Joel Wang, Anthony Zeuli, DJ Scheele, Hope Taylor and Sam Hagberg play a group of teens on the run trying to avoid the zombie apocalypse in the Hutchinson High School spring comedy, “Love Bites,” which was written by Hagberg.
Jordan Schmidt and Joel Wang play an unlikely pair of teens in love, never mind one is a goth girl and the other is a zombie. They meet and have an instant connection, despite their differences.
Hutchinson High School theater students have a whole van full of excitement for audiences in their spring play this week with a show that couldn't be more homegrown.
"Love Bites," a teen rom-com set in the 1980s, is a mash-up of "The Breakfast Club" and "Scooby-Doo" featuring wild hair, zombies and familiar tropes from an iconic era of American cinema. It was written by HHS senior Samantha Hagberg.
"I want to go into directing and screenwriting," the young writer said. "I wanted to since I was a kid. I wrote stories and screen plays all the time and I wanted to try a play."
Along with writing the show, Hagberg is taking on several other roles in the spring production, such as artistic director alongside director Erika Durheim. Hagberg's also choreographed many of the scenes featuring her fellow students, and she plays the role of Kathy, the nerd who transforms from stereotype to sassy.
"It's pretty vulnerable, it's scary," Hagberg said of all her responsibilities. "It's been a bit stressful, but it's a good learning experience for the future."
The show is described like this: "The year is 1988, a van full of stereotypical teenagers barrel into their friend’s cabin. Upon arrival, they notice more than just love blooming throughout the group. It turns out a horde of zombies have invaded the surrounding area! Will they be able to make it out alive and save the world?" Along the way, characters starting out as familiar tropes may surprise audiences with how they develop and grow.
Though the show has horror aspects, Durheim said, it's all in keeping with the PG atmosphere of "Scooby-Doo."
Along with the chaos of zombies, the show features teen angst, relationships, and even star-crossed lovers, all with a comedic angle.
Hagberg began writing and workshopping the show this past summer when a number of students performed a zombie play in the park. She leaned on inspirations from 1980s cinema and dark movies that many might describe as being "before her time."
"I grew up with a lot of it," she said. "There were some references I had to look up to make sure. ... My dad is a movie freak just like I am. I grew up and learned from him."
Durheim said this year ended up being the perfect time to try something written locally. The group of performers and stage crew is filled with seniors, which means Hagberg's creation will be performed by many of her longtime classmates.
"When COVID was so crazy and the musical kept getting pushed back further and further, I didn't know if we'd have a spring play," Durheim said.
The first read-through of the show was April 14, which means when it opens Friday, May 14, audiences will see the result of 30 days of hard work on a hectic, reduced timeline. Durheim hopes audiences will come prepared for the high-energy performance. If the show's themes don't transport you to the 1980s, perhaps the jukebox playing between scenes will.
"We have flooded the show with so much '80s," she said. "If you want to come in neon or get your Aqua Net hair spray out, go for it."
Shows are 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, May 14-15, and 2 p.m. Sunday, May 16. Tickets will be available at the door at Hutchinson High School, $8 for adults, $6 for students. Masks will be required and COVID precautions will be taken, limiting the show to 250 viewers. Groups will be seated together and spaced out from others.
If you can't make it to the show in-person, there are plans to stream a recording on the Hutchinson Theatre Association's YouTube page.
For senior Anthony Zeuli, who plays Phillip, part of the joy of the show has been watching Hagberg.
"It's fun to see how her brain works," he said. "When you're working with the playwright, it's fun to watch how things come to life. It's cool to see her choreograph, to see it the way she wanted it. Any time you're on stage blocking, you can see her light up when it happens the way she imagined it."
Zeuli's character is a clumsy goofball in the style of Ralph Malph from "Happy Days," a character he's already familiar with from portraying Ralph Malph in a community theater performance of "Happy Days."
"I think my character is funny whenever he sings or falls," he said. "There are a lot of fun moments. There is a moment with a few guys, we call it the bro moment."
Navaeh Rettig, a freshman, plays a zombie. She performed in a middle school show, but this will be her first at the high school.
"I'm a neon zombie, so I wear a lot of neon," she said. "It's kind of cool. ... I'm kind of a dorky zombie. My hair gets all teased up, all messy and crazy. I get to smash my head through a window."
The spectacle of performers running around so much on stage — not to mention with zombies — stands out to her as a unique feature of the show. She also loves the callbacks to movies such as "The Goonies," and a love confession that turns a shy character confident.
As a zombie, Rettig will participate in one of the show's surprise dance numbers, which she choreographed.
"I'm excited to see the reaction," Hagberg said. "I don't think people are going to expect it. It's going to be fun."
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Al Gable of Florida, left, and Dave Skoog of Hutchinson met up a few months ago in Florida, 52 years after Skoog helped save Gable’s life in a helicopter crash during the Vietnam War.
When Dave Skoog of Hutchinson and Al Gable, a Philadelphia native, met back in March, the two Vietnam War veterans shared an immediate bond.
“It was almost like we had been around each other for a long period of time already,” Gable said.
The truth, however, is that the men hadn’t interacted since their paths last crossed March 23, 1969, the day Skoog helped pull Gable from a helicopter crash and saved his life.
Both men were members of the 92nd Assault Helicopter Company stationed in the Central Highlands, a mountainous region of Vietnam. Skoog, who was 19 at the time, worked on rescue and recovery missions, while Gable, who was 21, was a gunner helping cover insertions and extractions.
“The gun units basically fly over and we penetrate the area with rockets and ammo,” Gable said. “So you kind of shoot up the area, and you do the same thing when they call you to remove the guys from the area.”
On March 23, 1969, Gable’s helicopter was fully loaded for an insertion, meaning it was filled with the maximum fuel and ammo it could carry. Taking off with that much weight can be difficult, Skoog said, especially in the mountains of the Central Highlands where the air was thinner.
“Sometimes you’d have to scoot down the runway and then jump in the helicopter before you take off,” Gable said.
As his helicopter took off that day, Gable said he immediately felt the pilot was acting unusual and something was wrong.”
“He wasn’t telling us anything, and the next thing you know he was calling for mayday, and I knew we were in trouble,” Gable said. “Upon that moment I thought, ‘This is the end of me, I’m done, we’re dead,’ because I’ve seen a few (helicopters) hit the ground, and as soon as they hit the ground they blow up.”
Al Gable was badly injured in Vietnam aboard this crashed helicopter and knew little about what happened to him after the crash until he connected with Dave Skoog on Facebook.
Gable said he has a few memories of the crash, including the feeling of the impact and the sound of the engine running when he woke up. He also remembered thinking he needed to escape before the helicopter exploded.
“The next thing I remember, I was on a medevac helicopter, there was a guy talking to me telling me I’d be fine, I’d be on my way to the field hospital, and then I must have passed out again and I woke up at the field hospital,” Gable said.
FILLING IN GAPS
For years Gable knew little about the moments between his crash and when he was medevaced to safety. That is until about three months ago.
While sharing his story on a Facebook group for members of the 92nd AHC, Gable’s post was seen by Skoog, who recognized the tail number on Gable’s crashed helicopter. He was one of the first responders to the wreck.
“We were on another minor rescue/recovery mission, it was a downed helicopter but nobody was hurt, and we got this call that there was a crash (and diverted to it),” Skoog said.
At the scene of the wreck, Skoog recalled that the pilot and two other passengers aboard the helicopter were able to get out safely, but the gunner was trapped. A wrecker with a tow cable was required to move the demolished helicopter and free Gable.
“We were lucky we were close by, because it could have been 45 minutes otherwise and he could have been dead,” Skoog said. “So we were lucky we were within about five minutes.”
After sending Gable off on the medevac, Skoog said he never knew what happened to the gunner, and considering his wounds, he wouldn’t have been surprised if he had died.
Two men look at the crash of Al Gable’s helicopter in Vietnam in 1969. The gunship was loaded with fuel and ammo for an insertion but went down due as it struggled to get lift in the thin air of Vietnam’s mountainous Central Highlands region.
“You don’t know what’s happened to the guy,” Skoog said. “Did he make it, did he not make it? Because we went right back to work. The war’s still going on.”
But after connecting on social media, both men were able to fill each other in on the missing parts of their shared experience.
Gable suffered a broken pelvis and compression fracture to his spine and spent four months in a body cast. He still suffers from back and hip issues today, but while recovering in Japan with other injured soldiers, he remembered how lucky he felt his injuries weren’t worse.
“I thought I was bad until I saw a guy beside me with one leg,” Gable said, “and I thought to myself, ‘I’m nothing compared to him and some of the other ones who had an arm and a leg missing.’”
Skoog went on to serve three tours in Vietnam, while Gable recovered and was reassigned to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, where he worked at the base rod and gun club until his two-year term was finished.
AN EMOTIONAL MEETING
As the two men got to know each other more, they discovered another similarity. Gable had moved to Venice, Florida, about two years ago, while Skoog was spending winter in Fort Myers, less than two hours away. The two men decided to meet up in the middle and immediately hit it off, and then met up again in Fort Myers.
“It was an emotional reunion and fun to reunite after 52 years,” Skoog said. “His wife looked at the calendar and said, ‘Look, it’s 52 years to the day that you crashed.’”
Although Gable has no memory of Skoog from that day in 1969, he’ll never forget him now, and the two men remain in contact. He never imagined he would have met up with someone from his unit five decades ago, especially someone who knew so much about his crash. But he called his new friendship with Skoog “a blessing,” and just one more affirmation of how lucky he is.
“I believed in God then, but I believe in God more today, and that day (of the crash) made me believe wholly and more about him and for him, because here I am today … still living life,” Gable said. “I feel very fortunate.”
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Lawmakers such as District 18B Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen and other proponents of U.S. Highway 212 expansion dig in during a groundbreaking ceremony last week for the first phase of a two-phase project that will make the highway four lanes from Carver to Norwood Young America and beyond
Here’s a look at the scope and projected timelines of two phases of the project to expand U.S. Highway 212 to four lanes from Norwood Young America to Carver.
After more than a decade of planning, a 4.5-mile portion of U.S. Highway 212’s four-lane expansion has begun.
Stretching from Cologne (Highway 36) to Carver (Highway 11/Jonathan Carver Parkway), the long-awaited road with current safety concerns should be operable by fall 2022 thanks to full funding. The second phase, from Norwood Young America to Cologne, is expected to score funding in the next several years.
It’s a locally led project on a state road, which is highly unusual for a National Highway System road such as this, Carver County Division Director and County Engineer Lyndon Colebrook-Robjent said.
“(The county) took it upon themselves to fix it and figure out a way to get it done,” he said.
Though falling only in Carver County, the portion is expected to benefit people from all over, including communities west of the Twin Cities such as those in McLeod County. The project has been a focus of District 18B Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen and District 18 Sen. Scott Newman for years.
“Seeing 212 completed has been my No. 1 transportation priority since I’ve been at the Legislature,” Gruenhagen said during a ground-breaking ceremony for the project last week. “I’ve chief-authored a funding bill for 212 all nine years I’ve been up there, and fortunately, I have to pinch myself, we’re finally here today to see the beginning of this.”
"I am pleased from a public safety standpoint and from an economic standpoint,” Newman said about the project in an email. “It's very important to the state of Minnesota.”
“We have one step left,” he added, “the portion from Bongards to Norwood Young America. We absolutely have to get that done.”
Built in 1929, growth has propelled the need for more lanes. According to Colebrook-Robjent, more than 2,000 semitrailers traverse the stretch each day. Many truck-car crashes lead to serious injuries or fatalities, he said. In the past 11 years, 11 people have died on Highway 212 within the two-project span. That’s roughly one a year.
“That’s pretty bad. That's considerably higher than the state average,” Colebrook-Robjent said.
Plans include four reduced-conflict intersections. They prevent people from crossing the highway, leading to cars side-swiped by semitrailers, which has become all too common.
The intersection of Highway 284 and 212 in Cologne is one of those, built in 2008 and proven successful thus far, Colebrook-Robjent said.
“None of the local roads that connect 212 now will you be able to go straight through. That's unique in that it’s a relatively new safety measure,” he said.
GROWTH ACROSS THE REGION
At the groundbreaking, Carver County Commissioner John Fahey said the project will soon support farmers and agricultural industries “immensely.” It increases reach: Food and products will soon travel across Minnesota, the U.S. and world with more ease, he said.
Cities should see a thumbs-up impact, too.
“Expanding this highway brings economic growth to our smaller cities here in western Carver County and beyond,” Fahey said. “We all know Highway 212 is a great asset — a lot of us probably here in this great place in Carver County — but to the entire state and region.”
Now that funding is a go and road work has begun, up next on the docket is adjusting property that runs along the highway.
Since the roads are getting wider, the county bought a few parcels of land from residents and farmers, Colebrook-Robjent said. That includes at least one barn, a house and some other buildings.
There won’t be any noise walls like berms since homes are few and far between along that part of 212. They’re common along freeways, but this is labeled as an expressway.
In addition to the four-lane expansion, highway pavement will be upgraded and the highway portion in Dahlgren Township will see realignment.
All that construction means travelers can expect a few things, according to the county: Road work. Short delays on weekdays 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Trucks hauling materials on nearby county highways. A May-to-June Kelly Avenue closure between Highway 212 and County Road 140.
But perhaps met most-highly with relief? There won’t be any Highway 212 detours.
After this segment is complete, proponents of Highway 212 expansion are crossing their fingers to reach the finish line for phase two.
“We really need (the Legislature) to help us fund the last gap, which is another 5 miles from Cologne to Norwood Young America,” Colebrook-Robjent said. “It needs to be done. We’ve done one. We hope that the next won’t take another 11 years.”
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Daryl Luthens
McLeod County Board Member Daryl Luthens has been named as a defendant in a lawsuit alleging vote tampering in relation to a timeshare board.
The civil complaint filed on behalf of the Breezy Center Timeshare Owners Association in Crow Wing County late last month mainly focuses on Neal Narveson and his company, Narveson Management, and requests relief for both common law fraud and consumer fraud. Narveson Management had management contracts with various timeshare associations. The complaint says Narveson handpicked board members of the BCTOA and other timeshare associations.
"At various times, (Breezy Point Resort) proposed management contracts to Narveson-managed association boards, including that of the BCTOA, to provide management services at a much cheaper cost than the associations paid to Narveson," the complaint states. "The Resort's proposals were routinely rejected without consideration."
The complaint claims Luthens serves on approximately six boards of Narveson-managed associations.
The complaint also states, "Over the years, (Breezy Point Resort) affiliates and employees have run for positions on the board of directors for some Narveson-managed associations, posing a threat to Narveson's stranglehold."
In 2016, two board members on the BCTOA were challenged for their seats. An existing board law required proxy votes for the election be mailed and postmarked 10 days before the annual meeting to be valid for the election. The complaint argues this board law violates Chapter 317 of Minnesota Statutes, which allows proxies to be present at the time of the annual meeting.
A sworn statement from a former BCTOA board member alleges that prior to the annual meeting in January 2016, Narveson met with "loyal board members" from other associations he managed and directed them to forge signatures on proxy votes in favor of existing board members. Luthens and others are alleged to have provided forgeries as directed.
Luthens declined to comment on the lawsuit Monday morning.
“Narveson further advised those forging proxies to alter the signatures as much as possible so that it wasn’t obvious the same person had filled out and signed the documents," the complaint states.
With aid from counsel, the plaintiff attempted to verify signatures on proxies with their owners. As of the time the complaint was filed, 12 signatures on proxies cast in favor of existing board members are purported to be forgeries, including one from a man who died in 2010.
Narveson is also alleged to have illegally provided all-expense paid trips, meals and beverages to board members.
The complaint claims the fraud resulted in the BCTOA paying more than $100,000 in litigation expenses defending the results of the election and continuing Narveson's management contracts. It also states attorney and investigation expenses are in excess of $50,000.
BCTOA requests judgement against the defendants in an amount exceeding $50,000 for common law fraud, and exceeding $50,000 from Narveson Management and Neal Narveson for consumer fraud. This civil action is still in its early stages, with a scheduling conference in early July.
