I think this is perty good. I love Reusse's writing. Thanks Bill and Pat:
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Patrick Reusse: U.S. Olympic windsurfing team blows into Worthington
Patrick Reusse, Star Tribune
Published June 7, 2003 PATR07
Kevin Jewett comes from Deephaven. He learned to sail and windsurf on Lake Minnetonka. He is attempting to beat the odds and claim the one male spot available on the U.S. Olympic windsurfing team.
Jewett's competition calendar for 2003 features 11 events that are spaced from late January through October. The stops include two in Florida (Miami and Stewart), three in Spain (Barcelona, Majorca and Cadiz), Argentina (Buenos Aires), Germany (Keil), Sicily (Mondello), the South of France (Hyeres) and the pre-Olympic Regatta in Athens.
There's one other stop for Jewett. It arrives next week. The location is Lake Okabena in Worthington, Minn.
Ah, yes. Those exotic, deep-blue, wind-swept destinations roll off the tongue: Miami, Majorca, Sicily, Buenos Aires, Worthington.
"You sound skeptical about this," Bill Keitel said.
Not me, Bill. I grew up in Fulda, a mere 18 miles north of Worthington. As a young man traveling through the flat landscape of Nobles and Murray counties, past thousands of acres of corn and soybeans, I often said to myself:
"Wouldn't this be the perfect location to hold the windsurfing national championships?"
Keitel failed to chuckle at this observation, then said: "Let me tell you something. We have a beautiful 785-acre lake. Worthington also has the geographic good fortune of being located between two of the largest sites for generating wind power in the United States -- Buffalo Ridge down here in southwestern Minnesota and one near Forest City, Iowa.
"We have incessant winds in Worthington. The National Weather Service went back in its records and came up with an average wind speed of 14.6 miles per hour, 24 hours a day, for the second week of June in Worthington.
"We're the second-windiest place in the Midwest, behind Fargo, and Fargo doesn't have a lake."
What started as a lark for Keitel a dozen years ago will manifest itself in the arrival of the U.S. Windsurfing Association's national championships being held this week on Lake Okabena.
The windsurfing starts Tuesday, although the elite sailors aren't expected to be involved in serious competition until Thursday or Friday.
Keitel, 51, runs a leather goods store with the elongated name of Cows Outside and Buffalo Billfold Co. in Worthington. He has a home on Lake Okabena. In the early '90s, he came in possession of an old windsurfing board. He attached a sail and started taking some novice runs across the lake.
Eventually, Keitel had some compadres -- primarily Jeff Hegwer, owner of a laser printing company, and Mark Janssen, the wheelman on a sanitation truck.
The Columbia River Gorge on the Washington-Oregon border is the most famous windsurfing location in this country. A Worthington group made a trip there a few years back.
"It was great scenery, sure, but I left thinking, 'The wind here isn't much different than we have in Worthington,' " Keitel said.
Four years ago, the Lake Okabena enthusiasts started hosting an event called the Worthington Windsurfing Regatta and Unvarnished Music Festival.
The regatta was "beginner friendly." The U.S. Windsurfing Association has a fondness for any event that will bring new people into the sport. In early 2002, Keitel and friends made a pitch to the USWA's Board of Directors and won this year's national event.
"Last year, the host city was Corpus Christi [Texas]," Keitel said. "The races were held 4 or 5 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico, with no spectators. That's the way it is with ocean racing everywhere.
"We're offering something unique. Spectators are going to be able to see the races from the shore. We're going to have the music festival going at the same time. Everyone's going to have a great time."
Keitel's enthusiasm aside, the Fulda native was required to offer one more skeptical note. The largest employer in Worthington is the Swift and Co. hog processing plant located northeast of this town of 11,250.
So, Bill, if Worthington is hit with a brisk northeast wind next week, how do you explain the odor wafting across Lake Okabena to windsurfers who have frolicked in Majorca and the Columbia Gorge?
"The wind blows from the southeast to the southwest in the second week of June in Worthington," Keitel said. "Forget the South of France. After this event, windsurfers are going to be talking about the South of Minnesota."
Patrick Reusse is at preusse@startribune.com.
"Nationals" Strib article - Pat Reusse
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