Putting as many pieces of the Manning puzzle together that people will get to me!
I'm always writing about and telling people that before all of our Manning history is gone forever, to get it to me so I can scan and archive it.
If you were a member of the Manning Firemen's swim team and/or the Nishna Valley Conservation club, PLEASE contact me about your memories and if you have anything that documents/shows the existence of these 2 groups I'd like to get them to scan and archive before they are gone someday.

Your parents may have written down your times/place for the swim meet, or have a flier, program, or newspaper article promoting these 2 groups and are buried in a box or scrapbook somewhere that no one has looked at for decades...then someday whoever inherits these things won't take the time to go through everything in that box and just throw it ALL away.

Connie Petersen, who first shared her wonderful collection with me to scan in 2017, has been helping me ever since with Manning history. She has memberships to various commercial genealogy, history, and archived newspaper websites and finds obituaries and information about Manningites from our past, then sends that information to me, mostly in cropped images of newspaper articles and other scanned documents, which I then OCR and convert into editable text or transcribe manually.
Every now and then people will ask me who Connie is and her connection to Manning - here is some of the collection I got from her to scan and archive.
Marvin & Marian (Ohrt) Petersen April 20, 1950

Click to see the Ohrt/Petersen history

Here are several newspaper articles Connie recently found about the Nishna Valley club and the Firemen's swim team.

Conservation Club Formed at Manning
The Nishna Valley Conservation Club has been formed here, with membership open to anyone above the age of ten years, male or female.
The club meetings will be held the fourth Wednesday of each month in the old bowling alley in Manning.
The club was formed to teach gun safety, use of guns and conservation of fish and game, and will be supervised by a qualified state gun instructor and conservation officer.
Charter officers are Harold Schmidt, president; Evans Sam Musfeldt, vice president; Virtus Martens, secretary-treasurer. Junior officers are Wayne Ross and Kerry Martens, two-year directors; Duane Karsten and John Moeller, one-year directors. Senior directors are Milford Wiese, 4 years; Louis Mundt, 3 years; Lyle Hansen, 2 years; and Alfred Kuhl one year.
Wayne Snyder will be junior rifle club instructor.

DISTRIBUTE BAGS
Manning Cub Scouts, under direction of Cubmaster John Hornberger and their den mothers, distributed Goodwill Industries bags to Manning homes Saturday. The bags will be picked up by local Boy Scouts on Saturday, November 3.
Carroll Daily Times Herald, October 29, 1962

Manning Club to Start Gun Class
Gun classes are scheduled to begin this week at the Nishna Valley Conservation Club, located in the former Manning bowling alley in the basement of 417 Main Street.
The classes are open to both male and female of all ages, but anyone under 18 must have a signed permit by parents to participate in range shooting. No one under 18 will be allowed to shoot pistols until qualified by the National Rifle Association.
A husband and wife pistol team is being organized by the club, according to Wayne Snyder, who is in charge.
Membership in the club now numbers more than 60. Officers hope to secure 150. The club meets the fourth Wednesday of the month, but clubrooms are open for other activities throughout the month.
Plans are in progress for a recreation room to house a pool table, tennis table, and dart board.
Carroll Daily Times Herald, February 1, 1963

Virtus Martens Rifle Instructor For Manning Club
The National Rifle Association of America has named Virtus Martens, as a certified rifle instructor.
He passed a series of tests and served a period of time in training before receiving certification.
Martens will begin instruction of a basic rifle training course at the Nishna Valley Conservation Club in Manning on March 9. As a means of creating interest among shooters, awards will be given each week for the top score in each age group.
Louis Mundt of Manning began instruction of a hunter safety course at the Club on March 2.
Carroll Daily Times Herald, March 7, 1964


Harlan Is 2nd at Manning Swim
HOW THEY FINISHED
Manning 101
Harlan 56
Carroll 54
Audubon 50
Harlan's swimming team edged Carroll, 56-54 for second place honors in a quadrangular swimming meet held here Tuesday night. Manning walked off with first place and 101 points at their own show.
Harlan picked up most of their points with seconds in the individual and relay events.
Points were awarded to 1, 2, and 3 places. Harlan's 11-12 Boys freestyle relay team posted the lone Harlan team win.
They have yet to be beaten in three years of meet competition.
Brenda McKeighan, Harlan, was first in the Girls 10-under breast stroke event.
Harlan is scheduled to appear in Red Oak's swimming meet Saturday night, July 29. This will be one of the largest meets on the tank circuit this summer and most southwest Iowa towns will be represented there.
Harlan Tribune, July 28, 1961

Harlan's swim team is 3rd at own meet
Holstein wins 1st annual event with 101 points. Harlan finished third in their own invitational swimming meet held at the Harlan swimming pool Saturday night. Holstein edged out Red Oak, 101-98, to take meet honors. Harlan scored 89 team points in the 4-event carnival.
The host team scored heavily in the relays and collected firsts in only five of the individual contests. Vicki Lucas, who swam the 20-yard backstroke and 40-yard freestyle in the girls t5-over class, was the only Harlan team member to pick up two first place medals.
Danny Munich, Dolly Plumb, and Todd Miller got firsts in40-yard free style events. Harlan scored in 26 of the 34 matches run. Local teams placed in all but one of the eight relays.
Probably the biggest crowd pleaser of the meet, the first of its kind in Harlan, was the underwater swim. Phil Hansen, Harlan, finished second with a distance of 165 feet.
Winner was Bob Kraai, Holstein, who had enough wind for 220 feet.
Harlan Tribune, July 25, 1961

Manning history is out there somewhere and I just have to find it or someone needs to get it to me and here are some interesting items I was not aware of...the club and the Firemen's swim team.
If anyone can expand on the club and swim team please let me know.
These items came from Doug Fischer who has been helping me with Manning history for a long time including his family history, along with his brother Larry who passed away in 2022. Larry had sent me some scrapbooks and pix to scan shortly before he passed away, so I have his collection added to my Manning digital database.
I realize that ribbons of an individual are not all that interesting, if and until the background about them is explored which usually tells a short story about Manning's past.

Doug Fischer's Nishna Valley Conservation Club patch


Firemen's Swimming meet
I think the firemen got involved in 1961-1962-time frame to get kids to learn how to swim.
A bus load of kids went to a swim meet in Carroll, Harlan, Red Oak, etc.
Doug Fischer


1963 - I can't find out when a city operated swim team formed but it must have been around this year.


1982 Templeton Centennial participant

Doug has donated these items to the Manning Museum, so slowly but surely we keep getting more Manning history back home.

Doug also provided this information about the gun club.
We met in the basement of what is now Cliffs and we also were taught shooting and cleaning a 22 rifle (probably the same ones used for Children's Day). Things like how to hold the rifle, placing a rifle when crossing a field fence, stuff like that. Cannot remember who led the group (Gerald Beck might have somewhat of an idea). As I remember, everything was in the basement of Cliffs - no field trips, but having respect for a gun. I think it lasted for a fall and into the winter and then not enough kids were interested to join so it was disbanded.

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