Posted 06/08/2000
Contact: Andrew Svec, 218-281-8380
Gazebo Will Be New Landmark at UMC
See the construction progress photos!
A new landmark will soon appear on the UMC campus: the Harris A. Peterson Centennial Park Gazebo. The gazebo will be built just south of Bede Hall on the northeast corner of the Mall.
Construction began on the project in early May, when UMC Facilities Management staff began work on the concrete base. Officials expect the project to be completed by June 23.
The gazebo will be the focal point of a planned centennial park and garden. The park and garden will renovate the northern edge of the UMC Mall, an area currently home only to a few trees nearing the end of their lifespan. The centennial park concept will evolve as the campus nears the year 2005. In that year the University of Minnesota will celebrate 100 years of educational service at the site now known as UMC. This year, incidentally, is the University of Minnesota system's sesquicentennial (or 150 years) celebration.
A
special marker inlaid in the base of the gazebo will commemorate the U of
M's Northwest School of Agriculture, UMC's precursor from 1905-1968.
During that time 5433
alumni passed through the NWSA. Many
of those former "Aggies" went on to become regional agricultural,
business, and community leaders. The
marker will recognize Harris A. Peterson (photo at right), an NWSA alum
who generously donated $50,000 toward the project.
Peterson is the owner and CEO of Minn-Dak Growers, Ltd.,
a world-wide supplier of mustard, buckwheat, and confection sunflower
ingredients to the food industry.
Additional
markers will eventually be added to the park and garden to recognize
contributions of other UMC and NWSA alumni and to commemorate other
events.
The gazebo will be 23 feet high, 28 feet in diameter, and nine feet high to the ceiling with a concrete base and a sloping ramp. UMC Facilities Management staff have completed the concrete work. The gazebo itself will be built by Yoder Gazebos in Arthur, Illinois. Once construction is finished there, the building will be marked, disassembled, and shipped to Crookston, where it will be reassembled on site.
Yoder Gazebos is a company owned by Old Order Amish. The Amish choose not to use commercial electricity; the equipment they use in the construction of the gazebo will be powered by hand and by stationary gas engines. The painstaking craftsmanship is actually part of the "art" of the project, and it is an appropriate process for the centerpiece of a centennial park.
A group of workers from the company will travel to Crookston with the disassembled gazebo and then reassemble it on the UMC campus. Of course, the Amish don't own or drive motor vehicles, so a Mennonite friend will bring the construction crew in his extended cab truck.
One of the key players in the gazebo project has been John Zak, who works in UMC's Media Services Department. Zak was inspired by the construction of a gazebo in nearby Thief River Falls for that city's centennial celebration back in 1995. Yoder Gazebos also worked with that project.
"It seemed like a nice way to work toward our own centennial at UMC," says Zak. "It is an interesting twist that UMC, a campus recognized nationally for its use of technology in education, would contract a company that uses little modern technology to create its high quality products. But part of the concept of the entire centennial park is to mark the past and look toward the future."
Plans call for the area from Bede Ballroom to the gazebo, garden and park to become a focal point for concerts, performances, receptions and other gatherings on campus. UMC already has plans to host an old-fashioned ice cream social there on August 18, 2000, as part of Crookston's Ox Cart Days festival.