NRHEG Community Education is offering a bus trip to the Old Log Theater’s production of “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” Friday, March 27.

“Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” is set in the colorful world of the French Riviera where casino culture is widespread. When an American rival, Freddy, arrives on the French coast, he challenges the status quo and Lawrence’s position as chief con-artist is threatened. They decide the town just isn’t big enough for the two of them and challenge each other to a bet; the first one to swindle $50,000 wins. As they both take on the bet, they fall for the same woman, but quickly realize that they may have bitten off more than they can chew.

“Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” has been described as stylish, irreverent, and "a little bit of Broadway musical comedy heaven."

Call 417-2667 to register for this trip. 

ECFE (Early Childhood Family Education) is having its Spring Kickoff Monday, March 2 in the Ellendale School Cafeteria at 6:30 p.m. Bingo, bowling, and banana splits will be enjoyed by all. Free books will be given to all preschoolers. This event is free. ECFE is available to families of preschoolers age birth to 5 (not yet in kindergarten).

The spring ECFE classes start on Monday, March 9 in New Richland and Tuesday, March 10 in Ellendale. Classes are in the preschool rooms at both sites and start at 6:15 p.m. Call Marilyn Dobberstein at 417-2667 for more information. 

Kubiatowicz, Erickson, Peterson advance

By JIM LUTGENS

Editor/Publisher

The season continues for three NRHEG High School wrestlers.

Dillon Kubiatowicz, Todd Erickson and Cordell Peterson advanced to the state tournament out of Saturday’s Section 2A individual tournament at Blue Earth. Kubiatowicz and Erickson claimed the championship at 120 and 220 pounds, respectively, while Peterson was the runner-up at 126. Trey Hoppe missed state by one place, taking third at 160.

The Panthers had a strong tournament as a team, with 13 placewinners. Taking fourth were Palmer Peterson, 145; Jet Wayne, 152; Nick Bartness, 170; Keith Maxon, 182; and Matt Jensen, 195. Placing fifth were Cole Lenort, 113; Cole Staloch, 132; Alex Merritt, 138; and Zeke Erickson, 285.

According to Panthers coach Shawn Larson, NRHEG’s three state qualifiers did a good job preparing for the section tournament.

Panthers defeat KW, St. Clair

By TROY THOMPSON

Sportswriter

The NRHEG boys’ basketball team tuned up for the Section 2AA Tournament with a pair of non-conference wins last week.

With the victories, the Panthers finished the regular season with a 21-4 record and will take a No. 2 seed into Section 2AA South play beginning Tuesday, Feb. 24 with a home game against No. 7 seed Medford.

NRHEG 68, Kenyon-Wanamingo 40

The Panthers struggled early against a patient KW zone defense, but eventually pulled away for a 68-40 win on Tuesday, Feb. 17.

The NRHEG girls’ basketball team rebounded from a nonconference loss to Southland to defeat Faribault Bethlehem Academy 70-48 at New Richland last Friday. The Panthers improved to 13-10 for the season and 9-3 in the Gopher-Valley Conference.

The Panthers started slow after a tough, physical loss to Southland but managed a 32-24 advantage at halftime.

“We were able to go on a little run,” said coach Onika Peterson. “We came out in the second half a little stronger shooting and rebounding. We ended up being able to get everyone in tonight for one of our last regular-season games.”

While I earned my major in English Education at Winona State, I never received a minor degree. I was focused on earning my coaching certification, with my eyes set on being a varsity coach for basketball or baseball someday. I had gotten a taste of coaching after high school when my dad, who coached my summer baseball team, was sick, leaving me to coach our team. I was hooked.

Add to that all the time I spent riding the pine in basketball and baseball, and I had learned a lot by listening to my coaches. I wasn’t inclined to pout for not playing, so I used that experience to gain more knowledge about those sports I so loved. When the opportunity arose to volunteer at the Winona YMCA coaching youth girls’ basketball in 1994, I jumped at it.

That first experience led to two other coaching opportunities while in college. I learned plenty about practice and game management and was happy to become a junior high girls’ coach when I arrived at NRHEG in 1996.

Fast forward to this past season. 2007 was the last time I had coached junior high basketball. After that season, I hung up my whistle to take some time off before my daughter got to the elementary basketball program in 2010. I needed to take a breather, since I knew I’d have to coach differently for 3rd grade girls than I did for 8th graders. Plus, I was enjoying the times I got to announce varsity games and wanted to do more of that.

While I had thought that after my group of girls finished the elementary program, I’d be able to fully retire from coaching basketball, I found that I really, really liked my group of ballplayers and wanted a shot at seeing what we could do with practice every day and having everyone on one team, since we had always evenly split in elementary basketball.

Here’s something of which I’m extremely proud: We started 3rd grade with 18 girls. Two of those moved out of the district, but we still had 13 of those original kids out for basketball this year, plus six more! These girls love basketball and work hard at it. I’m a demanding coach, so it’s a credit to them for sticking through having to listen to me for four years and still wanting to commit to a full season.

We played a number of teams this year that had to use 8th graders at times because they didn’t have enough 7th graders to fully man a team by themselves. They couldn’t believe how many kids NRHEG had and often commented that it was the Carlie Wagner syndrome. I beg to differ. These girls were out for basketball before anybody knew who Carlie was. She certainly helped inspire them as they evolved, but these girls are active in other sports as well, to their credit.

I loved coaching again this year, seeing this team mature and have a lot of “ah-ha” moments on the court. It was gratifying to see support from our bench from girls who didn’t play as much, but were into every game and cheering on their teammates. There were a lot of girls who worked hard at practice, but didn’t always see a lot of the court, but I never saw them sulking on the bench, and I thought often back to my playing days and that same scenario.

The group of parents that I’ve gotten to work with these past five years has been amazing. They’ve been very supportive of the direction we’ve gone. It’s tough to arrange work schedules to make 4:30 games in 7th grade, but the cheering sections we had, even on the road, really helped motivate the girls. Even in places like Morristown and Faribault and Kasson, our crowd was usually bigger than theirs! Our Ellendale gym was as loud as I’ve ever heard it during our home tournament this year!

The best part of this year was having Todd Born at my side again, helping coach this group. He provides such insight into the game, and I was happy to see him honored at a varsity game last week for 40 years of officiating. He’s done so much for Panther basketball through being a good official for our younger levels, and some kids don’t realize it until they experience bad officiating on the road, but I know our girls recognized it this year when he would ref some of our home games. Todd deserves at least as much credit as I get for moving this group of girls in the right direction, maybe even more.

One more year of coaching. That’s what I keep telling myself. It’s an intoxicating occupation, I’ll admit, but I’m very tired. I love the job, but after next year I hope to sit back and watch them develop even more under our high school staff. My job will be done, and I hope it will be well done.

Word of the Week: This week’s word is preternatural, which means beyond what is normal or expected, as in, “The team had a preternatural ability to execute in close games, which gave their coach many gray hairs.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!

The scurs were wise not to mothball those long johns just yet and with the help of the Weather Eye, they made the right call. Will their reliance on the Weather Eye prove justified for another week? Starting Wednesday, partly sunny with highs in the low teens and lows slightly below zero. Mostly sunny and cooler for Thursday with highs in the upper single digits and lows slightly below zero. Friday, sunny and warmer. Highs in the upper teens and lows around 5 above. Mostly cloudy and warmer on Saturday with an increasing chance of snow. Highs in the low 20’s with lows in the low teens. Sunday, continued warmer with a good chance of snow for the first day of March. Partly cloudy with highs in the mid-20’s with lows around 10. Sunny on Monday with highs in the mid-20’s and lows in the mid-teens. Then mostly sunny and warmer for Tuesday. Highs in the mid-30’s with lows in the mid-teens. February 26th puts us back over 11 hours of daylight for the first time since October 15th. The sun will set at 6 p.m. on February 27th. The normal high for March 1st is 33 and the normal low is 16. The scurs have more free time on their hands since they skipped watching the Oscars, again.

When one looks at the temperature and precip records for February, all one will likely say is it was dry and cold barring a resurgence of 80-degree temps and a sudden deluge before the weekend. Temperatures have trended well below normal since the 12th. As a result the frost depth has actually increased at the SROC as the month has progressed, going from 20” on the 16th to 25” on the 23rd. Can usually tell when the frost gets to about 2’ at the ranch because the frame on the walk-in door at the ranch begins to heave and it won’t close. Not until the frost goes out again anyway.

Bird activity has been steady with the cold we’ve had. We have an active group of woodpeckers and nuthatches. They’ve adapted well to the horizontal suet feeders. Fortunately the starlings and sparrows have not. The Roller Feeder has kept the squirrels at bay and while the house sparrows have increased their activity, it’s still hard for them to kick as much feed out on the ground due to the smaller size of the feeder. The cardinals continue to be pleasant additions. We see them almost every day, although by the sound of things, they live at neighbor David’s if their singing in the early morning is any indication. 

Watching the squirrels in the yard is a favorite pastime not only for Ruby and Fudgie but for me as well. While some are less taken with them I’ve always been amazed by these hardy little creatures. In Sunday’s wind, they were busy climbing the tree, grabbing their kernel of corn and getting to the leeward side of the tree to get out of the elements. They’ve eaten a fair amount of corn too over the course of the winter. At approximately two ears a day since November with roughly 480 kernels per ear average that’s about the equivalent of a bushel and peck’s worth of shell corn. I’m fairly positive they’ve “planted” a lot in the yard too. One could probably spray the lawn with glyphosate and produce a pretty good corn crop.

Lambing progress has moved slowly as of this writing. That will change. Only four ewes have lambed thus far and they are lined up like planes on a runway. The six lambs on the ground so far are healthy even though the weather hasn’t exactly been cooperative. There are some cold days when one wonders how they can take it. The lambs look a little hunched up and possibly cold. The next thing you know they’re bouncing off their mothers and using them as playground equipment.

Got to see the Gopher women’s basketball team’s last home game of the year and it didn’t disappoint. An old high school friend had invited us to join him and his wife so we had decided this would be a nice break. Mrs. Cheviot had at the last minute changed her mind and with the ewes getting ever closer to lambing, she stayed behind. I went ahead anyway and Phil was able to find another taker for her ticket. The game was the stuff legends are made of. Zahui had 27 points and 27 boards, Kelley pumped in 23 and local heroine Carlie Wagner added 21 in a double-overtime victory. What was probably most interesting to me though was how the game was a catalyst for a day with an old friend. 

Phil and I had been friends throughout high school. We had been in FFA, band and choir together and had done our level best to have a good time. When we graduated high school, we went our separate ways. Phil went to Augsburg where he met his wife Janine. I went to the U, where I wasn’t serious about much of anything other than agriculture. Phil and I saw each other at class reunions but hadn’t had an opportunity to do much socially until getting together with another friend a few years ago. Saturday it was as if the friendship hadn’t skipped a beat. Driving to their house, having a scrumptious late breakfast they’d prepared and attending the game made for reminiscing as well as catching up. Meeting their dogs was an honor too as I have a well-known soft spot for furry friends. Also got to meet their friend David who was the lucky recipient of the spare ticket. I couldn’t tell if he was furry or not because he kept his hat on. By the time the day was over, it was time to go home and it had been a “10”. One set of twins was all that had been born so Mrs. Cheviot hadn’t been inundated with ewes coming in and I was able to get home in time to help finish the chores. 

Later that night as I was flipping through the channels I found the 2007 Led Zeppelin Celebration Day concert. Couldn’t help but think how there were probably some similarities between the band members and the bond that Phil and I along with several others had. We were all musically talented and while we certainly weren’t in the class of a Zeppelin, it didn’t stop us from playing together and enjoying each other’s company. As Jimmy Page cavorted with his Les Paul, Robert Plant wailed and moaned, John Paul Jones kept pace on the keyboards and along with John Bonham’s son Jason on drums, there were parallels. Each performed their part seemingly effortlessly. After the last bows were taken and they walked off stage, you could sense they still got along, and that was all that mattered until the next time. 

See you next week…real good then.