“We’re happy you’re here”

A Visit With Silveridge’s Welcomers

By Dale Dauten

It was back in 2019 when Deb Scherbring sat down with Activities Director Sue Arneson and suggested that Silveridge could use a Welcome Committee for new residents. Sue not only loved the idea, but said that it was something she’d been wanting to get started. So Deb turned to her good Silveridge friend, Linda Hinzman, and the two became the park’s official welcomers. Sue says of the pair, “These are the perfect ladies to greet the new people.”

And it’s a lot of welcomes – Deb told us that the park had 84 newcomers last season and over 30 so far this season.

(Photos: That’s Deb, upper left, with some of the newest residents – Julie and Butch Nosko, standing, and Lothert and Christy Hulzebos, seated. And in the photo below, another new couple, Jeff and Cora Newell.)

Linda explained to us what the newcomer visits look like. (We should pause here to say that Linda is Canadian, so she isn’t at Silveridge for now, but was here last season for the launch of the program. When we spoke by phone, Linda pointed out to us that she very much wishes she were in Arizona, given that it was 29-below as we talked, and, as she merrily described it, a “chilly willy one.”)

“When you’re new, it can be overwhelming – you can get lost just going to the Center,” Linda said. “So we visit the new residents and let them know we’re happy they’re here, but we also take a gift, with chocolates, a map, a calendar and a list of tips that Deb and I put together. Then we encourage the new residents to come to our monthly a Meet & Greet with Sue Arneson, and, most of the time, with folks from the Business Office. That’s where they can get questions answered. And then we try to convince them to come to a Boogie – I tell them that you sit at table with people you don’t know and it’s a great way to make friends. That’s how Deb and I met, at a Boogie. And we talk to the newcomers about the coffee & donuts, and the theater and just convince them that if they sit at home, you won’t know what you’re missing.”

MEET THE MEET & GREETERS

We like to pass along some background on the folks we write about, and here’s some of what we learned this month…

DEB SCHERBRING (Photo: Deb and Bob Scherbring, New Year’s Eve, 2019)

We met a lot of folks at the park who grew up on farms, but Deb is the first who grew up on a wildlife refuge. Her dad was the State Game Warden at Minnesota’s Whitewater Wildlife Refuge (or, as the newer name goes, Whitewater Wildlife Management Area).

This meant growing up with wildlife, and not just seeing it at a distance. Nearby residents would bring stray baby animals, like raccoons and beavers, and the family nursed them until they could return to the wild. Deb recalls one particular animal who didn’t go back: “A farmer ran over a fawn and its leg had to be amputated. But the fawn never left — it stayed around and became a family pet.” Who else do you know that had a three-legged deer as a pet?

Deb also went to an elementary school that seems out of another era – just two rooms, one for grades 1-3 and the other for 4-6, and her class was nine students. But then she went to St. Charles High, with 75 in her graduating class, and then on to Rochester Vo-Tech, which led to a job with First National Bank in Rochester. After a couple of years at the bank, she landed a job at Kalmes Implement, a company that sold and repaired agricultural equipment (and is now a part of Case IH). The man who helped her land that new job had some pull – it was a family business that his grandfather had founded in 1919, and Bob Scherbring and his brother owned it. She and Bob ended up getting married and she stayed with the company 31 years.

After they retired, they booked a three-month stay at Silveridge to be near friends in Mesa, and as Deb recalled it, “We pulled into our lot and the neighbors came and welcomed us and we stayed. That was eight years ago.”

LINDA HINZMAN (Photo: Linda and LaVerne Hinzman)

As mentioned earlier, Linda and her husband, LaVerne, have been wintering in Canada this season due to the pandemic. While they now live in Sasketchwan, Linda grew up in a Manitoba town with the charming name of Flin Flon. (It’s a copper and zinc mining town with a mascot named Flinty. The town’s unlikely name comes from a character in a 1905 novel called Josiah Flintbbatey Flonatin. Why name the town for that character? Prospectors found a copy of the book near the original mine site.)

Linda went to school in Flin Flon and then on to Red River College and eventually to a 35-year career assisting the President of a mining company. That mining company was where she met LaVerne, an underground mine surveyor.

After retiring, they took a tour of potential winter homes, including Palm Springs, Sedona and Mesa. “We visited Silveridge on that trip because our friends John and Marge Faktor were there,” Linda recalled. “We fell in love with it. We rented there the next winter and then bought a place. It’s been 10 years we’ve been coming to Silveridge.”

Yes, note that Silveridge beat out Palm Springs and Sedona. Who better to help greet newcomers? Linda added, “I’m glad to do anything that helps the park that we love.”

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