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A total of 85 cars registered for the Kid Day Car Show this year, including cars from Erhard, Monticello, St. Joseph, Montevideo, and many from Benson, Danvers, Clontarf and the surrounding area.

The winner of Best of Show was Annie Danielson, with a 1956 Chev 3100 pick-up (pictured). 

The “Spectators Choice” winner was Keith Evenson with a 1955 Chev 210 Gasser.  According to organizers, this was the largest Benson Car Show held on Kid Day with many spectators from all around the area, beautiful weather and a great location at Ambush Park.  There were also about 50 cars taking part in the Kid Day car cruise, which lasted an hour.

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School board filings

Filings for four seats on the District 777 Board of Education opened Tuesday and will run through Tuesday, Aug. 14.

There will be four school board seats up for election in November. Three will be for four-year terms and one for three years. Those school board members whose seats are four-year terms are Chad Payne, Jodi DeJong-Hughes, and Paul Carruth. Tammy Gunlogson’s seat is a two-year term.

When a person files for the school board, he or she will have to indicate whether or not they are seeking a two-year or four-year term.

In the November election, the two candidates who receive the most votes for the two-year and four-year terms will be elected to office. They will join Mary K.W. Langan, Bill McGeary and Gary Williams on the school board in January.

The Compass Creative Dramatic Children’s Theatre  is working with Benson Community Education and local youth this week to rehearse for two performances this Friday and Saturday of “Beauty and the Beast”.  As their beloved books disappear off the shelves, Beauty and her team of local librarians embark on a quest to rescue them from the city sewers. There, they find the Beast and his henchmen searching desperately to cure the curse that has transformed them all into animals of the lowest degree. Amidst dancing pigeons, ticklish books, and enchanted blue roses, Beauty and the Beast learn that it’s only by working together that they can save the day.   Auditions took place Monday afternoon in the senior high gym and practices will take place all week leading up to the performances at 7 p.m., Friday, Aug. 3 and again at 11 a.m., Saturday, Aug. 4 in the senior high gym.  Tickets are $5 and are available at the door....

School district filings open this coming Tuesday and run through  Tuesday, Aug. 14.

There will be four school board seats up for election in November. Three will be for four-year terms and one for three years. Those school board members whose seats are four-year terms are Chad Payne, Jodi DeJong-Hughes, and Paul Carruth. Tammy Gunlogson’s seat is a two-year term.

When a person files for the school board, he or she will have to indicate whether or not they are seeking a two-year or four-year term.

In the November election, the two candidates who receive the most votes for the two-year and four-year terms will be elected to office. They will join Mary K.W. Langan, Bill McGeary and Gary Williams on the school board in January.

Mail ballots have already been sent out to District 777 residents of Swift County with residents of Pope and Chippewa counties to get theirs shortly, Supt. Dennis Laumeyer said at Monday night’s school board meeting.

Ron Vadnais, as Fred Flintstone, walks in the 88th annual Benson Kid Day parade Saturday, July 21 with grandson Logan (Bamm Bamm) and granddaughter Lily (Pebbles) who are children of Ben and Alicia Vadnais.

Don't miss our Kid Day Special section, filled with full color photos from Kid Day weekend - available on newstands now or at the Monitor-News office!

For more stories and photos like this, and to keep up on all the latest news, subscribe to the Swift County Monitor-News print edition or our PDF internet edition. Call 320-843-4111 and you can get all the local news and sports delivered to you.
 

Funds would stabilize budget, help with demolition program
 

Swift County’s Housing and Redevelopment Authority plans to raise its levy from $90,000 this year to $126,000 for 2019, an increase of $36,000.

Part of the reason for the increase is the uncertainty of one of its funding sources. The HRA has gotten an average gross income of $29,750 annually from shares the county owns of the Chippewa Valley Ethanol Company (CVEC.) However, out of that payment it has had to pay its corn pool expenses to provide corn to CVEC.

The net revenues it gets from its CVEC dividend have been very good some years and in other years almost nothing, HRA Executive Director Vicki Syverson says. That makes it hard on budgeting and programs. Syverson adds that the levy increase is needed.

Pictured above is Megan Berens, who caught this massive 34-inch Northern at about 10 a.m., Wednesday, July 18 in the Chippewa River near her grandpa Donald Berens’ farm. Her grandpa is the one who netted the fish.  (Submitted photo.)

Missing out on local news? Subscribe to the Swift County Monitor-News print edition or our PDF internet edition. Call 320-843-4111 and you can get all the local news and sports delivered to you!

Ardis (Plackner) Just participated in her first Benson Kid Day parade when she was only four years old – that was 87 years ago and was the city’s very first Kid Day celebration.

Born in 1927, Just’s mother decorated her doll buggy and made an outfit to go with it for the 1931 inaugural Kid Day. In the years that followed, her mother would come up with new designs for her to wear in the parade.

She’s not sure if the photo of her posed with the baby carriage was her first parade entry, but it was somewhere between 1931 and 1933, Just says. “I know there were a couple of them where I wore little pink outfits. One of them, mother had made a doll buggy with a doll in the middle and then made petals out from the face to make it look like a rose,” she recalls.

She continued to participate in the parade every year until she was old enough to be playing in the band. “Of course, I had to march in the band in high school.”

Minnesota has been experiencing one of the warmest growing seasons on record, according to Michelle Margraf of the NOAA-NWS Office in Chanhassen.

For agricultural statistics keepers, the growing season starts May 1. But for many farmers, the near record cold and snowy April kept them out of the fields because of cold soils and wet conditions.

Less than 35 percent of the state’s corn crop was planted in the first 10 days of May and less than 10 percent of the soybean crop. But rapidly warming temperatures in May allowed farmers to make rapid progress with planting. Soils warmed quickly and crop development took off.

With a new Benson Civic Center appraisal coming in at $1.56 million, District 777’s Board of Education voted Monday night to proceed with $581,500 in renovations for the facility.

It approved the $493,000 base work bid of Kranz Construction of Milan as well as its $88,500 alternate bid for fire protection work. It left out Kranz’s alternate bids for a gymnastics pit for $130,000 and its alternate bid of $146,800 for ceiling insulation and protection.

It did agree to seek bids from local contractors on the gymnastics pit.

Because the facility is in a flood plain, under state law and local ordinance the school board couldn’t spend more than half the value of the building on improvements.  With a previous assessed market value of $822,000 improvements were limited to $411,000 - $82,000 below even the lowest base bid the board had received.