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Sept 4, 1934
BOW VALLEY — A sharp-shooter’s training in the German Imperial Army gave Joe Wiebelhaus a steady arm and an eagle eye.
At Bow Valley Wednesday afternoon last week, that training won the Crofton medicine salesman the honor of King of the first Schuetzenfest since 1916 — and cost him two barrels of beer as he “set ‘em up,” for his fellow members in the Schuetzen Verein Association in celebration of his triumph.
A true Old World holiday spirit pervaded the two-day tournament Tuesday and Wednesday last week as thousands witnessed the revival of the German festival for the first time since the War. Polkas, waltzes and marches by the Tabor, S.D. Bohemian band were the official music of the ceremony.
Old timers brought to life the days before the War with group singing of German stein songs. And, most characteristically, beer flowed freely from morning until night as tramping thousands pounded up dust under the cottonwoods in Bow Valley park.
Climax of the two-day festivities came Wednesday afternoon in the shooting tournament to determine the king.
Firing in turns, the 30 some members of the association stuffed with the lead the tough cottonwood-root bird mounted on a pole across the road east of the Hall.
Most of the contestants shot directly at the bird. Battered and chipped, it failed to fall after nearly 400 rounds had been fired. Joe Wiebelhaus had a better idea. Taking careful aim each time, he fired at the steel rod which held the bird aloft from the wooden pole. After several direct shots, one cut the rod neatly in two just where it had been welded to the base of the bird and down tumbled the riddled rooster. After the bird fell, shouts from the crowd proclaimed him as the new king.
He then chose his wife as queen and the royal couple, clad in the heavy ceremonial robes of the Schuetzen Verein, were crowned in the picturesque coronation ritual, designed in 1896 and last used in the ceremony 18 years ago.
Sept. 7, 1944
HARTINGTON - Lt. Dean W. Jensen, 21 year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Chester Jensen of Coleridge who was reported killed in action over Europe in June, is a prisoner of the Germans, according to information received by his parents the past weekend.
The Jensens received a telephone call at their home on Friday from Red Cross headquarters in Washington in which they were told that their son had not been killed, but was instead a war prisoner in Germany.
Sept. 14, 1944
HARTINGTON — Dr. H.F. Eby plans to open a dental office in Hartington soon, it was announced this week.
