Rock County Highway Dept. seeks paint bids
by April 18 
NOTICE TO CONTRACTORS
C.P. 067-401-025
Sealed proposals will be received by the Rock County Highway Department at Luverne, Minnesota until 9:00 A.M. on Monday, April 18th, 2022.
READ CAREFULLY THE PROVISIONS FOR THE WAGE RATES AS CONTAINED IN THE SPECIAL PROVISIONS, AS THEY WILL AFFECT THIS PROJECT.
Attention is called to the fact that the Contractor must comply with the Special Equal Employment Opportunity Provisions as contained in the Proposal. 
Proposals will be opened and read publicly in the presence of the Rock County Highway Engineer at the Rock County Highway Building located at 1120 North Blue Mound Avenue in Luverne, Minnesota immediately following the hour set for receiving bids for the following Rock County Highway work. Bids will be awarded on Tuesday, April 19th, 2022, at the regular Rock County Board of Commissioners Meeting held in the Law Library at the Rock County Courthouse.
The Quantities of Work are: 2,128 gals of 4” Reflectorized Edgeline Pavement Marking Paint – White & 1,333 gals of 4” Reflectorized Centerline Pavement Marking Paint – Yellow.
Plans, specifications, and proposals may be viewed, and downloaded at www.questcdn.com and at the Rock County Highway Department website, https://www.co.rock.mn.us/department_directory/highway_department/index… .
The non-refundable cost for plans and one proposal will be $50.00
Bids must be accompanied by a certified check or corporate surety bond drawn in favor of the Rock County Treasurer in the amount of at least five percent (5%) of the proposal.
Sealed bids shall be clearly marked “PROJECT NO. SAP 067-401-025”.
The Board of Rock County Commissioners reserves the right to reject any or all bids and to waive any defects therein.
Rock County is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.
Mark R. Sehr, P.E.
Rock County Highway Engineer
(03-24, 03-31, 04-07)

The Luverne girls’ 12U team won the state championship in Virginia over the weekend, accomplishing a feat no other youth hockey team has ever done in the history of the Luverne Hockey Association.
The Luverne girls opened state tournament play at the Iron Trail Motors Event Center with a 4-2 win over Woodbury Black Friday afternoon.
That set up a semifinal game Saturday afternoon when the Cardinals wasted no time putting pucks in the net, winning 15-2 over Alexandria.
Luverne took on Apple Valley-Burnsville-Eastview on Sunday in the state championship game, claiming an early 3-0 lead after the first period before cruising to a 4-0 win.
It was a huge accomplishment for the Cardinal girls, who outscored their opponents 23-4 and outshot them 113-34 during the state tournament.
The Luverne girls finished the season with an impressive 36-1-1 record.
Members of the 12UB State Championship Team are Tenley Behr, Ellie Van Batavia, Kassidy Saarloos, Kloe Brockberg, Rylee Kurtz, Tenlee Pick, Marlee Nelson, Trinley Vanderburg, Izzy Steensma and Brynlee Lass. Coaches for Luverne are David Van Batavia and Mark Steensma.

Hills-Beaver Creek High School will return to in-person public performances next month — and it’s no April Fool’s Day joke.
“Our students are excited,” said director Amy Comp. “This is a new opportunity for a lot of our students, and they were excited to get to work on it. … It’s definitely been an extracurricular that students were interested in, but we did not have established.”
Comp chose the murder-mystery comedy, “The Crazy Quilt Club,” by Pat Cook for the performances scheduled for April 1 and 3.
For several weeks the nine-member cast has rehearsed, built the basic set and learned tips about acting on stage.
“This play was selected because we felt it was a good fit for our students. It’s got some great comedy as well as some more serious dialogue,” Comp said.
“We knew it would be a good play to start with in our theater department at H-BC.”
Junior Britton McKenzie spearheaded bringing a spring play production back to the school’s student offerings. He serves as the play’s student director.
“They have all come together to make the dream a reality,” McKenzie said. “It is so exciting to see everyone take on the task of making sure we can succeed.
“I am proud that each of them is enjoying their time and making it worthwhile for themselves and their cast.”
H-BC’s last theatrical production was completed in 2019.
Comp, the district’s 5-12 band instructor, embraced leading students in an activity many have not experienced.
“It’s been a lot of work, and a lot of learning for me, but I feel we definitely need to have a theater department at H-BC so these students have as many performance opportunities as possible.”
The comedy centers around Veronica Blather (portrayed by sophomore Tahliya Kruger), a sweet little old lady who spends most of her time knitting and writing murder mysteries.
Blather, however, also likes to solve murders, most of which occur whenever she shows up. Understandably Blather has a problem finding a place to live and when her niece, Dr. Joyce Lydecker (junior Tyrae Goodface), invites her to stay at a retirement home for old knitters, the situation seems ideal — until one of the old knitters dies from drinking poison punch.
Who did it?
Is the murderer the president of the Crazy Quilt Club, Matilda Thibedeaux (junior Lexi Drake) or Lydia Thornedyke (sophomore Joy Taubert), who likes to die on Tuesdays?
Or could the murderer be Clara Quinten (eighth-grader Caidence Ellis), who’s a compulsive liar, or the wise-cracking Sarafina Litton (eighth-grader Sarah Prohl), who doesn’t trust anyone and carries a rifle just to be sure?
What about Myrtle Ipswitch (freshman Lexxus Wessells), who’s a bit of a snoop, or even Viola Underwood (sophomore Madison Gaugler), who has a tell-tale allergy.
It’s a good thing Lt. Jack McCoy (junior Leif Tollefson) shows up to help and is determined to solve who put poison in the punch bowl.
Freshmen Isabella DeBoer and Kadence Rozeboom are part of the backstage crew.
“I hope that the audience has fun with it,” said student director McKenzie. “This is a fun show and a fun cast. Hopefully they appreciate the work that everybody is putting into this.”
Performances are 7 p.m. Friday, April 1, and 2 p.m. Sunday, April 3, at the high school in Hills.
Tickets cost $4 for students and $6 for adults.

The Rock County Library hosted “Bad Art Night” Thursday, March 17, at Take 16 Brewing Company in Luverne. The object was to create the worst piece of art with assortment of materials provided. “This was all stuff that we already had at the library,” said Library Director Calla Jarvie. Items ranged from silk flowers, to pipe cleaners to wrapping paper and more.

It was a great day for a parade Thursday afternoon, March 17, with mild spring temperatures hovering around 50 degrees — a rare weather occurrence for Luverne’s Irish tradition. The warm weather brought hundreds of people downtown for the parade that featured dozens of entries and plenty of candy for everyone.

The Green Earth Players community theater group will bring “Those Crazy Ladies in the House on the Corner” to the Palace stage the first two weekends in April.
Director Sue Sandbulte said the idea for the play came to her during a recent road trip.
“I was traveling on I-90 and just got off when I saw the sign for ‘Those Crazy Ladies in the House on the Corner’ and thought, ‘How fun,’” she said.
The nine-member cast
in Patrick Cook’s play also appealed to Sandbulte. “I like to direct small casts,” she said. “It’s a chaotic and busy play — there is so much going on.”
The 90-minute comedy centers on three geriatric sisters, Lydia, Maggie and Dora (played by Shannan Baack, DJ Luethje and Terri Ebert respectively) and their doctor (Jim Harsma) who attempts to lower the sisters’ blood pressure through more activity.
He convinces his nurse, Jean Mitchell (Colette Hansen), to move into the sisters’ house on the corner.
Mitchell, however, has a secret, which she tries to hide as the women work to reunite Jean with her boyfriend, Calvin Murphy (Gordie Hansen).
Soon Jean has the sisters making party plans, pulling pranks and wearing jogging suits in attempts to race each other around the house on the corner.
Their fun is interrupted by Lydia’s son (Dean Luethje) who shows up and tells the sisters he wants to sell the house.
Rounding out the cast are Jessie (Denise Deitchman) and Blue (Tyler Johnson), the grocery boy.
Sandbulte adds her own special touch to the play with a “squirrelly” intermission scene that keeps the energy and laughs transitioning into the second act of the play.
Sandbulte tapped her grandchildren (Lauren and Madison Peters) and her neighbor’s children (Sophia, Rory and Isabella Nolz) to play the five squirrels for the intermission.
“It’s really funny,” Sandbulte said.
The play takes place Friday-Sunday, April 1-3, and Thursday-Sunday, April 7-10.
Sunday performances are at 2 p.m. and the others begin at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are $7 for students and $14 for adults and can be purchased by calling the Palace Box Office, 507-283-4399, or online at palacetheatre.us.

East Main Street at the Rock River Bridge was a busy place Tuesday and Wednesday when two 50,000-pound generators were installed by crane in Luverne’s power plant.
The two 3-megawatt generators joined the city’s existing 1960s 3-megawatt generator in the power plant.
The combined 9-megawatt continuous capacity of the three generators will ensure Luverne’s backup generation can carry a major part of the city’s total electrical load in the event of an outage.
 
Feeding the grid
The new generators will also allow the city to provide more backup power for Missouri River Energy Services, which contracts with Luverne for that energy.
This service was needed in February of 2021 when Luverne’s backup generator was called into action during the polar vortex.
Luverne’s generator ran for 78 hours straight to support the regional power grid under pressure from the record cold snap in the south where millions of homes and businesses in 10 states were without power.
Electric utility supervisor Brian Remme and his crews worked alternate shifts around the clock to monitor the generator and keep it fueled.
The backup generator is started every month to make sure it will generate power when needed, but city officials don’t remember a time when the Luverne generator was used in this capacity to support a widespread power shortage.
It told its members to begin controlled outages and reached out to its member utilities for helping to generate power for the grid.
MRES currently pays the city $75,000 per year to keep its generators in working condition for backup power in peak usage times.
In a new capacity agreement, MRES will pay Luverne $6.7 million over 30 years, which will help pay for roughly half the $11.8 million total cost of the project.
In addition to the new generators, that work includes:
•modernizing the east substation and the associated switchgear.
•a new control building (the prefabricated building was delivered March 2).
•necessary improvements to the power plant to house the generation equipment.
Rice Lake Construction is the contractor for work that most recently included removal of the coal bunker building, other selective demolition, miscellaneous interior concrete construction, interior steel construction and mobilization costs.

Four bulldozers have been working in Luverne’s industrial park to move dirt in preparation for the Lineage Logistics construction this spring.
 “They have moved a boatload of dirt out there already,” Mayor Pat Baustian said during the March 8 City Council meeting. “Just wait for this week.” 
The city’s role in the process is to extend Dakota Avenue 500 feet to the Lineage Logistics property line and to provide city utilities as well.
“It’s not a very long stretch of road, but it goes through kind of a low area, and we’ll need culverts, and there’s extension of water and sewer and all those types of electrical utilities,” City Administrator John Call said at a recent meeting.
During a March 10 bid letting, Henning Construction of Adrian was the low bidder at $775,000.
“That was somewhat fortuitous for the city, because Henning is also doing the site work for Lineage Logistics,” Call said. “So, they’ll already be on site out there. They may want to truck some things in to the site before the road is even done.”
The city also learned that it will receive a federal BDPI public utilities grant that will cover half of the cost.
The Lineage Logistics cold storage warehouse will be 230,000 square feet. It will open within a year with 75 employees and will provide a direct spin-off business for Premium Minnesota Pork.