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A Night of Basketball in Roseau with the Boys and Girlsby Rob Crowe
On a winter night in Roseau County, an outsider might think there is not much happening. That is usually not the case, as it was on a recent Friday night when both the boy’s and girl’s basketball teams from Walker-Hackensack-Akeley came to town to play the teams from Roseau. The girls played first. The game was close at the half but the lady Rams dominated in the second half, coming away with a 61-41 win over the Wolves. The band arrived before the boy’s game and performed several numbers. The band has a unique percussion section that, at times, dominates the performance. First year band director Nolan Hauta says that the percussionists do much of their own innovations. The band uses some surplus drums from the University of Minnesota to help create the distinct sound.
The cheerleaders, who were of grade school age, performed while the band was playing. After the National Anthem, the boys took to the court. W-H-A had a taller team, but was unable to capitalize on it. The Roseau team, off the performances of its quick guards, started pulling away after a tight first 10 minutes of play. The guards forced a pair of quick turnovers and Roseau pulled a lead they never relinquished. The boys had no problem with the W-H-A full court press as Roseau won 67-50. The reserves from both the teams finished the final two minutes of the game. All in all, a
great way to spend a Friday night.
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Southwest Angleby Rob CroweI was talking to Veteran’s Service Officer Jeff Parker at one of the area hockey games the other night, one of the few times I’ve seen him since he’s never in his office at the court house when I’m there. Anyway, I asked if he had seen my new newspaper and he replied that he had, but figured it needed something to spice it up a bit. While I figured it was just fine the way it is, I also want to please the readership, so I went to work.
I figured the best way to spice things up for an old B-52 bomber pilot was with a little bit of nose art, so I worked up an appropriate one for Jeff in the cartoon above. Unfortunately, I ran into a few complications, since, with the spate of arctic weather, the model had to wear long johns, insulated boots, choppers, fur trimmed shorts and a fur lined parka. In tune with the Roseau County theme, the shapely babe is named the Falun Angel. As you can see in the cartoon, I couldn’t get the grin off Parker’s face, so I think he liked it… On to other things. Since Alyssa is in 6th grade basketball, Management was scheduled to help out at the basketball game in Roseau on Friday night so that’s where my evening was spent also. Her job was to sell 50-50 tickets. To help things out a bit, she bought five dollars worth of tickets. Guess who won? Yup, and not much of the $25 made it home, there being three always hungry little girls along. Trapper and I took Dick’s old Buick on field trip over to Baudette Saturday morning. We both had to pick up some parts for our John Deeres and the closest dealer is Holte Implement. A trip to Baudette is not complete without a stop at the Ranch House for a monster pancake, egg and sausage, which we each managed to get around. Next stop was to pick up the parts and converse a few minutes with the Holte brothers. They are definitely good residents to have in the Southwest Angle. Trapper directed me by the elk ranch northwest of Baudette on the way back. There are some bulls with monster racks in the pens, a beautiful sight. We stopped to visit the old Norwegian, Gene Knutson, as we went through Roosevelt. We found out that he hadn’t yet purchased a new pickup and is spending his winter days chasing the blue jays away from his bird feeder. He had some unprintable stories to tell us about his old friend Blacky Lein. Coffee was waiting at the Roosevelt Rustic Diner for us. Trapper introduced me to another of his favorite waitresses, Sue, and the great pita bread on the menu. We went home via Warroad. On the way south on County 5, Trapper mentioned that one of the houses on the river had a couple of airplanes in its yard. I quizzed him about it so he told me about where it was. I headed down a road marked Dead End to find it despite Trapper’s protestations that “curiosity killed a cat, you know!” The road ended in the yard of a big house, and sure enough, there was a twin engine airplane in the yard. Also, there was a deer meandering around the airplane. As Trapper said, the airplane certainly didn’t land there in the yard. If anyone knows the story behind the airplane, he says he wants to know about it… I did get my 3010 John Deere bolted together Sunday and parked it out in Trapper’s hay shed, just in time to pull the Aerostar in for some repairs to the front drive-train. Another week in the great north, see you next week! |
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Supplying Firewood in the Southwest Angle by
Rob Crowe
Trapper Roseen brings a skid of
logs to the landing with his 440 John Deere The sky was lightening but I could still see the moon in the northwest. It was about sunrise and the snow covered landscape had taken on a luminescent blue hue for the few minutes before the sun would take command of the day. The road I was following was about 2 miles northeast of Bemis Hill. I followed Clayton Skoien’s half loaded logging truck for the last hundred yards of the road to the clearing where the Pancake Logging Company has set up for the winter of logging. Even with the lower fuel prices, burning wood is an attractive alternative, especially since propane prices haven’t gone down. Falun residents Lyle (Trapper) Roseen and Earl Johnson run a small logging operation in the winters to supplement their farming income. Their primary market is the firewood market so Lyle purchases bug killed Tamarac stumpage each winter since it is very cheap and the dried wood makes excellent firewood. While logging equipment is important, everyone who has spent time logging knows that the most important item for a logger is the logging shack. Trapper and Earl have a good one, about 8’ x 16’, complete with a wood stove and a gas cooking range. Every day at noon, pancakes are whipped up and fried for the loggers or anyone who happens to stop by, hence the name of the company. Earl is the wood cutter and Trapper is the skidder operator for the operation. Occasionally someone else will stop by to lend a hand. Trapper uses his 440 John Deere gasoline powered cable skidder for snaking the logs out of the woods. It has a winch and there are eight chokers slung on the winch’s cable to attach to the logs. While the skidder is old, it works well for the operation, skidding 10-12 loads of logs out of the woods to the landing site daily. Starting in the woods, Earls cuts down several trees. Trapper strings out the cable and hooks up to the tree length logs. He then winches the logs up to the skidder and pulls them to the landing. After he arrives there, he takes the chokers off the logs and the logs are cut into 100 inch lengths. Clayton Skoien next loads the logs on his IH tandem truck with its Prentice loader and hauls them to the customer. Trapper and Earl will also use other truckers to haul the firewood for them if needed. The abundance of snow this winter makes it hard on the cutter, so often neighbors and friends come to the woods to help out. Usually, the helpers are also customers, so things work out pretty well all around. |
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Mystery Picture
This week’s mystery picture was taken the morning after the last snowstorm. The picture was snapped about a minute before the picture of a Roseau County snowplow was taken for last week’s front page. The snow plow was a brand new Mack, for those who keep track of those things…and tells you whose area of the county I was in at the time.
Last
week’s picture was
taken on Roseau County 2 just west of County 5, north from the bridge
over the west branch of the Warroad River. Clayton Skoien skidded a
bunch of logs off the river banks there for Jake Marvin last year. |
More Southwest Angle ColumnsWarroad Winter Sports Schedules and RostersWarroad Fall Sports Schedules and Rosters |