Roof on building at fairgrounds collapses

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

March 13, 1997

By Devlyn Brooks

Staff Writer

Beltrami County Fairgrounds officials said Wednesday the roof of the Commercial Building collapsed sometime last weekend from the weight of snow accumulation.

The "T"-shaped building, constructed in 1992 when the fairgrounds was moved to the new location north of town, houses commercial exhibitors' booths during the annual fair and is also rented during the winter months to house boats, motor homes and other recreational vehicles.

According to fairground manger Ole Moe, the amount of damage to vehicles stored in the building is unknown at this time because access to the building has been limited by the roof's debris.

Beltrami County Fair Board President Mark Dickinson, however, said Wednesday he was sure the damage was probably "significant."

Owners of property housed in the building were informed of the accident by mail earlier this week, Dickinson said.

Moe said the building has been shut and nobody has been allowed in because of the danger the weakened roof poses. An insurance adjuster for the county is supposed to view the wreckage sometime "soon," and then the debris will be cleared so the vehicles can be looked at, he added.

According to Moe, the county's insurance will cover only the cost of repairing the building. Those renting space are supposed to have their own insurance coverage for such an incident.

"That's the understanding we have with them when they put (the vehicles) in there," he said.

Moe said three-fourths of the center of the roof collapsed, more than likely because of the amount of snow that had accumulated in the roof's valleys -- as much as a couple of fee in some places.

The roof had not been cleaned this winter, Moe said, but he had not done it any other winter either because the snow has always slid off the roof by this time of year.

However, Jan Kern and her son, Jerry, owners of the North Country Trading Post, say after their roof collapsed Jan. 1 they called Moe twice and advised him to clean the roofs of the fairgrounds buildings. He supposedly never heeded their warning.

"The fairgrounds were a disaster waiting to happen," Jerry Kern said. The Trading Post is adjacent to the fairgrounds on Highway 71 North.

Since this weekend, Moe said the other fairgrounds buildings' roofs have been cleaned.

"I didn't feel we could not do anything to the other buildings after we had one go," he said.