ADAMS – Sunday was Vangsness Day in Adams.

Monday, August 23, 1999

ADAMS – Sunday was Vangsness Day in Adams.

Bev Vangsness was the center of attention at a retirement party in her honor at Little Cedar Lutheran Church.

Then Bev and her husband, Dwain, watched as their generosity helped the community launch a Habitat for Humanity project that will help a young mother and her family.

When the events were over, there was no need for Mayor Leroy Swanson to proclaim "Vangsness Day" in Adams. That was understood.

Once again, Adams is taking care of its own.

"I’ve got mixed feelings about this," Bev said at the retirement party in her honor. "I’m going to enjoy retirement and being free to do the things I want to do, but I know I’m going to miss the work and being with the ambulance crew, too."

Vangsness retired from her duties as an emergency medical technician with the Adams Area Ambulance Service. She was a volunteer for 26 years.

"Bev, did you ever think back in the 1970s how much our lives would change if we succeeded in getting an ambulance for Adams?" Dick Triplett, the original ambulance service director, asked the honoree during a program Sunday afternoon.

"Well, we did it," he said. "The training began and came and came again and continues. As I look back and I’m sure you do too, how we ever presumed to go on an emergency call."

Those were the days when the service had but six volunteers and only the basic training and rudimentary equipment. "I think the only thing we were really sure of was when to blow the siren," Triplett joked. He read the comments of Gladys Osmundson, another one of the ambulance service "originals."

David Lagerstedt is the current director of the 15-member Adams Area Ambulance Service. Lagerstedt presented Vangsness with a plaque and the community’s appreciation for her long-time service.

Health problems forced Vangsness to give up her EMT duties, but she plans to continue as a substitute teacher in the Southland Independent School District.

In the small community, the ambulance service volunteers are called to emergencies involving people they know; even relatives. It makes a bad situation worse.

"Most of the calls are people you know," Vangsness told The Stacyville-Adams Monitor Review. "This can be an advantage yet it can also be a disadvantage, too. You can’t let your emotions go until you get back. You stay professional and think about the situation later."

"We cannot save all people as God is in control. Bad things happen to good people We do whatever we have to do," she said.

Habitat ground-breaking

After the open house at Little Cedar Lutheran Church, Bev and Dwain Vangsness went to a Freeborn-Mower Habitat for Humanity ground-breaking ceremony at a residential development in northeast Adams.

The Rev. Alan Gunderson, pastor of Little Cedar Lutheran Church, was master of ceremonies for the ceremony attended by over 100 people. "We’re very happy and very proud to have this project going in our town," he said.

Wayne Hanson, president of the affiliate, credited Gayle Bergstrom, an affiliate board member, with suggesting a house-building project at Adams.

It is the 11th project undertaken by the affiliate and the first outside the cities of Albert Lea and Austin. "The chance to branch out in a community makes this so exciting," Hanson said.

"We do more than build houses," Hanson said, "We create homes for families."

According to Hanson, the monies received by the affiliate from the Minnesota Attorney General’s settlement with US Bancorp will help finance the project.

Bergstrom, an Adams area grain farmer, introduced Dixie Bergstrom, an Austin Medical Center unit secretary and mother of three sons and a daughter.

Gunderson read the lyrics to a song, that noticed, in part, "Let us build a house where love can dwell" and with that affiliate volunteers and the new home’s owner turned over scoops of dirt where the house will be built.

While on-lookers applauded, one by one the ceremonial ground-breaking took place.

Dale Beckel will serve as site supervisor for the project. Plans call for the home to be completed by year’s end.

Mayor Swanson observed, "Projects like this are successful, because of people working together."

The new home-owner will contribute 250 of "sweat equity" in helping build the house. She will also pay a 20 year mortgage at no interest for the split-entry style home with three finished bedrooms.

Jim Schroeder will assist Bergstrom in recruiting volunteers to build the house.

The daughter of Harlan and Virginia Rogne (both deceased), expressed her appreciation to all for making her dream of owning a home possible. "I’m excited and ready to pound," she said.

She presently lives in a subsidized Mower County Housing and Redevelopment Authority apartment at Adams.

The residential lot in a quiet cul-de-sac near the Adams Group Home was donated by Dwain and Bev Vangsness.

Dwain said the couple and their family had made Adams their home for 40 years. Donating the residential property was the couple’s way of "giving back to a community that has given so much to us," Dwain said.

The Rev. Greg Leif, pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Adams and St. John the Baptist Catholic Church at Johnsburg, gave the invocation and dedication Sunday afternoon.

With the imploring of Leif, guests at the ceremony joined hands and made a huge circle around where the young mother’s new home will be built by Adams’ hands this fall.