Children and their families are invited to visit the Freeman Prairie Arboretum this Saturday, June 17 for the 17th annual Freeman Fishing Derby. Registration will begin at 8:30 a.m. with catch-and-release fishing taking place from 9:30 to 11 a.m. Prizes will be awarded to all registered guests in three different age groups: 1-5, 6-10 and 11-15 years old. Those with questions may call derby organizer Sam Sorensen at 605-925-7772.

JEREMY WALTNER - PUBLISHER “I think it’s been a great week. I hope everybody feels that way.” That was the quick assessment from Freeman Junior-Senior High School band director Sheila Wipf around noon on Tuesday as students and chaperones were entering the home stretch of their 30-hour return by charter bus from Florida to Freeman.

The set was sparse compared to the familiar Broadway-inspired musicals that have been popular fare in Freeman over the years. A pair of chairs and tables, two music stands, a few nondescript boxes and a hall tree draped with colorful fabric helped make up the performance space — a simple sea of black on the Pioneer Hall stage.

This week's Courier is being produced by Publisher Jeremy Waltner from a charter bus on the way home from the Freeman Music Department's trip to Florida. This photo was taken from the front seat of the bus taken in the overnight hours of Monday into Tuesday as the group passed from Tennessee into Kentucky. The students and adult chaperones and music teachers are due to arrive back in Freeman Tuesday afternoon between 4 and 5 p.m. Waltner accompanied the group as a parent, chaperone and community journalist to report on the trip.

Freeman Junior-Senior High School band director Sheila Wipf leads the instrumentalists through a recording from the film Despicable Me inside Studio 33 in the backlot of Universal Studios Sunday morning - the third full day in Florida on the group’s seven-day excursion. The band’s visit to Studio 33 was part of a workshop that included voiceovers and sound effects by the students and a production of a clip from the movie featuring that morning’s recordings. The group is set to depart for home Monday afternoon and return early Tuesday evening.  

Michelle Milne and Ted Swartz of Ted & Company take part in a talkback with the audience following their Saturday night performance of “We Own This Now” presented in Pioneer Hall. The performance is rooted in the Doctrine of Discovery and offers an engaging look at land occupation and the impact European settlers had on Indigenous Peoples. The performance was sponsored by Freeman Network for Justice and Peace with support from Heritage Hall Museum & Archives.

A gift from above came on Friday as nearly 1 1/2 inches of rain fell across the region, with more expected on Saturday. For a moisture-started region where great concern as been building, calling it a relief is an understatement.

Most of the group of students and chaperones gather for a photo at a welcome center after crossing into Florida early Thursday afternoon. Freeman music students checked into their their hotel accommodates later that afternoon and spent the rest of their day swimming in the outdoor hotel pool, making a run to Target across the road and finding food (via either DoorDash, making it themselves in their rooms or visiting one of the nearby restaurants like Five Guys) prior to settling in for the night.

Courier Publisher Jeremy Waltner is blogging about the Freeman Music Department's trip to Florida June 7-13. A link is published below. Note: If this is your first time reading, the continuous entries are displayed from newest to oldest, so readers may want to scroll down and start from the beginning. CLICK HERE TO START READING

Freeman Police are searching for a man they say stole a bicycle that was parked on the west side of Freeman Junior-Senior High School Thursday morning, June 1. Officer Jay Slevin said the man was seen bicycling down Walnut Street at 7:06 a.m. before pulling into the school's back parking lot. School camera footage shows that he then ditched his own bike and at 7:36 a.m. took a bicycle that belonged to school custodian Larry Wipf, who was mowing the lawn, before heading back north on Walnut Street. Slevin said at some point the suspect's own bicycle was then retrieved.