From my desk

Bob Williams

One of the privileges of working at a newspaper is anytime access to the archives. Our bound volumes go back 65 years to 1960 and we capture what happened each week in our “A Glimpse of the Past” column highlighting the news from five, 25, and 50 years ago. 

I tend to do these other digs, like today, to look for a story idea, or a theme, or just to see people I know when they were decades younger. 

I flipped open 1995 to a random date in February and there was a babyfaced Tyler Trieglaff, a sophomore on the Moorhead State Dragons wrestling team. Trieglaff held a 14-5 record and was heralded as one of seven Dragon qualifiers for the NAIA national tournament.

Trieglaff was a member of Frazee’s 1992 Class A state championship team. Just a few pages later was coverage of the 1995 Section 8A champs who were unable to repeat the feat of the ‘92 team, but the roster alone was worth a look as it was filled with last names that tell the Hornet wrestling story on their own: Aho, Schermerhorn, Nagel, Blauert, Wacker, Sonnenberg…etc. The team photo from that year had 80 people in it!

There were signs of the times from former business owners to the early sprouts of coming technology.

Jerald and Ardis Brenk ran the newspaper at the time. A local subscription rate was $15. The grocery store was Larson’s Jack & Jill Food Center. John Dermody was shooting weddings, anniversaries and reunions. Teiken Drug moved across the street from the post office and Loretel Systems out of Pelican Rapids was advertising answers to all your communications questions regarding call-waiting, call forwarding, speed dialing and three-way calling.

Up until just last year, we were still using a loretel.net email address here at the Forum. 

Frazee news

Small town news was still a thing. It was the Facebook of the past, when typically a woman from the community, in this case Bonnie Julius, was willing to post her phone number in the paper and over the week she took down the gossip of who was where and who visited who. A column that, at least to me, will always remain a classic in the annals of newspapering. A few examples:

On Monday, Nancy Pihlstrom, Marjean Kern and Ruth Herbst traveled to Fargo for the day. They did a little business, a little shopping and then stopped to visit Michael and Stacey Herbst.

Hank and Aggie Korf were Tuesday evening visitors at the home of Ray and Lilah Ehnert.

Linda and Lloyd Schultz of Perham were Wednesday callers of Olga Neske.

Betty Cooper had the misfortune to slip and fall on the ice last weekend, breaking her leg. She was taken to the Fargo hospital but, as of Sunday, didn’t know how long she would be a patient there.

Irma Mindermann and Martha Wade were the crack reporters at Frazee Care Center and FCC Assisted Living, respectively, and they did the same work that Julius did. Both scoops had news covering visitors from all over the country as well as just down the road.

Donna Halpin of Seattle, Washington, and Reneee Brannar of Santa Clara, California, daughters of Claire Murray, are here visiting Claire and Pat Murray.

Visitors of Marian Schmidt were Mr. and Mrs. Otto Genoch and also Carol Tappe. Word was also received that Marian has a new great-granddaughter in Hawaii whose name is Elega Ann Tappe.

Statewide recognition

Frazee was also on the map statewide thanks to the political efforts of then representative Roxann Daggett. At the time, Rep. Daggett (IR-Frazee) was pushing economic development as a priority for the legislature and co-authoring a bill designed to make Minnesota more competitive with neighboring states.

Other Frazee-famous names were in the news. The funeral of former superintendent Carl S. Ingebrigtson, 84, was held at Bethlehem Lutheran Church. Ingebrigtson was superintendent here from 1962-77. He coached both boys and girls basketball, was a referee and member of the Community Club and Frazee Lions. Ingebrigtson was the Chairman of the Board of the Minnesota State High School League and a founding member of the Frazee Golf Club.

In the same timeframe, longtime head basketball coach Denny Anderson announced his retirement from both teaching and coaching. He compiled a record of 420 victories in 31 years that put him in the top 25 all-time in Minnesota.

Classifieds

The year 1995 is also one that provided a critical hit to the bottom line of newspapers in the invention of Craigslist. The site was launched in 1995 by Craig Newmark, a software engineer, as a free e-mail service that described upcoming events in the San Francisco Bay area of California. Newmark eventually set up a website with a forum for members to communicate with one another and advertise in cities around the U.S. and Canada by 2000 becoming one of the world’s most iconic e-commerce sites of the early internet that is still functioning today.

Craiglist’s impact on U.S. local newspapers included siphoning off classified advertisers and leading to decreased classified-ad rates, increased subscription prices, reduced circulation, and declines in display advertising. It also set up a consumer expectation that classified advertising would be free.

Cabin Fever Daze

February of 1995 coverage also highlighted things that still ring true here in 2025. Cabin Fever Days 1995 was a big hit, an event that was brought back by the Community Club this year.

The Palace Cafe had new owners in John and Karen Aho. New ownership is something many Frazee residents are looking for at the cafe in 2025.

The Frazee Economic Development Authority completed its first home renovation in Frazee. The home was purchased from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, moved to down and rehabbed for a local family on Ash Avenue West. The EDA is partnering with Fuller House later this year to provide a home for a local family in the Red Willow Heights Housing Development.

Some things change, some stay the same, some events are canceled and magically return decades later and there are a few people contributing to the town today that were also doing so 30 years ago. It is a wild ride taking a trip back in time and a welcome one as a reminder of the importance in what we do here at the Forum and how important it is that people support that effort so readers in 2055 can look back and see everything that was going on today.