I hope you and your family were able to take in some type of church worship this morning. I was pleased to drive around Brooten and see a nice collection of vehicles outside our three churches: Trinity Lutheran, Brooten Community (Christian Reformed) and St. Donatus Catholic churches.
I enjoyed time spent at "The Church of KaDe Shack" and some fine fellowship with the good folks gathered there today for Tom's wonderful breakfast buffet. I really enjoyed visiting with Lars Terhaar and Joe Tensen from the Sedan area. Don't quote me, but I believe Lars graduated from Brooten high school in 1980. Joe graduated from B-B-E in 2007 and was a Section Final Four wrestler as a senior.
Lars's dad was Oscar Terhaar, who was born in September 1923 in South Dakota. Oscar's parents were Ben and Anna (Zenner) Terhaar. Their family lived in Lake George Township near Elrosa at the time of the 1930 census, and by 1940 they were living in Chippewa Falls Township, which is located southwest of Sedan in Pope County.
By 1940, the Terhaar family had 11 children! Wow! Ben and Anna Terhaar raised their children on farms near Buckman, Elrosa, Grove Lake and Sedan as they navigated the tumultuous times of the roaring 1920s and the Dust Bowl-ridden 1930s. Their oldest child was Gerald, who was born in 1921 and passed away in July 2018. Their youngest child was Anna Marie, who was born in 1939 and now lives in California.
Oscar would go on to be a very skilled, talented and in-demand carpenter who built numerous homes across our area. One of the houses he built was the one that caught fire on Halloween, owned by Brad and Amy Goodwin.
One of Oscar's little sisters was Ruth, who later married Ozzie Stepan in September 1945. Ruth was three years younger than Oscar, and she and Ozzie put 10 kids through the Brooten school system across the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Ozzie drove school bus across that same stretch of time, and he had the good fortune of having the bus route that made the trek deep into Norway Lake Township to deliver kids to Brooten from my childhood neighborhood.
Ozzie passed away in December 1987, and Ruth passed away last year in October. They are both remembered in the highest regards by all who knew them. They were "the best people" you could know.
One of the youngest children of Ben and Anna Terhaar was Kenneth, who was four years old in 1940 and eventually became a very influential and well-respected dairy farmer and Brooten school board member. Ken, or "Kenny" as we affectionately called him, graduated from Brooten high school in 1952. He was part of a group of students at that time who walked the hallways of Brooten high school before and after a grand remodel, renovation and addition project that took place in 1950-1951. Across that two-year period, Brooten high school added numerous classrooms, a band/choir room and an Industrial Arts shop. Later in his life, Kenny had a front-row seat to the good and the bad that made up the process that married the Brooten and Belgrade-Elrosa school district. I would go out on a limb and label him one of the "wiser" and "cooler heads" in that process, and we can all be thankful he had a strong hand in guiding our communities through that era. I don't know where we'd be today if the two former rivals (sometimes "bitter" rivals) hadn't come together to form what is known today as District No. 2364, home of the B-B-E Jaguars and an area I call Jaguar Country. I could be wrong (although rare, it's happened before), but I don't know if the two schools would still be on the map had they remained independent.
But I digress.
Kenneth passed away just over a year ago in October, just three days after his sister Ruth died. We all miss him dearly. He and his wife, Ginny, put five kids through the Brooten school system, with the youngest two graduating from B-B-E high school (Greg in 1990 and Daman in 1996). And before those two, the Terhaar family saw Nick, Andrea and Gretchen earn diplomas from BHS in the 1980s.
Out of my 1,561 families who subscribe to the Voice, I can easily say that hundreds and hundreds of them know one or more of those five Terhaar kids. They all contributed in countless ways to both athletic and Fine Arts programming at Brooten and B-B-E. They all were very well-known, popular and extremely friendly and personable to all who knew them. The Christian values embedded in their upbringing are a testament to their parents, Ken and Ginny. Did I mention how much we miss him? Yeah, we really do miss Kenny. It was always an extreme honor to see him, smile at him, wave at him and visit with him.
Daman was a very good friend and classmate of mine starting in Mrs. Hauge's kindergarten class in September 1983 all the way through 12th grade and graduation at B-B-E high school. Having friendships like his are what made my time in the local school system full of joy from start to finish.
A small school like B-B-E depends on the effort and dedication that was given by parents such as Kenny and Ginny, and in general, by families such as any local family who has the last name of Terhaar. I hope and I pray that when writers of local history look back on the early 20th century, they will be able to write about my peers in the same light that I'm writing about the Terhaars right now.
Of course, time will tell. Time always has the ultimate say!