Morris Taylor Memorial Golf Tournament planned for August 5 & 6

In the summer of 1995, I worked a three month internship at The Warroad Pioneer, which I'm sorry to say has since ceased operation. This was the first professional newspaper that I worked for in my career, and it turned out to be a wonderful experience. I had only worked at Bemidji State University's newspaper for about a year and half before landing the internship. At The Pioneer I gained experience in sports, feature, beat and government reporting. I designed pages, took and developed photographs and was responsible for community relations. The best part is that I remain friends with the owners nearly 30 years later.

July 11, 1995

By Devlyn Brooks

On August 5 and 6, the Morris Taylor Memorial Golf tournament will be held. Many prizes will be given away; lots of fun will be had; and even money will be raised for the Morris Taylor Memorial Scholarship Fund.

However, this tournament means more to the family of Morris Taylor and to the coordinators of the event.

To his family, it is a time of coming together in remembrance of their husband, father or grandfather. To Lee Leach, it is a way to honor a very good friend.

Taylor was born in Roseau in 1926 and graduated from high school there in 1944. Like many others of his age, Taylor enlisted in the military soon after high school. He served his country for three years.

Taylor, in northern Minnesota tradition, played hockey for the Roseau Rams in high school, and also later for Roseau's amateur team, the Cloverleafs and the Warroad Lakers.

Upon entering college after retiring from the Air Force in 1946, Taylor played hockey for the University of Minnesota as a freshman. He would later quit playing to better focus on his major: agricultural economics.

Taylor would later find the lady he would marry in Canada. He met her at a camp at Moose Lake, Manitoba, where she was helping her father establish a new sawmill site. Her name was Ev Christofferson, and they were married in 1949.

They returned to Warroad and began their life together as farmers, until Morris went to work for Marvin's in 1950. He was with the company for almost 34 years and grew to be a part of Marvin's history. So much so, that when Morris retired from Marvin's in 1984, the company devoted one entire issue of their in-house newspaper to Morris' story.

After retiring he and his wife did a lot of traveling and even purchased a winter home in Texas.

Taylor passed away in February, 1993, after battling several serious medical complications for months.

He was a past mayor of Warroad; member of the Zion Lutheran Church, where he served as a council member; and he was a staunch supporter of the American Legion. These being only a few of Taylor's contributions to Warroad.

Taylor is probably most known for his contribution of dubbing Warroad as "Hockeytown, USA."

Leach renamed the golf tournament that the Warroad Estates Golf Club had been sponsoring in honor of Taylor after his passing.

"We, as a family, wanted to do something to honor Morrie," Leach said. "We got together with the Taylor family, and they thought that it was a good deal. They thought Morrie would've liked it."

This will be the first year that the Taylor family will be active participants in the organizing of the tournament. Judy Landin, one of Taylor's daughters, said that her brothers were active in pursusing individual prizes at each hole of the contest. She said that with these additional prizes, golfers that won't have a good chance at winning the tournament will have a chance at winning one of the individual hole prizes.

"It's pretty special to have someone want to do something in memory of dad," Landin said. "I knew he was a special person. I knew that but to have someone else recognize my dad means a lot."

The tournament will run two days: Saturday, August 5, will be a two person Texas Scramble tournament, and Sunday, August 6, will be a two-person best ball tournament. Each contest has ladies' and men's divisions as well as different flights for varying levels of competition.