LUVERNE, MINN. – "Rooster!"
Rodney Lowe bellowed it for the first time of the 2018 pheasant season, and it was answered by a blast from Arlyn Gehrke's shotgun. Lowe's three yellow Labrador retrievers raced into a cattail slough to fetch it. They returned it to their master, bypassing Gehrke without a second thought.
"Why are you bringing me Arlyn's bird?" Lowe said with a smirk.
It was a festive start to a fresh-aired morning hunt Saturday on Lowe's parcel of rolling prairie 11 miles west of downtown Luverne. This southwestern-most Minnesota town was a highly organized host of Gov. Mark Dayton's eighth and final Governor's Pheasant Hunting Opener. Back surgery stopped him from attending.
"The governor's not here, but we've got a rooster," Gehrke said.
The night before, close to 400 people gathered at Grand Prairie Events center just off Main Street for what event Chairman Rick Peterson said was the largest banquet ever held in association with Dayton's pheasant season openers.
"I told everyone we would do it, and we knocked it out of the park," Peterson said in after-dinner remarks to loud applause. Sen. Amy Klobuchar attended the dinner and was one of many speakers who wished the governor well.
Dayton, in an open letter to the banquet crowd that was read by Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Tom Landwehr, thanked the community for its hard work in staging a $100,000 event to celebrate the state's once-great pheasant tradition. Among the many highlights of the impeccably staged celebration was an appearance at the banquet by the local high school marching band. Saturday's hunt was followed by a parade of bird dogs.