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Remember When Feb. 6, 2020

10 years ago (2010)
•Winter weather closings tend to affect roads and schools, but they can also include county public offices.
Following the 25-car pile-up on Interstate 90 last week (Jan. 25), the Rock County Courthouse and other offices closed their doors to the public — employees continued working.
Under current policy, county offices close when I-90 closes.
The intent is to keep the public from traveling in hazardous conditions. However, the closing can cause misunderstanding.
“People are confused when there is a parking lot full of cars, but the doors are locked,” said Rock County Deputy Administrator Susan Skattum. Thus, the County Board discussed a possible revision to the snow event policy at its meeting on Tuesday.
Similar to winter driving, drafting a policy is tricky.
“It’s changed three or four times since I’ve been here,” said County Administrator Kyle Oldre.
 
25 years ago (1995)
•Josh and Jeremy Stoltenberg play pog all the time, according to their father, Lonny. “It keeps them occupied for hours,” he said. “They just play and play and play.” ...
All this pog playing is coming in handy for the seven-week-long tourna-ment at Dug Out Plus, which started Sunday afternoon. Hillary Weis, who works for the Dug Out Plus, is coordinating the tournament for owner Gene Gehrke. She said nine players showed up for the first round of the tournament.
Pog is a game played with water-like cardboard disks, about an inch and half in diameter. Several players stack the pogs upside down on top of each other — each player antes up a certain amount of pogs and tries to win them back.
Then they take turns “slamming” the stack with heavy silver-dollar-sized “slammers” at just the right angle in an effort to flip over as many pogs as possible. “It’s a challenge to see how many pogs you can flip over,” said 11-year-old Danny Jolivette, Luverne. “It’s like a gamble.”
Each player gets a point for each opponent’s piece he flips over, or gets to keep the piece. At the Dug Out Plus tournament, the kids keep their opponents’ pogs and return them at the end of the game.
 
50 years ago (1970)
•An indoor community swimming pool is the goal of a citizens’ committee which met here Wednesday night. George Sliby, who has been named to head the committee, announced that it was the hope of the group he represents that the matter of issuing bonds to build the pool as project of Luverne School District No. 670 will be placed on the ballot at the annual school election in May.
About 50 persons, a number of them Luverne high school students, attending the meeting and heard Ab Strommen, St. James high school athletic director and swimming pool coordinator, outline the benefits which he says the St. James community has enjoyed since their pool was opened in 1961. …
He said he has had residents of the St. James school district who have come to him and told him how they had voted against the pool before it was built, and are now convinced that it is one of the best investments the district has ever made.
 
75 years ago (1945)
•Snow shovelers had their heaviest workout of the season, following a 12-inch snowfall here Saturday night and early Sunday.
Traffic was virtually at a standstill Sunday morning. Streets were next to impassable, as were also some of the highways. Snowplow crews went into action immediately, however, and soon had cleared paths through the main thoroughfares.
Sunday morning’s east bound bus schedule was canceled, but the westbound bus in the evening came through, but was an hour late. North and southbound buses were on schedule.
Absence of wind is the only factor that prevented what might have been the winter’s most disastrous storm. There was some drifting in the country, but not to the extent that roads were blocked again, once they had been open.
 
100 years ago (1920)
•For one solid week, starting with next Friday, the 13th, a representative of the internal revenue department of the federal government will be in Luverne for the purpose of assisting Rock county people in making out their income reports. He will have his headquarters at the Commercial club rooms at the Manitou hotel.
The government representative can be consulted without charge, and he is authorized to take oath required on returns. This free advisory service is primarily to aid those who are required for the first time to consider their liabilities for income taxes and to make sworn returns.

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