JEREMY WALTNER  -  PUBLISHER One more race to run. That’s what Morgan Edelman has been thinking this week as she prepares for the 2020 State Cross Country Meet at Hart Ranch in Rapid City this coming Saturday, Oct. 23. The Menno senior will join 122 other Class B runners from across the state scheduled to cross the 5,000-meter course in a race that begins at 10 a.m. MST after placing 13th at last week’s Region 3B meet in Platte.

JEREMY WALTNER - PUBLISHER Titus Roesler runs to win. To that end, this has been a good cross-country season for the Freeman Academy senior, who has owned the Class B field throughout the year and ran away with the Region 5B championship last week in Platte. Roesler finished the 5,000-meter course in 17 minutes, 33 seconds and nearly 45 seconds in front of the Bon Homme’s Nate Hall, who finished second.

JEREMY WALTNER  -  PUBLISHER Safety concerns raised by Freeman city officials about a preschool located on the second floor of a downtown business have generated a response from the building’s owners, Amy Beck and Josue Torres (Sway), as well as the preschool director Autumn Huntimer.

JEREMY WALTNER  -  PUBLISHER A question raised by school officials from Marion this past summer about a possible sports cooperative with Freeman Public turned into a larger discussion about possible consolidation at the Freeman School Board meeting Wednesday night, Oct. 14.

JEREMY WALTNER  - PUBLISHER It may have been 50 years ago, but Martin Sieverding remembers well the very first Menno Band Day well. Marching in it must have really left an impression. “I was in the band at the time and I remember coming down to Menno and especially driving into town,” said Sieverding, who estimates he was an eighth-grader or in his early high school years at West Central at the time. “I think I even saw a picture of our band in the files in the Menno band room.”

JEREMY WALTNER  -  PUBLISHER The Tienda CentroAmerica restaurant that was scheduled to open this week Thursday, Oct. 15 is now scheduled to open the following week instead.  According to a Facebook post by the building’s owner early this week, the new opening date is slated for the weekend of Oct. 23-24.

JEREMY WALTNER - PUBLISHER This past summer, before the 2020-21 school year began, Gavin Haggerty found himself facing a tough decision. Should he complete his senior year at Freeman Academy — the school from which his mom, Heather, and older brothers Ryan and Brennan had all graduated — or open enroll elsewhere?

JEREMY WALTNER  -  PUBLISHER When David Mensch set out to find, purchase and restore a carousel for placement at Pioneer Acres, the longtime home of the Menno Pioneer Power Show, he knew it would take more than a little elbow grease to get the job done. But he never imagined the project would be as tedious and time consuming as it has been. Ten years — that’s a long time.

JEREMY WALTNER  -  PUBLISHER Freeman residents who were ticketed for violating the city’s parking ordinance from Sept. 8 to Sept. 16 will not have to pay those fines, according to Freeman Mayor Michael Walter, who estimates a couple of dozen residents were issued citations.

JEREMY WALTNER  -  PUBLISHER A handful of Freeman residents appeared before the Freeman City Council Monday night, Sept. 14 to express their displeasure after receiving tickets without warnings for vehicles that were in violation of city ordinance 8.0224, which says vehicles cannot be parked on city property for a period longer than 72 hours. In at least one case, a property owner was ticketed for having a vehicle parked on the street in the wrong direction. While some were ticketed, others who were notified of violations received only warnings.