I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.
May 11, 1997
By Devlyn Brooks
Staff Writer
Corrections officer Daniel Lemon, looking a little haggard, sat on the edge of a picnic table amidst piles and piles of clothing Friday at the Beltrami County Fairgrounds 4-H Building.
It was about 3 p.m., and he had been running all day, managing the sellout clothing rummage sale held at the former Red Cross clothing depot, an effort held to dispense of the remainder of the six semi-trailer loads of clothing donated to flood evacuees by the Bemidji area.
As far as rummage sales go it was a gold mine, described by a local radio announcer as the "mother of all rummage sales." Picnic table upon picnic table of clothing had been laid out for people to rummage through.
At 9 a.m., about three leftover semi-trailers full of clothing had been sorted according to size and gender, and were stacked neatly on picnic tables in the fairground' 4-H and Poultry buildings, Lemon said. By 3 p.m., he and Mariann Fynboh, a volunteer at the clothing depot, sat among picnic tables that looked as if they had been passed over by a tornado, a battle the tables had lost.
In fact, the hundreds of customers had picked through the clothing so fast, the sale in the Poultry Building was closed down by 1 p.m. What little remained was moved to the 4-H Building.
According to Lemon, who has been managing the clothing depot since it moved to the fairgrounds early in the flood crisis, people had lined up at 8 a.m. to get an early bird's first look at the clothing. Fynboh said two people were needed at the door of the 4-H Building to keep the line moving and get people checked into the building.
"We've probably sold more than 500 bags," she said, after some mental math. "But it seems like it was 2,000!"
The clothing was being sold for 25 cents an item, or $1 for a garbage bag full. Two hundred bags were sold by 9:30 a.m. -- one half-hour after the sale began.
"When we started out, it was really organized. So, before we opened the doors, I said, 'Look at it now because when the doors open, it'll be gone,'" Lemon said with a chuckle. "As you bring in boxes, they're grabbing you and they're asking, 'What do you got in there?'"
As of Friday afternoon, more than $800 had been collected from the sale, and the sale was to continue another eight hours Saturday at two different locations -- also at First Baptist Church near the Paul Bunyan Mall.
The money made by the sale will be donated to flood relief efforts, Lemon said, and whatever clothing is leftover will be given to a disable veterans group, which will wash the clothing and distribute it to missions in the Twin Cities.
The atmosphere was so crazy Friday, Lemon joked with his wife -- another volunteer at the depot -- about forgetting his sunglasses on a table at which he had sorted clothes.
"You lay anything down out here ... it's gone," he said.
His wife agreed, remembering to pick up a bottle of pop she had set on another table.
The response from the local area was phenomenal, he said. People not only donated clothing, they donated their hearts. And he was even happier, he said, there was an opportunity to turn around and serve the Bemidji area by selling the clothes at discount prices.
At about 3:30 p.m., he stood from his rest and looked at the door one more time before going out to bring in more boxes.
"They're still trickling in," he mused. "I'll be happy to see that last box go in the truck tomorrow."
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