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Original article published in the Mower County Independent, Thursday, June 12, 2025.   Reprinted with permission and gratitude.

By Gretchen Mensink Lovejoy

Tyler Anderson is proud to announce that his workplace has Thomas – and the shakes – along with a loud mouth and some vintage wings.

Better yet, there are the summer people.

“We’re pumped to have these three bands coming to Good Earth during Good Stock,” said Good Earth Village (GEV) hospitality and retreat director Anderson, listing that Thomas and the Shakes, Loud Mouth Brass, and Wings Over America: A Tribute to Paul McCartney & Wings will perform, adding, “The big thing this year is the decision to move the event up to mid-June and not have it at the end of summer.”

He highlighted that the 2025 GoodStock music festival, a family-friendly music party hosted by the Lutheran camp just northeast of Spring Valley, has been rescheduled from its August end-of-summer bash date to a summer kickoff party on June 21 and 22 that will feature almost all of the same activities as in previous years, such as the trail color run, family fun zone with games and wagon rides, a petting zoo and food trucks.

The trail color run has been a favorite for numerous GoodStock attendees, and Anderson stated that runners will again have the opportunity to trek uphill and down on GEV’s trails in the race. “On Saturday, June 21, we’ll have the color run. It starts up above on the hill and goes down through Old Town…it’s fun to do this run because it’s not in town and it’s not on flat ground. People have to run up and down the trails to participate.” The GEV website relayed that “the course will be on Good Earth Village trails – strollers are not recommended. There will be one short trail option, approximately one mile due to trail repairs. Cost is $15 per person before the event and $20 the day of the run.” Anderson commented that while the original registration guaran teed runners a race t-shirt, that deadline has passed, meaning that “people can still register for the race, and we will have t-shirts there the day of, but there’s no guarantee we’ll have your size.”

The camp staff has sparked a new element to the GoodStock celebration’s endeavors. “Obviously, people have chili cookoffs and meat cookoffs, but we are having a campfire cookoff – we’re hoping to have contestants who like to cook over the campfire – because cooking over the campfire is a whole different beast than grilling. Ody’s Country Meats is providing the protein, and we’ll have grill grates for the fire, but any other tools or sides that they need, they need to bring. There will be judging, and the color run participants get to sample. There will be a judges’ pick and fan favorites. We’ll try this out, and hopefully it will be a staple going forward once it catches some steam and popularity.”

The GEV website shared about each band coming to GoodStock, beginning with Thomas and the Shakes. “Thomas and the Shakes is a rock band from Elgin, Minn., formed in 2013 by Thomas Wescott (guitar/vocals) and Garrett Kolb (drums) with his unique ‘shaker’ kit – hence the name. In 2014, while at Mc Nally Smith College of Music, they released their debut EP ‘All My Favorite Things are Free,’ blending roots, reggae, folk, blues and rock. The band later expanded to include Mark Walsh (woodwinds), Logan Kolb (bass), and Tyler Kispert (guitar/vocals), bringing a fuller sound heard in their 2017 album ‘Mind Your Time’ and 2023’s ‘Carpet Booth Sessions.’ After nearly a decade, their friendship and shared musical vision continue to drive their evolving, original sound.”

Loud Mouth Brass is a col lection of brassy, forward adventures into music. “Your ears will smile and your toes will tap when you hear Loud Mouth Brass.” With a splash of New Or leans and a pinch of pop music, Loud Mouth Brass has a tasty musical recipe. While the band’s instrumental arrangements of music spanning the gamut from The Jackson Five to Fallout Boy will make your feet get the urge to dance, with several originals in the mix, this brassy band still makes sure to keep things fresh. From the top of its blue sousaphone to the bot tom of its thumping bass drum, this band exudes fun. The band’s lineup consists of Becca Combs-Cawley on sousaphone, Zach Sander on tenor sax, Erick Stascheck on bari sax, Jon Knutson on trumpet, Nick Novotny on drum set, and John Sievers on trombone. Don’t hesitate to get a little loud, because Loud Mouth Brass won’t mind.”

Wings Over America: A Tribute to Paul McCartney & Wings is an ensemble of the Collective Unconscious. “Band members of Collective Unconscious bring you a tribute show you won’t want to miss! Wings Over America: A Tribute to Paul Mc Cartney & Wings…based on the 1976 live album by Paul Mc Cartney and Wings, this show features some of the group’s greatest hits, along with songs by The Beatles, as well as other hits. This high-energy show will have you smiling, tapping your feet, and singing along. The hits include ‘Venus and Mars,’ ‘Rock Show,’ ‘Jet,’ ‘Medicine Jar,’ ‘Maybe I’m Amazed,’ ‘Lady Madonna,’ ‘Mull of Kintyre,’ ‘Picasso’s Last Words (Drink to Me),’ ‘Bluebird,’ ‘I’ve Just Seen a Face,’ ‘Yesterday,’ ‘Another Day,’ ‘Take It Away,’ ‘Live and Let Die,’, ‘Comin’ Up,’ ‘You Gave Me the Answer,’ ‘Listen to What the Man Said,’ ‘Go Now,’ ‘My Love, ‘Let ‘Em In,’ ‘Nine teen Hundred and Eighty-Five,’ ‘The Long and Winding Road,’ ‘Silly Love Songs,’ ‘Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey,’ ‘Band on the Run,” ‘C Moon,’ ‘Junior’s Farm,’ ‘Helen Wheels,’ ‘Hi Hi Hi,’ and ‘Hey Jude’.”

GoodStock officially begins at 11:00 a.m. with the campfire cookoff, followed by the color trail run check-in at 1:30 p.m. and the run leaving the starting line at 2:00 p.m. Food vendors will open their trucks at 2:00 p.m., and family fun zone gets the giggles going at 3:00 p.m. Thomas and the Shakes take the stage at 3:00 p.m., followed by Loud Mouth Brass at 4:30 p.m. and Wings Over America: A Tribute to Paul McCartney and the Wings will tune up at 5:30 p.m. The music event concludes at 7:00 p.m. or thereabouts to allow families to get their little ones home to bed on time. Rising to shine and give God the glory on Sunday morning at the outdoor amphitheater begins with coffee and refreshments in Log Lodge at 9:30 a.m. and proceeds outdoors to the Three Crosses at 10:00 a.m. Food trucks arriving at GEV include The Grove Eats – a smashburger and fries purveyor, El Sueno: Greek Edition, and Taco Lab to make dining out easy. Also, Anderson reminded attendees to bring lawn chairs and blankets for concert seating, but GEV asked that four-legged friends be left home.

He pointed out that the transition from end-of-summer to summer kickoff gives GEV summer camp staff the chance to be on hand to help with the family fun zone, the color run and other activities. “It will allow GoodStock visitors to meet GEV summer staff who usually are not able to attend due to their college classes beginning before an August GoodStock. “We’ll have all the summer staff here – they don’t get to be a part of the event because they’re going back to college. All the parents who bring their kids to camp see them here at check-in, but now, they actually get to meet them. And moving it lets people who want to go to town celebrations like Ag Days and other towns’ festivals do that in August.”

Anderson concluded, “We hope to keep this in June. With the change in dates, we’re really hoping to make this the biggest attendance ever this year. It’s free to attend, so come and have a great time.”

Good Earth Village is located at 25303 Old Town Dr., Spring Valley. For more information on the camp and its programming, log onto its website at www.goodearthvillage.org, or email  info@goodearthvillage.org, find details on the GEV Facebook page, or call 507-346-2494 during office hours, Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Courtesy of the Mower County Independent, 135 E Main St. LeRoy, MN 55951, (507)-324-5325

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Original article published in the Mower County Independent, Thursday, February 8, 2024.   Reprinted with permission and gratitude.

By Gretchen Mensink Lovejoy

“Salt keeps good things good…and light (shines),” said George Beech, addressing the Spring Valley Kiwanis Club in late January, sharing the message of Matthew 5:13-16, “You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world,” as it relates to Salt & Light Partners, the Rochester organization of which he is executive director and a chaplain who offers spiritual and emotional ministry for first responders and others in distress.

The Salt & Light Partners website included the organization’s official mission statement that reads, “Our mission is to provide emotional and spiritual support through workplace chaplaincy in our community.” Beech concurred, “We provide counseling for emergency services workers,” adding that the purpose of making chaplains available to emergency services personnel and law enforcement officers is to help them process the events to which they have been called as part of their duty, occasions that are oftentimes accompanied by very difficult and traumatic circumstances. “People in law enforcement don’t trust people because people are lying to them all day, so we work to build trust and meet people where they’re at. And 93 percent of all firefighters are white and male, so the culture takes its own way.”

Beech listed that Salt & Light Partners was begun as a project that cooperates with the Rochester Police Department (RPD) three years ago, and that it now is represented through the Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office (OCSO). “Prior to that, I was a pastor, and prior to that, I was with the Department of Homeland Security, and before that, I was in the United States Army, serving in Korea and Germany…I met my wife on a rifle range. I grew up in Byron on a farm, and I went to the big city of Minneapolis to go to college. I tried to get back into the military after 9/11, but I had been out (long enough) that the Army didn’t let me. I was a civilian working with Homeland Security, and then my pastor asked me, ‘Do you want to work in a church?’ So I was a pastor. It’s not a usual career path. Then, the chief of police in Rochester asked me if I wanted to be a chaplain to all the department, and I realized I couldn’t do it all (being a pastor and a chaplain) so that’s when I started counseling all the first responders. It has grown because it was me and the police chief, and now we work with the Rochester Police Department, the ambulance service and the fire department, as well as the Winona Police Department and Visiting Angels. Chaplaincy is a ministry of presence.”

Beech then introduced chaplain Kathy Dudley, whom he said was among the very small number of chaplains that Salt & Light encompasses even as numerous have applied and interviewed to be part of the response teams, as the work requires particularly specific skills in navigating intense on-scene situations. Dudley explained how she became a Salt & Light chaplain through a chance meeting with Beech, and Beech commented that she was among the number of chaplains that give of their time to be present for people whose lives are in sudden upheaval, waking up at all hours to go out to a location with only a few details provided in advance and simply listen if someone needs to have another person hear them compassionately as or after they deal with processing or defusing a situation.

He remarked that police officers and firefighters have his personal cell phone number so that they may reach him at any time, even in the middle of the night, if they need someone to be with while managing emotions that may not have initially affected them. While Salt & Light is Christian-based, the executive director reiterated that chaplains assess a scene and determine how to approach the matter in the most sensitive ways possible, accepting that not everyone is a Christian and also that some wish to rely upon their faith to remain well or strive toward better understanding of what they’ve encountered or endured as individuals who have witnessed more than a person can internalize or convey to others. “We don’t proselytize…we don’t open that door, but if they open the door, we run through it…most of what we do is relationship-building.”

Beech’s Salt heals broken law enforcement officers who have brought work home with them because they’ve seen so much. “Why are there broken cops? Because families are broken – what happens at home comes to work, and what happens at work comes home, but not in a good way. We also have marriage counseling – it’s eight weeks at a time, and I take only one couple at a time. We help keep families together and help them act like they like each other. We have a ‘family readiness group’ like they have in the military, and we do date nights. All the people drop their kids off at the church with a gymnasium, then we take them (to an event or dinner). We ask them, ‘When was the last time you went on a date?’ We know how important the family is, so we have a date night. All of a sudden, we have spouses who know each other and each other’s phone numbers. But we’re giving people a venue to grow a relationship with their spouse by having date nights.”

The date nights and networking opportunities then grow the involved individuals to be a family of people on whom law enforcement and first responders and their spouses can rely if they need to converse about their lives’ concerns or joys. Additionally, in “relationship-building,” Salt & Light chaplains work to better acquaint themselves with new officers, and perhaps very importantly, they take time out to meet the children in neighborhoods where poverty or crime are prevalent and get out their pitching and catching gloves just to play ball for a while. Beech stated that chaplains also participate in community celebrations to make their presence known, some of which are sponsored by Salt & Light.

The question that went unasked by the Kiwanians but was addressed by the executive director was how the organization is funded, and he noted that “donations from churches, individuals and organizations” and wellness monies allotted to law enforcement help underwrite the costs of sending trained chaplains to emergencies, making way for Salt & Light’s mission to happen. As is the nature of the work, chaplaincy is unpredictable, and that means that Beech and his team are grateful to have the community’s support for their efforts, as it has allowed Salt & Light to expand its association from just the Rochester Police Department and OCSO to all Rochester area law enforcement, and to extend its radius to partner with the Winona emergency services.

Beech posited, “What are we going to do tomorrow? I started with the Rochester Police Department, and…if more work comes to us, we will respond.”

A Kiwanis member inquired of Beech, “How do you take care of your own chaplains?” The director answered, “Kathy or I…the rule is if you get called…the thing is you have to go talk with another chaplain. You have to download.” Another member wanted to know how many police departments have chaplains for the police, and he replied that “percentage wise, it’s really small…Chicago and New York have chaplains on staff, but small departments generally don’t.”

The meeting’s hour ended, and the Kiwanis graciously thanked Beech for his willingness to share about Salt & Light, presenting him with the club’s framed certificate of appreciation that is “suitable for hanging.”

For more information, log onto the Salt & Light Partners’ website at www.saltandlightpartners.org.

Courtesy of the Mower County Independent, 135 E Main St. LeRoy, MN 55951, (507)-324-5325