if the U.S. as we've known it literally collapses - a greater likelihood than most of us think - the blame won't fall with either of those likely suspects: the two political parties. The parties will pull their hair out blaming each other. The cause would actually be the Federal Reserve and its Central Bank partners around the globe. It will be our debt-based economic system. 

The "Fed" seems to stay in the background, only, of our public debate. Stop and think: the Fed has the power to print money. To create money. Is there a bigger, more awesome power? Do we really want to go on the attack with rhetoric against an entity that can create money? We seem reluctant. So we stick to the system of the two main political parties hurling invective at each other. 

Which solves what? Inflation is going on as we speak. Economics is a science. A solution is available for inflation, readily, if the powers-that-be wanted to pull the right levers. So what's wrong? Maybe it's that the public really doesn't mind the government goodies and the free money. But nothing is free. It's just an illusion. The more government bloat that comes about, the more inflation is likely. 

Inflation killed the Roman empire. We have the same human impulses, the propensity for ignorance, as the old Romans had. Subconsciously we may know all this. We're just desperate to see our needs met in the present. 

Why do so many young adults stay home with parents? There is nothing inherently wrong with this. I mean it's family bonding. God bless. The economy is a major cause. The trend is no longer a novelty. It's not news, i.e. it's not "man bites dog." Go to the local furniture store, browse around and look at the prices. Who says prices everywhere have to keep rising? It is not an act of God. 

Our central bank knows the realities of what is going on. But they know the realities of the political world too, hoo boy. They know America could never "cut it" if it tried to live by the blueprint of William F. Buckley. We talk a good game, that is all. 

The Trump crowd fancies itself "conservative." Silly rabbit, this crowd is merely a "tribe." Its appeal is on a very base level. It defies logic on many fronts, just like the escalation of the Vietnam war in the '60s so obviously defied logic. But those on the Nixon side of things, or more accurately the John Wayne side of things, planted their allegiance on the side of jingoism. To the point where you'd be intimidated seriously if you countered them. 

But today the crazy man named Trump has decided that foreign military intervention is bad. "Conservatives" have changed their spots? Away from "Operation Iraqi Freedom?" Well of course they have, and as they say, a broken clock is right twice a day. So the crowd affirming "conservatism" is now correct. These people are not hopelessly stupid, just seems that way so often. 

I am 68 years old, so do not need to worry about any public perception that I am "not working." All along I would have liked to keep working. You can assume that. But "stuff happens." I don't think the expression "stuff happens" existed in the 1980s. Ah, the last pre-digital decade. What a throwback to think about. Did you know that "One Night in Bangkok" was really an ABBA song?

 

Peter Schiff

Addendum: The digital world has plunged forward with one new efficiency after another. On the surface, a blessing. On the grim side, the elimination of whole swaths of the workforce. An example: the "middlemen." 

We hear now that the whole cherished category of "store clerks" might be endangered. Tech plunges forward. Oh my, "AI."

Do we need to preserve jobs just for the sake of preserving them? Economic thinker Peter Schiff would say "no." He talked about a government make-work program where the people were using shovels. So he postulated: If you wanted to help more people, why not have them use spoons instead of shovels? Absurd naturally but we might get the point. Government can be a safety net to a point. There is no truly free lunch. And are guys really getting by "living with their girlfriends?" Is that just a myth, Mr. Rowe?

 

-Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Local papers, bloated sports coverage

I remember being at a UMM Retirees meeting where the subject of communications came up. The site was at the odd little addition to the old Sunwood Inn on the west side. The whole place seems to be getting revitalized now. Maybe that odd little addition will be the site for activity again. Would be nice to see. 

"Old Sunwood Inn" is sort of a default way of referring to the place. Would be logical for people my age. Other names have come and gone. So why not just fall back on the default? 

This reminds me of the medical clinic downtown in the old Willie's building. Been through several names, and now there's a sign that says "Lake Region Healthcare." That's a familiar name for yours truly, used to take Mom to the Fergus Falls Lake Region Healthcare. Those were enjoyable trips as they were not emergency situations - something just had to be maintained. Toward the end of our experiences there, they put on a rather "futuristic" entry area - dazzling frankly. I thought of the "Jetsons." 

I attended the UMM Retirees meetings with my late parents for a time, obviously because of their mounting limitations. No one would mistake me for a retired UMM prof, would they? I must have sat in for one of my parents for a group photo once - the photo was on the first page of a newsletter. So maybe I could be mistaken for a UMM prof. I must say it was enjoyable being part of it all. 

I got involved with several things due to my parents, most notably Sons of Norway. My old high school classmate Edith Martin of the grocery store family, referred to the group as "Sons of Knutson." She was talking about our old teacher Marilyn Syverson being such a leader with the group. To this day I have a Sons of Norway sticker on my 2004 Chevy Malibu. 

Yes I must contemplate getting a new vehicle. Problem is: electric, hybrid or standard gas? I have gotten on the Internet machine about this and have not found good enough guidance. 

The Internet is go-to for so many things. Sometimes we can still end up head-scratching, as I was when researching a diabetic diet. I went to sites that seemed so promising. Typically the host for these sites rambles and throws around terms that are not easily grasped. It gets aggravating. I'm sure I'm not alone when I say it'd be nice seeing a short list of readily understood and available foods. Something to wrap our arms around. Not so easy. 

At the UMM Retirees meeting, our esteemed retired choir director came right out and said something so obvious about the Morris newspaper. This could be said about nearly all community newspapers. Nearly all of us must think this as we peruse the typical community paper. Maybe just don't care much. If we seek the paper at all, it's probably because there are some narrow categories of info we're looking for. In my case, I go to the Morris library on many weeks to just open the paper to where I might find announcements of upcoming community events. Like public suppers or receptions for retiring people etc. 

But people who are buying the paper are buying the whole thing, right? The retired choir director was spot-on with his comment and it's something we may not think of much. We take the product for granted as it is. It's part of the scenery? Part of our assumed way of life: a sports section that looks like it occupies half of the paper. 

The second section is in fact designated "sports." A whole sports section just like we see for the big-time metro papers. Is that why the small town papers do it too? Are they aping their city cousins? You might ask "well why not have a full-fledged sports section?" The counter argument is that people do not follow the local teams like they would the truly big-time teams or professional teams. 

The interest in the high school teams is more confined to those who have a direct interest. Obviously it's wonderful that our schools offer all this. It's wonderful that a fair number of people turn out for the events. But a local paper with seemingly half of its space devoted to sports? 

"Recognition" is fine. But I'm not sure that a raft of articles about games played a week previous are really going to be a magnet for attention. So they are there merely as a rite of small town life? Rhetorical question. 

Ken Hodgson

Because the retired choir director made a point that was so spot-on, I'll share his name here: Ken Hodgson. Totally correct, yet some of us might consider the comment a little blunt, as if he was implying some criticism of the paper. We all have license to criticize the local paper, don't we? It's out there in full view. I should know. I was with the Morris paper for 27 years, and with the Hancock paper for 15 of those years. 

The Morris paper published two editions a week then. The Hancock paper has ceased to exist. It was telling that I sensed no uproar when the Hancock paper was closed. I would have expected some controversy. The fact there wasn't any, or so little, said something about how society has been moving on from the local paper. 

We have naturally been seeing a renaissance of communications developments. We are not nearly so reliant on the local paper. An excellent source told me the Morris paper came close to closing when Forum Communications decided to abandon Morris. I have a theory that certain community leaders got wind of this and felt around to try to get new operators here. Which they did. 

But could we have really gotten along without a Morris paper? Hancock could. Hancock continues having a K-12 school system, yet it has lost its paper. Many towns without such a school asset have a paper that is at least surviving. But the ranks are thinning.

I have taken the long way around the barn with the post you're reading here today. I was going to explain why your typical small town paper has this obvious feature of a bloated "sports section" as pointed out by Hodgson. BTW I learned on Sunday in church that our current UMM choir director Laura Wiebe is leaving us. Maybe it's not good to get to know UMM staff people because these days, so many of them are "transitory," to borrow the word made popular by the Federal Reserve not long ago. 

Wiebe went beyond UMM to get involved with my church of First Lutheran. She exercised her choir chops. She will be missed here. 

So here we go on what I can share about sports sections in the local press. Many years ago the number of local organized teams was far fewer than today. I have a hard time getting this out: no girls teams! Oh my, girls were associated with "home ec." Girls needed time to establish sports skills so they could truly parallel what the boys were doing. They were like "The Little Engine That Could." 

"I think I can." And they most surely did. 

You might suggest that girls today have it better than boys: none of their sports imperil their health, not like football and wrestling. Wrestling imposes an unreasonable need for weight loss. Football? It's in the news. 

Sports that were once on a sandlot level, most notably hockey, "grew up" and got totally organized just like the other prep teams. Newspapers, having to react to all this, wanted to stick with established habits. If certain teams were being covered with a detailed "boxscore," for example, well let's incorporate this. 

Gymnastics and swimming came along. I remember when swimming was nascent here and we had the "Tiger Sharks." One by one the various teams gained a real imprimatur of legitimacy. 

The local newspapers could have responded to this by condensing sports reports more. Make it fill the usual amount of space. Newspapers resisted that logic. So now we have pages and pages coming at us all the time. The average reader may not take note the way Hodgson did. Rather, they take for granted how things are - an often irresistible instinct in small town life. 

"Too much sports?" Well obviously there is. So what's your point?

 

Addendum: To this day I take pride in my sportswriting. I'm looking up at the wall in my home at a framed T-shirt. It is signed "To Brian, best wishes to a great sportswriter." It was from Fuzzy Thurston who affixed "#63" after his name signature - that was his number when he starred as guard in the Green Bay Packers offensive line in their glory years. The framed item is a prize possession of mine.

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Baseball Tigers dispose of Benson 10-0

We might have expected this: a hectic schedule after the weather-caused postponements of early spring. Let's say early to mid-spring. It was really rather aggravating IMHO. I have promoted the idea of an inflatable cover for Big Cat Stadium, just like what St. Cloud State has. Pipe dream? Maybe. 

Anyway, one game wasn't enough for our MACA Tiger baseball squad on Thursday. The Tigers ended up playing both Litchfield and Benson. It was off to Benson after the 7-6 defeat the Tigers were dealt by the Dragons of Litchfield. In Benson the opponent was the Braves. 

The outcome was mighty gratifying for the orange and black. A win by shutout, 10-0. And once again we had an eighth grader playing a key role. Should I stop treating this as a novelty? By the standards of my background, it is quite the novelty. But we have moved into a new era? A good thing? Well I guess it is. 

Fans should feel nothing but satisfied with the 10-0 win over the Braves of Benson. Alex Asmus is getting his name established in the high school firmament. (I was known to occasionally use the word "firmament" in my writing for the Morris newspaper.) Asmus was pinpoint and poised as he came through with five shutout innings. The Braves got to him for only two hits. Brett Miller reports "the eighth grader has now tossed 12 shutout innings to start his varsity career." 

When I was in eighth grade, I think I was just learning to remember my locker combination. 

I can be prepared to type this young man's name quite a few times. 

Asmus got plenty of backing from the offense in the first two innings, to the tune of nine runs. 

This was win No. 11 for the Tigers against six losses. Jonah Huebner drove in two runs.

New London-Spicer 7, Tigers 3

The hectic nature of the late-spring schedule continued into Friday. The outcome wasn't so positive this time. The Tigers were stopped in the 7-3 final. They succumbed to New London-Spicer surging in the late innings. Once the Wildcats got warmed up they were productive. After getting blanked through the first four innings, NL-Spicer plated four runs in the fifth and three in the sixth. 

The Tigers scored two in the third and were then blanked over the next three innings, before adding a run in the seventh. The hit totals were limited: five each for the two squads. The Tigers made one error, NL-Spicer two. 

One Tiger had a multiple-hit game. This was Andrew Marty who went two-for-four with an RBI. Riley Asmus had a hit and a run scored. Ozzy Jerome had a hit and an RBI. Tyler Berlinger had a hit and a walk received, plus he crossed home plate twice. Kyle Fehr walked and drove in a run. Drew Huebner worked the pitcher for a walk. 

The Wildcats' Aedan Andresen had a hit, drew two walks, stole a base and scored two runs. Carson McCain drove in three runs. 

Our pitching duties were shared by Huebner and Landen Gibson with Huebner taking the loss. Huebner worked for 4.2 innings, Gibson for 1.1. Huebner fanned five batters but struggled with control with seven walks. All of the NL-Spicer runs were earned. 

The winning pitcher was Gabe Rohman who logged five innings, striking out three, walking three and allowing four hits. Grant Paffrath pitched two innings and fanned one batter, walked none. 

I'm finally going to say this: the Huebner name must reflect a really good bloodline for athletics. I went to high school with Mark Huebner. I covered Julie Huebner in the early 1980s. I feel that today, Julie could be a Division I college prospect as post player. Other Huebners of note have passed through.

Softball: anticipation builds

Are we really on the doorstep of the post-season now? The spring season has seemed a little short. Weather a factor obviously - a belated arrival of the nice weather. It's no surprise that the MACA softball Tigers are seeded No. 1 in Section 3AA-North. And it all begins this coming Tuesday. 

No contest for Round 1? That would appear to be the case. The kingpin Tigers are matched against No. 8 seed Montevideo. Obviously the game will be here at the softball complex. I hope Monte fans get the heads-up that they should bring their own chairs. Even with chairs the fan viewing experience is not likely to be good. We'll probably see some fans seated out by the outfield fence again. This is for lack of alternatives, unfortunately. I will continue referring to this project as a boondoggle. 

The MACA won-lost mark is 15-2. Monte's? Well it's 2-12. Game-time on Tuesday is 3 p.m. from Holmberg Field. Then at 4:30, fans will again strain to get a good view at Holmberg Field when ACGC plays Litchfield. ACGC has an 11-4 mark, Litch 4-14. 

The winner in each of these two games will vie at 6 p.m. I hope the ground has dried out better at the "complex." It is located close to the river. Other post-season action is slated for Barrett. 

Brett Miller tells us the first round of tourney play is single-elimination, then the double thing takes over. I think softball is unique for this. Double-elimination always makes things confusing, even for media people. Take my word! 

Keep an eye on 3AA-South. Hoo boy, the teams from southern Minnesota are always a hurdle to get past. Seems like it has always been this way. Something in the drinking water down there? So keep an eye on Pipestone, Luverne, Jackson County Central and Windom. These are the top four seeds in the South. The two sub-sections will finally clash on May 27 in Marshall. 

My God, it's terrible that so much climactic section action is in Marshall, n'est-ce pas? Remember the good old days when so many important post-season basketball games were played in Morris at the P.E. Center? Huge crowds in attendance so often. Loud! Boisterous! Maybe too much so sometimes. 

A parent explained to me that we are not likely to see those days return - days of huge emotional fan turnout - because there are so many activities now to divide up the parents. Progress.

 

Addendum: Regarding the games I write about today (Sunday), how much of this reporting has been provided by the Stevens County Times? Does the Times utilize its website in a positive way for MACA sports parents? Timeliness? I don't think so. And the print version of the paper only comes out once a week. Full of happy news all the time: everything is coming up roses in Morris MN. "All our kids are above average." Well, I'm happy to write about a lot of these kids in an optimal timely way, a good share of the time. Happy to be on board. Doing the best I can. I've been doing this since 1972 right here for Motown.

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

MACA softball shows command vs. WCA

The viewing wasn't very pleasant for the home team softball fans in Barrett. Barrett of course is the home of West Central Area. The Knights. Those Knights definitely ended up with a chink in their armor with the doubleheader vs. our Tigers. 

Oh my, the spigot opened up for MACA run-scoring. Those poor Knights: they were on the short end of the scores 21-9 and 13-4. Seems like one-sided games are a problem in the diamond sports this spring.

The headline on my "Morris of Course" blog site is "Charlie Hanson excels with golf clubs, trumpet!" Let's put music up on a plane with sports! The Monday night band concert and ice cream social was terrific. My post also covers conference track and field, the baseball team's convincing sweep of WCA, and our softball team's crushing of Montevideo. Please click to read with the permalink below, and thanks. How much of this action has been covered to date by the Stevens County Times?

https://morrisofcourse.blogspot.com/2023/05/charlie-hanson-excels-with-golf-clubs.html 

 

Tigers 13, West Central Area 4

So this was the first game of the softball twin bill: the 13-4 score with MACA looking pretty impressive. We got a lot of mileage out of our ten hits. WCA kept pace with nine. But we sure had players scurry around the bases more often. Each team had two errors.

The Thursday success was significant for coach Mary Holmberg's squad: it brought our ninth straight conference championship! Holmberg is in her 44th year at the helm of the orange and black. Yours truly covered the team in its very first year! Could someone give me credit for that? I'm still at it, all these years later, just like coach Holmberg. 

Who will outlast whom? I first started covering Tiger sports in a formal way in 1972. Richard Nixon was president. Holmberg's softball coaching tenure goes back to Jimmy Carter. Carter is still alive, rather miraculously I'd say. Remember disco music? 

Unfortunately the Tigers' conference is not known to be real high-caliber. This is worthy of mention simply from the standpoint that we need to be tested better in regular season play, so as to be more competitive with the southern Minnesota teams. Darn those southern Minnesota teams! A real nemesis in most seasons. 

The Tigers sprang out to a 6-0 lead over WCA in the first three innings of Game 1. We moved forward with four runs in the sixth and three in the seventh. WCA did all its run-scoring in the fifth and sixth frames. Haley Kill was our complete game pitcher. Zero walks and eight strikeouts affirm her top-notch form. WCA did get to her for the nine hits. Two of the runs Kill allowed were unearned. 

WCA had two pitchers working from the pitching circle: Lily Mahoney and Claire Stark. Mahoney was the pitcher of record. She was hurt by six walks issued. Four of the runs she allowed were unearned. Stark walked just one and struck out four. 

Lauren Hottovy had the MACA team-best hit total of three. Brianna Marty and Nora Boyle each had two hits. These Tigers each had one: Kortney Sanasack, Cate Kehoe and Haley Kill. Two WCA Knight players each had two hits: Alaina Sykora and Addison Staples. These Knights each connected for one: Madison Fagre, Izza Puchalski, Brinley Ulrich, Zoey Fuhrman and Jaclynn Nelson.

Game 2: Tigers 21, WCA 9

The Tigers produced a bushel-full of runs in the fourth inning: 13. Wow! We had no problem out-hitting the Knights in this game: it was a 16-9 advantage. We committed three errors, the Knights four. 

Lauren Hottovy impressed in this game too: two-for-three. She was one of several Tigers with multiple-hit games. So Brianna Marty was two-for-four, Cate Kehoe two-for-three, Haley Kill two-for-two, Nora Boyle two-for-three, Ryla Koehler two-for-three and Mackenzie Konz making a special impression with her perfect three-for-three. MacKenzie Anderson added a hit to the mix. 

Boyle and Kill split the pitching duties for the Tigers, Boyle with 3.1 innings, Kill with 1.2. Boyle set down four batters on strikes, Kill set down three. The two walked just one batter between them. Lily Mahoney took the loss for West Central Area.

Baseball: Litchfield 7, Tigers 6

Ouch! The Tigers succumbed to a four-run rally in the seventh and last inning. The disappointment was felt at the Morris diamond, where the Tigers squared off against those Dragons of Litchfield. Think "green," that's the Litch color. 

The Dragons breathed fire with a comeback on the scoreboard. So the outcome was a 7-6 losing score for our Tigers. So the Tigers were up 6-3 entering the fateful seventh frame. We got to bat in the bottom of the seventh but put up a goose egg. 

Our line score was six runs, nine hits and four errors. The Litch numbers were 7-8-0. Errors will haunt. The Tigers outhit Litch 9-8. 

Riley Asmus had a hit and drew a walk. He scored two runs. Andrew Marty had a hit, drew a walk and scored two runs. Kyle Fehr drew two walks, scored a run and drove in one. Ozzy Jerome packed a punch at two-for-three with four RBIs and a walk. Trevor Buss rapped a hit. Johnny Kleindl had a hit and an RBI. Drew Huebner worked the pitcher for two walks. Owen Anderson had a two-for-three line including a double, plus he drew a walk and scored a run. Tyler Berlinger had a hit and was hit-by-pitch. He drew a walk also. 

Riley Asmus and Jackson Hallman shared our pitching with Hallman taking the loss. (The West Central Tribune spelled Riley's last name "Ausmus." Erratum.)

Litch's winning pitcher was Caden Besemer while Calvin Jones got the save. Jack McCann was a standout at bat for the Dragons with his two-for-two numbers, two runs scored, three RBIs, two walks received, a hit-by-pitch and two stolen bases.

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Pitching form beyond his years: Alex Asmus

Tigers 2, Sacred Heart 0

Incredible! Absolutely incredible! An eighth-grader starting on varsity! Not only that, contributing heavily to a win! And not only that, getting the starting pitching nod for a varsity game! And not only that, pitching the whole way! A shutout in a complete game performance! 

Should I really be awestruck? Maybe such a thing is not all that rare in prep sports today. Oh I think it's still pretty rare. An eighth-grader wouldn't even get a look when I was in high school. Our Morris school actually had policies on this. I heard it right from the horse's mouth once. 

We had a super promising sophomore basketball player early-on in my tenure with the Morris newspaper. Finally I couldn't help but ask the coach if this individual might start playing some varsity. I'll type the player's name: Paul Libbon. He was sculpted to be a top-notch post player IMHO. But he was languishing on 'B' team which might also have been called "the sophomore team." Everyone was more grade-conscious back then. 

Parents seemed to sense there was dysfunction in the system. You'd hear whispering now and then. But there was fear of the school faculty carrying out reprisals vs. anyone seen as "rocking the boat." What I'm suggesting is that we had a teachers union that was capable of serious intimidation in those days. Keep in mind that government employees as a rule have this severe fear of change. They want to stay in a cozy comfort zone, so as to be sure of continuing in their jobs with the reliable paycheck. 

So I brought up the subject of Mr. Libbon with the coach who brusquely said "we don't do that here." 

Varsity was going to be juniors and seniors only. Imagine Jackson Loge being constrained by that. But he would have been. I felt the rules stunted the progression of athletes. I also felt the rules made the upperclassmen complacent - they knew their playing time was guaranteed. I sat next to a fan one night who commented that a certain upperclassman - he's still in town and I won't type his name - was giving less than 100 percent on the court. 

By the end of the '80s there were enhanced calls for change. And change did come. It never comes easily in education. So today we can report on an eighth-grader pitching a complete game shutout in his varsity debut. Here's a shout-out to Alex Asmus. Bravo to this eighth-grader. I'd better be ready to type his name many times. Asmus' pitching led the Tigers to a 2-0 win over Sacred Heart here in Morris. 

Brett Miller shared Alex's stats of four hits allowed, two walks and two K's. Alex produced a hit at bat himself. RBIs were picked up by Johnny Kleindl and Kyle Fehr. The Saturday success upped the Tigers' won-lost mark to 8-5.

Montevideo 9, Tigers 8

The Tigers sure looked like they were in the driver's seat in this game. What could be more promising than an 8-0 lead? "It ain't over 'til it's over" of course. 

"Stunned" was the word Brett Miller used, reflecting on our eventual 9-8 loss to Monte in eight innings. The difference came with a "walk-off" sacrifice fly in the 8th, putting the Thunder Hawks on top. 

The Friday action at Monte had our Drew Huebner looking good on the pitching mound through five innings. We appeared to be pounding the T-Hawks for a time. We led 8-0 having outhit the foe 16-1! The undaunted T-Hawks rallied for three runs in the sixth. Oh my, another five in the seventh, and then the SAC fly to win it in the eighth. 

Monte could have won in the seventh but our Tyler Berlinger in right field nailed a runner at home. Monte's game-winner was another close call at home plate, this time with the ump signalling "safe." Game over. 

Ozzy Jerome did his part for the Tigers: four hits in five at-bats and an RBI. Kyle Fehr drove in four runs. Victory proved elusive even with the robust team total of 17 hits. Huebner on the hill fanned 12 batters and ended up with a no-decision. 

The Tigers and T-Hawks weren't done with their day's business. Game 2 of the twin bill went to Monte too, score of 13-5. Our pitching issued eleven walks. Monte's pitching was generous too: ten walks. But Monte's pitching scattered just four hits. Riley Asmus was our pitcher of record. 

Monte got decisive momentum in the fourth: eight runs scored, highlighted by Cooper Dack's two-bagger that drove in three. Monte is having a banner spring: they owned a 12-1 mark at day's end.

Success vs. BOLD

The Tigers achieved wins in both ends of their doubleheader with the BOLD Warriors. Action was at the Olivia diamond where Drew Storck was handed the ball for our pitching in Game 1. And he responded with a complete game in this 7-3 win. Storck set down ten batters on strikes. One of the runs he allowed was unearned. He allowed just one hit and walked four. 

Three Tigers posted two hits each in the boxscore: Johnny Kleindl, Trevor Buss and Kyle Fehr. Ozzy Jerome drove in two runs. 

Let's take a look at Game 2 where Landon Gibson was our pitcher. The Tigers completed the sweep 8-1. Gibson fanned ten batters over his six innings on the hill. He allowed three hits and one run. Backing him was Fehr with a pair of hits, two RBIs and a run scored. Also, Riley Asmus with a three-for-four line, an RBI and run scored.

 

Stevens County Times website

I don't check the newspaper website often, and if I do it's just to see what they're up to over there. You never know when they might change and choose to become more dynamic, provide more of a service. 

I clicked on "sports." Do you sometimes do this too? You would think our only athletic teams here were "Cougars." What's the point of doing this? Don't you all feel a little insulted? If the paper sees fit to have all these links referencing the Cougars and the UMAC, well why not delve into MACA sports too? 

In principle wouldn't that be the only way to go? So why not? And isn't Cougar sports represented in state of the art fashion on UMM's own website? All the bells and whistles there? N'est-ce pas? 

So what gives? I assume that many newspaper sites perform better than this, many of them markedly better. And the print version of our paper only comes out once a week. I remember a former school administrator here, quite involved with athletics, who'd have a conniption if he felt we were just a little behind in reporting sports. What would he say now? Actually nothing, as his protestations were based on politics more than anything. When I was with the paper, I did not behave as an agent for the school's PR. 

In the late 1980s this community went through considerable duress in getting the whole school system to become more accountable. Public schools everywhere were doing what happens to them so often: adapting to change. It was just more uncomfortable in Morris than in other places. There are people in Morris who would never admit that this even happened. You see, that's politics too. If you're astute you know what I'm talking about. See no evil? Not a good way to go. 

On a positive note I can assert that our Morris public school appears to be doing everything very well today. Way to go, school administration. As for the school board, it should not have allocated any further funds for the "softball complex." One determined school board member saw the light on that, voted no, only one. So easy to spend OPM, other people's money. Look out for mud out there.

 

MAHS band concert, with ice cream too!

All of you who regularly check the school calendar should make a note, always, when a band concert is coming up: Make a point to attend! These events are really exciting. 

My, the Jazz I ensemble performed with a professional-like polish at times Monday night. The concert was preceded by soloists and ensembles performing in the cafeteria. This followed tradition for the spring concert. Ice cream treats are served too! I had a terrific ice cream cone. Free will offering to support scholarships. 

The musicianship was boffo. I especially enjoyed the French horn players. That's the instrument that yours truly started out on. I recall becoming highly dismayed, though, when I noticed the instrument was seen as a "girls instrument." Why would it be? I grew up in a time when certain things were seen as "manly" and the male students avoided feminine things like the plague. 

I just did not see why the French horn should be for girls. It's a challenging instrument to play: more delicate when it comes to intonation than the trumpet. I learned to play the trumpet to be in marching band. Eventually I switched over to trumpet ongoing. For sure it was a "boys" instrument. Flutes and clarinets? Girls. 

Why oh why? Our gender notions in those days could be strange. We are more enlightened today. Donald Trump may have grown up in a time when "boys will be boys" when it came to being sexually menacing with women. Now he has gotten his comeuppance. Or did he? Republicans and evangelical Christians are still mostly supportive of the orange man. But I read of fractures in the evangelical movement now. Not sure I want to call myself a Christian any more. 

It's not like we all have to become Democrats. We all just need to get brains. How is our educational system really operating in the USA, if we have so many hopeless ignoramuses who support Trump no matter what? 

I could write ad nauseam about Trump. My writing is not going to affect anything. The old guys at DeToy's Restaurant in the morning will continue to "bash the Democrats" even though their own lives have been made better by Democratic Party policies. 

Again, be sure to support our wonderful MAHS band program led by the most distinguished Wanda Dagen. She always looks good wearing black. Aw, she'd look good wearing any color.

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

UMM graduation stands out on our calendar

It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood for Morris MN. It's graduation day at UMM! The weather is pleasant enough for mid-May, certainly better than the miserable conditions we had for March and April. 

Alas, today's weather is not good enough to have the graduation outside. I don't take notes on this but my memory says UMM has been challenged, jinxed maybe, with its efforts to have graduation under a glorious early summer sky. Seems the event has had to be moved indoors in many years. 

There have been notable exceptions like the year Bob Bruininks came here to speak. Proud that I can still remember how to type his last name. Pronounced "Brunix." 

Al Franken when he had the glory of being a U.S. senator spoke inside. I still remember the term "UMM P.E. Center." I have to wonder if even "UMM" is precise anymore, what with the frequent "UMN" reference. "UMN" in and of itself does not specify Morris. In UMM's seminal days it was an institutional priority to get the name "Morris" out there. My late father wrote his UMM Hymn and UMM fight song with that priority most certainly exercised. 

The institution eventually adopted the "U of M Rouser" because, I was told, the priority was to emphasize we are in fact "University of Minnesota." Logical move? A problem with the Rouser is that it became such an "old turnip" through the years. Consider all the high schools that adopted it. I was at a tournament basketball event once where we heard a pep band launch into the Rouser for a repeated time, and we actually laughed! 

Be that as it may, the world certainly knows about how the U is represented here in. . .Morris. 

Without the U we wouldn't be anything like a cultural bastion, I suppose. There, that sentence would set a few people up for smart remarks. I was at the old Hardee's Restaurant once, sitting close to a UMM faculty acquaintance of mine who was with an obvious academic friend who I did not recognize. The friend started going on about Morris' alleged cultural shortcomings, and it got so bad I almost got up to go over and confront him. Discretion was the better part of valor. 

This was so long ago, we weren't even thinking about the Internet yet. 

The Internet and all the new tech has been such a tremendous equalizer. It has smashed boredom to bits. It has made the selling job for liberal arts institutions harder. We are not nearly so dependent on bricks and mortar institutions for the dispensing of knowledge. It's at everyone's fingertips. And human beings really do seek enrichment. 

A lot of it might be foolishness. The same was said of comic books when I was a kid. But I built my literacy a great deal consuming such fare, more than professional educators would care to admit. Really truly. Comic books were once a flashpoint in our culture. Today there's a wide raft of debatable stuff. People tap into that for dealing with boredom. What we might overlook is that people really do develop meaningful enrichment from it too. 

I only need point out that when I was a kid, only a small percentage of the population learned typing skills and it was considered a feminine skill. Remember "white out?" Maybe you don't. "Typing" was nothing like word processors of today. 

 

Nice food fare

I attended the brunch for the 2023 UMM Homecoming. Very pleasant event at the dining hall on campus. They should have had a senior price. Just kidding! Boy I sure got my money's worth ($12). I remembered the late Allen Anderson. 

You might know that the Williams family has made gestures to remain relevant to both UMM and the high school. Rewarding as that is, it is superseded by the simple experience of being around UMM students, as I was this afternoon. It doesn't get more enjoyable than that. 

I was surprised and flattered to be recognized by a UMM staff person who I had met only once previously, quite some time ago in fact. This individual noticed that I had made a gesture to the public school music program, of acquiring jazz band "fronts" for onstage. Great feeling to have done that, but it's an even better feeling to be at the concert hall and to hear the kids perform under director Wanda Dagen. 

"Jazz band" was called "stage band" when I was in high school. "Jazz" must have been a culturally edgy word or concept back then. Associated with non-white people? Shame on us if we thought that in a prejudicial way. 

My father had the credentials to present jazz in UMM's earliest years. Our culture wasn't ready for this on college campuses. Remember that we did not even have women's athletics at the start of UMM. Amazing! 

I can proudly say I was at UMM's first-ever commencement in 1964. U of M President O. Meredith Wilson was the special visiting guest. Imagine having the U of M president here in Morris! UMM was an awfully fresh institution at the time. We had to fight southern Minnesota interests to get the U here. Southern Minnesota eventually got the "consolation prize" of Southwest State (what my father always called "Little Marshall," sorry Vicki Dalager). 

My mom was with me when Senator Franken spoke at UMM. Again we were proud having such an important person here. Why did us Minnesotans allow the likes of Kirsten Gillibrand of New York state to pressure our senator into resigning? I mean, Trump's misbehavior with women which has now been legally adjudicated appears to be no obstacle at all for him advancing politically. The audience at the infamous "CNN Town Hall" seemed only to be amused or to side with Trump. 

I mean, why not? It's just the continuation of the pattern of Trump surviving everything. It's a cult. But we lost Franken as our senator. The seventh complaint against him was the one that seemed to break the camel's back, just based on volume, and what was the content of that complaint? That he put his hand on a woman's shoulder? 

We were privileged to have Sen. Franken come to our humble community for UMM graduation. I remember he talked informally with a great many people at Oyate after the ceremony. Always spicy to have a professional comedian around! 

Whither UMM in the year 2023? Good question. Is the institution adjusting properly to all the changes in our environment? We have to wonder. What's up with enrollment? I communicated with a friend via email this past week. Pessimism is not hard to come by. Nevertheless this friend filled me in on how there's a "steering committee" set up at UMM to try to boost numbers. 

My friend said "essentially every four-year college in Minnesota is suffering from declining enrollment." He is concerned that liberal arts might not be a promising foundation.

For the time being, let's try to celebrate everything associated with UMM!

 

Addendum: The UMM staff person who befriended me so nicely this afternoon was Doug Reed. I just refreshed myself on his position: director, Morris Challenge. I remember we talked baseball when I first met him which was at Common Cup. I forget the occasion. He has his office at the Welcome Center. His educational background includes Southern Illinois University and University of Virginia. I hope he's happy putting down his stakes here in the Upper Midwest. 

He introduced me to his wife Britany too. 

Congratulations to all the UMM graduates of 2023. It's a little bittersweet because all these young people are now moving beyond our little universe of Morris MN. 

Ahem, one final thought: any time UMM wishes to dust off my father's "UMM Hymn" for performance at graduation, I think it would be neat. It really does sound majestic and inspiring IMHO. John Stanley Ross once wrote an arrangement for both band and choir. Is that still in the library out there? Holy cow, might give you goosebumps. I hope new Chancellor Janet Ericksen is familiar with it. 

There, I spelled "Ericksen" with the "e" in the last syllable!

Doug Reed of "Morris Challenge" (live wide open image)

  

Addendum #2: I'm typing this addendum having just gotten back from campus where I observed the commencement opening. A main reason I wanted to go there was to pick up a program. Well, we're in the year 2023, so no paper programs! In the first two years after Mom's death, I placed the paper program on her bed to help seal her connection to UMM. She managed the campus post office. Me? I was her chauffeur. She never drove. 

Time marches on. So, no paper programs any more. I was told I could access something with my "smartphone." But I'm not smart enough to use a smartphone. Life goes on. 

So now "Pomp and Circumstance" is played as a recording, not by UMM student musicians? Lordy Lordy. I do have a hard time accepting this. UMM musicians normally have special features during the program too. 

My family has worked to help keep UMM music viable. I have told my main contact person at UMM that if the department ever ceases to exist, our family fund could go toward the Twin Cities campus, where my father invested much of his life. I'd be happy either way. 

Dad was a founding faculty member at UMM, one of the "original 13," and he was the sole music person in the institution's first year. A trailblazer. His founding status is on our family memorial at Summit Cemetery. It's a bench monument, black in color, in new portion of cemetery. Feel free to stop by and sit a spell anytime.

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com