Lifestyle

Anderson-TeBeest Funeral Home owners Kevin and Judy TeBeest both grew up in Montevideo, purchasing the funeral home in Montevideo in 2012. The history of the funeral home began in 1908, when the Anderson Funeral Home was first established in South Dakota by brothers John and Joseph Anderson. The brothers moved to Montevideo in 1912, along with their business. When Kevin and Judy purchased the business in 2012, the name was changed to Anderson-TeBeest Funeral Home.

When I was growing up in the early 1980s, we had a weekly newspaper in our town. There was a woman assigned to cover our little neighborhood. I remember her calling each week to ask my mother what was new in our family. Did Jeremy make the honor roll this quarter? Had we gone on vacation recently? Did we get a new pet? She would take this information from anyone in the neighborhood who was willing to share it and would write a column each week. When the paper came out on Wednesdays, my mother was always excited to read what was going on in the neighborhood. Everyone on our street knew each other. We played outside with the kids every day until dusk. My parents were in a bowling league with our neighbors. We had a block party in the street in the summer. When a new family moved in everyone welcomed them and introduced themselves. I guess you could say it was a great community.

Robyn Aslesen first started baking custom cakes for her own wedding in 2014. Being pleased with the results, she began adding in a few more wedding and graduation cakes over the years. By the end of 2021, her three-year-old son began helping Aslesen with her baking. “He wanted to bake more than we were able to eat,” she says. “When I mentioned that to him, his response was – mom, you should sell some!” Thus, Aslesen says, it was that idea from her child that planted the seed of inspiration to move the business forward. Within a week of his suggestion, Aslesen says she applied for and received her Minnesota Cottage Food Producer license, and Tasty Bakes and Custom Cakes was born.

Settling into her new role as a stay-at-home mother, Anaïs Johnson, of Clarkfield, started brainstorming ideas for something to do that would be a unique home-based business. What she came up with, a couple of months ago, was a homebased re-sale site that operates on Instagram in which parents looking to find trendy, affordable, gently used baby clothes could purchase them easily from the comfort of their home.

Beginning on March 7th through the 17th, Montevideo’s McDonald’s restaurant is participating in a campaign along with 225 other participating restaurants in Minnesota, western Wisconsin and in Michigan to raise funds in support of Minnesota’s Ronald McDonald Houses located in Minneapolis, Rochester, and Duluth, as well as the two Ronald McDonald Family Rooms located in St. Paul.

Watson’s Wedding and Event Center is full of activity as the venue prepares for its first-ever Wedding Fair to be held Saturday, March 19th. Owner Melea Ellingson and manager Greta Lankow began brainstorming the idea due to the high cost of participating in bridal and wedding shows in larger towns around the state. The pair decided that the best idea for showcasing local small businesses, as well as their own venue would be to host a Wedding Fair at the Watson’s Wedding and Event Center, and so they reached out to vendors who have worked weddings hosted at the site, as well as to area small businesses who offer wedding services. “It just kind of snowballed. We sat here one afternoon and brainstormed, and called vendors and anybody we knew - any brides that had vendors from out of the area. We collected numbers and we were calling and emailing. We really were so excited,” says Lankow.

"Celebrity Readers" at the event included teachers, Superintendent McKittrick and high school students that are a part of the Homecoming royal court. Students were able to show their families artwork they have been creating this school year.