Brainerd Dispatch January 20, 2015 • Echo Journal, January 22, 2015
BOB WENDEL: Hard work a key to success Pine River man learned this through careers, war TRAVIS GRIMLER
Echo Journal Staff Writer
Bob Wendel of Pine River is proud of his work ethic, which always proved to him that all he needed to succeed where others fail is “intestinal fortitude.” Wendel learned this at an early age. He was raised in South Heart, N.D., as the son of a blacksmith who taught to get through any problems he faced. When he was old enough, Wendel helped his father at his second job, hauling grain. Grain hauling during the day meant that Wendel missed a lot of school, and though many children back then missed school to help make money for the family, Wendel took a different route. “At night I would go to the school and study,” Wendel said. “The janitor would let me in at night and I would study. We had nuns for teachers. They told me that if I had to cheat a little bit they told me where the books were.” His nighttime education paid off. He was valedictorian of his graduating class, though that is an honor he laughs about today. “I was the only boy that graduated in 1947 along with one of Mary’s (his wife) cousins who graduated also. We were the only two seniors in 1947. I was valedictorian, salutatorian and the
whole nine yards,” Wendel said. Graduation didn’t excuse Wendel from hard work. He went on to wear many hats. In Dickinson, N.D., he worked construction for Ernie Brown Construction. During the off-season, he set pins at a bowling alley for 10 cents a line to pay for his $15 a month rent. When his boss at the construction company purchased a propane company, Wendel moved up in the world, though that still didn’t excuse him from hard work. “Ernie came to visit me and asked if I wanted to drive the propane truck. I said, ‘Sure,’” Wendel said. “Those were hard winters. Propane was just pioneering. It sold for 15 cents a gallon. I would deliver to Medora, Belfield, the whole area and to the ranchers out there. Sometimes I had to shovel to get into places.” Driving a gas truck was no laughing matter. When snow shut down the train that was supposed to bring in a supply of propane, Wendel was responsible for driving to Montana to fill his 1,400-gallon truck and bring it back. In the meantime, the company received orders for fuel, so Wendel drove straight back to Dickinson and then out to a customer and back, totaling about 400 miles to deliver 100 gallons of propane. Wendel was done driving truck in 1950, when
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his number came up in the draft for the Korean War. He trained in Camp Roberts, Calif., to become a soldier and a wireman. This job required him to run communication lines to connect military outposts. Needless to say, service was no picnic, either, he said. Wendel said his service sent him to Heartbreak Ridge, the Punchbowl and other front-line locations from which many soldiers never returned. Wendel used his upbringing to make his service slightly more comfortable and survivable. “We lived in pup tents and it would get chilly in the evening. Being an old blacksmith’s son, I could improvise. We were a 4.2 heavy motor outfit. Our ammunition came in canisters. I took one of those canisters. I took my bayonet and
Bob Wendel and his wife, Mary depend on determination and hard work to succeed where others often fail. Approximately 45 years after marriage, that approach has proven successful.
See WENDEL, Page 13
After 28 years at county recorder, KATHY LUDENIA ready for retirement BY CHELSEY PERKINS Dispatch Staff Writer
After Kathy Ludenia and husband Bill sold their Detroit Lakes real estate firm and moved to Brainerd in 1982, she never planned to become involved in county government. She worked for a real estate firm and then transitioned to property management when she sought more regular hours. When a group of local businessmen approached her and suggested she run for county recorder, she was not sure what to think. “I had never really thought about that, because it was political as far as I was concerned, because it was an election,” she said. “But I thought about it, and I thought, ‘Yeah, that’d be a good fit for me.’ I had so much background in real estate already, I’d run my own business and had kind of gotten used to being in the community.” The county recorder’s office is responsible for filing all real estate documents in the county along with maintaining a database of recorded documents, including contracts for deeds, mortgages and probate documents. Statute dictates the position also include the duties of the registrar of titles, which are to examine documents to determine whether they meet the legal requirements of transfer. Ludenia was familiar with the responsibilities, having utilized the office herself as a Realtor. After placing second in the 1986 primary election behind the incumbent, Ludenia went on to defeat her in the general election, taking over the office she would hold for the next 28 years. “I never intended on staying that
long, but I love the work and I really, really enjoyed the people,” she said. During her tenure, she said her primary goal was to integrate technology into the everyday work in the office. “When I started, the only duplication equipment we had was a Xerox machine,” Ludenia said. All documents were kept in large, bound books and the index was handwritten, a setup she described as “very, very labor intensive.” Within six months, Ludenia moved to transfer documents to microfilm, the cutting edge technology at the time. In 1989, Ludenia and her staff began a tract index for the county that sorts documents based on property location. While the county did have an index at one time, the data was transferred to a private company, so Ludenia was forced to start from scratch. She said she considers the tract index the most important contribution she made as county recorder. “Numerous title companies both locally and out of the Twin Cities area, even nationally, use that tract index we created to find information,” she said. By 1997, the Crow Wing County recorder’s office was completely paperless, one of the first counties in the state to scan all of its documents into a computer. “While we handled other people’s paper, we did not create any more paper,” she said. “Everything was digital.”
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Former County Recorder Kathy Ludenia, who retired in 2014 after nearly 30 years at the post. PHOTO BY KELLY HUMPHREY. BRAINERD DISPATCH
See LUDENIA, Page 14
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