Community

Our Redeemer’s Lutheran Church, Suring, will host the ordination and installation of Jacob Gawlik as pastor at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 7, at the church, 11005 County Road M. The public is invited.

Bishop James Justman, of the ELCA East Central Synod of Wisconsin, will preside at these official ceremonies.

The congregation spent nearly two years in self-study mission-focus discussions and long-range planning guided by the synod office and by Interim Pastor Beth Macha before extending a letter of call to Gawlik. He recently completed his seminary training.

The ordination of a pastor in a local congregation is an occasion few churches experience. This special event will begin a new era at Our Redeemer’s. During the past 80 years the congregation shared a pastor with Bethel Lutheran Church of Green Valley, and now both churches are independent.

Sherry Van Lishout will be ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 12, at St. John Lutheran Church, 3374 County Road C, Oconto Falls.

Pastor Paul Heykes of St. John’s and Bishop Rodger Prois from the Western Iowa Synod of the ELCA will preside over the service.

A graduate of Pulaski High School and the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Van Lishout received her Master of Divinity degree from Wartburg Theological Seminary and completed her internship in a cluster of churches in southwestern Iowa. In October, She will be installed as pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Adair, Iowa.

She is married to Pastor Grant Van Lishout, and they live in Atlantic, Iowa, with their daughter, Lily. Her parents are Mark and Carolyn Van Donsel, of Krakow, and her grandparents are Marshall Jahnke, of Krakow, and the late Arnita Jahnke, and Rosalie Van Donsel, of Pulaski, and the late Leo Van Donsel.

The annual Lena Lions Dairyfest celebration will be held Saturday, Sept. 7, at the St. Anne Parish grounds.

The first event of the day will be the Stampede 5K walk-run competition. Registration will open at 6 a.m. at Lena High School, and the race begins at 8 a.m.

For information, call Chad Misco at 920-373-2319.

A parade will take place at 10:30 a.m. on Main Street. Parade marshals Bill and Carol Pytleski will lead the parade in a horse-drawn carriage, and the Pulaski High School Red Raider Marching Band will perform.

The farm tractor pull begins at 12 p.m., with the truck pull to follow, at approximately 4 p.m.

Thanks to the many sponsors, all events at Dairyfest are free.

Wagon rides and live music will take place all day. Lena High School FFA will run a petting zoo. Bouncers, face painting and a climbing wall will be available. Food and refreshments will be served.

More than 40 local children performed an original musical adaptation of the classic tale, “Pinocchio,” Aug. 10.

“Pinocchio” was presented in two performances at the Falls Area Performing Arts Center by the Oconto Falls Friends of the Arts in association with Missoula Children’s Theatre.

The local cast featured Leah Wons at Pinocchio, Madeleine Sprout, Blue Fairy, Addison Hatch, Jiminy Cricket, Matthew Courchaine, Fox, and Madeline Knutson, Cat.

Also featured were Kayley Van Den Eng, Lauren Pommier and Aailyah Fowler as puppets; Liam Spillane as Pinocchio’s tough friend, Candlewick, and Simon Pumplun, Connor Romandine, Alex Spang and Aidan Spillane as Candlewick’s crew.

Margaret Elfe and Luretta Wilber, of the town of How, have been awarded the Suring Area Senior Citizen Award and will serve as grand marshals of the Suring Labor Day Parade.

The women will receive their award at 12 p.m. Monday, Sept. 2, at Veteran’s Memorial Park. The parade begins at 10 a.m Monday, Sept. 2, on Main Street and is part of a weekend-long celebration in the village.

Both women were farmers who raised families and served their community and church.

Margaret was born on a farm in How, the third child of Albert and Lillie Rakow. She attended Grignon School for first through fifth grade and St. John Lutheran School in Hayes for sixth to eighth grade. She did not attend high school because she was needed at home.

An end-of-summer party is planned in Suring when the village holds its 83rd annual Labor Day celebration from Aug. 30-Sept. 2. Event organizer Cindy Zahn said the celebration brings hundreds of people into the village.

“It’s a lot of fun. It usually is an annual homecoming for people who used to live here,” she said.

Many of the traditional events will return this year, including the demolition derby, fireworks show and Labor Day parade. Spectrum Entertainment will provide rides and games for the kids at Veterans Memorial Park. Wristband specials will be available Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

New this year is a 50-50 raffle on Sunday and a lawn mower demolition derby on Monday.

The celebration is sponsored by Suring Labor Day Celebration Inc. and the following organizations: Suring FFA Alumni, Suring Lions, Suring Lioness, Suring Antique Tractor Association, Suring Sportsman Club, American Legion and Auxiliary and St. John Lutheran Church.

The Oconto County Fairest of the Fair Committee will host a special event for children, Ice Cream with the Fairest, at 4 p.m. Friday, Aug. 23, at Honey Park, located at the fairgrounds in Gillett.

Kids are invited for ice cream and activities to learn what it’s like to be the Oconto County Fairest of the Fair. Fairest of the Fair Amber Baeten and Junior Fairest of the Fair Stephanie Peitersen will attend the event, which takes place during the 2013 Oconto County Fair.

Due to a growing interest in the Junior Fairest of the Fair contest, the competition has been delayed until spring to coincide with the Oconto County Fairest of the Fair banquet. The Junior Fairest had previously been chosen during the fair.

A free course at Community Memorial Hospital teaches lifesaving skills such as CPR basics, automated external defibrillator use and choking relief. The three-hour Family & Friends CPR course designed by the American Heart Association is for anyone who wants to learn simple lifesaving skills for adults, infants and children.

“New parents, babysitters and grandparents will especially want to take advantage of this free opportunity to learn lifesaving skills in just one morning or evening,” said CMH training site coordinator Kathy Henne. CMH is a training site for the American Heart Association.

The Family & Friends CPR course is taught by registered nurses. It consists of hands-on learning and is open to anyone 12 and older. Participants will receive a skills handbook and participation card.

The Lena Dairyfest committee has selected William “Bill” and Carol Pytleski as the parade marshals for the Lena Dairyfest parade being held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 7, on Main Street in Lena.

The Pytleskis owned and operated a dairy farm west of Lena, and they were among the first in Oconto County to milk cows in a milking parlor. The herd consisted of 50 cows at the time. In 1980 they sold the dairy farm to their son Jeff.

Bill Pytleski served in the United States Navy from November 1943 to June 1946 when he achieved the rank of seaman as a torpedo man. He served in the Southwest Pacific, Philippines and Burma, and received numerous medals and ribbons. He is featured in one of John Maino’s books about World War II.

For almost 20 years, Suring resident Dora Slang has entered her unique Rosemaling paintings in the Open class competition of the Oconto County Fair. As the fair approaches this month, Slang said there is no plan to stop painting or exhibiting anytime soon.

“From the first time I did it, that’s what I wanted to do,” Slang said. “I am still so thankful that I can paint.”

Slang began painting in the 1980s, taking on the Norwegian style of Rosemaling because of her late husband Orvil’s ancestry.

Rosemaling is a traditional Norwegian folk art that displays stylized flowers and scroll shapes with blending colors and fine outlines.

Slang works on her projects in a small studio her husband built in their home as a way to keep her paints out of the kitchen.

“He didn’t like all of my stuff on the dining room table,” she said, laughing.