Platt Duetsche Society

Monthly Newsletter

Please notify the Club if you wish to continue receiving your newsletter in the mail. Beginning in February 2012, the newsletter will only be sent to those who have informed us they wish to continue or you may pick one up at the club. Those with internet access are encouraged to use our web site, www.thepd.net, for current club news. We are,also, requesting your e-mail address be sent to plattduetsche@duetsche.net or from this site, so we may contact you as needed and use for future planned group mailings.

PD First Annual Music & BBQ Festival

An informational meeting has been scheduled at the club on Sunday, February 26 at 4pm, in order to determine what interest the membership has in establishing at BBQ competition series each summer at the club. We will have some initial suggestions, based on information found during internet searches, but the more ideas we get from the people that will be participating or planning, the more it will add to the uniqueness of our event.

If you or anyone you know is interested in competing and/or helping plan this fun project, please mark that date on your calendar. If you prefer, leave your name, phone# and e-mail address on the sign up sheet in the club and you will be contacted with updates.

Every Monday!

Now Open from 1pm until 8pm

Happy Hour Prices and Keno!

Notes from PD 125th Anniversary Book

In the fall of 1919, at the age of eleven, Fred Hehnke was employed by a paving firm at the rate of one dollar and a half a day. They dug gravel from the Platt Duetsche pond, mixed it with oil, and used the mix for one of the earlier asphalt roads in Grand Island.

There used to be a horse barn south of the PD building on the south side of the lake. It measured an estimated twenty feet wide by sixty feet long. The usual procedure was to park the buggy outside the barn, unhitch the horse and put it inside the barn. The men would go out first after the dance was over, hitch up the horse to the buggy and pick up his wife for the ride home. One comment of interest was that whenever the lake was frozen over they would walk across the ice rather than go around to get to the Platt Duetsche.

During WWI, William Detlefsen, a member and Temporary Custodian, was taken into custody by the US Marshall. He was taken to Omaha. It seems the rumor had it that the Platt Duetsche was reported to have a cache of guns that they were going to use to train young Germans in GI to fight for Germany. What actually happened though was the children, primarily boys, had cork and BB guns. These guns were used to shoot at targets such as a cardboard picture of a bird. When scoring a hit, they would receive a prize. To continue with Mr. Detlefsen, he was found innocent of all charges by a red faced US Marshall. However, the irony of the whole story is that he had to pay his own way home from Omaha!

Platt Duetsche Officers and Board of Trustees 2011-2012

President Bill Neid

Vice President Ben Murphy

Trustees

Mary Encinger

Clay Hagman

John Kosch

Matt Stueven

Ladies Platt Duetsche Society

Officers for 2011-2012

President Beverly Wolfe 384-6655

Vice President Jo Meyer 381-7224

Secretary Pat Miller 384-0976

Treasurer Betty Rother 384-8800

Dues are due now $5.00

This nice weather has us looking once again out to the ballfield and the many ballgames we will be hosting. We would like to give a special THANK YOU TO JIM AND LINDA WIEGERT for updating our Platt Duetsche center field sign last summer. We may be somewhat late with this but we are very, very grateful.

Platte Duetsche * 1315 Anna Street * Grand Island, NE * 68803 * Phone: (308) 382-0586