Stranger offers to help town by hosting $1,000 benefit softball tournament

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.

July 20, 1997

By Devlyn Brooks

Staff Writer

FUNKLEY -- For the 13 residents of this Beltrami County village, 30 miles northeast of Bemidji, July has been a long rollercoaster ride of a month.

First, on June 30, the city's clerk-treasurer Millie McLean announced to the world in a Star Tribune article the town was more than likely headed for bankruptcy and would soon be dissolved.

Seventeen days later, McLean's name was splashed on the front page of the Star Tribune once again to announce there was hope -- in the form of donations offered to the city -- of keeping Funkley alive.

But, as of this weekend, the city's future is still in jeopardy. Funkley has not received any money -- excluding a $2 anonymous donation -- and no one has stepped forward to purchase the bar, which provided the bulk of the city's budget with its annual $1,000 liquor license fee.

So, as the residents have taken to saying, Funkley's still in a funk.

The city's problems began about four months ago when the Funkley Bar and Lounge shut its doors, taking the majority of the town's income with it. It cost the bar, the town's only business, $1,065 annually for its liquor license -- a major portion of the town's $2,000 annual budget.

In early June, facing expiring contracts for fire protection, road grading and snowplowing -- most of which has tripled in cost in recent years -- the town's officials came to the unhappy conclusion they may have to shut down Funkley.

McLean, the town's unofficial leader, called the Minnesota League of Cities to ask just how to do that, and the League of Cities' answer was rather ambiguous. It seems not many towns have ever just shut down, and the process is unclear. But by the most educated guess, McLean said she has determined the town will probably have to vote to dissolve itself.

Should that happen, she said, the plot of land just off U.S. Highway 71 known as Funkley would fade into obscurity as part of Hornet Township.

But, as June waned on, help seemed possible. The media coverage of Funkely's situation didn't stop after the newspaper article, and two Twin Cities television stations reported Funkley's plight.

Funkley and McLean became celebrities overnight -- something she said she would not have been too fond of had it not brought out of the woodwork angels like Pat Borrell.

Borrell, a Lions Club member in Waverly, Minn., saw the story in the Star Tribune and called McLean last week to announce that his club is going to host a benefit softball tournament this summer in an effort to raise $1,000 to keep the city afloat for a year.

He launched the project because he knows what it is like to live in a small town, and said he would hate to see Funkley close. Waverly has a population of about 600, and is located west of the Twin Cities in Wright County.

"Maybe we can raise enough to get them by for a year, two years, but that doesn't permanently get them out of the bind," Borrell said in an interview with the Star Tribune. But one way to help is to find a buyer for the Funkley Bar. So he's going to explain the city's dilemma in the Lions' newsletter.

"Let's see if we can get someone who wants to retire in northern Minnesota and run a bar," he said. "I'm not going to let this drop."

Borrell has not been the only person to step forward and offer to help the town, though. Potential aid has come from other corners, including a few people who have expressed interest in buying the bar, and a Twin Cities man, who identified himself only as "Don," has offered to donate $1,100 a year to the city as long as it's needed, or basically until a buyer is found for the bar.

And McLean said it isn't only big donations that have been offered. She received a letter Friday from an anonymous Twin Cities donor who sent a $2 bill to help the city "hold on."

"It almost made me cry when I saw it," she said. "More than likely it came from somebody who couldn't even afford it."

The bottom line, however, is that Funkley's future is still uncertain. McLean said someone from the town has volunteered to open the bar to get it cleaned up and operating so it looks like a more attractive buy, but from there the future is a mystery.

"I don't know how they will do it," McLean said. "They're running a shoestring budget."

So, for now, McLean and the other Funkley leaders hang on, hoping to be able to add to the town's storied history.