October 26, 2023

For Those Attending in Person

Salad Buffet with Soup

(Zoom Meeting Opens at 11:45)

(Link Sent Thursday Morning)

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Ryan Redington’s grandfather is Joe Redington Sr., founder of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race. It has been Ryan’s dream to win the Iditarod since he was a small child. He raced this 1,000-mile sled dog race 16 times, then finished in the top 10 three times before finally winning it in 2023. In this presentation, Ryan brings the experience of fulfilling this dream to you.

 

 

President Gary Melander welcomed us at the Armory Arts and Music Center Annex on the corner of London Road and 14^th Avenue East and led us in reciting the Four-Way Test.

 

Past President Branden Robinson gave the Reflection. He spoke of the history of the Duluth Armory, which was opened in 1915 and was decommissioned in 1978 and purchased by the city of Duluth. As an armory, it was an arsenal of resources. It is being renovated as a dynamic resource for artists, musicians, and artisans.

 

President Gary Melander, chair of the day, welcomed our speakers, Mark Poirier, Executive Director and Shawna Weaver, Music Resource Center Program Director of the Armory Arts and Music Center, established in 2003. They described the Annex in which we enjoyed box lunches as a space for craftspeople, a place that will continue to be used for two years while the reconstruction of the Armory next door is ongoing. Once the Armory is completed, it is anticipated that the Annex will be razed, and the site will be paved to provide parking.

 

After lunch, we walked along 14^th Avenue East and turned left down Jefferson Street and passed through a gate in the chain-link fencing that surrounds the Armory building. We found ourselves in the original Drill Hall on the main floor of the Armory, a vast room featuring large multi-pane windows, an astonishingly high ceiling, and a stage that was added at the eastern end in the 1940s.

 

Mark told us that the Armory was used from 1915 until 1978 as both a military training facility (for the Army National Guard and the Naval Militia) and as Duluth’s premiere event venue before the DECC was built. Famous performers, such as Buddy Holly, performed there, and the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra also dazzled crowds in the Drill Hall. It was a jewel in Duluth.

 

George Sherman of Sherman Associates is working with the Armory Arts and Music Center Annex to renovate the Armory. It is a public/private partnership. The anticipated cost: $55-$58 million. Public funding from the State of Minnesota as well as private donations are driving progress toward a facility that will promote creativity, artisanship, and entrepreneurship, as well as provide a new local event venue. What is the vision?

 

On the lowest level, a Music Resource Center will house a state-of-the-arts recording studio and several soundproof practice rooms. On the same lower floor, a commercial kitchen will be built to cater events at the Armory. On the main floor, the former Drill Hall, a new Food Enterprise Center will be established: a commercial kitchen that will allow budding entrepreneurs to test their culinary vision before launching brick-and-mortar businesses of their own. Historical displays recounting famous musical performances and honoring veteran history will be included nearby. Offices and for-profit and nonprofit spaces will occupy rooms above the Drill Hall. On the top floor, the original ballroom will be developed into a for-profit event venue, notable for an existing stage and an expansive view of the Rose Garden and Lake Superior. It is an impressive vision. The grand opening is anticipated for Fall 2025.

 

Jack Seiler, chair of the Grants Committee, announced that the Club will give a $600 grant in support of the Music Resource Center.

 

Overheard after the meeting: “I used to come down here for high school dances,” reminisced Past President Dean Casperson. “I did, too!” agreed Grants Committee chair Jack Seiler.

 

 

Past President Bob Bennet and President Gary Melander having lunch in the Annex

 

Past President Branden Robinson gives a stirring Reflection

 

Jon Ohman, Past President Branden Robinson, Past President Chana Stocke, Allen Anway, and Past Assistant Governor Phil Strom dine together in the Annex

 

Shawna Weaver welcomes us to the Armory

 

History and future concept displays in Drill Hall

Lowest level of Armory

 

Mark Poirier shares a photo from 1918, when Armory was used as a Relief Center, with Patra Sevastiades, Past President Bob Bennet, and Past President Dean Casperson

Rotarians learn about the Armory's place in Duluth history

 

Concept Design of what an event in the Mezzanine would look like. 

 

 

On a cold Saturday, January 31 1959, the Winter Dance Party tour featuring Buddy Holly, J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson and Ritchie Valens played the Duluth Armory. Two nights later, they were gone, the victims of a plane crash in a snowy Iowa cornfield, according to a Duluth New Tribune article written on the 55th anniversary of the Dance Party in Duluth. 

 

A young Bob Dylan attended the performance, which he cited as an inspiration at the 1998 Grammy Awards when he received Album of the Year for Time Out of Mind. He said, "I just want to say that when I was 16 or 17 years old, I went to see Buddy Holly play at Duluth National Guard Armory and I was three feet away from him… and he looked at me. And I just have some kind of feeling that he was – I don’t know how or why – but I know he was with us all the time we were making this record in some kind of way." Wikipedia on the history of the Armory 

 

Below are a few photos from the Dance Party on display at the Armory.