HEGINS - If you enjoyed his movies he produced as fundraisers for Friedens Lutheran Church, Hegins, such as "It Happened in Hegins," "Blood Soup" and others, then you won't want to miss his latest accomplishment.
Ozzie Tollefson, Hegins, has recently published his first novel, "Mr. Teacher."
In March 2010, Tollefson was asked by the East Polk Heritage Center in his hometown of Fosston, Minn., to help with arrangements to move his old one-room country schoolhouse into town, where it is now a museum. This is where Tollefson said he got the desire to write a novel.
"I built a web site for the operation, www.moenschool.com, wrote a number of news articles for the town's local paper, took lots of video of the movers jacking the 107-year-old building up and putting wheels on it, arranged for a moving day ceremony, did videotaped interviews with several former one-room school students and teachers and edited and produced an 82-minute video on the whole operation. I became interested in one-room schools from that experience."
Tollefson said he didn't want to write a memoir on his own experience attending a one-room school from grades one to eight back in the 1940's, so instead he decided to write a novel.
"I made up the whole story about a young male one-room school teacher, who has a real tough time his first year of teaching," Tollefson said. "He had been discharged out of Army basic training with 'adjustment disorder, with depressed moods.' Through the course of the year, he fights the early signs of mental illness and survives. The story covers from June of 1944 until V-J Day, August 14, 1945, when the long war was finally over."
This novel isn't Tollefson's first time writing. When he retired from doing school assembly programs in the spring of 2008, he spent a year writing 30 short stories based on experiences he's had. He plans to take the best 12 or 15 of those stories and put together a collection of short stories.
Persons interested in reading Tellefson's novel, "Mr. Teacher" may purchase the book locally at Kiefer's Mill in Hegins for $15 or by going to Amazon.com and search Mr. Teacher Ozzie Tollefson. The book can also be purchased through his website at www.ozzietollefson.com.
Tollefson will be available to sign his book during two upcoming book signing events. The first one will be held at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Pottsville Library and at 7 p.m. Thursday at Tri-Valley Public Library, Hegins.