JEREMY WALTNER  - PUBLISHER “You are married to your message and I know that.” That comment from Shirlene Joseph, one of the judges at the 2021 State Oral Interpretation Festival in Huron last week, was directed at Solomé Carr, a Menno senior following her Poetry Reading piece, “Lost and Found.” “I can hear your voice,” the judge continued. “Success at its finest.”

JEREMY WALTNER - PUBLISHER For those who compete in oral interpretation, a superior at the state festival is the crowning achievement. The summit. The top rung on which to hang your hat. So what does it feel like when you win 11 of them? Ask Alyssa Fink.

JEREMY WALTNER  - PUBLISHER Ever since her growing-up years as Leah Uecker, the Freeman native, now Leah Biorn, has adored children. She babysat. She nannied. She dreamed of being a mother. She decided to become a nurse. “Caring for children — and even taking care of other people’s kids — that was just me since I was a teenager,” says Leah, a 2010 graduate of Freeman High School who lives in Yankton with her husband, Daniel, and their two young daughters: Caraline, who will be 2 in February, and Charlotte, who was born on Oct. 21.

JEREMY WALTNER  - PUBLISHER John Ulmer sat at a tall stool near the middle of the bar, his large hand wrapped around a half-full Bud Light. The bottle was half-full, as opposed to half empty, because there is reason for optimism, even celebration. See, John was sitting inside Menno’s Beer Garden, a place he has been to many, many times — certainly too many to count — but that he thought might never open again.

JEREMY WALTNER  - PUBLISHER Freeman Academy will be represented five times while Menno will compete in three different categories at the 2021 State Oral Interpretation Festival Friday and Saturday, Dec. 3 and 4 at Huron High School. All advanced through the local, District 3B and Region 2B competitions, the most recent of which took place at the First United Methodist Church in Mitchell last Tuesday, Nov. 16. Freeman Academy sent its entire slate of region performers on to state. Here’s a closer look:

The Courier is making this story available on both members and non-members alike. If you support this type of community journalism and are not a member of The Courier community, please consider becoming one. JEREMY WALTNER  - PUBLISHER More than two years ago, in September of 2019, the worst flooding in the history of Wolf Creek Colony decimated the Hutterite community.

JEREMY WALTNER  - PUBLISHER Organizers charged with Schmeckfest never once thought that COVID-19 would be the end of the festival that, since 1959, has celebrated the Germans-from-Russia heritage on which this community was founded. But the pandemic has certainly had an impact. Schmeckfest as it has been known since it debuted in 1959 was canceled in both 2020 and 2021, and even as those associated with the Freeman Academy Auxiliary plan for the festival’s return in the spring of 2022, they can’t be 100% certain about how exactly it will look.

Orders are being accepted for tickets for the 62nd Schmeckfest in Freeman to be held two consecutive weekends next spring, March 18-19 and 25-26. A form is available on Page 1B of this week’s Courier. Orders can also be placed by going online to schmeckfest.com, where credit card orders can be placed directly or an order form can be printed and mailed. A chart showing the seating options for the musical can be found online, as well.

A citywide ordinance that lowers the speed limit in much of Freeman from 25 to 20 miles per hour went into effect Wednesday, Nov. 17. Unless otherwise posted, the new 20 mph limit impacts all streets in Freeman’s business and residential districts, while 15 mph remains the limit in school zones.

JEREMY WALTNER  - PUBLISHER The Canistota/Freeman 2021 football season will be remembered largely for its peaks and valleys — exciting come-from-behind victories, losses that should have been wins, setbacks and surprises, and the raw emotion that goes with both expectations and reality. In that regard, last week’s Class 9AA championship game was a microcosm of the past three months — a hard-fought battle in which fans clung tightly to hope, relished in optimism, were never too comfortable, and nervous about how it all might end. The end?