I didn't get to cover many big-name professional events. But every now and then, there was an opportunity to mingle with the big guys. The first chance was in 1991 when the Minnesota Twins were in the playoffs and the World Series.
Dubbed the "Worst-to-First" World Series, the Twins played the Atlanta Braves as a pair of teams made the jump from last place to first place in one season. We got a form from the Twins to apply for press passes because we were close. Well, if you considered a five-hour drive close, I guess we were. Anyway, our sports editor, Ron Feickert, filled out the form, submitted it with sports writer Matt Schmidt's name as well as a photographer's name and waited.
We got one press pass, I believe. Matt got the chance to cover a World Series. I was crestfallen. Baseball was my sport. Back in 1983, I had a chance to cover the American League Championship Series when the White Sox played the Baltimore Orioles. I had Game 5. The White Sox lost in game 4 when Tito Landrum hit a home run to beat Britt Burns. I was watching the game in the press box on a 10-inch TV while covering the Dundee football game.
So here was another chance to get to a World Series, and I was passed over. I would be stuck in the office, covering high school girls' basketball, football and whatever else happened while Matt was in Minneapolis.
Ron was apologetic and told me if we got a chance at press passes for the Super Bowl to be played in Minneapolis, my name would be submitted. Not my first choice, but I'd take it.
I should note that I did get to the 1983 Major League Baseball Old-Timers Game and All-Star Game at old Comiskey Park. I had a photographer's pass for the All-Star Game, which allowed me to roam around the park or stand behind rows of foreign photographers, who fortunately were shorter than me so I could see over them.
So here comes Super Bowl XXVI in January 1992. Ron got the letter from the NFL and filled out the form, which allowed for one press pass. My name was submitted. A week later, the request was OK'd. Our executive editor, Cindy Eikamp, approved the expense, but only if I stayed in a lower-cost motel. At this point, it was difficult finding anything available. It was about a month before the Super Bowl; just about everything was booked close to the Twin Cities. I wound up getting a room for $50 in a Super 8 (a chain based in Aberdeen) in Hastings, Minnesota, about a 42-minute drive. And I couldn't stay up there the entire pre-Super Bowl week, like the other sports writers. I was to go up on Thursday and come back on the Monday after the game.
We had a peg for our coverage, too. A player from Oakes, North Dakota, was the backup for the Buffalo Bills' defensive right end, Bruce Smith. Phil Hansen was a rookie from North Dakota State University. I already had written stories about his family being excited about going to the Super Bowl (when I asked his father if he was proud of Phil playing in the Super Bowl, he gruffly told me he was proud of all his children).
So with a local guy on one of the teams, my job was to get Hansen to write a diary of a rookie on a Super Bowl team. He didn't feel comfortable writing one, so each evening, I called him and we talked. Then I wrote about what he was doing each day, how it felt, how he was handling things, etc.
On Thursday, I drove to Minneapolis and checked into Super Bowl central at the downtown Minneapolis hotel. There, I got my press pass, a nice Super Bowl briefcase, notebook, pen and other goodies. I checked out the press room and all the munchies left out for the press. I was living large. I never got any goodies covering high school football games.
Every day, I tried to catch up with Phil Hansen; one day we were supposed to meet in person at his hotel. We made a date and a time. I stood in the lobby of the hotel for a long time waiting for him, called up to his room and nothing happened. Finally, I called him again and he came down to the hotel coffee shop.
Lots of Bills fans were in the restaurant, too. He signed a few autographs while we talked. By the time I got done, it was nearly 8 p.m. I could have written the story in the hotel press room, but decided to drive home. This was Friday; the players would be moved to another hotel for Saturday and we wouldn't have access to them.
A lot of the stuff I covered was feature-type stories, tidbits on the peripheral of the game. Aberdeen people who were at the game or who had provided something to the Super Bowl fun somehow. The newspaper was still going to use a wire story for the game story. My job was to find things that no one else would know about. I can't remember any of them off the top of my head, but I do know none of them would be found in any other newspaper.
By Super Bowl Sunday, I was pretty beat, driving back and forth from Hastings to Minneapolis. I woke up that morning to grab a doughnut and coffee from the free breakfast at the Super 8 and found a couple of ceramic ornaments hanging from my door: one a Redskins helmet and the other a Bills helmet. The matchup was set. I thought it was nice of the motel to do this for its guests.
I drove down to the Minneapolis hotel to park my car, then took the press bus to the Metrodome. But when I got there, I realized I had no ticket to get in. Somehow that part of the packet was left out of my goodies. I was told by one ticket taker to go to one spot, then another told me to go back to another. I walked splat into the middle of a crowd protesting the Redskins name as being discriminatory to Native Americans. I felt like I was swimming against the stream.
Finally, I got to the correct window. That person asked why I didn't pick this up the first day when I got my credentials. I told him I didn't know it wasn't in there. This was, after all, my first Super Bowl. I didn't know what I was supposed to get.
Finally in the stadium, I went up to the upper deck where the NFL had seated a lot of the press. I was next to someone from England. The two men thought I was from Scotland (Aberdeen ... get it?). Nope, I told him, South Dakota, just a few thousand miles east. Waiting on the seat was a program and a box lunch. Later, a concession person came by with hot dogs and pop. More food was provided after the first quarter and at halftime, and again after the third quarter.
And that wasn't all the food. After the game, in the press area, there was coffee, tea, pop and beer. Yes, beer, all you could drink. I didn't have the beer, knowing I would have to drive 35 miles in the dark in an unfamiliar area. Plus, there were sandwiches, chips, cookies, popcorn. Lots of food. And you really didn't have to go to the interview rooms, either. The clerks brought transcripts of the interviews right to you.
I waited for a long time to speak to Phil Hansen, though, and tried to get the Bills representative to get him out. But after awhile, I decided it wasn't going to happen and I had enough stuff to write a column and a feature. So I went and sat down in food heaven, er, the press room, and did my stories, transmitted (yes, before Wi-Fi and Internet access and cellphones yet).
And then to wait for the press bus and a ride back to the hotel to get my car. I think I got back to the Hastings Super 8 sometime after 2 a.m.
Yes, going to a big-time sports event could be fun, but it sure was tiring, too.

Hi Jeannie & Yvonne!

Quick stop by as we are in car on the way to an Octoberfest celebration. My late brother hosted it for the 1st time last year & it was such a success he vowed to have one every year. His family is hosting it this year in his memory.

I am not a beer drinker or drinker at all. The food will be my temptation with everyone bringing their b specialty. So I have no idea of what will be on the menu...hopefully a burger & deviled eggs!

Jeannie I am looking forward to some hiking as the weather cools off. I also want to focus more on weights.

Yvonne enjoy your redecorating but be careful moving furniture.

Nancy you have amazing drive & energy for a woman recovering from breast cancer. It took me a long time to get my energy back after my radical hysterectomy for uterine cancer & I only required surgery! Even now...4 years later I wonder sometimes if my fatigue is related to that.

Everyone have a great weekend.

B - 1 egg bacon & cheese omelette 

S - 1/4 grapes

L -hot dog -no bun & 1 oz asiago cheese chips

D - ???

We are getting up and around so we can run down the valley, pick the kids up, and head over to Magazine Mt.  I plan to hike a little and maybe we can find some muscadines.  

B: 1 pam fried egg with toast

L: We'll probably eat at the lodge so fish of some kind

D: Tomato sandwich or shrimp, if we are still out

Snack: I'm taking some raw carrots and celery. 

So many of my memories of South Dakota and Aberdeen were from the people I met, both at the paper and the people I interviewed. First, as with most newspapers, the staff was like a family. And for a single woman like me, that was important. From the beginning, those in the newsroom were my family.
The first Thanksgiving there, our managing editor, Heidi Reuter, invited all the singles over for dinner. Other holidays, I spent with Wally and Margie Mundstock down in Redfield, where they had bought a newspaper. It was good to have my Montana family nearby, too.
This was the first morning newspaper at which I worked, and it suited me just fine. I was a night owl anyway, so getting into work at 3 or 4 p.m. was just the right time. Often after work, a bunch of us would go out for beer or a bite to eat. Patanna Zimmerman, Whitey Didreckson from the back shop, Gail O'Neill, photographer Dick Carlson ... we'd go out to a restaurant for a late breakfast after the paper was out, or close out the bar. The camaraderie was much like it was on my first paper.
The sports staff was a good bunch, too. Sports Editor Ron Feickert had lived in Aberdeen all his life and knew just about everything about the city. As a young boy, he worked the manual scoreboard at the Aberdeen Pheasants ballpark and remembered when Baltimore Oriole great Cal Ripken Jr. was a kid running around the park as his dad managed the Orioles farm team.
Feickert was a heavy smoker, and you could smell him coming back from the smoking dock, the smoke lingering long after on him. When the company decided no smoking would be allowed on company grounds, he gave up the habit. And it was a big difference. I was happy he did because I like Ron a lot. I wouldn't wish cancer or heart disease on anyone. Unfortunately, Ron died recently of lung cancer.
I learned a lot about editing from Ron. Before I worked in Aberdeen, I had only edited my own copy and while in Illinois, one other person. So this was the first time anyone had edited my copy. Sometimes we didn't always agree on things he cut and sometimes we could butt heads on things, but for the most part, we got along. I remember after I took my writing test for my job interview, Ron told me I had written the two stories he gave me better than what they had in the paper.
There was Matt Schmidt, our other sports writer, and Dave Vilhauer, who eventually became a full-time writer. He had worked for a long time at the American News while he was going to college before he became full time. After all the years at the newspaper, he recently moved over to radio. Hard to think of Dave not being at the American News.
Our group of part-timers was a mixed bag. Most were either high school or college kids who had an interest in sports or wanted to be sports writers. Some had some ability; some were goofballs. Then there was Scott Waltman.
While he was in high school, Waltman was one of the "goofball" bunch. He was one of those who loved to recycle the SportsCenter catchphrases and seemed to get things wrong. But when he went away to college and we needed a sports intern one year, we brought him in, and he was a different guy. Suddenly, Waltman had grown up.
I remember one evening he came in and was upset he had made a mistake in that day's paper. OK, I told him, write a correction and we'll take care of it. He had never been so distraught about other miscues. But now was different. Now he was different. I told him mistakes were going to happen. We just had to do the best we could to prevent them. But even so, occasionally, some errors still slipped through. And then, you wrote the correction, learned from it and moved forward.
Scott did pretty well as our sports intern that fall. So much so he is now the managing editor of the American News. I think he has done very well for himself.
The newsroom was a close group, so the sports and news folks mingled enough, unlike some other papers. I remember well Russ Keen, a chain-smoking news reporter who sat near me for years. He was a sweet guy who wouldn't hurt a fly. A few years ago, he was killed in an auto accident.
I enjoyed my eight years in Aberdeen, mostly because of the people I worked with and those I met, and the stories I covered. We used to joke the crime rate in Aberdeen was so low because it was too cold in the winter to commit crimes - everyone stayed inside. But it was also because everyone knew you, too. People took the time to come up and say hi in stores (sometimes that was good, sometimes not so good) and they also looked out for you. It was the way of the small town.

Hey Nancy and All,

I'm like you in the never getting hungry. I usually end up with a headache and then I try to determine is it because I water or food or both. Even though I don't get hungry, I still eat out of boredom or from stress. The other day, I found myself in the kitchen just looking for something healthy to snack on and I stopped and thought why am I doing this...I'm not hungry; I'm not thirsty.  I realized that I was just bored.  I eat because I'm bored. When I was making all the apple sauce and jelly and canning apples, I didn't have time to stop and eat so when DH came home he asked me what I ate for lunch and I said, I didn't eat and he said all day and I said yep all day. That's the good thing about my RNY too...I don't get hungry and I cannot tolerate sugar.

So, today I am back in the kitchen canning. I've got probably one more canner load of potatoes to can and then I am going to start doing something with these pumpkins.  Daughter brought me a trunk full but I have a truck full at her farm waiting on me this weekend.  I'm going to go down and take my pressure canner and between her, my sister, and our grandkids, we are going to can that truck load of pumpkins.  Today, I'm going to see how many pumpkins fill 21 quarts. LOL....The things I get myself into. 

Food today will be interesting. I promised to eat while canning so I made everything up to just grab. 

B: 1/2 cup of loaded oatmeal. I added about 1/8th cup of roasted walnuts, 1/4 cup of diced apples. 

L: tomato sandwich

D: 1 cup of Shrimp in a pot (Shrimp with a pot of soup)

Snack: I have some celery and carrot spears ready to grab

Water: I am back to scheduling my water intake because my doc called me and said that my lab results reflected a bad case of dehydration and was I feeling dizzy or having heart palpitations and I said, nope, not at all and he said then you are probably staying in a state of dehydration. He wanted me to meet him at the ER and let them pump me full of IV fluids but I asked could I drink water, eat a banana, eat salt, and eat fruit to fix everything and he said, I'd rather do it quickly and I said, as long as I do it.  So, I started scheduling water...I have to go back this afternoon so they can do a check to see if I'm good....I already feel better.  

So every hour, I am drinking water.  Sucks.