Tımes Wednesday, November 3, 2021
STEELE COUNTY
FUN ON HALLOWEEN STAFF PHOTO BY HOWARD LESTRUD
This cute little scarecrow picked up some Halloween treats at the Blooming Prairie Servicemen's Club on Sunday. She is Ophelia Bohnen Fischer, 2, of Owatonna. For more Halloween photos, see Pages A7 and A11.
Vets Memorial site nearing reality BY RICK BUSSLER PUBLISHER
For veteran Mike Pierce, persistence and determination are paying off in his quest to honor others like himself. For the past six years, Pierce has heard it over and over again: “Where are you going to plant it?” That big question has to do with the Owaton-
na Veterans Memorial. Pierce has been consumed over the years trying to figure it out. And he now is “99% certain” he has the answer. Along with his fellow members of the Moonlighter’s Exchange Club of Owatonna, Pierce has located a spot just south of the Steele County History Center and east of the picnic shelter along 18th Street. However,
there are a couple of formalities left before the site is secured and the memorial can be built. The proposed site involves three entities: Steele County, the City of Owatonna and the Steele County Fair. The county owns the property; the city has a lease on it for the ball diamonds; and the fair board utilizes the space for one week each year
during the fair. All three groups must sign off on the plan before the memorial can be constructed. “We need to get all our i’s dotted and t’s crossed,” said Pierce, who is on the Exchange Club’s memorial committee. “We are fairly confident we will be able to start by next spring.” This is the fourth site the group has looked at
in the past few years. Pierce likes the site along 18th Street near Austin Road because of the traffic flow. To help build momentum, the Owatonna
VFW will be presenting a $25,000 check to the Exchange Club Monday night. “This will be our biggest donation so far,” Pierce said. See VETS on A12 ►
OWATONNA VETERANS MEMORIAL To learn more or to donate: www.owatonnaveteransmemorial.org
Married to the military: BP vets share story BY KAY FATE STAFF WRITER
Rob White was just a young soldier when he answered a call as old as time: Prepare for battle. The Fayetteville, N.C., native hadn’t been in the U.S. Army a year when President George H.W. Bush decided to depose the infamous general and dictator Manuel Noriega, de facto leader of Panama. White was part of Operation Just Cause, the December 1989 invasion to counter Noriega’s declaration of war on the U.S. and protect American citizens – as well as the trade-vital Panama Canal. Com-
batting human rights violations and drug trafficking also played a role in the invasion. White was a 20-yearold infantry medic. “I wanted to be by the boys doing the hard work and make sure they were OK,” he said. White spent the next nine years at bases in California, Texas, Italy and at Fort Stewart, Ga., where the next phase of his life began. In November of 1998, that’s where he met a soldier named Margo Meyerhofer, who had graduated from Blooming Prairie High School just months before. She was at the beginning of her military career; White was
preparing for the end of his. They had something else in common, too: “I wanted to be a combat medic because that was the closest to the front line that a female could be at that time,” said Margo White. The couple married in July 1999, and Rob spent the next 10 years as an X-ray technician, following her to different bases – and waiting for her to return from a 15-month deployment to Iraq. “He was at a transition in his life,” Margo White said. “He understood the military. He understood what would be expected of me.” But in 1999, the Army needed nurses, not com-
STAFF PHOTO BY KAY FATE
Margo White points to a photo of her aunt that hangs on their wall of generations of family members who served in the military. A picture of Rob and Margo White in their uniforms is at left. bat medics, so White got her nursing degree at North Carolina Agriculture and Technology State University, using
the Army’s Green to Gold program, earning her commission as an officer. She had been a
mother/baby nurse for about six months when the U.S. was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. See MARRIED on A3 ►
Top health official finds new job BY RICK BUSSLER PUBLISHER
Amy Caron
$1.00 | Volume 130, No. 15
507-583-4431 | bptimes@frontiernet.net
The area’s top public health official who has been on the forefront of guiding residents through the worst pandemic in a century is leaving her post next week. Amy Caron, who has been the public health director for Steele and
Dodge counties since June 2015, resigned her position effective Nov. 10. She has accepted a position with Planned Parenthood of North Central States based out of Minneapolis. “It was a really tough decision to make… I was torn,” said Caron. “This just kind of came up, and I decided I needed a little
different direction.” During Caron’s tenure in the top health role, she became the public face to the COVID-19 crisis for both Steele and Dodge counties. She routinely provided COVID updates for local news media since the pandemic began in March 2020. She also worked beSee HEALTH on A16 ►
INSIDE Calendar........................................ A9 Classifieds .................................. A15 Community................................. A13 Faith................................................. A14
Don’t forget to set your clocks back on Saturday night. Daylight Saving Time ends at 2 a.m. Sunday.
AREA DEATHS History ............................................ A5 Hometown Living ..................... A7 Opinions ........................................ A2 Owatonna School Page .... A10
Public Notices ........................... B8 Public Safety.............................. A4 Sports ....................................... B9-15 Veteran’s Day ...................... B1-B7
Janice Lewison, 77, Owatonna Clara Sibenaller, 89, Blooming Prairie Dale Kavitz, 68, Medford June Dahl, 88, Waterville
Serving Blooming Prairie and Steele County since 1893