PHOTO OF THE DAY: BEING SANTA
This story appears on the front page of Dec. 26 issue of The Courier.
Bob Rennolet has worn many different hats over the years.
A master’s degree in agriculture earned from South Dakota State University put him on a career path with the Soil Conservation Service. He’s been a Grand Knight for the Bon Homme Chapter of the Knights of Columbus, was on the board of the Lake Menno Development Association during its restoration project in 1994, continues to serve as commander of the Rames-Bender Post 152 of the American Legion, has recently been appointed to the Hutchinson County Conservation District Board, and dabbles in gardening and exotic chickens on his farm four miles north and a mile east of Menno, where he once trained dogs.
He also wears the hat of husband, father, grandfather and friend to many.
And every December, he puts on another kind of hat — a red one with white trim — and becomes Santa Claus.
Last week, Bob was at it again for his 40th year in a row playing the gift-giving big guy at the Menno Community Club’s annual Customer Appreciation Day. Bob has actually been playing Santa since 1975, the year he earned his undergraduate degree from Northern State University — where he met his wife, Sandy — and took a job as such at Gibson’s, a discount chain store in Aberdeen, where he was given a 25% discount on goose decoys.
“They didn’t give me a seat,” he said while enjoying a sandwich just before taking his place on the Menno City/School Auditorium stage late Saturday morning, Dec. 14, to greet the children, “but I would walk up and down the aisles and visit with people, and I just had a blast doing it.”
So much so that he hired himself out as a roving Santa Claus, visiting around 100 households in Aberdeen that first Christmas Eve, stopping by to visit and/or putting out pre-purchased gifts by the families.
And that’s when a story comes to mind.
“I’m cruising down Sixth Avenue in Aberdeen, at least 20 miles an hour over the speed limit trying to get to the other side of town, and the lights come on behind me,” Bob recalls. “This young cop gets out of his car and walks up to me and says, ‘My God, it really is you!’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I’m about a half-an-hour behind where I should be to get everybody done,’ and he said, ‘Follow me,’ and we went down Sixth Avenue, siren and lights, and he gave me an escort.”
That set the stage for what was to come.
“I have all the natural attributes,” says Bob. “I don’t need to wear a pillow, I’m full of BS just like a Christmas turkey and I’ve had all the questions that you can possibly imagine asked.”
“He would make house calls — lots of house calls,” says Sandy, who remembers a story from one of those early years when the couple lived in Sisseton. “It was below zero and we had to go from Sisseton to Aberdeen, and he went out that Christmas Eve, and went to a wrong house. And he got home about 10:30, 11 o’clock, and there was a call from a lady who said he missed their house. She had three little boys waiting for him. So Bob called her back and asked if she had given the kids their presents, and she said no. And he said, ‘Well you just put them out in the morning and I’ll get them out at 6 a.m.’ So he went in to the house and was making noise and those boys came tumbling down — ‘Santa!’ — and she said that was the best Christmas they ever had.”
Bob continued as Santa in the many years that followed, even as he and Sandy raised three children, and when his job took Bob to Menno, Menno got its reoccurring Santa — now 40 years running.
Bob remembers their arrival in Menno.
“I wanted to go to Kennebec,” he said, “and the government told me my check was coming to Menno, and I might as well be there to pick it up.”
And so it was.
Bob has embraced all the hats that have come to him over the years, but playing Santa is one of his favorites. That’s no surprise to his wife.
“He doesn’t get upset, he’s very cordial and he brings peace between people,” says Sandy. “Even in the office where he worked; there were two brothers who hadn’t talked in 30 years over a land dispute. They couldn’t even remember what they fought over. So Bob had them both in his office and he said, ‘You’re going to settle this right now,’ because one wanted to do CRP and the other didn’t and they both owned the land …
“A week later one of the brothers died,” Sandy continued. “And the other brother said, ‘That was the best thing you were able to do.’”
Sandy’s voice drifts off. She becomes emotional.
But that’s Santa at work.
“This is easy,” says Bob, who will turn 78 in March. “I’m old enough and I will do this as long as I can. But I won’t be buried in the Santa suit.”
That’s OK. There is plenty to prove both Bob’s real existence and his manufactured one, as the North Pole resident who wears one of the most recognizable hats in the world.
