Southwest High School
Class of 1967
The Communique 2025
This is the current event page for the Southwest High School Class of 1967
We will post all communications that have been received to share with classmates. You may submit items of interest to the site like anniversaries, personal accolades, family events, trips taken, any items of interest, public/personal events you want to share or personal stories. We will not post political, religious or controversial issues.
We need your input. Send your info and pictures to site managers and direct any questions or comments to 952-334-4523
Standing meeting
Until further notice the Southwest class of 1967 will sponser an impromtu gathering at Park Tavern, St Louis Park, every 3rd Thursday of the month starting at 12:30 PM. No reservation, just show up and communicate with whom ever happens to be there.
GO INDIANS
Standing meeting at Park Tavern Every 3rd Thursday
Next month's gathering is May 15, 2025
Con Saltzman and his wife Lori came to Minnesota 19April-24 April to visit family and Lori's mother. While here Con played golf with some high school friends at Dwan golf course.
Gopher Theatre
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The Gopher Theatre- 619 Hennepin Ave So
1911- The Grand Theatre opened as a vaudeville house. By the late 20's it was showing movies only. It closed 1n 1936. The theatre was remodeled and reopened in 1938 under the name "Gopher" theatre using U of M maroon and gold on its vitrolite exterior. It's first-run film and celebrity shows were popular for 30+ years. The theatre was sold in 1976 and Ferris Alexander took it to porn until it closed in 1979. It was demolished in 1980.
LUNCH BUNCH - APRIL 2025
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Ron Knapp and Tom Medley 1966 - 59 years ago
Happy Birthday Tom Medley April 5th
LUNCH BUNCH - MARCH 2025
John Zastro came after the picture was taken
Audubon Elementary reunion 1982
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Landrum Wise - Audubon Elementry School
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Mary Ann Faithful Dec 29,1946- Jan 30, 2025
Former Gopher Dick Meredith, who played on two U.S. Olympic hockey teams, dies at 92
Meredith, who graduated from Southwest, lettered for the Gophers from 1952-55.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
February 17, 2025
Former Gophers hockey player Richard “Dick” Meredith, who played on two U.S. Olympic hockey teams, died Feb. 6. He was 92. Meredith, who graduated from Minneapolis Southwest in 1951, and lettered for the Gophers from 1952-55. Meredith was the oldest of four brothers who lettered for the Gophers.
While with the Gophers, Meredith, a 5-foot-7 wing, had 43 goals and 59 assists in 110 games. The Gophers, coached by John Mariucci, reached the NCAA championship game in 1953 and 1954. The Gophers were 46-12-1 in those two seasons.
Meredith played in the 1956 Olympics (the U.S. won the silver medal) and the 1960 Olympics (the U.S. won the gold medal). He was a member of four U.S. national teams and played professional hockey for three seasons. Following his playing career, he worked for the Minnesota North Stars for more than a decade, and is a member of the Southwest Athletic Hall of Fame and the Gophers M Club Hall of Fame.
102 YEARS AGO AT BDE MAKA SKA
MAIN BEACH LAKE CALHOUN SUMMER 1923
February Lunch Bunch
For sale: Accordion that plays itself
Only a few of these oddball automated instruments were made. Minnesota is the home of two of them.
Story by RICHARD CHIN Photo by AARON LAVINSKY The Minnesota Star Tribune
Before there were robots, selfdriving cars and AI, there were automated mechanical music machines: self-playing pianos, organs, even banjos and violins.
And sitting in a piano storage warehouse in New Brighton looking for a buyer is one of the weirdest examples around: a self-playing accordion.
The so-called Otto Accordian was owned by Larry Reece, a late Twin Cities collector of automated mechanical music machines.
Reece, who worked as an electrician at Minneapolis City Hall, collected vintage musical machines like early 20th century speakeasy player pianos and a 100-year-old band organ designed to provide music for carousels.
But Reece’s Otto Accordian wasn’t an antique. It was custom built in 2020.
The Otto Accordian is made by a tiny business in Kirksville, Mo., called Miner Co., as a sideline to its main business of making brass whistle calliopes.
The Otto Accordian is actually several instruments: an accordion plus a xylophone, bass drum, snare drum and wood percussion block. It’s a sort of one-man robotic band housed in a 5½-foot-high hardwood cabinet with leaded glass windows.
A pneumatic system blows air through the accordion reeds and operates the accordion and percussion instruments under the direction of a 10-song G-roll.
That’s a type of perforated, multi-song, paper roll used by nickelodeon-style, coinoperated player pianos to play songs like the “Oh! Sister, Ain’t That Hot” foxtrot or the “Just a Girl That Men Forget” waltz. That was musical entertainment in saloons before there were jukeboxes.
But these days apparently not many people want a 250-pound music machine that can play a live accordion/xylophone duet of “Jingle Bells” with a drum solo.
Dan Dohman, owner of Miner Co., said his company has sold hundreds of calliopes, but fewer than 50 Otto Accordians have ever been made.
“It’s kind of a rare build,” said Dohman, who will build you a new one for $11,990. “This is a niche project.”
Reece died in January 2024 at the age of 74. Most of his mechanical music machines were sold to fellow collectors.
Except for the Otto Accordian.
It’s been sitting in a piano storage facility in New Brighton for the past year waiting for a new home.
“The collectors want the old stuff,” said Les Hazen, Reece’s brother-in-law, explaining why the Otto Accordian has been the last instrument to be sold.
Hazen is currently seeking buyers on Facebook Marketplace for the self-playing accordion with a custom cherry wood case accented with rose-colored glass. The asking price is $8,999.
That includes a box of 15 G-rolls.
Though the Otto Accordian isn’t the sort of vintage machine that collectors prize, it is rare.
If you bought the Reece machine, you’d be the only person on your block with an automated accordion, unless you happened to live next door to Steve Klosinski.
Klosinski, a Richfield resident, is the vice president of the Snowbelt chapter of the Musical Box Society International, a group of automated music machine enthusiasts.
Klosinski has player pianos, a band organ, a self-playing banjo and probably the only other Otto Accordian in the state.
Klosinski found his for sale about three years ago. It had been built in the late 1970s and may have been one of the first ever made. It had been on display in a railroad museum, but the accordion bellows had deteriorated. He got it for a good price, about $3,000.
“I didn’t know such a thing existed until I found the one I own,” he said. “It’s a quirky, oddball instrument. You have to be a certain kind of crazy to own it. But I think it’s really cool. You don’t see something like that.”
In an age when you can instantly command any song to play on your phone or Bluetooth speaker, it may be a bit eccentric to want to listen to music performed by a coinoperated mechanical band.
But Klosinski said music played by a robot instrumentalist has a live, acoustic quality that you don’t get with digital recordings.
“There’s no screen involved,” he said. “There’s a physical action to it. I had a Christmas roll in there and I was playing it all through Christmas.”
Klosinski was a friend of Reece and bought some of his instruments when Reece died.
He’s been trying to help Reece’s family find a buyer for his Otto Accordian.
“I don’t have room for dueling accordions,” he said. “I’m trying to convince anyone I know to give it a good home.”
Interested buyers can contact Les Hazen at 660-851-1417.
richard.chin@startribune.com
The January Lunch Bunch-Park Tavern
Mary Worringer has added a picture to her profile:
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Nolan (26), brunette is Natalie (31), Abby (26) and Henlee (2 1/2). Welcome in 2025
Yes this really is a picture of Landrum Wise. It was Spring of 1961,sixth grade Audubon Elementery.
This is the kind of memorabilia that we are looking for for the Audubon memorial project. Request all of you Audubon graduates to search for any pictures you might have and send them in to this website.
Bruce Gefvert and Larry Livingston wish you Happy New Year!
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Kevin Faus and Lary Livingston- enjoying nature - Fall of 2024
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