Maybe some folks remember Rich Glennie. Once upon a time, Rich was the editor of the Faribault County Register, back in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Rich and I have been friends for quite a few years. His boss, the publisher at the McLeod County Chronicle, Bill Ramige has been a real close friend of mine for many years, and I got to know Rich through him.

I have related before how I never knew Rich had once been in Blue Earth until I came here to be the editor, and he called to congratulate me.

Rich was the editor of the Chronicle in Glencoe for 23 years, and he retired in 2014. Well, retired is always a relative word. Rich has filled in a time or two when the Chronicle has been between editors. Or even when they did have an editor, but needed extra help.

He also still writes a column for the Chronicle, on a very random schedule, I believe.

His column in the March 15 Chronicle caught my eye, and I thought there might be some folks in the southeast corner of Faribault County who might be interested in some of it.

So, I am going to let Rich Glennie fill some space in my column. Here we go…

“Nearly 40 years ago, I was standing along the sidelines of the Kiester Bulldogs football field. Kiester, a tiny community snuggled along the Minnesota-Iowa border in Faribault County, was a nine-man football juggernaut in that part of the state.

That night the Bulldogs had just pummeled another opponent and were headed north to face a team I had never heard of – Silver Lake. At stake was a berth in the nine-man state football tournament.

Having recently arrived from Canada and its unique 12-man football, I had never heard of nine-man football. It was a fast-paced form of entertainment.

So, after the game, I asked where Silver Lake was located. Not many in the Kiester area knew for sure.

But Kiester’s head coach Roger Gorish knew. He had faced the Silver Lake squads in the past and always lost.

This particular Kiester squad was loaded with talent again. They often won by whopping scores, and some of their games ended via the “mercy rule.” If a team was ahead by 45 points or more by halftime, the game ended.

Why does anyone (in Glencoe-Silver Lake) care about Kiester football? Well, they probably don’t. It was the Silver Lake nine-man program that caught my attention. Whoever beat Kiester in nine-man football in those days had to be one heck of a team.

And the Silver Lake Lakeites in the 1980s were all of that and more.”

Rich’s column continues with some more about the winning Silver Lake and then Glencoe-Silver Lake teams and their coaches, but we really don’t care, do we?

I have had lots and lots of friends in the newspaper business, like Rich, over my now half century of doing this never dull, always interesting, job. Here is another one I have been remembering.

You know what happens when you hit that half century mark in a career, and you get old?

Sure, you get aches and pains and your memory starts to go to heck, but another thing that happens is you lose good friends.

I lost another great one last week. E. Charles “Chuck” Wann died suddenly in Florida last Friday, March 17, right when I was at the Blue Earth Chamber Gala.

Chuck was the publisher of the New Prague Times for more than 50 years, as well as the newspapers in Montgomery, Waterville and Elysian.

We met in 1971 or so, when I was just 21 and he was a bit older. Later, I was the publisher at Waterville and Elysian and he was the publisher at New Prague and Montgomery and we became real good friends.

Next we served on the Minnesota Newspaper Association Board at the same time and that is when we became really close friends.

He was a part of our MNA Chucks entertainment group. We called him the Jovial Chuck, as he was always happy and smiling.

We were just with Chuck Wann and his wife Jan in Florida about three weeks ago. The news of his death was a shock, to say the least.

So, I lost another close friend, and the newspaper business lost one of its champions and the communities his newspapers serve, especially New Prague, lost one of their biggest promoters.

So long old pal. Gonna miss you.