Neighbors: Captain Jim Rohn, a train and a ballroom

Neighbors: Captain Jim Rohn, a train and a ballroom

Today, Neighbors readers are talking about being fans of a person, a train and a ballroom.The person is “Captain” Jim Rohn.“I remember getting to be on that program once for my birthday when I was a kid and getting to ring the bell,” Steve Runck, Horace, N.D., writes.Steve is talking about the children’s program on KXJB-TV hosted by Jim.Sadly, Jim, a long-time announcer for the station, died in Fargo recently, leaving behind many fans such as Steve.The GooseThen there’s the old Galloping Goose branch line trains.Columns about them led Bill Devlin, Finley, N.D., to write that as a boy, he and members of his family “got to ride the train from Sharon to Finley as well as Finley to Blabon.”Bill and his wife, Margie, owned the Steele County Press in Finley for 33 years. He’s now serving in the North Dakota House of Representatives, where he has been House speaker.Red Foley and GrandpaThe ballroom is the Crystal, in Fargo. Neighbors has carried several people’s memories of the big names who played there.John Dahl, Moorhead, writes he and his wife heard Red Foley there, as well as comedian Grandpa Jones in the late 1950s.Harriet Holler, 80, writes that “after moving to Fargo in 1952 from Hunter, N.D., I went there (to the Crystal) all the time.”Harriet also has memories of her mother’s friend Don Wardwell, who was with WDAY Radio for years.He and Harriet’s mom Fanny grew up together. After he joined WDAY, Don and his wife, Gerta, would come to visit her. Sometimes he’d bring along his friends from the station, including pianist Frank Scott and a singer who did all right for herself named Peggy Lee.“Us kids were young at the time,” Harriet says, “so we were sent upstairs to bed, but they made a lot of noise and seemed to have a good time.“It would have been fun to have been older so we could join in,” she says.Yes, kids miss out on a lot of adult high-jinks, Harriet. But maybe it’s just as well.