SOUDAN— Over 200 “old settlers” and friends showed up to picnic and enjoy music, booyah, and fun at the 110th annual Old Settlers picnic held here last Saturday. McKinley Park was ready for the crowd, with a brand-new playground area, more seating, and a new sound system. And the weather was just about perfect.
For one area family, this year’s Vermilion Range Old Settlers Reunion and Picnic truly was a family reunion, and at that, an unexpected one.
Brian Torma, who grew up right next to McKinley Park Campground, but who now lives on Orcas Island in Washington state, showed up with his two sons Sam and Archar, to the surprise of the rest of his siblings, Sherry, Gary, Dale, David, Brian, and Kristine. Brian flew in for the weekend without giving his siblings a heads up, reuniting all the siblings for the first time in many years.
While they all attended the picnic as children, this was the first time since they were all grown up that all six of them had made it back for the annual event.
This made for a bit of a hectic reunion for some of the Torma siblings and their children, since Gary is a long-time booyah stirrer and Kristine organizes the raffle prize drawings. Volunteering at the event is a family affair, with two of Kristine’s children helping out—Josiah stirring the hot booyah all morning, and Clair helping organize the raffle prize giveaway. The Tormas are one of several families that boast longtime volunteers, in addition to the Suihkonen and Tekautz families, among many others throughout the years.
This year’s picnic went off without a hitch. About 15 volunteers assembled the evening before to chop up the buckets and buckets of vegetables that go into the meat and vegetable soup.
“You can’t really screw up a soup,” said longtime booyah chef Nick Tekautz, who now is more of a booyah consultant, having trained in the new crew of younger volunteers, including Josiah Jonas, Steve Tekautz (the new head chef), Jerry Chiabotti, Gary Torma, Tom Pustovar, and Brian Anderson.
Nick speculates the distinctive flavor of the booyah has as much to do with the iron pots as the wood fires burning beneath them.
“The inside of the pot is burning hot,” he said. “You can’t get that taste at home.”
The five iron pots, reportedly all at least 100 years old, are only used once a year at the picnic. In all, they hold 200 gallons of booyah, which was served out quickly to all in attendance.
Old Settlers organizers had a special remembrance of longtime secretary-treasurer Kathy Hoppa, who recently passed away. “Kathy had a sassy wit and tenacity,” said volunteer Jennifer (Korpi) Fredrickson, who acted as master of ceremonies and rang the gong in memory of those old settlers who had passed away. This year’s president Matt Tuchel introduced incoming president Ari (Suihkonen) Picard. Kristine (Torma) Jonas is now the first vice president and Gary Torma is vice president. Secretary/Treasurer is Joe Morin.
The youngest and oldest attendees were introduced. Laina Peitso, at four months, was the youngest, and Margie Zupancich, at 98, the oldest. Towards the end of the picnic, Hayley Lilya stopped by with her two-week-old son Henry, to visit his great-grandmother Gwen Lilya, who was not quite the oldest at the picnic, still only in her mid-80s.