Sen. Gary DeCramer

Sad to hear about the death of former state Sen. Gary DeCramer, 67, a DFLer formerly from Ghent. He mentored me during my unsuccessful state senate run in 1986. (Don't hold that against him!) Henn. Co. Att. Mike Freeman says this about DeCramer: "You liked to be around Gary because he made you feel decent and good...He was a gentle, thoughtful person." What politicians should be.

 

Was gonna run for State Rep. that year but former Sen. Roger Moe talked me into being the sacrificial lamb against popular state Sen. Earl Renneke (IR-LeSueur). Fun, costly on several fronts, and thought I'd run two years later. Never did. But Moe and DeCramer were great.

 

DeCramer was an old-school, rural Minnesota advocate.  He was able to cross political aisles and do what was best for sustaining small-town principles and policies.  And he continued that work and dedication long after his service in the State Senate.  Seeing that he died of a heart attack while visiting the U of M-Morris with his teenage daughter saddened me on several fronts.  Minnesota loses a great man, a great rural spokesman; his daughter moves on to her collegiate days without her father; and those days of civil bipartisanship have longed past us by.

Reflections on a 6th GFW graduate

Guest Opinion

Reflections on a 6th GFW graduate

Winthrop News of Winthrop, Minnesota Original Publication Date: June 9, 2010

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Our last of six children - Mikell Aynn - has graduated from  the Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop school system. It hasn't always been a smooth journey, to say the least. Often, it's been a wild ride. But I know one thing for sure - it's a ride of privilege and pride. Parenting is hard work.

GFW has been a good system; Winthrop has been a good town. Not perfect, kind of like our family. So, in that sense, it's been a good fit. It has also helped immensely that GFW has not been the Melius family's only educational community, that Winthrop has not been our lone place of being.

It's sometimes hard to picture that when first son, Benjamin, was born in 1979, GFW was still eight years from existence, that it still wasn't to be through the births of Ambryn in 1981, of William in 1984, and of Matthew in 1985. Not until Andrew's huge presence in 1989 was the acronym GFW in our communities' vocabulary. With Mikey's birth in 1992, my wife of 31 years, Kim, had developed a habit of penciling out key dates, and No. 6's graduation wasn't going to surface until what seemed a distant land - the year of 2010.

Now, we're here. Today, GFW makes the news as one of this nation's first IPad schools, set to launch in 2010-2011. It will be an interesting transition, one which will test old-school thinking with new-wave technology and learning styles. We will all need to be patient and trusting.

I was privileged enough to serve on the GFW school board for almost four years beginning in 2000. You try to do the right thing, realize that you think differently than others, cross your fingers, and hope to leave the district better off than when you started. In today's small schools much is beyond your control, your role pretty much that of a rubber stamp. It can be a good thing, when your CEO is pretty sharp, as in the case of Supt. Steve Malone. Trust your people to make good decisions. Educators are there, pretty much, for the same reason. To help kids.

That's getting tougher than ever. We're suffering now from a lack of focus and attention and financing in support of education at all levels. And the future - with citizen backlash at the once sacred philosophy of education as our public policy priority - is not one of a positive note. Rather, it's sounding more like the squeak of Ambryn's first attempt at the clarinet. One's hope is tempered by some very ugly sounds.

We can not cut our way out of this mess. Minnesota's governor-who-wants-to-be-President and his "no-new-taxes" policies have again created a disparity of wealth in our state's schools. The Eden Prairies and Wayzatas of the land are putting more money into their football facilities than most schools can afford for keeping up the basics. We've moved so far away from the traditional, constitutionally created public school system - from Wendell Anderson's Minnesota Miracle of the '70s and '80s - that it will be difficult, likely impossible, to ever return.

Personal responsibility doesn't mean each child, each family, each community is to battle on its own. It's kind of like life, complex in its make-up, simplistic in its vision. We are all to leave this world a better place than we found it. To do that, we have to play nice and fair and do it in the best intergenerational manner possible. And as my son, Andy, puts it through his on-going love of special education, fair doesn't necessarily mean everyone getting or even deserving the same things, the same attention, the same funding. It means doing what's right and needed for each individual, each situation.

Frankly, the GFW community has fared pretty well through it all. From the first-year, slamming dunks of Scott Springer and the Metrodome memories of our Minnesota state championship football team in 1989, to the more recent state tournament runs in boys' basketball and girls' volleyball, high school sports have helped bond three towns and beyond. The McLeod West communities of Brownton and Stewart have now shared their talents, as well, with grace and trust. As a parent, I can't imagine the heartache and worries of closing a school and moving a child into a new district for that special senior year of high school. But Sunday, there was valedictorian Kayla Schuette of Brownton, at the podium of GFW's high school gymnasium in Winthrop, bringing this proud dad and community member to tears with her wisdom and praise.

It helps when you have school leaders like GFW High School Principal Jeff Bertrang, as fine a person as you'll likely ever meet. And when a teacher like "Mr. K" - Bob Kaukola --gives kudos to your sixth and final graduate, it warms your heart. Our teachers, for the most part, are our communities' finest and most talented and need to hear more praise.

One also must smile when "Marvelous" Mavis Renner, who's been forever first at Winthrop Community Schools and now GFW, reminds my daughter she still owes 35 cents for lunch, and then boldly stamps "the last Melius lunch receipt!"

Still, for me, I will most remember the music. From the early elementary school concerts in Gibbon to watching GFW students perform the musicals "Grease" and "Beauty and the Beast" - which son Andy was blessed to be a part of  -- these were highlights. Right up to the most recent GFW Variety Show, with Mason Bleick's rousing rendition of "Unchain My Heart" to the incredible classical performance by foreign exchange student and gifted pianist Mayuko Chashiro, our students have touched us with song.

Long ago, our "community" grew well beyond Winthrop. As our 2010 graduates realize, it's grown well beyond GFW. For some, it's truly a global community. My oldest daughter, Ambryn - who's closing in on 30 and a 1999 GFW graduate - has already been to India...twice. When the terrorists hit the Twin Towers in New York on 9/11/2001, Ambryn was with fellow Gustavus Adolphus College study-abroad students on her first India visit, and the weeks to follow were excruciating. My former Navy son, Matt, spent almost two years on the islands of Diego Garcia, in the middle of the Indian Ocean. When the Indonesian Tsunami hit on December 26, 2004, the Melius family had to wait for hours to see if the island and its peoples would survive the monster waves. They did.

We have always challenged our children to look beyond the headlines, to dig deeper, and to understand that while life is simple, its issues and answers can be complex. In short, it's not even remotely close to black and white. And it certainly isn't fair and just. And I must say our children have handled it all with much dignity and understanding. For that, I am proud. While the doubters and cynics can squash a good thought, the kids have remained steadfast in their hearts and solid in their support. What more can a parent ask?

My personal journey has mirrored that roller-coaster existence. I've been able to sit at the table with the likes of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone and former First Lady Hilary Clinton in attempts to shape public policy. I've served as president of the Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless and executive director of such non-profits as Overcoming Poverty Together and the Minnesota Alliance for Progressive Action, an organization founded by Wellstone. And there was my joy of small-business ownership and success at The Winthrop News and Lyle's Cafe. Community journalism never leaves one's soul.

And I've also watched with admiration the work of my social work wife, whose two-decade dedication to hospice work is an inspiration for anyone concerned with the needs of the elderly and dying. It's tough, necessary, and rewarding work.

Success, however, can be measured in many different ways. I'll always recall the criticism of a fellow resident, who claimed I suffered from the worst of small-town evils - I couldn't fix my own car and struggled to balance my checkbook. Indeed, I've been guilty of both.

But through it all, despite working in Mankato or St. Paul or Willmar or being able to travel to Sweden to chaperone a church youth singing group or head to Seattle or Washington, D.C. to pursue dreams and push issues, Winthrop has been home. It strikes you when a local resident gets emotional dropping a Star Tribune subscription because she no longer can afford it, and then says "a Melius has been delivering newspapers to our home since 1965." That's both an "ouch" and a "wow" moment.

And that's what small-town life is. It can be boring and ugly and vicious as sin, but it can bring such measured and true love and spirit and hope that one can turn towards the heavens with a smile and a wink and a promise that tomorrow will shine brighter.

That's what every GFW graduate eyes, I believe. A better tomorrow. And when your own is part of the Class of 2010, one can not only hope and pray, but also get back to work.

Capitol thoughts -- 2012

Sitting in the Capitol rotunda Tuesday morning (1/31/2012) for another rally, a wave of deep emotions and memories hit. Over the past decade, we have taken so many steps back and lost so many key battles, much of it fueled by money in politics. But I wonder how much farther right we might have turned had the progressive community not worked so hard during that time. So, 2012 seems like a great time to enter the fray once more.