Irish supply plenty of blarney before annual parade

Parade starts

at 5 p.m. Sunday

in downtown

By KEVIN SWEENEY

Journal Editor

NEW ULM -- Let the snow fall and the wind blow -- it will not dampen the spirit or the enthusiasm of the Irish in New Ulm as they celebrate St. Patrick's Day Sunday with the 36th annual St. Patrick Day Parade in New Ulm.

The parade will go on regardless of weather, and the massive, overflow crowds on hand to witness it will not be disappointed, said New Ulm Blarneymeister Bill O'Connor and his able assistant, Pat Kneefe, in an interview Thursday.

The only disappointment may be finding a spot to see the parade, said O'Connor, tongue planted firmly in cheek.

"I must have had 40 calls this week from people asking where's the best place to stand and where to stay," said O'Connor.

The parade begins at 5 p.m. at Third South and Minnesota streets, and proceeds the wrong way up Minnesota Street to the Glockenspiel. After the parade, a celebration will be held at the Kaiserhoff, featuring the Concord Singers.

This year's St. Patrick's Day Queen is Anni Sweeney, daughter of this reporter, and his wife Marijo. Anni, 16, is a junior at Cathedral High School, where she is interested in music, art and drama.

Being the St. Patrick's Day Queen is "kind of cool," said Anni. "Being Irish means we have a unique culture in a mostly German-cultured town. As queen I'll be representing an interesting culture and promoting the benefits of cultural diversity."

The massive St. Patrick's Day crowds always put a strain the New Ulm hotels, which are booked solid through the weekend, said Kneefe.

"We called over to Jackpot Junction to see if they could handle the overflow, and they were already booked solid," said Kneefe.

"The Holiday Inn in Duluth is booked solid," said O'Connor.

Such a huge collection of people makes the St. Patrick's Day Parade a natural target for terrorism. "We are very concerned about that," said O'Connor.

Like the Olympic Committee in Salt Lake City, the New Ulm Irish are taking extra strong security measures to make sure all are safe.

"We put our wives (Mary O'Connor and Katie Kneefe) in charge of security," said Kneefe. "Anyone who tries to mess with them is a damn fool."

As the longest continuous St. Patrick's Day Parade in Minnesota, New Ulm is looked to for advice and guidance from other cities. This year, after the St. Patrick's Day Parade organizers in St. Paul called O'Connor's office seeking advice, Kneefe is being sent to St. Paul for its parade on Saturday to see what can be done. He and Katie will be leading a tour group through New Ulm Travel Fun Tours to the St. Paul Parade, after which they will attend the play "Flanagan's Wake," before returning to New Ulm.

"The St. Paul people will be coming to New Ulm on Sunday to see how it's supposed to be done," said Kneefe.

While some Irish in other cities feel free to move St. Patrick's Day celebrations to Saturday when it falls on a Sunday, New Ulm's Irish are purists.

"I think they must be mostly Northern Irish up there," said Kneefe. "They don't recognize the religious significance."

"St. Patrick's Day is March 17th, and whatever day of the week it happens to fall on, that's St. Patrick's Day," said O'Connor. "Besides, a lot of us like to go to mass on St. Patrick's Day, and this way we can kill two birds with one stone, going to Sunday Mass and St. Patrick's Day mass at the same time."

The St. Patrick's Day celebration is actually a day-long extravaganza that will open with a prayer service at John Wisniewski's house at 7 a.m., said O'Connor.

In the afternoon, the traditional Rope Pushing Contest will be held at 2 p.m. in Turner Hall Park, and the St. Patrick's Day medallion hunt will be held at Flandrau State Park.

Last year, despite publishing a detailed clue ("It's under the bird feeder!") no one found the medallion hidden in Wisniewski's back yard. This year O'Connor gave another clue to treasure hunters.

"It will be in the back of a red pickup truck parked at the Flandrau State Park entrance," he said.

At 3 p.m. an Irish poet, Otto Schlumpberger, will be reading his poetry at the Wanda Gag House.

The festivities will conclude when Mary O'Connor does her traditional Irish Jig on the bar at the Kaiserhoff at midnight.

As they do every year, the Irish in New Ulm will honor several people with special awards. This year the "Done Nothing" award goes to retired New Ulm Police Chief Richard Gulden. While retired City Manager Richard Salvati would seem a strong contender, O'Connor said the award requires that the recipient be retired at least a year.

O'Connor said a special award is being presented by Alliance Bank to Kneefe, who retired last May. The award, said O'Connor, is Alliance's grateful recognition that the bank's footings went up $8 million after Kneefe's retirement.

Lenny Donahue, owner of the Sausage Shop, is receiving the "Oldest Living Teenager" award, said O'Connor. "Lenny had a little business setback this year," said O'Connor. "He wanted to make some Polish sausage, so he went to Sigel Township and bought some retarded hogs. But it didn't work out."

The theme of this year's parade is a tried and true one, "You can always tell a German but you can't tell him much."

O'Connor said the theme has been well accepted over the years. "We're going to keep using it until they catch on," said Kneefe.

"Some Germans think of it as a compliment," said O'Connor.

O'Connor and Kneefe had hoped that Denny Warta, who is temporarily keeping the vast New Ulm Irish history archives at his home, would have a slide show focusing on the accomplishments of the Irish in New Ulm ready for this year's celebration. But the work is incomplete.

"He said he'll get it done when he's finished getting that heathen statue fixed up," said O'Connor, referring to the Hermann Monument.

To help speed along the Hermann restoration, O'Connor said the Irish have donated the entire St. Patrick statue fund -- $8.65 -- that they have collected over the years to the Hermann Restoration fund.

The St. Patrick statue project is mired in red tape for now. "They won't let us get an appropriate site," said O'Connor. "Maybe we can get Ricky Howk to write a letter about it."

O'Connor is also hopeful that the resignation of Salvati as city manager will loosen things up. "For years Salvati (an Italian-American) tried to hold us back and shove us down," said O'Connor. "He was always jealous of the success of our celebration."

O'Connor and Kneefe are also hoping that Bishop John Nienstedt, who despite his German surname is mostly Irish, will join them for the parade, but they haven't had a commitment from him. They promised to squeeze him in if he shows up.