About a month after the Brooten Pavilion turned 90 years old, I spent a good chunk of my evening visiting with numerous Stepans and Terhaars at a post-funeral celebration in honor of Kenny Terhaar, who passed away on October 18. Kenny was a member of the Brooten Class of 1952.
I learned he played not only piano but also trumpet in his high school band. He was an avid singer as well and, naturally, part of the Brooten high school choir back then.
The Stepan and Terhaar families have given so much to the town of Brooten throughout the years. The list of children that those families put through the Brooten school district and more recently the B-B-E school district is a mile long!
In totally unrelated news...I was following the post-season run of Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted's football team. They went 0-8 in the regular season but pulled off a rare upset by defeating Concordia Academy 26-7 in the Section 4AA quarterfinals last Tuesday.
Today they faced a very tall task in the form of No. 2 QRF-ranked St. Agnes in the semifinals. Their game had a 6 p.m. kickoff at Hamline University. Holy moly! Can you imagine? A team that went 0-8 in the regular season was playing at Klas Field Stadium for a berth in the section championship.
Final score? The final score was 14-12. Ouch! HL-W-W finishes the season 1-9. St. Agnes improves to 9-1 overall and now faces Minneapolis North in their section finals. North beat Maple Lake 52-43 in their semifinal game this afternoon.
In Section 4A football...upstart Benson lost 39-14 to Mayer Lutheran in their semifinal game played in St. Bonifacius at Crown College's Old National Bank Stadium tonight. In the other semifinal, top-seeded Browerville defeated Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg 34-13.