10 years ago (2010)
•Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s unallotments to Local Government Aid are coming up more frequently in conversations at Luverne City Council meetings.
At Tuesday’s meeting, unallotments came up during discussion about routine street maintenance.
The city had let bids for sealcoating streets in the east central part of Luverne and in the Tri-State Addition surrounding the pool and fitness center.
The city’s Public Works Department aims to sealcoat every asphalt street in town every eight years in order to keep them in good shape.
This year the city budgeted $50,000 for sealcoating work. Realistically that amount wouldn’t cover the streets due for maintenance according to the eight-year plan, but City Administrator John Call had hoped it would be close.
It wasn’t.
The lowest bid came in at $65,000, so the city opted to sealcoat only half the streets using the low bid of $40,164.15.
25 years ago (1995)
•Fred Manfred Jr. is up to his substantial eyebrows in preparation for the revival of his original play “Tongues of Stone.”
The play will be the culminating event of the 1995 Buffalo Days celebration on June 4. It will also be presented June 9, with rain dates set for June 5 and 10.
Manfred, a Luverne High School graduate and son of the late Frederick Manfred, wrote the play in 1979. It was originally performed by local residents in 1980, 1981 and 1982.
50 years ago (1970)
•Much of Rock County found itself at the mercy of an unrelenting thunderstorm last Wednesday night and early Thursday morning as the rainfall reports varied from Luverne’s 2.76 inches to as much as 6.50 inches recorded in the Steen area.
Most of the destructive aspects of so heavy a rainfall in such a short period of time could be found in the Steen and Hills area with almost all of the basements flooded in both communities. …
Doug Steffen remarked that things were “quite a mess” at Steen following the five to almost six and a half inches of rain which fell there between the hours of 2 and 5 a.m. Steffen stated that there probably wasn’t an unflooded basement in the village.
Damage was even worse south of Steen with thousands of dollars worth of fence washed out and tons of topsoil washed away. Mud Creek, one mile east of Hills and three miles west of Steen, was said by eyewitnesses to have “really been boiling over.” Evidence of the swollen stream could be seen Thursday as the rampaging waters tore the shoulders off Trunk Highway 270 for some distance.
One of the biggest losses was suffered by Paul Leuthold, who farms two miles south of Hills, on the Iowa boundary line. He lost four heifers, each weighing about 600 pounds, had about a mile and a half of pasture fence ripped out, and about 15 acres of corn smothered with silt and debris.
75 years ago (1945)
•Announcement that Beaver Creek village was the first to make its quota of $13,825 in war bond pledges during the Seventh War Loan Drive was made by County Chairman Brown Tuesday.
He stated that J. R. Crawford, chairman of the Beaver Creek committee, reported Tuesday morning that they had “gone over the top.” No other community in the county has reported that its quota had been reached, Brown said.
Beaver Creek’s drive this time was one of the most successful ever held there. Setting a day when the residents were to call at the village council rooms to sign their pledges, the committee obtained over $8,000 worth of pledges by this volunteer method. Heartened by the fine response, many of these who made pledges doubled their original amount, while meanwhile, solicitors called upon those who did not sign pledges the opening day. By Tuesday morning, they had exceeded their quota.
100 years ago (1920)
The annual commencement exercises of the Luverne high school, which were to have been held last night, were postponed late yesterday afternoon until next Friday evening, June 4th.
This action was the outcome of efforts to clear up the theft of copies of the questions for the state examination held this week. The report was current that not more than three students of the Luverne high school, among whom there might be one member of the senior class, and some students from the Worthington high school were responsible if not directly implicated in the theft of the questions. Strong efforts were made by Supt. Bell and members of the board of education to discover the guilty parties, but no information whatever could be secured from any of the school students.
Yesterday morning it was decided to permit the commencement exercises to take place as planned, but to withhold the presentation of the diplomas from the entire class until the theft of the questions was cleared up. Members of the class protested against having the graduation exercises without awarding diplomas, and late yesterday afternoon at a meeting of the class and the school board it was decided to postpone the graduation exercises until June 4th to give opportunity to sift to the bottom the theft of the questions.
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