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April 19, 2008
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RHS web site editor, Helen Gunderson (class of
1963), has been digging in her video archives and experimenting with
her video editing software. This week's results include two clips
that we have posted from Rolfe's 2005 all-class
reunion. Both are from the evening
program at St. Paul's Lutheran Church. One is of the crew of
former cheerleaders,
taking the stage and leading the audience in the "Loyalty" with
accompaniment from the community band. The other is of the
band playing the
"Loyalty." Many thanks to all the spirited musicians for bringing
such a great amount of joy to the evening. And a special thanks to
Marilee Kleespies for recruiting an intergenerational group of
instrumentalists and leading the band for the occasion. The video
files are in Windows Media format (wmv) and are large. Hopefully,
many of you have high speed Internet connections and can them. If
you have suggestions, please let us know.
Thanks.
April 16, 2008
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Arlene Rickard Steele (RHS class of 1965) died on
April 10, 2008, in St. Charles, Missouri. There will be a memorial
service for her on April 19 in St. Charles and another service on April 26
at the Celebration Center, Friendship Haven, in Fort Dodge.
Fort Dodge Messenger obituary
March 8, 2008
| February 22, 2008 There
is a full
obituary for Russel Jordan on-line at the
Roland Funeral Services web site.
February 20, 2008
Former Rolfe area farmer, Russel Jordan, age 88,
died on Tuesday, February 19. He had Parkinson's
Disease for twenty years and was enrolled
in Hospice for the past several
weeks. He died at the Heritage House in
Atlantic, Iowa.
Russel and his wife Mary Jane moved to a farm
that they rented southwest of Rolfe in 1951.
They returned to the Jordan family farm in the
Atlantic area in 1975 after raising six children
who graduated from Rolfe High School. Russel
also was president of the Rolfe school board.
One of Russel and Mary Jane's daughters,
Jeanne (RHS class of 1969), is a film editor in the Boston area and
produces PBS-style programs. She and her
cinematographer husband, Steve Ascher, produced
a documentary about the Jordan homeplace that
had been in the family since the Civil War. |
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Russel and Mary Jane nearly lost
the farm to the bank in the early 1990s.
The
film, Troublesome Creek: A
Midwestern, won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and
was nominated for an Academy Award in 1996. It
was shown in theaters across the nation and
around the world. It also became part of the
public television series, The American
Experience. |
| Both Russel and Mary Jane had
key roles in the film; however, Russel was the
most out-spoken, and being a wonderful
storyteller, he became somewhat of a
international celebrity. Mary Jane died in 1995
after being ill with Lou Gehrig's disease.
Russel and Mary Jane are survived by their
children, Pam (Gary) Wolfe of Elk Horn, Judy
(Joe) Marnin of Anita, Janet (Mike) Sharpe of
Red Oak, Jeanne Jordan (Steve Ascher) of Newton,
Mass., Jim (Gini) Jordan of Atlantic, and Jon
(Kim) Jordan of Atlantic. They also have many
grandchildren and probably some great
grandchildren. We have heard that Russel's
memorial service will be on Sunday, February 24.
His obituary in the Atlantic News Telegram says,
"Services are pending at Roland Funeral Home in
Atlantic." |
February 10, 2008
February 1, 2008
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Posted a small obituary for
Glen Neugent
and will attempt to post a more detailed obituary
later.
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Posted an obituary for
Maureen
"Sam" Pedersen who taught in the Rolfe grade
school in the 1950s. She probably went by Miss
Huston.
January 28, 2008
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Glen Neugent, age 80, died on January 25, 2008,
at Trinity Regional Medical Center in Fort Dodge. He
was a resident of Rolfe, and in his early years in
Rolfe had been manager of Iowa Electric. His funeral
is Wednesday January 30 at 10:00 a.m. at the
Lutheran Church in Rolfe. His wife Marjorie died in
1992. Their children are: Lynn Debel of North
Branch, Minnesota; Michelle Lentsch of Clare, Iowa,
and Steven Neugent, of Quincy, Illinois, who is back
for the funeral from active duty in the military in
Iraq.
January 21, 2008
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"Whew!" That's what RHS web site editor,
Helen Gunderson, said today when she finished
posting the last of her scans, photos, and audio
files from the
RHS time capsules. The boxes were opened
during the 2006 Greater Rolfe Days weekend at a
public ceremony at the Rolfe Public Library. |
| Superintendent
Joe Kramer and board members of the
Pocahontas Area School District facilitated the
event, which involved opening a box from 1917
and another left by the Class of 1928 that had
several subsequent additions of material. Later
that summer, with Kramer's permission, Helen
spent several days at the Rolfe library, sorting
through the materials and digitizing them. Then
over the past several months, when she wasn't
obsessed with gardening, other projects, or
winter hibernating, she posted bits and pieces.
Today, she completed the project. The last
item posted was a photo of a tin trophy with red
ribbon from the Class of 1928 capsule. The note
with the trophy says "Tennis Championship, Class
Day 1928, Won by Russell Ives and Margaret
Pollock." (click on
photo for a larger view)
Helen says she posted the trophy last,
imagining it as a metaphor for her own sense of
personal triumph for completing the marathon of
working with the time capsule materials. She
says, "The project was fun, meaningful, and
prompted a sense of nostalgia at times. But it
was also tedious work, and a sense of
responsibility hovered over my head for a long
time. I am grateful to have the resources to do
this kind of work. But I am also grateful to be
finished. In the years to come, when I think
back to this project I will remember that little
tin trophy. Of course, there were a lot of other
treasures in the time capsules that I will
remember as well."
For the record, Helen knew both Russell Ives
and Margaret Pollock.
Other materials posted today include: the
box from the Sony audio cassette tape that
the Class of 1928 used at its 1968 reunion to
record classmates' and Miss Marcum's
thoughts, souvenir table decorations from
the1978
reunion that included the Class of 1928 and
Jayne Brinkman, president of the Class of 1978,
and newspaper reports of the1978 reunion.
As it is, the time capsules and all the
materials found in them are stored in the safe
at Superintendent Kramer's office in Pocahontas.
At least, that's the last word that Helen heard
about the state of the capsules. She will copy
all of her original time capsule files to DVD's
and send them to Jeff Kerns, who is a 1978
graduate of Rolfe and on the board of directors
of the PAC School District. Her intent is for
him to take them to Kramer with the idea that
the school will keep the set, make copies, and
give them to the Pocahontas and Rolfe public
libraries. The images on this web site are in
low resolution. Persons wishing high resolution
files to make quality copies should eventually
be able to contact the superintendent or
librarians to make arrangements for the files. |
January 18, 2008
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Dennis Pierce, former superintendent of the PAC
School District and a key architect of the merger
with the Rolfe schools in 1990, died today following
a long ordeal with cancer. Pierce first came to
Pocahontas in about 1977 or 1978 and was at the helm
of the district until about five or six years ago.
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