Lodge No Nashville, Tennessee. February, 2010 Vol. 1, No. 9. Greetings eller Hilsen, Ken Sersland

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1 MUSIC CITY VIKINGS Lodge No Nashville, Tennessee February, 2010 Vol. 1, No. 9 Lodge Officers 2010 PRESIDENT KEN SERSLAND / ken@getcertified.biz VICE PRESIDENT OSCAR KROSNES / okrosnes@yahoo.com SECRETARY EVELYN MCDANIEL / eimcdaniel@gmail.com TREASURER MARGARET KNEER / kneerm@comcast.net FINANCIAL SECRETARY KAREN KENNEDY / karken@comcast.net AUDITOR DON PENDLEBURY / lildon172@hotmail.com PUBLICITY SUSAN COLLIER / susanscollier@gmail.com SOCIAL DIRECTOR CAROL FIDLER carol.a.fidler@gmail.net / CULTURAL DIRECTOR STEN VERMUND / sten.vermund@vanderbilt.edu NEWSLETTER EDITOR JULIANNE ERIKSEN / julianne_eriksen@att.net SUNSHINE COORESPONDANT GLORIA KLEVE / Tenn.Lady@gmail.com Greetings eller Hilsen, Letter from the President Congratulations to all the Music City Viking Charter Members who have joined or transferred to the lodge. We have now completed our journey to become an official Sons of Norway Chartered Lodge. Thanks to all Charter Members who could attend the Charter Presentation on January 24 with District 5 Vice President Burt Bittner conducting the official procedure. We have finalized our calendar of dates when we will be meeting in 2010 and will present them in our next newsletter. I would like to thank Christine Lewis and Karen Sizemore for volunteering to be our lodge s first Historian officers. See you at our next lodge get together February 28 at the First Lutheran Church in downtown Nashville. Mange Takk! Ken Sersland HISTORIANS CHRISTINE LEWIS / williamlewis@comcast.net KAREN SIZEMORE / nisser@netzero.net 1

2 Welcome! Velkommen! Välkommen! While many in the North and Midwest are still digging out of recordbreaking snowfall, we are enjoying the sight of snow-covered vistas at Vancouver where the athletes of the 2010 Winter Olympics are also breaking records. Congratulations to the U.S. for winning 26 medals overall, and to Norway for a total of 17 (as of February 24)! This issue introduces two lodge officers, Susan Collier and Karen Sizemore (see page 5). Be sure to read about the Sons of Norway Foundation and find out how you can contribute to this important effort (page 6). Norway s unique contribution to the Olympic Winter Games is featured on page 8. We re gathering again on Sunday, February 28 (see page 3 for details). Hope to see you there! Julianne Eriksen, Editor Sons of Norway Mission Statement The mission of Sons of Norway is to promote and to preserve the heritage and culture of Norway, to celebrate our relationship with other Nordic countries, and to provide quality insurance and financial products to its members. Contents Lodge Events February Birthdays Comic Relief Get to Know Your Lodge Officers: Susan Collier and Karen Sizemore Sons of Norway Foundation Norwegian Lesson Norway and the Olympic Winter Games Music City Vikings Newsletter is published monthly to inform, inspire, and grow the membership of the Sons of Norway Music City Vikings Lodge Please contribute to your newsletter by sending articles, recipes, stories, and photos to the editor (julianne_eriksen@att.net). Your comments and suggestions are welcome! Deadline for the March 2010 newsletter is March 8,

3 Lodge Events Lodge Gathering Date: February 28, 2010 Time: 2:00 to 4:00 P.M. Place: First Lutheran Church 113 8th Avenue South Nashville, TN Evelyn McDaniel is filling in for Sten Vermund to teach the Norwegian class at 1:15 prior to the meeting. Evelyn will also speak about 15 minutes on a topic of her choosing on something interesting about Norway and its history. Oscar Krosnes will lead the gathering, which will include a movie about beautiful scenic train rides in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. The movie will run about one hour. This will conclude with questions and answers about future Get Togethers from the members. Refreshments will be served. Do you need a ride to lodge events or can you provide transportation for someone along the way? Contact Karen Kennedy, Financial Secretary at or at: karken@comcast.net WebmasterWanted! The Music City Vikings Lodge needs a volunteer to be the lodge Webmaster. Are you an HTML and Web-savvy person? We re looking for someone to design, build, and maintain our lodge Web site. If you have Web building skills and want to be a crucial part of growing our lodge, contact Ken Sersland. Having an up and running Web site has become a vital part of communication and promotion. We want Music City Vikings Lodge to continue to attract more members and bring attention to Norway and Norwegian culture. Tusen takk! 3

4 Gratulerer med dagen! February 4 February 7 February 14 February 21 Brian Michael Baxter Ronald Erickson Mildrid Hauge Per Jerving Ted Ulven Gloria Kleve February Birthdays Comic Relief Norwegian and Swedish ice fishermen on the border of Norway and Sweden decided to have a competition against each other to see who could catch the most fish. The fishermen who caught the most fish at the end of one week would win. After the first day, the Norwegians caught 100 fish and the Swedes caught none. At the end of the second day, the Norwegians caught 200 fish and again the Swedes caught none. After awhile the Swedish fishermen became frustrated. I tink dose Norvegians are cheating! said one of the Swedes. So they decided to send him across the border in secret, to spy on the Norwegians. When he came back to the Swedish camp, he was very flustered and angry. No vunder the Norvegians catch all the fish! Dey are cheating! Dey are drilling holes in the ice! Did you hear about Ole's nephew Torvald who won the gold medal at the Olympics? Yeah, he had it bronzed. 4

5 Get to Know Your Lodge Officers Susan Collier Lodge Publicity Officer Susan Collier is a native Chicagoan and a third-generation Norwegian- American. Her paternal grandparents, Gustav and Anna (Andersen) Schroeder, emigrated from Oslo to United States in They settled in Chicago and had four children. Susan s father was Christian Norman Schroeder. In 1968, Susan moved to Nashville to work in the music business. There she raised her two sons Christian William Collier and Bradley Aaron Collier as a single parent. (Bradley was born on May 17! How s that for patriotic timing?) Both sons are now grown and still live in Nashville. Susan has operated her own music business public relations company since Gardening, however, is her grand passion. She is a Lifetime Volunteer with Master Gardeners of Davidson County and a board member of the Perennial Plant Society. In addition, she serves as a garden guide at the Cheekwood Museum and Botanical Gardens. She also enjoys working with Room in the Inn, a church cooperative that helps feed, clothe, and shelter the homeless. Her other interests are travel, knitting, cooking, and entertaining. Karen Sizemore Lodge Historian Karen Sizemore was born and raised in Greenbelt, Maryland. She moved to Tennessee with her family when her father was transferred to Murfreesboro. She met and married Larry Sizemore while attending college at MTSU. Karen has been the Farm Manager of Quin Fam Farm (our farm) located in Christiana, Tennessee, for the past 25 years. She is an avid gardener (herbs are her specialty) and has written a small herb pamphlet to go with the selling of her herbs. Her Norwegian heritage comes from her mother s family. Karen s mother passed on her pride of ancestry to Karen. Her Norwegian families are Neumann from Trondheim, Lokken and Kleven from Vaaga, and Nelson from Ringerike. In the past three years she has attended Stevnes in Wisconsin and Minnesota to learn about genealogy and Norwegian Cultural Skills, and she continues to work on her Norwegian family tree. Karen has many interests: she does Hardanger embroidery and rosemaling and has started to learn some folk dances. Her great-grandfather George Neumann wrote Norwegian folk stories and Karen has edited them into a book titled Norwegian Folk Tales for her family members. 5

6 Sons of Norway Foundation The Sons of Norway Foundation needs the help of everyone at the personal level and at the lodge level. But there is a limit not in what you or your lodge can give, but in the amount of giving that the resources of the Foundation will allow. The 2008 Annual Report of the Sons of Norway Foundation stated that 2008 was a good year. However, during these tough economic times, scholarships and grants are needed more than ever. There are many opportunities for giving: online, by check in the donor envelopes, Foundation Month (October) fundraisers, during a lodge meeting by Passing the Piggy, and through memorials or honorariums. Using the resources that were available for 2008, the Foundation gave out four different kinds of grants: Local Lodge Partnership Grants (23 totaling $8,875), General Heritage and Culture Grants (17 totaling $9,950), Helping Hands to Children Grants (19 totaling $5,505) and Helping Hands to Members Grants (granted to members impacted by natural disasters). Twenty-three Academic Scholarships were awarded totaling $47,415 and were comprised of five different types: King Olav V Norwegian-American Scholarships (for students from both countries, who wish to study the other s culture) Nancy Lorraine Jensen Memorial Scholarships (for women 18 35) Oslo Summer School Scholarships (for a six-week study at Oslo International Summer School) Astrid Cates/Myrtle Teinhauer Scholarships (with a winner in each district) Helen Tronvold Folk High School Scholarships (for students attending any one of Norway s seventy folk high schools for an entire school year, August to June). The 2008 donation has made a difference, but for every scholarship granted, three applications went unfunded. That is why donations are always needed and never go unused. Over 200 Draxten Fund Scholarships totaling $11,410 were awarded to Sons of Norway youth attending Language and Heritage camps across the six districts in the United States. All together, the Foundation awarded over $100,000 in Scholarships in 2008 and since 1984, there has been over $1,000,000 awarded in scholarships and grants. That is truly significant. The Foundation received $247,703 in contributions in Investment income amounted to $116,150. Donations came from 1,065 individuals or families as well as 164 lodges and 58 partners (non-sofn). Expenses amounted to $110,668. Losses due to the market meltdown amounted to $1,370,193, directly affecting the Net Assets of the Foundation, which in turn affected the amount of giving that could be done. It is clear that ongoing donations are needed to sustain the good work of the Foundation. If you need more information about the Foundation, check online or contact Arlene Christopherson, Foundation contact for Music City Vikings. 6

7 Norwegian Lesson Can You Tell Time? Hva er klokka? Klokka er tre. Klokka er ti over tre. Klokka er kvart over tre. Klokka er ti på halv fire. Klokka er halv fire. Klokka er ti over halv fire. Klokka er kvart på fire. Klokka er ti på fire. Klokka er fire. 7

8 Norway and the Olympic Winter Games Norway has medal contenders in eight of the fifteen Winter Olympic sports, including speed skating, biathlon, Alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, Nordic combined, ski jumping, snowboarding, and curling. Overall, Norway has the most Olympic Winter Games medals, with 280. In Salt Lake, Norway was third in the medal count behind Germany and the U.S. In Torino, Norway was sixth in the medal standings, with two golds. Norway last led the medal standings in Lillehammer in Norway also hosted the 1952 Winter Games in Oslo. The greatest Norwegian winter athlete and the most decorated athlete in Winter Olympic Games history is cross-country skier Bjørn Dæhlie, who won twelve medals, including eight golds, at three Olympics. Norway is passionate about cross-country skiing, and Dæhlie won four medals at the Lillehammer Games in His successor to the Norwegian cross-country Bjørn Erlend Dæhlie throne was Thomas Alsgaard who won six Olympic medals before retiring in Norway won eleven cross-country medals overall in Salt Lake, including at least one in every men s race. A Norwegian Alpine invasion began in 1994 as Kjetil Andre Aamodt won three medals in Lillehammer and Lasse Kjus won two medals in Nagano. Aamodt won two golds in Salt Lake to bring his career total to seven medals, a record for Alpine skiers. In ski jumping, Espen Bredesen* finished last and third-to-last in the two ski jumping events in Albertville, earning the nickname Espen the Eagle ; but in Lillehammer, he went from worst to first, capturing gold in the normal hill. Ole Einar Bjoerndalen was unbeatable at the 2002 Salt Lake Games, winning all three individual biathlon events and the relay. Speed skater Johann Olav Koss won three golds in Lillehammer and five in his Olympic career. All three of his gold medal performances in 1994 were world-record setting. Three-time medalist and champion of the 20km biathlon in 1968 and 1972, Magnar Solberg was an unknown policeman when he came out of nowhere to win his first gold in Grenoble. Norway won four biathlon medals in Nagano. Daniel Franck and Stine Brun Kjeldaas won the inaugural men s and women s snowboard halfpipe competitions, respectively, in Nagano. In Salt Lake, Ole Einar Bjoerndalen won gold in all four events. Also worth noting: Norway s King Olav V, who died in 1991, was an enthusiastic winter sportsman. He took part in international ski competitions in Oslo in the early 1920s, and won a gold medal in sailing at the 1928 Summer Games in Amsterdam. For years, he was an ardent fan of winter sports in Norway. *Espen Bredesen: Wonder if he is related to Governor Bredesen? Vancouver: Norway Earns 100th Winter Gold Medal! Norwegian Tora Berger held her nerve after delivering a superb shooting performance to win her first Olympic gold medal in the women s 15km individual event at Whistler Olympic Park at Vancouver on Thursday, February 18. Two days after finishing fifth in the 10km pursuit, the 28-year-old student missed just one target on a glorious day of sunshine in the Whistler mountains before completing the course in 40 minutes 52.8 seconds. Berger, who was flawless through the first three rounds of shooting, raised her right arm in celebration as she crossed the finish line before collapsing to the ground with fatigue. "This is a dream I've had for so long," an elated Berger told reporters after earning Norway its 100th Winter Olympics gold medal in front of a packed stadium. "This is so good. 8