DigElogROCORI

ALL OF 2005 / Music

2005 ROCORI Football Coverage

All Of 2005 / Education

Alfred (Fritz) Stommes (Obituary)

Age 84

Cold Spring

September 19, 1921 - December 31, 2005

Mass of Christian Burial will be 11:00 a.m. Wednesday, January 4, 2006 at St. Boniface Catholic Church in Cold Spring, MN for Alfred (Fritz) Stommes, age 84, who died Saturday at the DVA Medical Center in St. Cloud.  Burial will be in the St. Nicholas parish cemetery.

Friends may call after 4:00 p.m. Tuesday and from 9:00 - 10:30 a.m. Wednesday morning at the Wenner Funeral Home in Cold Spring.  Parish prayers will be at 4:00 p.m. followed by a rosary with the Catholic Order of Foresters, St. Nicholas Menís Society, American Legion Post #455 and Cold Spring Senior Citizens.

To View Fritz's Complete Memorial

YEAR IN REVIEW "Moments In Sports"

The ROCORI Girls Tennis team finished their season this past fall with 10 wins and 9 losses.  This is the first time in the schools history that the team has accomplished a winning season.  "Hats Off" to the Spartan Girls Tennis team.

Also for the first time, three Spartan girls made it far enough to compete at the Girls Tennis section finals. 

Lizzi Feldhege represented the Spartans in the singles competition, while Alyse Grelson and Lindsey Schmitt participated in the doubles team matches.  Great job girls and congratulations.

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View The Tennis Team Video Story
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One member of the ROCORI girls cross country team consistently competed in the top 10 and many times as a top 5 runner throughout the year. Caitlyn Dingmann represented ROCORI this year in the Class AA State Cross Country Meet.

Some of the Caitlyn's accomplishments earlier in the season included a second place finish in Paynesville on September 30th and a first place finish in Albany on September 28th.

The Land of Rocori congratulates Caitlyn Dingmann!

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View Dingmann's Video Story
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The Rocori Varsity Football Team made a Cinderella story finish to their season by winning their way to the 4AAAA quaterfinals of the State Football Tournament.

Entering the Section 8AAAA tournament, Rocori was the No. 5 seed with a record of 3-5. It beat Detroit Lakes 25-0 in the quarters; #1 Sartell 19-15 in the semis and #3 Alexandria 8-6 in the finals.

The Rocori Football Team were a testimonial to the theme that hard work and daily step by step improvement can make a looser into a winner.

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See The Cinderella Story
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Coach Bob Brink begins his 36th season as the ROCORI Spartans Head Boys Basketball coach.  Coach Brink has led Spartan teams to 10 state tournament berths and ranks as the second-winningest head coach (802 victories) in Minnesota high school history.

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Hear Coach Brink's Team Assessment
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YEAR IN REVIEW "Kids Learning"

Today we're going to visit Mr. Spanier's 5th grade classroom at Cold Spring Elementary.  This year Mr. Spanier has a new learning tool in his classroom called a "Smart Board".

The smartboard is like a giant computer screen displaying text, graphics, and photos that both the teacher and students can see, move, write on and interact with.  The entire class  can respond to information and lessons that are projected onto the big screen.  Lets drop in and see how this new technolgy is working for Mr. Spanier and his students.

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To View The SMARTBOARD Story CLICK HERE!
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ROCORI has a new band director, Tony Hutar.  The Fall Marching Band Camp was held where Mr. Hutar and this year's Marching Band got to put it all together.  The show this year is titled "Phantom of the Opera".

Tony Hutar joined the ROCORI teaching staff during the summer of 2005 as the new band director replacing Jason Koets.  Tony spent 10 years as the band director in Holdingford and has a bachelors degree from St. Scholastica and a masters degree in Music from St. Cloud University.

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View Mr. Hutar & Fall Band In Action
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When is the last time you sat in a 3rd grade elementary classroom?  Do you remember studying the stages of a Monarch butterfly?   This short visit to Ms. Schmidt's 3rd grade class will put a smile on your face.

Principal Jerry Sparby talks about the need for kids to get outside and play together.  Finally, Lynn Schurman, school board chair, provides some basic information about ROCORI school finances and the Nov. 8th referendum.  All this packed into a 5 minute, fun video.

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Click Here To See KIT Story
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The Cold Spring Fire Department held its annual Open House and Fire Prevention Education Day on Tuesday, October 11, 2005. 

Local firefighters spent most of the day in classrooms educating elementary students on fire safety.

In the evening, the entire department boarded all of their trucks and vehicles for a tour of the town looking for kids who practiced fire safety at home that night.

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Watch The Fire Department OPEN HOUSE 
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ROCORI High School has a wonderful new multimedia program for students that DigElogROCORI is honored to be able to work with.  These creative kids are under the direction of media instructor Linda Leibl, with the consultative assistance of our own Channel 10 Cable Queen Pat Grelson. 

Every other week during the school year, one of the student media teams creates a 5 minute video story just for DigElog ROCORI and the Channel 10 cable viewing audience.  Here is an example of a very action filled video called Wizards & Swords with some special effects that I know you'll enjoy.

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View WIZARDS & SWORDS Student Project
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YEAR IN REVIEW "Leaving A Legacy"

In September you met Cold Spring resident Ken Raschke who grew up on a Midwestern farm during the depression and WWII years. Ken told of a simple life as a child where ones ability to work and provide for all of your families needs was the foundation of survival on the farm.

Just a week after we finished producing this story for Ken who seemed healthy as a mule at the time, he ended up on a hospital surgery table in Rochester, MN.  When the operation took a turn for the worst, Ken's wife Sylvia remembered the video we had captured and how thankful she was that these stories would live on regardless of the operation's outcome that day.

Today, Ken is doing very well and has recovered totally from the operation.  He very much values the time he took to capture a few of his life stories on video as a part of his family legacy.

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View Ken's DigElogROCORI Story
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I met Herb Theis for the first time in the local nursing home during the fall of 2004.  He had recently been diagnosed with a type of cancer that would most likely take his life in a short 3-6 months.

That same day, Herb and I captured over 3 hours of video where Herb told wonderful stories about his ancestors who were local pioneers.  Then a few days later, when Herb was feeling up to it, we even visited the old family farmstead together, a place where Herb had lived all his life. 

Herb had always been a local historian who was happy to tell stories about his pioneering family and his own life growing up on the farm.

Well, it gives me great pleasure to say that Herb has beat the odds makers and is still at the nursing home telling his stories to the many friends and relatives who come to visit. If you have a chance to visit with Herb, he'll tell you that there's only one person who can predict when it's your time to go and that's the "Good Lord" himself.

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To view some of Herb's stories:
"Why Did They Come To America"
House On The Sauk River
A Philosophy Of Life-Long Giving
The Day "All Hell Broke Loose"

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On Wednesday, April 28th, 2004, the old highway 23 iron bridge across the Sauk River in Cold Spring, Minnesota, disappeared from sight to make room for the new four-lane concrete bridge that stands there today. 

A few weeks earlier, my good friend Ted Krebsbach and I paid our last respects to the "Old Iron Bridge" and took a series of photos to remember it by.  Soon after that, Ted used this last visit as the inspiration to write a story about the old bridge and the "bridge kids" that enjoyed it as a giant playground and Olympic diving board over 60 years ago.

The photos and the story have now been combined into a video that you can view here at  DigElogROCORI.  It's a precious story that young and old alike enjoy.  It's a story that deserved to be told and will now be remembered as a part of the "Land Of ROCORI" living legacy here on DigElogROCORI.

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To view "The Bridge Kids" story:
The Bridge Of Memories PART I 
The Bridge Of Memories PART II

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If you have attended a parade in Central Minnesota over the past 30 years, you have seen this man driving one of his Cadillac convertibles along with three pretty girls sitting in the back. 

Yes, Willie Scheel has been escorting the Queens of Paynesville, Minnesota, in every local parade since 1976.

Willie and I met at a wedding we both were attending.  For me, the bride was marrying a good friend of the family.  For Willie, he was attending another wedding where he and his pink Cadillac were escorting a previous Paynesville Queen and her new husband around town.

It wasn't long after visiting with Willie that I realized his story was something that needed to be captured on video.  This was just one chapter in Willie's many life stories and I'm pleased we were able to record it so it could be shared here for all to enjoy.

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To view Willie's Cadillacs In The Parade story:
 30 Years Of Queens Riding In My Cadillac
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Herb Hesse was born in Cold Spring, Minnesota in 1920.  He was number 7 of 13 children in his family.  In this story Herb tells about walking home from school along the railroad tracks hoping to find chunks of coal along the way.  As the train would roll by on the tracks, chunks of coal would often bounce to the ground from the coal car right behind the locomotive.

Herb lived in a home that was typical for the times.  Paper thin walls and a lone wood stove as the only source of heat during the winter. Herb tells about using coal in the wood stove as a way to keep the fire burning longer into the night.

Herb and Lorraine Hesse sat down earlier this year and video recorded over three hours of family stories.  These stories were then edited and saved onto a 100 year DVD.  Since that time copies of the DVD have been distributed to well over a dozen family members and will help carry along Herb and Lorraine's life legacy for generations to come.

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See Herb's childhood story:
Searching For Coal To Stay Warm
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"WHAT LEGACY HAVE YOU LEFT FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS?"

New DigElogROCORI "SEARCH" Feature

DigElogROCORI is pleased to announce the addition of a new powerful feature on our site.  Now you can google search any of the DigElogROCORI stories present and past with the speed of GOOGLE search technology. 

The mission of DigElogROCORI is to "Tell the stories of Today... that they might "Leave a Legacy for Tomorrow!"   This new search tool adds a slick new way to find stories that were published months and eventually years before.

TAKE A TEST DRIVE

Step #1
On the left hand guide bar find the "SEARCH DigElogROCORI" tool. (just below Recent Posts)

Step #2
Inside the little white entry box try the following search examples.

Today your search will include 146 stories that have been published here since September 1, 2005. A list of stories that include the search word you typed in will quickly pop up for your viewing pleasure. 

This power of being able to instantly search into the past is what DigElogROCORI is all about.  Each story published becomes a living legacy of what the "Land Of ROCORI" is about... yesterday, today and on into the future. 

Let us know what you think about this new "SEARCH" feature.  Please click on the "Comments" link below and share with us your thoughts.

Veronica F. Braegelmann (Obituary)

Age 91

Richmond

June 27, 1914 - December 28, 2005

Mass of Christian Burial will be 11:00 a.m. Monday, January 2, 2006 at Sts. Peter & Paul Catholic Church in Richmond, MN for Veronica F. Braegelmann, age 91, who died Wednesday at the Assumption Nursing Home in Cold Spring.  Burial will be in parish cemetery.

Friends may call after 4:00 p.m. Sunday and from 9:00 - 10:30 a.m. Monday morning at the Wenner Funeral Home in Cold Spring.  Parish prayers will be at 4:00 p.m. followed by the Golden Smiles and Catholic Aid Association Sunday evening.

To See Veronica's Entire Memorial

YEAR IN REVIEW "The First Online Video"

QUICKTIME

I had almost a year experience in working with Web Logs or BLOGS.  My work in managing the Cold Spring 20/20 Blog site had exposed me to the benefit and versatility of using this type of web tool.

During my 4:30 AM web exploration session on Friday, June 3rd, 2005,  I ran across my first Video Blog or VLOG.  I was fascinated by what people were doing and quickly connected with a users group on the subject.  Their user friendly approach to teaching the process melted in perfectly with my previous web and video background.

By noon on that same day, my first video was published and the first tiny step toward the creation of the DigElog network had been taken.  This updated version of that first video tells a story about the "2005 Three Stooges".  It's about three brothers all over 40, who decide to take a ride on a "Hot Dog" sailing across the water at 30 miles per hour.  This story will make you smile and maybe think twice about the wisdom of these over-grown kids.

Duane Kuss
Publisher/Owner
DigElogROCORI

P.S.  One of those over-grown kids was me.