Feature Stories from the Star Eagle pages.
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BLOOD, SWEAT, TEARS, AND FAMILY - The Leonardo family is pictured above in the newly renovated gym, Panther PowerHouse. After five months of renovations the building is unrecognizable. From left: Jayce, Melisa, Keith, Reed, and Kenzie Leonardo. Star Eagle photo by Eli Lutgens
By ELI LUTGENS
Publisher/Editor
“If you build it, they will come.” The infamous line from the movie Field of Dreams has been the motto for Keith and Melisa Leonardo as they renovated and transformed Panther PowerHouse, formerly New Richland Fitness, over the past five months. An open house will be held August 7, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. to celebrate the grand opening of the gym.
Keith and Melisa found their lives revolving around New Richland after the two married in 2013. The pair lives in Claremont with their three kids Jayce, Kenzie and Reid, but a lot of their business is found in New Richland. They rent several other New Richland properties, including the New Richland Craft Mall building.
“We really focus on single family units and investing in small towns,” Keith explained. “The town of New Richland is a natural place for us to do business since Melisa is from New Richland and we have some family in the area.” Melisa is a 1999 graduate of NRHEG and daughter of Kim and Marcia Berg.
The Leonardo’s were looking for another way to invest in Melisa’s hometown when they heard through the grapevine that the local New Richland gym might be for sale. “A lot of people reached out to us and told us we should do this,” Melisa said. “We love our small town roots. I don’t want to say we were looking for this big of a project, but this one spoke to us.”
In February Keith called Wayne Billing and expressed interest in purchasing the more than 100-year-old main street property in New Richland. The former grocery store and gym includes two second floor apartment units, and the main floor gym. When negotiating the terms of the sale of the property, Wayne and Jean stressed how important it was to them to keep the downstairs a gym for the community. The building had been in his family for many years and serving the community is what the building has always done.
The five-month project included a lot of blood, sweat and tears from Keith, Melisa, and their family and friends. The interior was expanded 20 feet further back, the interior walls removed, and the original tin ceiling exposed, restored, and painted to create a much more open space. An upper loft previously used to overlook the grocery store was also removed.
“I’m the spreadsheet and budget manager,” Melisa said. “He makes the dreams come to life.” The Leonardo’s involve their three kids in all of their projects so they can learn the importance of hard work, and about entrepreneurship.
As soon as Keith walked into the gym, he had an image in his mind of what he wanted it to become. It was just the matter of making it happen and according to Keith this is only phase one.
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BREATHTAKING - A monarch butterfly rests on a milkweed flower along a local road. A bee feeds on native bee balm in an area conservation plot. The study of native plants--including both milkweed and bee balm--is an important element of studying monarch butterflies. Star Eagle photo by Deb Bently
By DEB BENTLY
Staff Writer
Wendy Caldwell, executive director of Monarch Joint Venture, has been studying monarch butterflies and their interconnectedness with the environment since her college days beginning back in 2007. She is ready, though, and even anxious to learn more.
The organization she leads is based in the Twin Cities, with offices in California and Michigan. Its purpose is to serve as a clearing house for information and recommendations to assist the many people, groups, businesses and agencies which have a stake in monarch butterflies and their annual migration. “We want to help them make their efforts as efficient as possible,” she explains. At the current time, well over a hundred groups from all over the country have partnered with the organization.
It seems everybody is fond of monarchs.
“Pretty much everyone has a connection with them,” observes Caldwell, “whether it was raising a monarch in a classroom as a child or watching as hundreds of monarchs flew overhead during a southward migration.”
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New Richland Ambulance Director Sarah Sundve served as the interhim director of the department for three months before she was hired as the department head in March.
By MELANIE PILTINGSRUD
Staff Writer
Sarah Sundve, who grew up on the county line between New Richland and Hartland and graduated from NRHEG, has an important job to do in our communities; she is an EMT and, as of March 22 of this year, the director of the ambulance crew in New Richland.
Sundve, the daughter of Jim and Kathy Peterson, became a first responder in 2014, and has worked as an EMT since 2016.
Sundve doesn't like to let the grass grow under her feet. She is married and has three children, two step-children, and two grandchildren, yet she also finds time to work full-time at Mayo Clinic Ambulance Service out of Albert Lea/Austin, besides directing the ambulance crew in New Richland. How does she do it? She loves it.
“When I started as a first responder, I loved helping people and wanted to do more and learn more,” said Sundve of why she decided to become an EMT.
On May 20, the New Richland ambulance had an open house, where Sundve encouraged those interested in volunteering as a first responder or EMT to ask questions. She is eager to dispel doubts, saying, “You may not think it is something you can do, which is what I thought and now I do it full-time and love my job.”
Those wanting to apply to become an EMT in New Richland can stop in at city hall for an application, call Sara Jo Vulcan at 507-465-3514 or email Sarah Sundve at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. “We will be able to help you in the process,” said Sundve. “Each person that applies goes through a background check and city council approval before being officially hired.
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By MELANIE PILTINGSRUD
Staff Writer
After eight years of ministry at Ellendale's Vibrant Life Assembly of God, Patrick and Kalyna Stitt and their five children have decided to become missionaries to Japan.
Patrick Stitt, originally from Ireland, moved to England as a teenager with his parents. There his father taught sociology and social policy, and his mother was a health care nurse. Stitt came to the United States in 2004 to go to Bethany Global University.
Kalyna was born in Rochester, Minn., the daughter of a military family, who was used to moving constantly. She, too, felt called to the ministry, and chose the Bethany missionary school where the two met.
Patrick Stitt is grateful for the reception he and his family received at Vibrant Life Assembly of God. “It's been wonderful,” says Stitt. “When I started out, I sucked. I was so bad. I had no clue what I was doing, was just a terrible preacher, a terrible pastor all around, and they just still loved me, and they were just really kind to me. If you go to the Cities and you pastor a church, and you do poorly, you're their employee, so you're going to need to fix that or move on. In rural Minnesota, it's like, 'Yeah, he might suck, but he's our pastor and we love him!' It's the goofy cousin that you just love anyway. But they gave me the grace to grow.”
Despite the good fit at Vibrant Life, Patrick and Kalyna Stitt felt called to the mission field. “God just put a burden on our hearts for people who would never get the chance to hear the Gospel,” says Stitt. He and his family learned that Japan is the second least reached country in the world. Per Stitt, it is the only country where Christianity is legal and yet is still on the decline.
The Stitts reached out to missionaries in Japan and, through them, gained the opportunity to go to Japan to run a church for two weeks. Stitt went there with his oldest son, Jack.
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By DEB BENTLY
Staff Writer
Dan Lewer and Chris Olson have not simply “taken over” the meat processing business located on South Ash Avenue in New Richland. They are in the process of transforming it.
Oh, it’s true that the business looks much the same, at least for now. It still offers the same long-standing services and products, and even has many of the same employees. Customers need have no concern their needs and interests are being met. But at the same time, bigger things are going on behind the scenes.
“We both have children who are devoted to agriculture,” observes Olson who, with Lewer, has been an owner and operator of Neighbor’s Meats since May 2021. “For the sake of our community and for the next generation, we want to be part of building a farm-to-table system that is sustainable for everybody.”
Both Olson and Lewer have close ties to the meat processing business: Lewer’s grandfather and uncle, Gerald and Keith Hullopeter, were owners of the business on South Ash Avenue in New Richland from the 1970s to the 1990s, and Olson’s grandparents worked for them.
Two generations later, the two families remain connected, with Olson and Lewer having been close friends and associates for more than 16 years, including most recently working together at the Hope Elevator. Both also continue to operate their respective family farms, one facet of which is raising beef cattle.
Both had long been aware that the current system of food distribution in the U.S. has too many “middle men.” Farmers would market their cattle to large processing plants, which, because they were buying in volume, paid a relatively low price for the animals. Farmers then paid to ship their cattle to the plants, where the large companies reportedly made significant profit for each pound returned to stores and distribution centers.