September 2022

At the 32nd annual Minnesota Softball Hall of Fame Banquet on October 29th, Wayne Viessman, one of the founders of Viessman Trucking will be inducted into the Hall of Fame for his years spent with the Clarkfield Softball Team. Viessman played on, managed, and sponsored the Viessman Trucking Softball Team based in Clarkfield from 1971 to 2003. Viessman became involved in the softball program in Clarkfield at just 19 years old. “I started out being a sponsor and coach right away and played for quite a few years. Later in life, I was a sponsor and coach,” he says. Viessman, who came to the area from Iowa, played a lot of softball there and decided he enjoyed it enough to continue to stay involved in the sport. “I just liked the competition,” he says.

If you ask local musician Charlie Roth how long he knew the local and surrounding arts community legend Jerry Ostensoe, he’ll tell you it was over 40 years, as they met around 1980. Ostensoe recently passed away from ALS. In his final hours both Roth and another arts community pillar, Malena Handeen, played live music for Ostensoe as he lie in wait. Handeen had her accordion and Roth had his guitar and they played Ostensoe’s music just hours before he’d passed on. Dave Smiglewski, the mayor of Granite Falls and one of Ostenoe’s bandmates, was also present at the bedside performance.

When my class was traveling through Cottonwood County in southern Minnesota, we stopped at a dairy farm and listened to the family talk about what it took to run their farm. It was quite interesting seeing their large operation from newborn calves to welltrained milk cows taking their place to be milked, to the vast amounts of hayblown tubes for easy storage and removal for feeding.

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Tucked back away from the road located at 5073 Highway 212 just outside of Granite Falls exists Moonstruck Creations LLC. It is owned and operated by Bryan and Peggy Mooney of Granite Falls. They are on the Meander Art Crawl map for the 2022 Meander coming up from Friday, September 30 – Sunday, October 2nd. When you first find the driveway for the Mooneys home and shop, it may look like the driveway disappears into the forest, but soon you can see their home and their large wood shop where their creations are made.