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Get it serviced at Skollie’s

Scholtz’s shop is adding services for cars & trucks

By Chuck Hunt - Editor | Apr 28, 2024

Franz Scholtz, owner of Skollie’s Shop in Blue Earth, has recently hired two new mechanics who specialize in cars and trucks. The mechanics had worked at Blue Earth’s Hanson Auto for years before the business closed.

While Franz Scholtz says he has always worked on cars and trucks at his shop, lately he has a much bigger investment in doing automotive maintenance and repairs.

He has always specialized in farm equipment at his business, Skollie’s Shop, but now with the addition of some new equipment and two new employees, he has ramped up his work on cars and trucks.

In February Scholtz hired two mechanics who had been working at Hanson Auto until that business closed.

Wade Osberg and Randy Andrews are both now working hard at Skollie’s Shop, specializing on cars and trucks.

Osberg worked at Hanson Auto for 17 years, and Andrews worked there for 20 years, and at Hi-Way Ford for two years before that. He says he basically started there when he was still in high school.

The two have a vast knowledge of cars and trucks, and Franz has specialized on farm equipment, small engines, motorcycles and snowmobiles.

“We work on all kinds of vehicles,” Scholtz says. “Almost anything with an engine.”

In the shop this past week they had a small tractor, a gravity box, motorcycle, collector car, SUV and a pickup all being worked on, with a large truck outside being repaired as well.

Scholtz has spent his whole life working as a mechanic, most of it on farm combines.

“I was born and raised in South Africa,” Scholtz explains. “My father and grandfather were both mechanics, and they were both named Franz, also.”

Scholtz was working on machinery and engines even as a youth. He then served in the South Africa military, where he worked on, and drove, military trucks.

So, how did he get to the United States in general, and to Blue Earth in particular? The answer is quite the story.

“Scott Greimann actually got me to the U.S. and to Blue Earth,” Scholtz says. “He wanted someone to work on combines with him.”

Greimann had connected with a group called Community for Agriculture, which had an exchange program for people involved in agriculture.

Scholtz had also joined that program, and had been to the Netherlands where he was a tech on a John Deere Gator and on Toyota and BMW cars.

When he came to the U.S. and Blue Earth, he and Greimann went on the ‘wheat run.’

“We would travel to Oklahoma and I would work on combines, getting them ready for the wheat harvest,” Scholtz explains. “Sometimes as many as six at a time, and sometimes we worked through the night, to get them ready for the farmers to take out the next day.”

They would travel north, all the way to Montana, working on combines. They had a trailer full of parts with them.

“Scott and I became really good friends,” Scholtz says. “I learned a lot from him, not just about combines but also about life, and trying to always be a good person.”

Scholtz took a break from the ‘wheat run’ and worked for Detke-Morbec John Deere in Blue Earth from 2004 to 2006.

Then he and his wife, Ruth, went back to doing the ‘wheat run,’ and working on combines in 2010.

He also was doing small engine repair in his shop on his farm near Elmore.

“It had been an old hog barn that I converted into a shop,” Scholtz says. “I worked on things like motorcycles and snowmobiles.”

Then in 2014, Scholtz bought the current building where his shop is located from Greg Holland, who had a small engine repair business. It is located on the east end of 14th Street in Blue Earth, just across Highway 169.

Skollie’s Shop made the move from the converted hog barn to the much larger building 10 years ago.

Besides operating the shop, Franz and Ruth continued their annual ‘wheat run’ until 2020, when COVID hit.

Now, with three mechanics on staff, and with Ruth in charge of bookkeeping and parts ordering, the business is running at full steam.

Ruth, who worked for 19 years at First Bank Blue Earth, and now works part time at Winnebago Manufacturing, jokes that her main job at Skollie’s Shop is keeping the three men in line.

Like all mechanics, the three at Skollie’s Shop agree that keeping your vehicle in good condition is important.

And, that includes things such as checking the battery, routine oil changes and tire rotation.

They can do that, or even full major repair work. Between the three of them, the mechanics have years and years of experience.

Plus, they do things like sandblasting, plasma cutting to create metal pieces, and a whole lot more.

“Whatever it takes,” Scholtz says, “to get the job done.”

And as far as the name Skollie’s Shop? Scholtz explains that Skollie was his nickname when he was growing up and some folks still call him that.

“It just seemed to fit,” he says.