Orders are being accepted for tickets for the 62nd Schmeckfest in Freeman to be held two consecutive weekends next spring, March 18-19 and 25-26. A form is available on Page 1B of this week’s Courier. Orders can also be placed by going online to schmeckfest.com, where credit card orders can be placed directly or an order form can be printed and mailed. A chart showing the seating options for the musical can be found online, as well.

A citywide ordinance that lowers the speed limit in much of Freeman from 25 to 20 miles per hour went into effect Wednesday, Nov. 17. Unless otherwise posted, the new 20 mph limit impacts all streets in Freeman’s business and residential districts, while 15 mph remains the limit in school zones.

JEREMY WALTNER  - PUBLISHER The Canistota/Freeman 2021 football season will be remembered largely for its peaks and valleys — exciting come-from-behind victories, losses that should have been wins, setbacks and surprises, and the raw emotion that goes with both expectations and reality. In that regard, last week’s Class 9AA championship game was a microcosm of the past three months — a hard-fought battle in which fans clung tightly to hope, relished in optimism, were never too comfortable, and nervous about how it all might end. The end? 

Here are a few fun facts in anticipation of tonight’s Class 9AA championship game between Canistota/Freeman and Platte-Geddes.

The Freeman Area Veteran's Memorial is pictured on a breezy Thursday morning, Nov. 11. Veterans Day is held annually on the 11th day of November and is part of other celebrations around the world — Armistice Day and Remembrance Day — that help mark the end of World War I on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. Veterans Day as it is known today was established in 1954.    

JEREMY WALTNER  - PUBLISHER Tage Ortman was in middle school when his oldest brother, Trey, led Canistota/Freeman to back-to-back football championships in 2018 and 2019, and a freshman last year when his other brother, Tyce, quarterbacked the Pride to a third-straight Class 9A title. This Thursday in Vermillion, the youngest of the three Ortman boys will have his chance to lead Canistota/Freeman to glory once again — this time in the Class 9AA ranks.

Freeman High School led at least once in each set and fought hard against a dangerous Arlington team, but couldn’t hang with senior hitter Hadley Carlson, senior setter Grace Parry and the Cardinals. Carlson tallied 30 kills and Parry had 40 set assists to lead No. 3 Arlington to a 3-1 win over No. 14 Freeman in the SoDak 16 Tuesday night, Nov. 9 at Sioux Valley.

Freeman Academy's Maria Cortes and Noah Hofer perform the song, "He'll Never Know" during a rehearsal for the school's fall musical, "A Year with Frog and Toad," earlier this week. In the scene, each secretly rakes the other's leaves in front of their homes, only to have two squirrels come and destroy the piles when they are finished. Cortes and Hofer playing the leading rolls in the 1 hour, 15 minute production that follows the sweet relationship between the two amphibians. The musical is being presented tonight (Nov. 5) and tomorrow on the Pioneer Hall stage beginning at 7 p.m.

An upset-minded, senior-heavy Irene-Wakonda played really well against Freeman Public on Thursday night. The Flyers played just a little bit better.

This photo that is part of The Courier's archives shows the inside of what is today Jamboree Foods. It is believed to have been taken in the early 1970s, when the owners of Fensel's were preparing to move their clothing store, Village Toggery, into the building that had previously been K&K. Village Toggery had opened in 1963 on Main Street between Second and Third streets before expanding one block to the south. The Toggery remained in operation into the 1980s before the building reopened as The Carriage House under the ownership of Elke Pankratz.