By Lori Ehde
Authorities have arrested a suspect in the Dec. 16 burglary of Tony Bosch's rural Brandon storage shed.

Twenty-year-old Mark Duane Lafrenz was arrested earlier this month on burglary charges filed in Minnehaha County Court, Sioux Falls.

The complaint alleges he entered the garage with the intent to burglarize the place.

Rock County law enforcement has been working with South Dakota investigators on the burglary that Bosch, formerly of Luverne, stumbled on that day.

Shortly after leaving his rural Brandon residence Sunday morning, Bosch reportedly returned home after realizing he'd forgotten a set of keys.

Upon his return, he witnessed a burglary in process at a storage building on his property. It was about 6:45 a.m.

Lafrenz was arrested at a rural intersection north of Brandon later that morning for possession of a controlled substance.

He denied playing any role in the burglary, but authorities connected him to the vehicle used in the crime.

Other suspects are also being questioned.

Criminal charges are accumulating against Lafrenz.

In addition to the burglary and controlled substance charges, Lafrenz also faces felony charges for his involvement in a Christmas day car accident.

In that accident, which occurred north of Luverne, Lafrenz's vehicle rear-ended a van carrying 43-year-old Harland Kemerling and his sister, Lynette, who is now paralyzed from the hips down.

Lafrenz was charged last week in Rock County District Court with criminal vehicular injury.

The complaint filed in Rock County District Court, alleges Lafrenz had methamphetamines in his system and he drove the car negligently.

He was arrested last week on that charge but posted bail Monday.

By Lori Ehde
Biodiesel legislation was passed into law Friday, and supporters are comparing it to ethanol, in terms of its projected effect on soybean markets.

Jim Willers, Beaver Creek, is state director of the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association and has been working to see the bill passed into law.

"You could call this Minnesota's second oil well - after ethanol," Willers told the Star Herald Monday.

Minnesota is the first in the nation to mandate the use of biodiesel.

The law requires a portion of diesel fuel sold in Minnesota to contain soybean-based biodiesel by 2005.

The law requires a 2-percent biodiesel blend when state biodiesel production exceeds 8 million gallons.

This will happen 18 months after the state or federal government provides a biodiesel tax credit, or at least by 2005, with or without the credit.

Biodiesel is a clean-burning alternative fuel made from renewable fats or oils, such as soybean oil. It can be burned in any diesel vehicle, and more than 50 major fleets across the nation have used it commercially.

The fuel performs similarly to a petroleum diesel but is non-toxic and biodegradable, and its use reduces harmful air emissions. Biodiesel produces up to 50 percent less dangerous particulate matter than petroleum diesel.

Willers said there are a great many of Rock County soybean producers who stand to benefit from the new mandate.

"What's been holding down the price of soybeans is the glut of soybeans on the world market," Willers said. "This will give us a larger market."

He said there are 2.9 billion gallons of vegetable oil in storage worldwide, and that supply is growing.

"Minnesota will use 16 million gallons of biodiesel annually, but we need other states to use biodiesel also," Willers said.

At the federal level, he said Sen. Mark Dayton has introduced legislation that would provide tax incentives for biodiesel use.

"Biodiesel is a homegrown renewable fuel," Dayton said. "Even as world oil prices are tightening, America's farmers are producing record crops of soybeans... Building demand for biodiesel will help increase these commodity prices while enhancing our nation's energy security."

He's proposed a 1-cent tax credit per 1 percent of biodiesel used in diesel fuel, up to 20 cents.

Since opponents have criticized biodiesel as a costly alternative, Willers said, "The tax incentive would take care of that cost difference," Willers said.

Three biodiesel processing plants are scheduled to come online soon in Albert Lea, Mankato and Brewster.

A small soybean processing plant is in the research and development stage for Luverne, but its products would include foods, not biodiesel.

Gov. Jesse Ventura decided Friday to allow the bill to become law without his signature, registering a protest against the measure, but without killing it with a veto.

"I have serious reservations about any mandate from the government," he said in a letter to the Legislature. "If this bill did not present such a clear opportunity for our farmers and our state, I would veto the bill on these grounds alone."

By Sara Strong
An OSHA investigation of a December electric accident resulted in $56,000 in fines for the city of Luverne.

The Minnesota Occupational Safety and Health Division cited Luverne for "willful" violations in the Dec. 3 electrical accident. Injuries from that accident left Fulda Electric employee Phillip Kramer without his left hand and part of his forearm.

The city received two citations for $28,000 each:

One citation was for failing to properly de-energize, or turn off power. In this case the electrical equipment operated at 14,000 volts.

Part of the city's citation is that it allowed Fulda Electric electricians to enter the west substation when they were "not qualified to work on or near electrical equipment energized at distribution voltages."

The second citation was also called willful. In it, the city was determined to have not tested or otherwise determined the power source to be turned off, even if it believed it to be de-energized.

Willful violations are the most severe that OSHA hands out for one-time incidents. They carry a minimum fine of $25,000.

"This is what OSHA is determining right now," City Administrator Matt Hylen said. That doesnÕt mean the city agrees with OSHA's findings.

Hylen said City Attorney Don Klosterbuer and the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust are working on appealing the amount of the fine and the designation of violations as "willful." They have 20 days to start the appeals process.

"We know our deadline, and we're trying to get it done," Hylen said.

Hylen gave a rough estimate of legal fees at less than $5,000 for an appeal. If the appeals process favors the city and the violation status drops to "serious," the city could pay as little as $14,000 in fines rather than the $56,000.

Hylen said that even in the case of tragic accidents, part of his job is to remember to look out for taxpayer interests by keeping expenses as low as possible. Any fines the city pays will come out of the electric fund.

OSHA normally investigates injuries on behalf of employees. But at the time of the accident Kramer was doing work on the city of Luverne's electrical upgrading project. Under OSHA's classifications, he was considered a sort of employee under the multi-employee rule.

The city and its insurance trust are further looking into the causes of the accident. Hylen said a city employee or employees may face disciplinary action or termination.

The city is reluctant to elaborate on events that caused Kramer's injuries because of possible civil litigation in the future. The city does have insurance that would cover those costs, so those wouldnÕt come out of the regular electric fund.

Another electrical accident that killed a cable worker in Luverne Oct. 20 is still under investigation. OSHA has until April 20 to cite the city if it is found to have been in violation.

In-house safety
As the city has had a difficult year with the two major electrical accidents, Luverne was still called "phenomenal" by a Minnesota Municipal Utilities Association safety coordinator.

Kurt Rothwell presented the Luverne City Council an overview of the safety training programs with full-time city staff.

For almost five years, no city employee has had an on-the-job injury that caused him or her to miss work.

Rothwell said most cities have about two per year.

His job covers mostly safety training with some investigative work. Full-time city employees are trained in various safety-related subjects - from blood-borne pathogens to stress management.

If there is an incident, Rothwell said his function is to train from that to prevent it from happening again in any location within his southwest region.

By Sara Strong
Magnolia Steak House co-owner Amy Dispanet-Ver Steeg said the business will probably reopen by this summer.

"It'll be a while before we serve onion rings again, but we will have them," she said of their famous appetizer.

Other co-owner Brad Ver Steeg said they will "repair, refurbish and reopen."

As one of Luverne's landmark businesses, it could have been lost Tuesday if not for the quick actions of an employee and effective reaction from area firefighters.

The fire was initially reported by Steak House employee Sue Erwin just after she punched out at 1:27 a.m. After smelling something suspicious, she looked around and saw smoke coming from the roof and dialed 911.

Assistant Fire Chief Don Deutsch said, "We'd have been looking at a pile-up if she hadnÕt called when she did."

Deutsch said that when Erwin smelled smoke, instead of dismissing it as coming from some other source, as many might have done, she further checked before leaving for home.

The fire's cause is officially listed as electrical but was specifically caused by a neon sign transformer that started a fire between the shingles and interior ceiling.

The exact reason - whether it was faulty wiring or weather-related - isn't yet known, but investigators have ruled out any foul play.

Besides structural damage, the fire also claimed storage items in a crawl space below the roof. Those included things such as decanters and beer steins that didn't fit in the dining display areas and some spare equipment like microwaves.

"As far as other equipment, the meat market or the kitchen, everything's fine," Dispanet-Ver Steeg said.

She credits the fire department with what she still has.

"Their minimal use of water kept the damage to a minimum," Ver Steeg said. "There's a mess, but a lot of it got away unscathed. In some places the only damage is some firemen's footprints."

Carpet, drywall, and parts of the ceiling beyond what was damaged in the fire have to be replaced as well.

But smoke damage, like the rest of this story, could have been worse, too. In fact, an insurance representative lit a pipe in the bar area during the assessments, and its odor was more prominent than the other smoke.

The Steak House is also connected to the Super 8 Motel. Before firefighters were even on the scene, those employees evacuated rooms and shifted occupants to the Comfort Inn. Some truckers chose to leave town or sleep in their own cabs.

No damage reached the motel, and by Tuesday night, the Super 8 was accepting guests.

Family ties
Although the business seems lucky to have escaped worse damage, the outside view of it early Tuesday morning didn't leave a lot of room for hope.

"At first, we just saw that the flames engulfed the building," Dispanet-Ver Steeg said.

Other area fire departments were dispatched for their back-up pumpers in case more water was needed. Dispanet-Ver Steeg first learned of the fire from her brother-in-law, Nathan Ver Steeg, who is a volunteer firefighter from Magnolia.

On his way to the fire, Nathan called his brother and sister-in-law at home and told them where he was going but said he didn't know anything about the condition.

Dispanet-Ver Steeg said she left for the steak house in a frantic state of mind. "I put my boots on the wrong feet."

She said her employees and community reaction helped her through the rough day Tuesday. "All the employees have either stopped by or called today."

As the third generation of the Dispanet family to own and operate the well-reviewed establishment, she feels ties beyond financial ones to her business.

As she said when she took over the business a year ago, "It's a tradition and a challenge. You could say it's in my blood."

Second fire for steakhouse
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.

Dan "Muggs" McGuire is one employee who is often reminded of that first fire. "Some of the old Scotch bottles, when you take them out of the box, still smell like smoke," he said.

The old steak house's bar survived that fire and is at home in the Luverne building. It was retrofitted for the new location but still shows signs of the fire, where a portion of the bar's wood is darker than the rest.

The Magnolia fire in 1988 was also started by an electrical short.

Luverne's Magnolia Steak House continued to burn at abiout 2:30 a.m. Tuesday when this photo was taken. The fire was almost under control by 3 to 4 a.m., when some left the scene. Firefighters stayed on until about 8 a.m. when the crews were sent home.

Tim Christensen's fourth-grade class is the Luverne Elementary School featured Class of the Week. Pictured are (front row, from left) Brittney Richters, Zachary Forsberg, Nickolas Meyer, Michael Graff, Tara Muck, Stephanie Schultz, Eric Vink, (second row) Brooke Walgrave, Alicia VanDeBerg, Melissa Riddle, Stephanie VanWyhe, Kathryn Dahl, Kyle Petersen, Michael Hup, Leland Jensen, Jimmy Fletcher, Deborah Johnson, (back row) Mr. Christensen, Taylor Mulder, Landon Gacke, Macy Oldre, Wendy Kooiker, Chelsey Javner, Whitney Oehlerts, Ethan Heideman, and Jonathon Ehlers. Not pictured is Elizabeth Scheidt. Mr. Christensen's fourth-graders have been working on a "Shocking Shark" ocean webquest in science. The fourth-graders also just completed the Rainforest T-shirt selling project through the Earth Foundation. The entire school adopted about 65 acres of Rainforest.

Photo by Lori Ehde

The former home of Luverne's Al and Marge Christensen on North Blue Mound Avenue was sold Thursday, Feb. 28, to the highest bidder for $22,000.

Scot and Cherry Schnoor, Rushmore, are the new owners and plan to move the house 27 miles to an acreage near Rushmore. The couple, who have two small children, plan to restore the house to its original historic specifications.

"I'm in the business," said Scot, who owns Rushmore Quality Woodworking. "I'll reproduce its original look." That means tearing out existing woodwork and replacing with new.

The Luverne Economic Development Authority purchased the property in the mid-1990s for the purpose of subdividing lots in the Evergreen Addition, which has grown around the acreage.

LEDA advertised for bids, specifying the buyer needs to have the house moved off the property by July 1. LEDA received seven sealed bids ranging from $1 to $5,000. LEDA director Tony Chladek opened the bids in Council Chambers Thursday, Feb. 28, and then invited participating bidders to increase their offers. That prompted 57 up-bids before Schnoor emerged the new owner at $22,000.

Al and Marge lived in the house since they were married in 1945. Al grew up in the house since his father, Jasper Christensen, purchased it in 1924. At that time Al was 9 years old, and the nearest cluster of residential homes was on Barck Street, which aligns with Roundwind Avenue between Human Services and Tri-State Insurance.

Al died in October 2000, and Marge has since moved to Sioux Falls.

By Jolene Farley
The Hills-Beaver Creek School Board approved a class schedule for the 2002-03 school year almost identical to the 2001-02 schedule at a School Board meeting Monday.

"The schedule the teachers liked most started after Labor Day and was done at the end of May," said Superintendent Dave Deragisch. Staff were shown three sample schedules.

The schedule contained 174 student class days and six in-service or conference days.

Deragisch built three days of early dismissal into the schedule, the first a month after classes begin, to allow teachers time to contact or meet with parents if a student is struggling in a class.

This time off "gives the teachers and the parents a chance to communicate."

Conferences were moved from Tuesdays to Thursdays at the teachers' request.

Other board business
oThe board discussed spreading the word to parents that some programs for school funding are based on the reduced lunch count in the district.

"A lot of people feel if they are taking a free or reduced lunch they are taking something away from the school," said Deragisch.

"I don't know how we can get it across to people that it's a good thing," said board member Ann Boeve.

Community Education will meet at 6 p.m. Monday, March 18. Deragisch hopes to revive the floundering program, and he plans to invite senior citizens to attend and voice their preferences on classes to offer.

"I think Community Education has suffered the last few years," said board chair Alan Harnack.

Early Childhood Screening was held Friday, March 1, with six of a possible 12 students screened. Three students were "no shows" or unable to be reached, one student moved from the district, one student was ill and one student is attending in Luverne.

By John Rittenhouse
Ellsworth's boys' basketball Cinderella season came to an end after a 32-minute battle with Southwest Christian during Monday's South Section 3A Tournament championship game in Worthington.

The Panthers played right with the three-time defending state champion Eagles for four quarters in front of the large crowd in Worthington High School.

In the end, SWC absorbed all of Ellsworth's best shots and pulled out an 80-74 victory.

The win sends SWC to tonight's Section 3A championship game at Southwest State University in Marshall, where it plays North Section 3A champion Canby for the right to appear in the state tournament.

The loss ended Ellsworth's 20-6 season, a campaign in which the Panthers surprised many by earning the school's second berth in a post-season title game (the first one came in 1987) while coming off a 5-14 2000-01 season.

"My head was up, even at the end of the game," said Panther coach Ken Kvaale, who was named the South Section 3A Coach of the Year when the title tilt was complete. "I think we scared them."

The way things looked on the court, nobody told the Panthers that they were supposed to be intimidated by southwest Minnesota's best team the past four years.

Ellsworth, a team that uses six players during the course of most games, stood toe-to-toe with SWC and its 11-athlete rotation. The Panthers beat the odds by sporting a four-point halftime lead in a game that was tied with 4:24 left to play, but the Eagles put together an impressive run the rest of the way to pull out a six-point win.

The Eagles found out they were in a fight for their post-season lives after scoring the game's first two points early in the first quarter.

Panther sophomore Curt Schilling erased the lead by draining a three-point shot before Dylan Kvaale netted back-to-back field goals to give EHS a 7-2 advantage.

SWC answered the challenge, going on a 10-2 run capped by Ethan Mesman's three-point shot at the 3:51 mark of the period to give the Eagles a 12-9 lead.

Kvaale, who scored a game-high 27 points to go along with five rebounds and four assists, helped the Panthers regain the lead at 18-14 with a field goal with 1:43 remaining in the stanza. SWC, however, closed the quarter with an 8-2 surge that gave it a 22-20 edge heading into the second period.

Ellsworth gained the upper hand in the early stages of the second period and led 27-24 when Brant Deutsch scored off an offensive rebound with 5:56 remaining in the first half.

SWC used a 6-0 surge to pull in front 30-27, but the Panthers gained their first of three one-point cushions at 33-32 when Travis Jenniges drained a pair of free throws at the 3:05 mark of the stanza.

Ellsworth was in front 38-37 when Kvaale hit a three and Deutsch added a pair of free throws to a 5-2 run in the final minute of the half to give the Panthers a 43-39 lead at the intermission.

SWC dictated play to start the second half as it used an 8-4 run in the first 1:44 to tie the game at 47 before opening a 53-49 advantage as the period progressed.

Ellsworth trimmed the difference to two points (53-51) when Blake Brommer hit a pair of free throws to cap the scoring in the third quarter.

The Panthers knotted the score at 53 and 56 with a field goal by Kvaale and a three-point shot by Tom Janssen in the first 1:44 of the fourth quarter. EHS countered a 4-0 SWC surge with a field goal by Kvaale and two free throws from Schilling with 4:24 left to play to tie the game at 61.

At that point SWC put together a 9-0 run that gave it a 70-61 cushion with less than two minutes left to play.

Ellsworth did battle back to pull within four points (78-74) when Kvaale scored while being fouled with :20.5 remaining, but that was as close as the Panthers would come to catching SWC the rest of the night.

Schilling turned in a 20-point, seven-rebound, five-assist effort for the Panthers. Deutsch had eight rebounds and five assists, and Jenniges led EHS with four steals.

Jeff Schaap (18 points), Ross Reitsma (17), Mesman (15) and Dan DeWitt (12) led the Eagles to victory.

Box score
Schilling 4 1 9-10 20, Jenniges 0 0 3-4 3, Janssen 2 1 0-0 7, Kvaale 12 1 0-2 27, Deutsch 1 1 4-6 9, Brommer 2 0 4-4 8.

Team statistics
Ellsworth: 25 of 50 field goals (50 percent), 10 of 14 free throws (71 percent), 25 rebounds, six turnovers.