RINGING TRIBUTE

Sitting on the east end of Veterans Park is a century-old school bell that was recently donated to Legion Post 199 from Omer Laleman.
The bell was once affixed to the top of the District 90 schoolhouse in Yellow Medicine County.
After the one-room schoolhouse was no longer in use, Laleman’s father, Maurice, purchased the land that the schoolhouse was on nine miles northeast of Minneota during an auction in 1951.
Eventually, Omer took over the farm once he returned from military duty in 1955.
“I took the bell down and set it alongside my house,” said Omer. “I then turned the schoolhouse into a farrowing house where I had 18 hog crates.”
Unfortunately, the schoolhouse/farrowing house burned down in 1978". My son, Steve, woke me up at 1 a.m. and told me the hog house was on fire," recalls Omer. "By the time the firemen got out to the farm, the hog house was too far gone to save."
When Omer eventually moved into town, he brought the bell with him. Steve took over the family farm and it was decided to return the bell to the farm. Steve is now retired from farming and Omer decided to donate the bell to the Legion to be placed in Veterans Park.
The bell was moved to Veterans Park last week. A new stand for the bell is in the planning stage.
"I asked (Legion Commander) Jim Fink if they could ring the bell as they read the names (roll call of the dead) on Memorial Day."
Since there are now over 500 names on that list, they are no longer read aloud during Memorial Day ceremonies at the park. Instead, the names are listed in the Mascot.
The plan now is to ring the bell four or five times during the ceremony.