First-ever Vergas Baseball Hall of Fame class announced

By Robert Williams

Editor

Jerry Johnson and Keith Bunkowske are the 2025 Looney Days Grand Marshals and are using that platform to shine a light on the history of baseball in Vergas and a select group of those who have contributed to the sport in the village.

The duo is also the two living members of the Vergas Baseball Committee’s first Hall of Fame group, along with posthumous honors to: Dale Glawe; Fred Meyer and Ole Peterson. Johnson is also the first person to be named Grand Marshal of the summer festival twice, having served with his wife Kathy as Looney Days Grand Marshals in 2022.

The baseball committee was formed in February of 2024 operating under the Parks Board. According to the city council meeting from that time, the committee was formed to handle maintenance and usage of the ballpark. Tony Sailer is the park board representative on the committee. 

The committee came up with four names and accepted two nominees from the public. According to Sailer, the committee will look to add two more names in years to come and potentially add more as the need arises.

“We think we came up with a really great group of people,” he said. “They’ve not only put in hundreds of hours, but probably thousands of hours, promoting baseball in this community be it grooming the field, coaching the youth, coaching amateur and we’ve got some fantastic names I think.”

Speaking of names, the field itself led to one of the nominees and has put a wrinkle in plans to actually name the field.

“We thought about naming the field after someone and the name that came up was Jerry Johnson, but then we found out the field had already been named and we didn’t want to erase that person’s history,” said Sailer.

The field was originally named after benefactor Ole A. Peterson.

According to the Vergas 1976 Bicentennial Review, Ole was a bachelor who lived almost his entire life in Vergas and loved the village. He came with his parents to Vergas from Elizabeth when he was only a few months old. 

After school in Vergas, he attended Mankato Business College for two years. He then operated a feed mill for about two years and started working as a bookkeeper for his father until 1932. Ole and Otto Harthun bought the Vergas Oil Company from Ross Chaffee. This partnership continued until 1952. Ole continued in business and in 1954 built the new station affiliated with Pure Oil and later changed to Texaco. Because of ill health, he sold his business in 1970 to his three employees, Harold Hoffman, Marvin Sandau and Kermit Schultz. 

Ole built up a good business on the basis of competitive prices and good service. Ole was a friend to everyone who knew him. During his life, he was always willing to help with any project for the benefit of the village. He died in November of 1972 and upon his death he donated his funds to the Vergas baseball diamond.

“We got a committee together of a bunch of people who had played ball in Vergas through the years and we came up with the idea of what they do at Target Field where certain Twins are honored on the left field wall,” said Sailer. “We can honor a number of people that way and recognize their contributions to the baseball program. We wanted people that had contributed in other ways. We were not looking for outstanding players. We were looking at people like Jerry who had put the time in.”

Johnson has maintained the field since the 1990s and he and his wife Kathy met frequently at baseball games while dating. Jerry was a 12-year member of the Fergus Falls Hurricanes while living in Elbow Lake prior to moving to Vergas.

“The reason I do that is I like to see kids using the field, grown-ups, everybody,” Johnson said. “I like to see the field open to people.”

The reason the Johnsons ended up in Vergas was because of former Vergas ballplayer Billy Richter. When Johnson was the principal in Elbow Lake, Richter was a weekly visitor who was always talking about Vergas. In 1974, the Johnsons purchased Long Lake Resort and Jerry began his playing career in Vergas. The following year Jerry was hired as the elementary principal in Frazee where he worked for two decades before retiring.

All three of the Johnson’s sons Nathan, Jerry and Brad played for the Loons, as well.

Harvey Sonnenberg is another hall of famer from that era having played for the Loons from 1962-68 and managed the team during Johnson’s playing days from 1974-80.

Sonnenberg and his wife Irma went on to own Sonnenberg Tap (now Billy’s Corner Bar & Grill) and perfected the Harvey Burger.

Another coach, Dale Glawe, known as “Coach Dale” served an instrumental part in starting the Little League and Babe Ruth baseball teams in Vergas in the mid 1960’s. He always had the “for the love of the game” philosophy that he carried over from his time playing baseball in the 1940’s; to him practicing with his four sons Jon, Brian, Kevin and Glen; and lastly, to his coaching years, according to a biographical submission from his family.

The Vergas Post Office was named for Jon Glawe in 2023.

As a coach, Dale saw potential in all who came out to play and focused on each player’s strengths. He was a coach who didn’t do much talking but the players knew when they could be “fooling around and when they had to be serious!” He taught them that although winning is always the ultimate goal, it was more important to be a team player and be a good sport.

One of Dale’s proudest moments occurred in 1970, when the Babe Ruth team won the league title and went to the District playoff tournament in Moorhead. Even though they lost to the team who won the state championship, it was a special time for “Coach Dale” and his team.

Dale and his team’s trip to District’s was covered by legendary sports writer Ralph Anderson in Detroit Lakes and the team was made up of recognizable names,

The team consisted of starting pitcher Robin Hanson, Catcher Fred Sailer; first baseman Van Bruhn; second baseman Tony Sailer; shortstop Don Fudge; third baseman Chuck Hanson, left fielder Greg Dahlgren; center fielder Randy Bruhn; right fielder Myron Bunkowske, according to Anderson’s report. The team also had three regional draftees Tony Parker of the Detroit Lakes Elks, Brian Evenson of Pelican Rapids and Kyle Hoff of Frazee.

“I know my dad would have been very honored and humbled to be recognized with the rest of the ones who contributed to making Vergas baseball a summer staple through these many years,” Glawe’s daughter Nancy said. “He would also say that it was the players who came out to play, their dedication along with their families as well as the fans from Vergas and the surrounding area who supported them that made Vergas Baseball a lasting tradition.”

Nancy also included some fun tidbit about her father and an anecdote:

“He usually always had a cigar stub in the side of his mouth that he ‘chewed’ on when things got a bit ‘intense,’” she said. “The story goes, as I remember it: When there was an out-of-town game, he would load the players up in his (many layers of dust) Chevy car he used on the rural mail route and drove to the town where the game was to be played. There were times when he had the whole team in the car—he was smoking a cigar and the players were packed in like sardines (I’m sure no one had a seat belt on back then)—windows rolled down so some of the dust and cigar smoke would escape.”

The largest financial benefactor to baseball in Vergas was Fred Meyer.

“The reason we have that is because Freddie Meyer donated $50,000 to the baseball team,” Johnson said. “He was an old bachelor, never missed a baseball game. Nobody knew he had any money and he left $250,000 to the city. That’s why I’ve always taken so much interest in caring for it. I’ve been trying to keep the baseball field as good as I can.”

Meyer’s story is recorded in the Vergas Centennial.

Bachelor Leaves Quarter-Million – Community Receives Large Donation

In 1988, the Vergas community became the recipient of over a quarter-million dollars. Fred Meyer, a beloved and well-known bachelor, bequeathed his entire estate to the community for purposes he deemed worthwhile.

Fred had spent 80 years of his life in the Vergas area and his will divided his estate into five equal parts with 20 percent or over $50,000 being designated to each of the following:

Twenty percent to be used for making improvements at the Vergas Baseball Diamond (ball games were his favorite past time).

Twenty percent to the Vergas Community Center for benefits to be determined. 

Twenty percent to Vergas Cemetery Association for maintenance (and his parents’ resting place.)

Twenty percent to the local United Methodist Church (whose membership had befriended him); 

Twenty percent to the Fred Meyer Memorial Fund, with the bulk of these funds going to Long Lake Park and the Vergas Fire Hall.

Joining Johnson as Grand Marshal this year and a member of the newly-formed Hall of Fame list, Keith Bunkowske was nominated by his children Melissa Bunkowske Kroetsch, AJ Bunkowske, Amber Bunkowske Nelson and Garrett Bunkowske.

“We are extremely honored to nominate our father to be recognized for his longtime commitment and dedication to the game of baseball in the community of Vergas,” they said in their nomination form.

Keith has contributed to the game in Vergas in almost every role possible.

He began playing amateur ball for the Vergas Loons in 1969 at the age 16 as a shortstop, eventually moving to centerfield during his 19-year player career.

He played in nine League All Star games.

He was the Manager/Coach of the Loons for 28 years.

He also coached the Vergas Little League 10 years (seven years team was league champions), the Vergas Babe Ruth Team for five years, the Frazee Legion team for two years, and the Vergas Women’s Softball team for two years (League Champions both years).

Keith served as the Countryside League Secretary/Treasurer for 35 years and organized inter-league and Countryside versus Hi-10 All Star Games.

In 1985, Bunkowske organized the “Vergas vs. Dent” game in the Metrodome in Minneapolis. Keith was recognized by the Minnesota Twins with seven tickets to the All-Star Game on July 16, 1985, for selling over 2,000 tickets for the Twins game that preceded the Vergas vs. Dent game. The Twins awarded Keith a plaque at Home Plate at Fan Appreciation Day for organizing the most ticket sales by an amateur team.

In 1988, he organized “Vergas vs. Dent” game in the Metrodome in June; organized two Twins “Talking Baseball Tours” in Vergas; bringing Twins players Steve Lombardozzi and Greg Gagne in 1987 and Frank Viola and Tim Laudner in 1988 to packed houses at the Vergas Event Center.

He organized “A Night with Tony Oliva,” former Twins player and coach at the Vergas Ball Park focusing on Hitting with the Loons and children.

Keith was also instrumental in organizing efforts to place an electronic scoreboard on the Vergas Ball Field.

That is more than enough to earn recognition, but Keith also contributed behind the plate as a certified high school league umpire for 35 years (baseball and softball) and umpired Amateur, Legion, Babe Ruth and little league games during that same timeframe.

The two living members, Johnson and Bunkowske, along with the four other Hall of Fame nominees, will be honored as Looney Days begins Wednesday, July 30, with the Vergas Baseball Hall of Fame Dedication at the ball field at 6 p.m., followed immediately by the Old Timers Softball game at 6:30 p.m.

The game is sponsored by Franklin Fence and the former Summers Construction and Design Center.