P A G E 2 B O R D E R B A T C H B R E W I N G S
Wow , it ’ s hard to believe that close to 30 years ago a small group of beer can collectors met on Shellrock Lane in Glenville , Minnesota at the home of Bob and Nona Vierkant to discuss starting a new beer can collecting chapter . The initial idea was to form a chapter to take up the slack between our neighbors to the North , the North Star Chapter and our neighbor to the South , the Hawkeye Chapter . Since we had a close proximity to New Ulm , we decided to christen our chapter the Schell ’ s Border Batch . Present at that formation meeting were Bob and Nona Vierkant , Herb and Pat Krause , Ed Shannon , Jay and Margie Smith , Kevin Savick and myself with my wife by my first marriage Susan . Bob had of course done his homework and had all the requirements from the BCCA to start a new chapter . Bob then became the first President ( since it was his idea ) and I became the Vice President . Well as the saying goes , if you keep something around long enough , sooner or later it will come back into fashion .
At the Schell ’ s Christmas party in New Ulm after a steady diet of Grain Belt Premium and several antique beers , I approached Tom and Jay and mentioned that I ’ d like to become more involved in the chapters proceedings again . I figured what the hell , I just had recently retired from the Winnebago Fire Department and now had some extra time on my hands . I figured being an officer of the chapter couldn ’ t be any worse than running into burning buildings when everyone else was running out , right ? No way would they remember my offer by the following morning , right ? Well evidently they weren ’ t nearly as full as I was and before I could say Cheers , I was the new VP of the chapter . Cool .
Most everyone knows me but to those who don ’ t , allow me to introduce myself . I live in Winnebago Minnesota with my wife of 31 years Susan . I ’ ve been collecting beer stuff since the early 70 ’ s and completely started collecting Hamm ’ s Beer Breweriania in the late 70 ’ s . I own and operate Miner Auto Service in Winnebago and my wife sells drugs at Zitnak Pharmacy in Blue Earth . We love to have visitors and welcome any and all if you ’ re in the area to tour the Bear ’ s Den . There ’ s always a cold one in the frig and plenty of music out of my 14 jukeboxes scattered around the house and garage . I also welcome any and all concerns you may have on the chapters activities , as we ’ re all in this together .
Last but not least , my hats off to Tom Terwilliger for his past leadership that basically brought this chapter back from the grave and made it one of the most fun chapters in the BCCA . It ’ s going to be a fun year-see ya at the upcoming shows .
Steve Miner BCCA # 12802