When perusing the list of alumni of The Blake School, I noticed that the list featured two governors who graduated one year apart. I checked to see if they were in office at the same time, and it turns out they were—Mark Dayton was governor of Minnesota from 2011-2019, while Jack Dalrymple was the governor of North Dakota from 2010-2016.

But not only were Dayton ‘n’ Dalrymple classmates at Blake and contemporaeous midwestern governors, they both played hockey at Yale. This article in the Grand Forks Herald reports that Dayton was the starting varsity goalie, while Dalyrmple was on the JV.

In 2011, the two made a bet on the University of North Dakota/University of Minnesota-Duluth game. Dayton put up a thermos of coffee from a Minnesota coffee shop against Dalrymple’s bet of a case of Dreamfields, which is (apparently) a North Dakota-made low-carb spaghetti. UND won, but in a classic case of North Dakota Nice (is that a thing?) the Herald reports that, “Dalrymple said he’s ‘kind of sorry’ Dayton won’t be able to enjoy some of North Dakota’s finest pasta.”

See more designs from the Blake set here.

The Governor Johnson for whom the Johnson Governors are named was John Albert Johnson, governor of Minnesota from 1905-1909 and seeker of the Democratic nomination for president in 1908. His 1910 biography, Life of John Albert Johnson, devotes an entire chapter of no fewer than eleven pages to an appearance at one function—the December 7, 1907 Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, DC. Johnson was introduced with a funny song called “Poor John,” insinuating that Johnson wanted to run for president but was being perpetually stymied by William Jennings Bryan.

According to the biography’s reprinting of a Washington Post account from an attendee of the dinner, Johnson got up and said, “‘Poor John?’ I appreciate the honor; but don’t you think, when you look back at 1896, at 1900, and at 1904, you ought to say ‘Poor Bill’?” This reference to Bryan’s multiple failed bids at the presidency seems like a pretty sick 1907 burn to me, and it seems like it went over that way:

“The unexpectedness of it, the the additional element of unexpectedness that was attached to it coming from ‘the stolid Swede,’ set the crowd wild. The president, the speaker of the house, the justices of the supreme court, all united in one might shout that lasted a minute. Johnson looked out over the shouting crowd with eyes that danced.”

Of course, that’s if you believe Johnson’s biographers and the Washington Post. The New York Times dedicated an entire column to that dinner, and didn’t mention Johnson one time. If you’re motivated to learn more about this wicked twentieth century jab from the biography, at the time of writing you can acquire a leather-bound, first edition signed by Mrs. John A. Johnson for $24.99 on eBay.

See more designs from the Johnson set here.

In, 2003 Minnetonka’s Japan Bowl team won a regional championship. According to japanbowl.org, the Japan-America Society of Washington, DC started the Japan Bowl competition in 1992 to encourage the teaching of the Japanese language and Japanese culture in American schools. Each year, around 200 students come to Washington to compete, and the winners win a trip to Japan. You can check out a short documentary about it here, and if you’re a competition junkie (or just interested to see a little), you can watch this year’s championship round here.

See more designs from the Minnetonka set here.

Not only was Central the alma mater of Prince, but also of yet another Minnesota governor—Orville Freeman. Freeman stood to nominate John F. Kennedy at the 1960 Democratic Convention and served as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, but I assume that his greatest honor was being referenced in an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies. In the 1963 episode “Granny’s Garden,” Granny is about to plow the estate to put in a vegetable garden when Miss Jane Hathaway rolls up and asks, “What in the name of Secretary Freeman are you doing?”

Which leads me to wonder—were people in 1963 really up for a good Secretary of Agriculture joke? Do you even know who the current Secretary of Agriculture is? (It’s Tom Vilsack, but I only know because I looked it up. And when I looked it up, I learned that the first United States Commissioner of Agriculture was a fellow named Isaac Newton.) I’m not sure I see “What in the name of Secretary Vilsack” really going over with today’s television audience.

See more designs from the Central set here.

Central moved to a new building in 1912, and was able to secure William Jennings Bryan as their commencement speaker. I guess after almost five years he had recovered from the wounds from his third-degree burn at the hands of John Johnson, but it still seems a bit bold to come into the capitol city of Johnson’s state. Bryan gave a speech that he gave often, called “The Value of an Ideal.” At the time, he was the Secretary of State, and trying to navigate the set of circumstances in Europe that would soon become World War One. Toward the end of a published version of the speech is this passage, which I thought was interesting:

See more designs from the Central set here.

Admiral David Farragut was an admiral in the Union army at the Battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864. (Happy birthday to me.) It was here that Farragut is said to have said, “Damn the torpedos! Full speed ahead!” although the evidence that he actually said it is prettttttty thin. Here is the admiral as he appeared on a pretty cool Navy enlistment poster:

See more designs from the Admiral Farragut set here.

Former Major League Baseball star Dante Bichette has visited Lakewood, where his son, current Major League Baseball star Bo Bichette played in high school. Dante came with an idea with a special bat to help the baseball players there train, and Lakewood’s baseball coach—who also happens to be Lakewood’s sculpture teacher—has been making and refining the tool in the school’s art studio. You can see what the bat does here.

See more designs from the Lakewood set here.

The October 1929 issue of Popular Science highlighted an unsual feature of the Galileo High campus:

Raphael seems to have actually named Henry Raphael, and in 1910 he had worked on a boat called the Patterson that sailed between Seattle and Alaska to map the Alaskan coast for the U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey. Here’s a stamp I like commemorating the sesquicentennial of that government organization:

See more designs from the Galileo set here.

Will Leitch has a book coming out this week. I haven’t received my copy yet, but I really enjoyed his first one. I also love his free newsletter (subscribe after you convince someone else to subscribe to this one), and one of the podcast he’s on is an integral part of my weekly routine (unfortunate right now, since they’re about to take a few weeks off!) Buy the book and subscribe to the newsletter and podcast!

Reddy Kilowatt is the famous mascot of…..electricity? He appears in many forms, and is frequently featured in school yearbook ads. Every week I’ll take a look at a Reddy I’ve found in my research. This week’s Reddy came from a 1943 ad for Carolina Power & Light.

See you next week! Tell your friends!