Remember When July 13, 2023

10 years ago (2013)
•The Luverne Alternative School is no longer located at 110 North Oakley Street in Luverne. It is instead located in the main floor south wing of Luverne High School. …
Alternative school instructors Paul Johnson and Nancy Swanson moved their classrooms to the high school building in June.
School Board member Peggy Adams told board members at the June 27 board meeting she’d received a phone call from a parent of an alternative school student expressing concern about the relocation.
Adams said, “She said her family had chosen the alternative school specifically because it was not in the high school.” Fisher said many students who use the alternative school are actually full-time LHS students who are doing “credit recovery,” meaning they take one or two classes in the alternative school to earn credit for classes they have failed. …
We didn’t have as many kids sign up as we thought we would this summer. We’ll have to see what our student numbers look like in the fall.”
 
25 years ago (1998)
•Luverne’s Dan Cook secured an impressive racing victory in Brandon, S.D., Sunday night.
Competing at Huset’s Speedway, the most competitive track in the immediate area, Cook produced a rare feature victory to highlight last weekend’s results for area racers.
Cook took the checkered flag in the feature event in the 360 sprint car class.
 
50 years ago (1973)
•Elbers, Inc., of Hills, is opening a new appliance warehouse-store in Luverne this week.
Wilmer Elbers, owner, recently purchased the building at the west end of Main street, just north of the Sunrise Hotel, from the LBF Company, and has remodeled it for showroom and warehouse use.
 
75 years ago (1948)
•A bolt of lightning during Sunday night’s thunderstorm caused a blaze which resulted in about $6,000 worth of damage on a farm 5½ miles northeast of Magnolia. The farm, tenanted by Henry Johnson, is owned by P.L. Popkes of George, Iowa.
Destroyed were a 32x40 hip roof barn, 20x24 hog house, 30 tons of hay, one cow valued at $250, two pigs valued at $50 a piece and $200 worth of tools which were in the barn. …
Johnson had no telephone and his neighbor who did have a phone was not home so two passersby drove to Adrian to call the fire department. The Adrian firemen worked until 2:30 protecting the other buildings.
Johnson, however, was rather fortunate in one respect. Five head of cattle and six hogs had been hauled out to market at 6 p.m. that day, and had this not been the case, they would have been in the barn at the time of the fire.
Much harder to take though, was the fact that Mr. Johnson and his brother-in-law had worked in the hot weather all week filling the barn with hay only to have it all burn up.
 
100 years ago (1923)
•Magnolia community will hold an old-fashioned field day at Magnolia next Tuesday, July 17. A program has been arranged for the day which is expected to fill every minute with entertainment and pleasure.
At 10:30 a.m. a ball game will be played between Magnolia and Kenneth, a purse of $50 going to the winner. The picnic dinners will partake in the grove near the town hall, and the Adrian Concert band will be on hand at 12:45 to render a fine concert, preliminary to the address by E.H. Canfield, Esq.
At 1:30 various street sports, such as foot races, sack races, and other contests, will be held, for which prizes will be given. Another ball game, with Magnolia and Luverne as the opposite teams, will be staged at 3 o’clock, and 4:30 Shetland pony free-for-all and horse races, and the farmers’ eighty-rod running race will be held. Besides the kittenball game and band concert, which will be features of the evening’s entertainment, Ben Davis agrees to throw four men in forty minutes. The Davis boys will also put on one of their snappy boxing contests, and little Miss Davis will make her initial appearance as a public entertainer. In the evening a dance will be held at the hall.