It’s a fine day for another thank you ~ August 21, 2003

David Heiller

Standing from left are Peggy Whitehead, ad sales; Diane Delzer, proofreader; Sara Poslusney, cute kid; Donna Cronin, ad sales; Lynn Storrar, typesetter and bookkeeping; Chris O’Brien, typesetter; Cindy Jensen, typesetter, circulation manager, and writer; Hazel Serritslev, typesetter, subscriptions, and writer; Kaarin Johnsen, typesetter, bookkeeper, and circulation; Darrell Johnsen, photographer; Ardis Jensen, ad sales, subscriptions, and typesetter; Coral Popowitz, ad sales; Tim Peebles, ad sales and delivery; Sandy Koecher, ad sales; Jay Poslusney, musician and father of cute kid; Carrie Merriman, proofreader and bookkeeper; and Dean Dronen, friendly neighbor, musician, son of Gerald and Gloria. Seated from left are Arla Budd, typesetter and bookkeeping; Cindy and me; and Red Hansen, the all time official Askov American mascot.

Arla had the tone of an old school marm. “You can’t go to the meeting, David,” she said. You can’t miss the party!”

She had been trying to pin Cindy and me down for about a month for a little get-together at her house. It was like pinning down a hummingbird. Our life is hectic, what with selling our house, and moving, and a million other things.

Lynn, Cindy, me, Hazel and Donna. 
What a fabulous staff!

We finally agreed to Tuesday, August 14. Sure enough, I had not one but two meetings that evening. So I made the dreaded call, and got the Stern Arla, and I sat up straight and said “Yes Ma’am,” and realized something was up, because Arla hasn’t used that tone since she dragged George Frederiksen out of her English classroom by the ear.

When Cindy and I walked into the Askov Community Center that afternoon, we walked into a time warp from the last 20 years. Virtually everyone who ever worked with us or for us at the paper was there. And there were some other loved ones too—every good newspaper needs its support staff of friendly neighbors.

I’ll identify the above picture, which Tarey Johnson took, and tell what their jobs were.

It was a humbling party. Aria wrote TWO songs for the occasion (well, one was for my 50th birthday, which happened to be the next day). Dean gave me an old banjo that Gerald had retrofitted with a Zebco fishing reel in honor of my constant re-tuning. Dean called it a ZebJo.

Gearing up for a Big Rutabaga Festival at 
the Askov American.
What a lot of work we all did!

I stood up to say a few words of thanks, and as I looked over the room, I realized I could have talked for hours about the people sitting there. I had enough sense to stop after about three minutes, since the temperature and dew point were both pushing 100 (the community center needs air conditioning).

It would have been boring anyway, and it would be here too, because the memories that are precious to me aren’t necessarily profound to our 2,000 readers. So I’ll just say a simple thanks to these folks, and the ones that couldn’t make it, Tammy Perry Olson and Barb Morgan. The picture will always be a reminder to me that working at the Askov American has been a team effort. Newspaper work isn’t easy. There are deadlines, and stress, and dilemmas, and long hours, and mistakes that need correcting. But it has been fun, and none of it would have been possible for Cindy and me for the past 15-1/2 years without the people pictured above.

I’ll be saying a lot of thank yous in the next six weeks, as this fine adventure comes to a close. But none will be more important than the one I say now to the past and present workers of the old Double A.