IN MEMORY

DIANE (GROSS) GAUFF

1944-2025

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This photo was taken 5/21/09 when Diane visited me. We were shopping and having some fun with hats.

MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THIS

THANK YOU JANET!

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Margie Eckenberg, Kay Lenmark, Merle White & Jane Veker witnessed Merle’s HOLE IN ONE at Glen Lake Golf Course (September 2024)

An Eckenberg and Sutherland Upnorth Selfie (June 2024)

Merle Jensen, XXX, Pam Rankin, Margie Eckenberg, Jani Dial, Kay Lenmark, Debbie Libby, December 2023

Rick Horwitz, Steve Champlin and Margie (Eckenberg) Champlin in Sunriver, Oregon. 2023

61st Reunion Celebration Event At

PARK TAVERN 3:00 TO WHENEVER

2023 08 25

60TH 2022 9 16 PARK TAVERN

 50TH REUNION

532 PICTURES

AUGUST 2012

THE 50TH REUNION SPEECH BY OUR VP (SLPVP1959-60-61-62-63)                                 

BY GEORGE HANSEN

(VP)

50th Reunion

• I was your Senior Class VP
  • Ran for office every year
    • Always lost to Bob Hill, Byron Zotaley, Marcia Hildebrand, etc. – even though I ran “dirty” campaigns
    • By senior year, nobody cared - so I was elected
  • Can’t remember that I had any duties…even looked in the yearbook
    • Maybe we were just ceremonial? – but Gary Sutton pointed out we didn’t have many ceremonies, either
  • So I thought I could make up for it by saying something tonight
  • Unfortunately, it won’t be funny like Art Himmelman could be
  • And since I’m Scandinavian, it won’t be highly emotional or sentimental either
• First:
  • Thanks for coming! It’s great to see everybody here
  • Shout out to the committee…especially Diane Beach and Tim Hultman, without whom we might not have had ANY reunions (can’t bring myself to call Tim “hose nose”, just doesn’t seem politically correct)
  • And a special shout out to Hank Finn for producing our awesome SLP62 website.  Every morning when I get up, I check the web page to make sure I’m not in the obituaries!
  • And let us have fond memories of those who have passed on or are too sick to attend – it seems like a shockingly long list
• Perusing the yearbook:
  • State Basketball Champions –but have they lost it?
    • After yesterday we can say at least they’re still entertaining…especially if you like air balls vs. “nothing but net”
  • Parkettes – definitely have aged better and maintained their skills
  • Cheerleaders (Sue and Jeri)
    • Have definitely retained their best assets
    • You know what I mean…strong voices, jumping ability, peppy attitude (yeah, right!)
• Surf Belles – looked even better than the Parkettes in their costumes, i.e. bathing suits (even with the suit styles back then)
• State Track and Cross-Country champions
• Also, State Debate champions (helps to explain the seemingly inordinate # of lawyers in our class)
• Top Ten (academic)
  • Reflected diversity/inclusiveness before diversity was even fashionable
  • Perfect reflection of our demographics – defies stereotypes about intelligence or study habits
  • 50% male, 50% female
  • Our three ethnic/religious groups…Catholic, Protestant, Jewish…all proportionally represented
  • Even height – very tall to very short (Heidi Applebaum and Howie Gilbert– I’m lookin’ your way)
  • CURIOUS OMISSION – Roger Blais – went on get PhD in physics and is provost and VP for academics at Tulsa University – must have gotten a B in 10th grade phy. ed.
• And how could we forget:
  • Phil Teslow’s fantastic piano concerts
  • Mark Zanna always studying, even in the barber chair
  • Full driving privileges at age 15 – meaning student parking lot was a drag strip
    • Giving rise to us car guys and the Injectors Road Club with my old friends like Tom Burgeson, Craig Erickson and Bill Gullifer
    • It’s amazing we all survived
• Best of all…we had talented and caring teachers
  • Gave us all a great start in life
• In summary, we are truly blessed to have grown up and been educated here in St. Louis Park and to have friends and classmates like everyone here tonight (OK, this is where I get emotional…sniff)

SEPTEMBER 16TH 2022

PARK TAVERN

60 YEARS

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45TH CLASS REUNION 2007

Kleven column: St. Louis Park's 1962 state championship basketball team was special group

BY GREG KLEVEN • SUN NEWSPAPERS

Published: Friday, September 2, 2011 1:02 PM CDT

Growing up in St. Louis Park, I became a devout fan of Oriole athletic teams during the late 1950s and early '60s.

(CLICK TO VIEW STORY)

St. Louis Park Athletic Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony 9-22-2011 1962 State Champion Basketball Team...!  https://vimeo.com/30112771

AN AUDIO/VISUAL HISTORY OF ST LOUIS PARK FROM PARK TV

Roller Garden, St. Louis Park's grand old roller rink, will transform into a gym

The Roller Garden has hosted tennis and polo matches, rock concerts and, soon, gymnasts. 

By Richard Chin Star Tribune

APRIL 27, 2021 — 11:36AM

J.T. Williams taught his daughter Clara,then 4 and dressed as Batgirl for a super hero-themed skating party, how to stay balanced on her new skates at the Roller Garden in St. Louis Park in 2017.

Over the past 91 years, a big fieldhouse-like building in St. Louis Park has seen tennis playing, ice skating, horses galloping in polo matches and kids dancing to surf rock bands.

And for decades, it's where generations of Twin Cities residents roller skated to live organ music, rock 'n' roll records, disco and contemporary Christian music.

That's coming to an end as the family that owns the venerable Roller Garden skating rink announced it is going out of business in May.

But the historic building near Minnetonka Boulevard and Hwy. 100 will still retain its recreational heritage. It's been sold to another family that will turn it into a gymnastics gym, according to Bill Sahly, one of the longtime owners of the Roller Garden.

Sahly's family, which has owned the roller skating venue since 1969, announced recently that 52 years of birthday and bar mitzvah parties on wheels, Prince and Michael Jackson theme nights, dress as your favorite superhero skates, New Year's Eve balloon drops and spinning disco balls are coming to an end.

The last dance, last chance, to skate, as disco queen Donna Summer would put it, is on May 8.

Roller Garden, a St. Louis Park fixture for generations, will have its last skate on May 8.

Sahly said the decision was motivated by the desire to retire from the demanding job of running a skating rink that has involved four generations of his family.

The online announcement also cited the impact of the pandemic, which led to a temporary closing of the rink and then a reopening to reduced capacity.

"The challenges of this past year made us realize how short life is, and the amount of time we've missed with our own families in order to run this business," the announcement said.

The news has sparked an outpouring of memories on the Roller Garden's Facebook page, including hundreds of comments like: "Thank you for the lessons, the Girl Scout parties with the Roller Girls, the Friday night disco funk and most of all for being the most diverse and inclusive place I have ever known."

The 30,000-square-foot building with its distinctive curved roof was originally built in 1930 as a riding arena back in the days when wealthy Minneapolis residents would ride horses on bridle paths around the lakes, according to Sahly.

"They wanted to have the finest riding facility west of the Mississippi," he said of what came to be known as the Lilac Way Riding Academy and Pastime Arena.

But the early owners of the building also found other uses for the large indoor space.

The facility was equipped with a portable floor for roller skating and in the winter, part of the floor would be flooded for ice skating, according to a St. Louis Park Historical Society account.

The building was later renamed the Roller Garden as horseback riding was displaced in the area by the post-World War II housing boom.

The facility also sometimes served as a rock 'n' roll concert venue, once hosting a dance show by Minneapolis surf rock band the Trashmen that drew 2,000 people.

They also set up nets in the building to make it the first indoor tennis venue in the Minneapolis area.

That's how Sahly's family started getting involved. Sahly said his father-in-law, Russell Johnston, was a tennis player who helped set up indoor play at the Roller Garden. He ended up buying the place in 1969 when the previous owners wanted to sell. He roped his son-in-law into running the place.

"He said, 'How would you like to run a roller rink?' " Sahly said. "I reached for the carrot. And I went 14 years without a weekend off."

Johnston used to play a Hammond organ for the skaters while Sahly played rock 'n' roll as DJ.

The roller rink was known for the big fiberglass statue of a dinosaur, sometimes painted in polka dots, that once perched on the roof of the building. It was moved inside after some high school students took it down as a prank and brought it to the St. Louis Park High School.

Sahly also once painted a 100-foot-long tennis racquet on the roof, drawing objections from the city of St. Louis Park which said it exceeded sign size limits. The city backed off after Minneapolis Star columnist Barbara Flanagan wrote about the flap, according to the St. Louis Park Historical Society.

The Historical Society account documents other complaints the city or residents have had with the roller rink over the years, ranging from concerns about noise, rowdy behavior and what young couples were doing up in the balcony.

Concerns reached a peak in 1990 when several shooting incidents and fights broke out outside the rink. Since then, the Roller Garden made families and adults their target market rather than hosting teen nights.

"As it evolved, we evolved," Sahly said.

The end of the Roller Garden will leave only two other roller skating venues in the area, Skateville in Burnsville and Cheapskate in Coon Rapids.

The Roller Garden building is being purchased by Brian Meeker, owner of Kenwood Gymnastics Center, which is being displaced from its current location in St. Louis Park by light rail development.

Meeker said the open space offered by the building is perfect for a gymnastic club, which will retain the building's hardwood floors and preserve photos and memorabilia from the building's history.

"I did ask him to leave the disco lights," Meeker said of Sahly. "I look at this as the next step of this grand old building."

Richard Chin • 612-673-1775

Richard Chin is a feature reporter with the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. He has been a longtime Twin Cities-based journalist who has covered crime, courts, transportation, outdoor recreation and human interest stories.

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