Anamoose, ND

Who wants to cook on Sunday?  Not me, and not a lot of other people who turned out yesterday for the Senior Center brunch of french toast and sausage.  Chairman Dennis Zimmerman and Bill Goodwin had lots of help from the women with serving and clean-up. 

This was the third Sunday brunch-the second one at the Senior Center, and one last week at the Anamoose Cafe.  The churches have helped to advertise the brunches in their bulletins and we also have been advertising on our marque on main street. 

Many of the crowd had left before I remembered to take pictures, but some enjoyed sitting around drinking coffee and visiting. 

At 27 below I don’t think there would be too many people wanting to go ice skating today.  For this winter we don’t even have a skating rink, but plans are in place for one next year.

The Albrecht family has donated their lot north of the Lutheran Church parking lot to the city to be used for a skating rink.  (see picture)

The warming house on main street sets next to the new fire hall that was built on the skating rink lot.  The city board discussed that they will move it to the new lot so next winter our youth ( and maybe a few older) will be able to skate again.  This is one of our goals in our Strategic Plan. 

        Mardelle Helm taught a group of crafty ladies to make the cute snowman displayed.  This was one of the Horizon goals to bring crafts and lessons to the area citizens.  The project is the first of many planned for the year.    Alyce Heer & Lois Rott    Lillian Schmidt, Deloris Gienger, Angie Kesler, Kathy Rademacher, Phyllis Zimmerman & Leela Sprenger

 You can have a free weekly BP check at the Anamoose Senior Citizen’s Club between 11:15 AM and 1:00 PM every Monday.  Area RN’s (Phyllis Zimmerman & Mardelle Helm) are here to take your BP and advise you to get further medical attention when there are indicators.  Many lined up today to get and document their results.

Last night we had our annual Quad County Economic Development meeting at the Whistle Stop Cafe in Drake. 

We are loaning Darryl Keller money to open the Shani”s Bar in Drake. 

Maria Effertz Hanson, McHenry Co. JDA Director, spoke on the benefits of living in ND.  She referred to the article in the January issue of National Geographics, The Emptied Prairie, where they said ND is litered with dead towns.  Many ND people, including me, wrote in to let them know what we thought of the article.  We have a lower population in ND than a lot of states, but we have a lot of positives.  To view the article go to:  http://abcnews.go.com/search?searchtext=north%20dakota&type  

We just got home from eating a buffet breakfast at the Anamoose Cafe.  What a huge crowd, as you can see in the pictures!  The breakfast was delicious  Over breakfast, we talked about how it is great to be able to eat Sunday breakfast in Anamoose before or after church. 

Next Sunday we can eat breakfast at the Anamoose Senior Center, when they serve their second Sunday breakfast from 9:30-1. 

This was one of our Strategic Planning goals-to have Sunday meals for seniors.  I am sure the rest of the people in Anamoose enjoy it too. 

Our Anamoose Area Community Foundation met last night with Kevin Dvorak, ND Community Foundation president, for an organizational meeting.  We started planning on how to get our $25,000 goal for the  year.  Our $10,000 that we will be getting from the Horizons program is a good start. 

From left around the back of the table are:  Kevin Dvorak, Brent Weninger, Rose Weninger, Joe Weninger, Bill Goodwin (behind), Calvin Buxa, Dennis Zimmerman, Shirley Nitz. 

This morning we were discussing the Anamoose Foundation over coffee at the cafe.  Suddenly one woman got up, got her checkbook, and made out a donation.   That made my day!

One of our goals in our Strategic Plan was to be able to eat out in Anamoose at least one to two Sundays a month.

The Anamoose Senior Citizens served the first breakfast on Sunday, January 6th.  The crowd seemed to enjoy the pancakes and sausage-and visiting.  A couple of Pastor Olson’s family had to have eggs instead of sausage when the sausage run out.  We talked of ordering an extra 5 lbs when we have sausage again. As you can see we have lots of help

in the kitchen. We plan to serve again Sunday, February 3rd. 

The cafe plans to serve a breakfast on Sunday, January 27th.

Pat McIntosh (left) from Castle Rock, WA, sent us our first donation of $25 for our Anamoose Endowment fund.  Dorothy Leier (right) sent her aunt one of our christmas letters that tells how we are putting our $10,000 that we will receive from the Horizon’s program.  The letter is on our Anamoose web site, http://www.anamoose.com/   The endowment fund will provide us with a method of receiving funds/donations to benefit projects in Anamoose. 

In December we had a Stop and Shop day held at the Anamoose Senior Center.  The event was organized by Deb Reinowski and Annette Leier with 12 vendors present.  They had a variety of products from jewelry, home products, cosmetics, etc.

Deb told me”I liked doing it in conjunction with Santa Day” which was right across the street in the VFW hall.  In the evening the Baptist Church used the senior center.  “I would do it again.  It is another reason to bring people to Anamoose”. 

Frances Lageson is having makeup applied by Katie Fitzgerald, who along with her mother, Pattie Reeves, makes Cambens Naturals.

A couple weeks ago 8 of us met to began organizing a Home Rule Charter for Anamoose.  The members of the committee(Double click on picture) are Angie Kesler, Lois Rott, Dennis Zimmerman,Steve Heim, Jeff Lemer, Brent Weniger, Duaine Dockter,  and I(talking picture).  They looked relaxed, but we had just finished a couple of hours reviewing a Sample Home Rule Charter and comparing it to Drake and Velva’s Charters.

I took the following quote from the ND League of Cities Handbook on Home Rule, August, 2007.  “Home Rule is a granting of certain powers to cities by the state legislature to allow cities more opportunity to make decisions about those issues that affect them.”

 A Home Rule Charter would allow the city board to budget more effectively and also allow for a city sales tax should this be approved by the voters. 

Friday I was told by Bill Goodwin, McHenry County Commissioner, that Anamoose has not renewed the sherriff contract with the county.  I contacted Joe Weninger (picture), Anamoose City Council member, about this.  He replied,”The funding isn’t available to be able to support the deputy contract.  The tax dollars we take in basically support ouor street lighting-and that’s about it.”

The next Home Rule committee meeting will be Thursday, January 10 with Jerry Hjelmstad, lawyer for the League of Cities.

Thanks to Laura Every, Champion Reap Alliance Director, the Anamoose Senior Center now has a computer-used, but in good condition.  Laura heard of a Bismarck company tht were updating their computers, so was able to get some of their old computers and distribute them to different communities that had a need.

Now the Center needs to get hooked up to DSL, get a computer stand (hopefully used or cheap), and show the seniors how to receive and send emails, and go on the internet. 

The soup and sandwiches served by the VFW Auxillary last month may not fight cancer, but the money raised from the benefit will be sent to the National office to help in the fight against cancer. 

The Auxillary also put together packages to send to the troops in Iraq.  They have adopted Scott Gray, who lost his leg in battle in Iraq, and is recovering at home in Minot.