Skills in fishing, pedaling a tractor and raising a bottle with a wire all paid off Saturday for kids attending Talmage Days 2010, but few skills struck fear like those of Emma Grobe.
After the fishing derby, where 40 kids competed to catch eight-inch bullheads, children assembled on a top of a hill with their bicycles, tricycles and tractors. The Three-block parade turned into an Indy car-style pedaling demonstration that primed participants for games at the park.
After failing to recruit the news reporter and County Commissioner Tim Nelsen to sit on the arm of the dunking tank, Richard Hauberg and Ray Damme invited some young boys to risk the plunge.
Grobe, who said she doesn’t play softball at her home in Lincoln, was first to throw. Clank and down the boys went. One and then another and another.
The boys could stay up for several other throwers at a time, raising reason for celebration and taunting. It all changed when Grobe came back to first in the line and the shouts of joy turned to “clank and splash.”
The boys had their revenge, however, when throwers successfully dunked their Talmage Days nemesis.
Betty Stukenholtz and Mary E. Teten displayed historical school photos that Stukenholtz hopes to compile into a book. They said celebration visitors were able to identify some more of the photographs.
Joyce Hockenborne of Lambertville, Mich., returned with a display of Anthony Dexter, who grew up in Talmage.
She said she first saw Dexter on film when she was 10 years old and credits him for inspiring her 25-year career as a ballroom dance instructor.
As she does every year, she placed a dozen red roses and one white rose at his graveside.
Dexter was in 16 movies beginning in 1951, including Valentino.
Hockenborne said Hollywood searched 13 years for the actor that would play Rudolph Valentine and selected Dexter out of 75,000 auditions.
She said he was selected because of his resemblance to the silent-film character of the true romance films and his dancing skills.
