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Curt - Ben - Kerry - Richard are #1
Congratulations to Curt and Ben Kristensen, with teammates Kerry Cotterell and Richard Underwood for winning the NAOBC 0-5000 KO yesterday. In Saturday’s semi-final they trailed by 10 at halftime. But they stormed back to win by 58.
In Sunday's final they trailed by 5 points at the halfway point. Yet they came back to win a hard-fought battle 79 - 65. In the process they won 64 gold points. Well done, guys!
From Proud Unit 103 President, Warren Nelson
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Many years ago, on the final day of a Gopher Regional, my partner Bill Kent and I faced Curt Kristensen and his young son, Ben. I think that Ben was about 10 years old then. Vern and Monte Evans were our teammates, and we won the Swiss. Yet we did lose one match at our table, when the youngster at our table - BEN - beat us! I was quite impressed at the abilities Ben had at such a young age. And I was fortunate to be able to play with Ben a few times, too, over the years; quite the player!
Since then, Ben has competed in a number of major events, once knocking out the #1 team in the WORLD in the SPINGOLD when his team of juniors roughed them up! And Ben has earned other impressive titles.
Curt plays quite well himself, and surely has given Ben a wonderful foundation both as a player when he first started - and as a young man who has an array of fine qualities in addition to his bridge prowess. A round of applause for Curt and Ben - and here's to more successes!
From Proud MN Bridge Editor Peg!
With many of our collegiate players now in different cities and schools
and only nicknames present, challenging to know who did what!
Yet we congratulate all our original Minnesota players who competed
and are so glad to see that many are continuing to heighten their games!
Here's to more events - with winter (we hope) slip sliding away!
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Fun to look back at bridge when we could play face to face!
3 years ago, Rob and Paul had a fine showing in THE toughest pair event around!
Here's to more successes - and getting to be with one another soon!
Yay Bill!! Happy Retirement!
Elected officials don’t get much more hands-on than Bill Voedisch.
Since 1997, Voedisch, the town board chairman of May Township in northern Washington County, has made house calls, attended meetings and even mowed the township’s baseball fields. He has been board chairman for 23 of his 24 years in office.
Voedisch is stepping down from his duties this week. He did not file to run for re-election, and his last board meeting will be Thursday.
“Twenty-four years is a long time,” said Voedisch, 76. “I’ve never really retired, that’s the problem. Right after I retired from the business world, I ran for town board. That’s pretty much 55 years of work, one way or the other.”
Voedisch, a retired West Publishing executive, and his wife, Laurie Carlson, purchased their first farm in May Township in 1983.
“We stumbled on a 21-acre piece of land on Ostrum Trail, where the owner’s ‘For Sale’ sign was in the ditch,” he said. “It seemed just right.” In 2000, the couple purchased a 60-acre farm on Old Guslander Trail, where they ran a therapy-horseback-riding program for many years.
Voedisch was first elected in 1997 after a heated campaign over the future of the town hall.
“It was all anybody talked about,” he said. “People were going door-to-door to campaign. … It just didn’t make any sense to me to take this historic building and tear it down for some new pole-barn building kind of thing. That was the lynchpin issue: to keep it or to tear it down. The vote was very close. Voedisch won with 429 votes; 10 more than his opponent.
Since then, Voedisch has worked to keep May Township rural and noncommercial, he said. “That’s what the founders wanted when they pulled away from Marine (on St. Croix) in 1893, and we’ve been noncommercial ever since. You can’t buy a gallon of gas or a carton of milk in May Township.”
Among his accomplishments, in his estimation: keeping big solar-panel farms out of the township, keeping spending and taxes in check and supporting the new River Grove school.
Because Voedisch was retired and most of his fellow board members were not, “everybody understood that when a citizen had an issue, I would be the one who would drive over,” he said. “If somebody had to meet with the watershed district … to talk about a project they wanted to do, it was me. If there was a meeting at the county, it was me, and that was fine because I was the guy who had the time.”
Voedisch pretty much turned being a town board supervisor “into a full-time job,” said John Adams, who has served on the town board since 1996. “He’s always very curious. If there is something he doesn’t know, he wants to know, and that’s why he wants to be involved.”
“I learned early on that I could not compete with the guy,” Adams said. “He was faster and smarter than anybody in the room. It’s been a joy, really, to work with the guy. I always learned something from him.”
Voedisch, a Sapphire Life master bridge player, plans to play more bridge during his retirement. He currently plays online bridge five or six times a week and coaches twice a week.
“One of the things that happened with COVID is that the ability to play bridge on the computer has absolutely exploded,” he said. “People can now play way more than they could before. The number of games has skyrocketed. I coach a group of beginners; they’re retirement age, have 0 to 20 master points, and they are so much fun. Apparently, they think I’m kind of nutty.”
Voedisch also plans to continue mowing the township’s baseball fields. “I can help keep the park looking pretty good,” he said.
Marv Schroeder has plowed, graded and cleared the roads in May Township since 1957; he turns 90 in April. He said he was sorry to hear that Voedisch wasn’t running again. “I got along with Bill real well,” Schroeder said. “If something came up, he took care of it.”
Voedisch said he was glad to meet his goal of retiring before Schroeder. Schroeder, for his part, said he has no plans to retire. “If I retire, I die,” he said.
“I wasn’t going to face the prospect of not having Marv to grade the roads,” Voedisch said. “He’s been doing that for 64 years. Sixty-four years. If he’s not in the grader, he’s in a tractor or a combine. That’s just what he loves.
“He still enjoys what he’s doing, and I still enjoy what I’m doing,” he said. “It was a great 24 years — getting the opportunity to get out and meet the great people of this township — some of them have been here forever, some just for a year or two. It’s just a very special place.”
Steve Magner, a member of the township’s planning commission, is the only person who filed for Voedisch’s seat on the town board. The election will be held during the township’s annual meeting on March 9.
