Cor-Tech fatal accident
Every year seems to bring heartache in the form of personal tragedy, and this year, the community mourns for the Mann family.
Twenty-six-year-old Nick Mann was killed instantly on July 31 when a tire he was working on at Cor-Tech Manufacturing, Luverne, exploded.
The force of the explosion sent the rim careening through the roof of the shop, delivering a fatal blow to Nick’s head on the way.
More than 700 people attended Mann’s funeral, and Cor-Tech, which started business in Luverne 10 years ago, was closed for a week.
No one was found to be at fault for the accident, but following an OSHA investigation, Cor-Tech later announced it would no longer do ag repairs. It now has streamlined operations to accept only new manufacturing contracts.
Steakhouse fire
Another tragedy in 2002 was the March Magnolia Steakhouse fire that was started by an electrical short.
As one of Luverne’s landmark businesses, it could have been lost if not for the quick actions of an employee and effective reaction from area firefighters.
The fire was initially reported by Steakhouse employee Sue Erwin just after she punched out at 1:27 a.m. Assistant Fire Chief Don Deutsch said, "We’d have been looking at a pile-up if she hadn’t called when she did."
The business was closed for 5 1/2 months for cleanup and repairs.
Ironically, the Magnolia Steak House came to its current location in Luverne because a fire in 1988 destroyed its former building in Magnolia.
"I don’t know the chances of one family having a fire in their business twice," co-owner Amy Dispanet-Ver Steeg said.
True Value and
Country Store opens in former Jubilee building
True Value’s fire on South Highway 75 made the list of Top 10 stories in 2001, and Mark Novotny later announced he wouldn’t reopen the business.
The Luverne Farm Store, a family business since 1948, purchased the former Jubilee Foods building in April, to offer hardware, housewares and pet food and supplies.
By fall, its doors were open, doing business as True Value and the Country Store.
Luverne Farm Store manager Nate Golla oversees operations, and Beki Weber is the in-house Luverne Country Store manager.
Global ventures fallout
A story of corporate corruption that began late last year came to a head in 2002 with guilty pleas and sentence hearings in U.S. District Court.
In January, a representative of the Pipestone hog operation Global Ventures Inc., admitted to engaging in a scheme to receive preferential treatment from former Rock County feedlot officer John Burgers.
Burgers pleaded guilty on Dec. 19, 2001, to the same mail fraud charge stemming from his solicitation and receipt of bribes from GVI officers Dave Logan and Michael Morgan.
Burgers has since lost his job with the county, and Global executives and Pipestone bank officers also served their share of time in U.S. District Court and have paid their own penalties.
Some of those creative sentences have resulted in cash for local programs such as computers in schools, a Rock County drug dog and street signs on rural roads.
But the fiasco has also been costly to Rock County in that it cast a shadow of doubt on a feedlot permitting program that was once held up as a role model for the rest of the state.
The MPCA continues to audit Rock County’s feedlots, and lawsuits, such as the Overgaard family case, challenge the validity of local feedlots permitted during Burgers’ time as feedlot officer.
Highway 75 road work
Spring of 2002 began with a flurry of road construction projects — not the least of them being the "mill and overlay" work from the interstate to the northern edge of Luverne.
Rural Highway 75 was repaved from Luverne to the Pipestone County line, and some culverts were repaired north of Hardwick.
The work caused several weeks of detours and hardships to businesses along the construction route, and merchants called an emergency meeting with the Minnesota Department of Transportation.
MNDOT crews worked with businesses on keeping road closures short and keeping businesses accessible. The end result is a smoother, safer state highway.
Another major road project in 2002 was the bridge replacement project that closed County Road 4 east of Luverne for several weeks.