Star Tribune
Rochester’s music man never missed his chance to help others
The year he turned 90, Gene Eiden played taps at more than 150 veterans’ funerals.
It was what they deserved, he told others. He wouldn’t think of letting a local veteran be buried to a recording — someone needed to play the bugle call live.
Eiden was the man to call whenever someone in Rochester needed music, be it a presidential visit or a home game at the local Catholic school. Rochester’s own music man died at 93 on Christmas Eve.
“It was just his general enthusiasm and joy for music, seeing people be successful with music,” Eiden’s daughter Carol Stortz said. “He was just an upbeat kind of guy, no pun intended.”
Eiden was a music teacher at Lourdes High School for more than 36 years. He grew up in rural Stearns County, got his teaching degree from St. John’s University and joined the U.S. Army in 1953 for a two-year stint playing in the Army band.
Eiden and his wife, Frances, came to Rochester in the late 1960s and he worked as a music educator at the local Catholic school. They never left, finding the community a good fit for their family — and for Eiden’s habit of providing live music.
His marching and pep bands would play at almost every home game and local parade imaginable. The school’s dance band, the Lourdes Hi-Lighters, would play weddings and community dances across the area. Eiden even organized the welcoming band for then-President Richard Nixon’s campaign stop in Rochester in 1972.
“He really believed in having his students play in front of people,” Eiden’s son Wayne Eiden said. “If he put his students in front of people, they would keep that music with them for life.”
The bandleader was never known to say no. Chris Miller, a Lourdes graduate and longtime athletics coach for the school, remembers the time one of his cross country teammates convinced Eiden to bring the pep band to a meet in the mid-1970s.
“The gun goes off, and all of a sudden some kid from another team goes, ‘What the heck is that?’ as the band was playing our school song,” Miller said. “A lot of us started laughing.”
Eiden was as quick with a joke or a funny story as he was to pick up a trumpet; he once told his daughters the only reason he got into music was because the local hardware store clerk conned his parents toward buying the last coronet in stock, rather than the clarinet they wanted for him.
He never forgot his military background: After he retired in 1993, Eiden played as many American Legion or VFW events as possible, as well as every funeral service he could.
Eiden never slowed down, playing taps at funerals even as his health waned in his last years. His spirit never flagged, either — he played taps two days before he died, and his family said Eiden was still joking around in the hospital the day he passed.
“He always felt, even from early on, his life was so blessed,” Stortz said. “Sharing that blessing was just a part of who he was.”
Eiden is survived by his wife, son Wayne, daughters Stortz and Kay Kangas, 10 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. Services have been held.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation closed part of a state highway Wednesday evening near Austin because of a “major hazardous materials release” in the area.
Hwy. 56 from Hayfield to Waltham, a stretch covering about five miles, was closed in both directions and drivers were directed to follow a detour to Blooming Prairie on U.S. Hwy. 218.
No information on the hazardous materials released was immediately available.
A federal judge dismissed a civil lawsuit against Minnesota state trooper Ryan Londregan in the shooting death of Ricky Cobb II during a 2023 traffic stop.
The decision is the latest development in a case that has drawn heated debate over excessive use of force by law enforcement. Criminal charges against Londregan were dismissed by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty in June, saying the prosecution didn’t have the evidence to proceed with a case.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel granted Londregan’s motion to dismiss the civil suit, arguing he acted reasonably when he opened fire as Cobb’s vehicle lurched forward with another state trooper partly inside.
Londregan’s attorney Chris Madelsaid Wednesday that it’s been a “long, grueling journey to justice. Ryan Londregan has finally arrived.”
On July 31, 2023, the two troopers pulled over Cobb, 33, on Interstate 94 in north Minneapolis for driving without taillights and later learned he was wanted for violating a felony domestic no-contact order. Cobb refused commands to exit the car.
With Seide partly inside the car while trying to unbuckle Cobb’s seatbelt, the car moved forward. Londregan then opened fire, hitting Cobb twice.
In her decision, Brasel said the troopers were mandated by state law to make an arrest given Cobb’s domestic no-contact order violation. She said it was objectively reasonable for Londregan to believe Seide was in immediate danger as the car moved forward on a busy highway, which would make his use of force reasonable.
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Donald Trump walked down the steps of the Boeing 757 that bears his name, walked across a rain-soaked tarmac and, after twice missing the handle, climbed into the passenger seat of a white garbage truck that also carried his name.
The former president, once a reality TV star known for his showmanship, wanted to draw attention to a remark made a day earlier by his successor, Democratic President Joe Biden, that suggested Trump’s supporters were garbage. Trump has used the remark as a cudgel against his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
”How do you like my garbage truck?” Trump said, wearing an orange and yellow safety vest over his white dress shirt and red tie. ”This is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden.”
Trump and other Republicans were facing pushback of their own for comments by a comedian at a weekend Trump rally who disparaged Puerto Rico as a ”floating island of garbage.” Trump then seized on a comment Biden made on a late Wednesday call that “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”
The president tried to clarify the comment afterward, saying he had intended to say Trump’s demonization of Latinos was unconscionable. But it was too late.
On Thursday, after arriving in Green Bay, Wisconsin, for an evening rally, Trump climbed into the garbage truck, carrying on a brief discussion with reporters while looking out the window — similar to what he did earlier this month during a photo opportunity he staged at a Pennsylvania McDonalds.
He again tried to distance himself from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, whose joke had set off the firestorm, but Trump did not denounce it. He also said he did not need to apologize to Puerto Ricans.
”I don’t know anything about the comedian,” Trump said. ”I don’t know who he is. I’ve never seen him. I heard he made a statement, but it was a statement that he made. He’s a comedian, what can I tell you. I know nothing about him.”
