Gary,

    While I was in school I worked for the Michaelson at the Dunseith Journal.  The Newspaper Press was an impressively large machine.  It was extremely loud, and often broke down, Mr. Michaelson stood on a platform at the top of the press near the ceiling guiding the papers through the press.  He was a tall skinny man and quite frail I often worried he might fall.  My job was to fold the papers as they came off the forks of the press.  Viola Hobbs trained me into the job.  It was a little scary because your timing had to be really good as you needed to reach in and get the papers as the huge forks brought the papers down.  Next you folded the papers and sorted them into piles to be prepared to be mailed.  Town papers were in a square, out of town papers were rolled with a strip of paper to hold them in the roll.  The address were on the front of the squares and on the out of town papers the address was on the strip of paper holding the roll together.  The office was loud, messy and smelly, but both Mr. and Mrs. Michaelson were very hard working and efficient.  Mrs. Michaelson had fallen and broke her wrist so they hired me to help out.  When the machine broke down, Harvey Bailey from Rolla was called over to repair the press. Sometimes when I came in on press day Harvey would already be working on the press so I could just go on home until they called that they were up and running, sometimes that meant coming in before school started the next day.  Harvey often came to our home for supper these type of days, (Harvey being a relative and friend).  I worked there for several years even when Mrs. Michaelson’s wrist was healed.

    On calling days Mrs. Michaelson would spend all day calling everyone in town to find out if they had any news.  They had assigned people in the hills and out on the prairie, someone at the San Haven, and I don’t remember where else the reporters were but those people would call in their news or write it out and bring it to the Office.  What a remarkable process.  Remarkable that we had a newspaper is such a small town.

    About the Band picture, I can name almost every one of the students.  It was 1956 the year we graduated.  Marching Band was lots of fun.

Bonnie (Awalt) Houle 1956

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Bonnie & Karen, Maybe we can get Dick to name all those he knows in that picture and then get you guys, an others, to fill in blanks?  Some day these pictures will be available for future generations, so I like to have copies, in my files of all pictures, identifying those in them.  With all the pictures you folks have been sending, combined with all those that I previously got from the class of 65,  I’ve got quite a library of pictures.  Gary

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From Deb Wensted Slyter (72): 

Gary,
I would like to correct Erling Landsverk on his memory of the snowplanes. My Dad, Oscar Wenstad, is the one who had built the snowplane not Arnold, who is his brother.  My sister still has the large wooden propeller.  My Dad could fix and repair anything, if he had to he would build his own parts. He had an old tractor that he had reversed everything around so that the small front wheels were were in the back, that’s why we called it the backward tractor. I remember many summers putting up hay with Dad driving that thing. The tractor is in the museum at Lansford where my brother lives.
I could go on and on about all the things that Dad had fixed for friends and neighbors alike. His ingenuity is greatly missed.

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