Golden Shepherds

Join us!

The Golden Shepherds is a social fellowship for seniors, 55 plus. We meet once a month and alternate a lunch and an educational, musical or entertaining program at church with a day trip to an event or site in the community. We also support intergenerational events during the year.

Upcoming Events

Please join us for these Spring/Summer 2012 events.  Call the church office at 612-927-8849 for reservations.
Thursday, June 7
A musical ventriloquist program will follow the 12:30 buffet luncheon in Fellowship Hall. Kevin Doely, associate pastor at Faith Lutheran Church in Coon Rapids, is an accomplished ventriloquist who has performed extensively for groups in the Twin Cities area and will treat us to his program of gospel, comedy, and music ventriloquism
Tuesday, July 10
A 100th Anniversary tour of the Minnesota Governor’s Residence on Summit Avenue in St. Paul has been scheduled for 11:30 am, Tuesday, July 10. (We must email the final list of names of all of our attendees to the Residence Tour coordinator by June 29.) Lunch will follow the tour at a nearby restaurant, yet to be determined.
Thursday, August 2
By special arrangement, our group will have its own 40s-50s vintage coach on the Osceola and St. Croix Railway, a heritage railroad operated by the Minnesota Transportation Museum, for a round-trip ride between Osceola and Marine on the St Croix. We will make a lunch stop before we arrive at the historic SOO line depot in Osceola, WI, — where we will board the train at 1:00 pm. for our 90 minute trip along the sandstone bluffs of the St. Croix River valley.
Thursday, September 6
Lunch at 12:30 in Fellowship Hall will be followed by a program — To Be Announced

Past Events

More than one hundred people were in attendance at the annual Golden Shepherds Christmas Buffet Luncheon held on Thursday, December 8, in Fellowship Hall. Punch and appetizers (cheese, crackers, flatbread, herring and sylte) were available as folks arrived, followed by the lunch of Swedish meatballs, Swedish sausage, potatoes, salads, pickled beets, lefse and julekake, rice pudding and Christmas cookies. Diners were entertained with the special music provided by Cliff Brunzell and the Golden Strings and by Myrna Johnson and the Four Notes (from Northfield). See photos from the Buffet ».
In January, we visited the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting in St. Louis Park, for a tour of its extensive collection of early recording, radio and television broadcasting equipment and clips from old radio and TV broadcasts. The tour concluded with a stop in the museum’s model radio broadcasting studio, where our group was given a script and recorded a short ‘news’ program.
Jim and Sharon Hestad, son and daughter-in-law of June and Bob Hestad, joined us in February to share their experiences while living and working in Oman in the Middle East. They had fascinating information and stories, together with slides and a display of items from the region, to illustrate Jim’s work with the government in developing Oman’s impressive wastewater treatment system and to introduce us to the culture and people of the area. See photos from Jim Hestad’s program ».
Our speaker at the beginning of March was local journalist, historian and author, Larry Millett, who has done extensive research for his books (‘Lost Twin Cities’ and ‘Once There Were Castles’) on the vanished buildings of the Twin Cities. He shared pictures and intriguing stories about many of the long-ago mansions and the titans who built them.
Plymouth Playhouse was our destination at the end of March, where we enjoyed the antics of the Church Basement Ladies in their latest production: A Mighty Fortress is Our Basement.
The Golden Shepherds traveled south to the Mantorville/Wasioja area on Thursday, May 5. We were met at the Mantorville Opera House by a tour guide from the local Restoration Association, who ‘hopped on’ the bus with us and shared information and stories about many of the historic town buildings, as well as about some of the interesting early residents and events. We had lunch at the Hubbell House, which dates back to 1854, where we were joined by Mike Eckers (in character as Colonel Van Cleve), who talked about the early days of the area and then guided us on our bus tour of nearby Wasioja and its Civil War era sites. See the photos from our trip ».