In May of 1952, Elk River held a “Handke Appreciation Day” to honor a man who had then served as Elk River Superintendent of Schools for twenty-five years. Mr. Handke finally retired in 1957, but fifty years later his former students still remember him clearly and with great affection, even those who had felt the “personal touch” of his infamous rubber hose.

Robert Handke came to Elk River in 1927 when the only school building in the district was the fifty-year-old wooden frame school near where the Handke School now stands. Even at that time the frame school was terribly overcrowded, and it was only a matter of time before it would fail fire and safety inspections.

By the time he left, the Elk River district had grown to encompass Zimmerman and several rural districts. The old frame building was finally gone and the old Zimmerman brick school was about to be torn down, but several new buildings had been constructed including what we know today as the Handke School and its additions, Lincoln Elementary, and a new elementary school for Zimmerman.

Handke’s dedication to the students of Elk River became clear very quickly when in just four years Elk River had a brand new high school that was very modern for its time. That building, the Handke School, now houses Community Ed, and the Elk River Area Arts Alliance.

But the school building is not what most former students mention when they reminisce about Mr. Handke. Recently a group of volunteers gathered at the Elk River Public Library to help us identify numerous photographs of Elk River High School students in the 1940s and the conversation turned quickly to Mr. Handke and his unique form of punishment.

“Black rubber hose. Do you want to see the imprint?” said 1949 graduate Orie Sachs. But he went on to say, “It sounds bad…He would never hurt you with that rubber hose. Sting, yes, but as far as beating you, no, you had nothing to be afraid of.”

Jim Nystrom added that “It was public humiliation … I mean, everyone [knew] about it within thirty minutes.”

Lloyd Anderson shared several stories of his encounters with the hose. “[Mr. Handke] could punish you without you feeling bad about it. He had a unique talent.” Lloyd went on to say that he got the hose in first grade.

And second. And third. And fourth. But, “It was all well deserved.” (Details in the upcoming exhibit!)

Anita DeMars remembers asking Mr. Handke what he wanted for Christmas one year when she was in elementary school. The answer? A new rubber hose.

Without exception, the Elk River graduates who have helped out with our research for the Gettin’ Edjicated exhibit praised Handke for his dedication and his devotion to the welfare of Elk River children.

Mr. Handke, with his black lab Pepper in tow, was a familiar sight. In the winter, Handke saw to it that the kids of Elk River had good ice to skate on. Lloyd Anderson remembered the warming house and ice rink down in the Handke Stadium.

“He would personally flood that stadium all the time. He lived up on top of the hill. He’d come down with his dog Pepper, and he would spend hours down there flooding the stadium. We had really good ice all the time because it was fresh and you’d go down there and it was just like an indoor hockey rink. But he did that himself.”

Becker resident Bill Cox remembers that Handke welcomed kids from other communities like Becker and allowed them to use the ice and warming house as well.

In 1952, the Sherburne County Star News noted that one of Handke’s greatest accomplishments had been to establish a “well-rounded school lunch program.” According to the paper, “In the school lunch division of the State Department of Education, the name of R. W.

6 Historically Speaking

Mr. Handke and the Personal Touch

By Bobbie Scott

Mr. Handke in a 1942 photograph.

Spring 2007 7

Approach to the bridge over the Elk River with flour mill.

Handke is ‘practically’ synonymous with the movement itself.” (8 May 1952).

Former students have more detailed memories of lunch. Although some would skip the school lunch in favor of ladyfingers at Bake Anderson’s bakery downtown, many remember tasty lunches at school that included fresh homemade bread.

Handke raised much of the food used by the school district in a garden where he was helped out by generations of Elk River children. The 1952 the Star News article reported that “Many early-risers, thinking they have beaten everyone to the draw, find they aren’t so early after all. Mr. Handke during the years has often been seen hauling a trailer-load of vegetables from the school’s four-acre garden to the school long before most people are even stirring.”

According to Lloyd Anderson, “Handke and I got to be really good friends because during the war he had a canning deal where they had vegetable gardens all over the county and they were bringing their corn and peas and all these things down to the lunchroom in the Handke School. And he had a big canning operation down there so he would can vegetables for people that couldn’t afford or had the men away at the war. And then after the war, he kept growing stuff over in the peat bog over behind the Elk River machine shop, Lion’s Park. And I worked with him down there, you know, weeding and that kind of stuff. So we got to know each other pretty well.”

Anita DeMars also remembers the garden. “He planted corn, carrots, peas, beans, onions and lot more. When the vegetables were ready, they were picked and taken to the lunchroom at the school. The cooks canned all the vegetables.”

DeMars goes on to say that “I remember helping him with the shelling of the peas. He had a machine that looked like a wringer washer and the peas would shoot out and down a strainer he had made and I would stand by the side of the strainer and help pick out pieces of the pods that would fall down.”

The consensus is that Elk River High School served great food. But in case the picture should become too rosy, there’s always a minor undercurrent of dissent. “What I remember is the green beans he canned for school lunch,” says Jim Nystrom. “He’d wait till they’d get way oversized, tougher than nails, and he’d cook them down to mush, and then feed it to us all winter… They had a garden over by where the Elk River machine shop is, and it was pretty productive, but they had leaves and sticks and everything in there, probably insects, too… They weren’t quality controlled beans.”

Others remember Handke for arranging rides home for high school students so that they could participate in after-school athletic activities after the buses left. More than once, Handke lent a student money or arranged for local banks to make a small loan to a graduating senior who might not otherwise be able to afford a graduation celebration.

The Star News wrote that “the personal touch” was important to Handke. “It was not for him to play the executive and tell people what to do. More often than not he did what needed done himself. More than once visitors unknowingly asked “Janitor” Handke for the superintendent, and it was not unlikely for him to misguide them long enough for him to get to his office and behind the desk.”

Orie Sachs worked for Handke in the summers and got to know him well. He benefited from Handke’s personal touch during the fall.

“We used to have the old wooden building, and then the brick building for the high school, and there was a space between ‘em, and that’s where he’d always park his car, right by that back door,” says Sachs. “And right up above his car was the English room. And came fall of the year when the World Series was on, we didn’t have television in those days, and that would be on radio, and he knew that when the World Series was on I automatically wouldn’t be in school. I’d be at home listening to it. Well, he liked to know how the score was, too, and couldn’t just sit by the radio and listen to it, so he allowed me to go out and sit in his car to listen to it. And he’d come out every once in a while and see what the score was. And the kids in the room in English looked out the window and I’m sitting there listening to a baseball game.”

The class of 1957 was the last class to be presented for diplomas by Mr. Handke. After thirty years in Elk River, he resigned his position and moved to the Washington, D.C., area. He died in 1966 at the age of 79.

If you have a favorite story from your school days, write it down on the Story Page on the back of the flyer in this newsletter. Send it to us or bring it along to the Sneak Peek on April 26 and share it during the program.

Handke ran a commercial cannery at the high school. The school’s garden provided much of the food used in the school lunch program.