Last of Esko's 1955 starting five has died

Jerry Anderson, the last surviving starter on the first boys basketball team from Carlton County to reach the state tournament, died Tuesday at age 83. Anderson was a star on the 1955 Esko team that won the consolation championship. The success of the Eskomos preceded runs by Cloquet and Carlton in subsequent tournaments in the late 1950s and 1960s.

Pine Knot News writer Steve Korby wrote about Anderson this past October, after fellow starter Don Terwey died on Sept. 30. Anderson said he met Terwey in the fourth grade and they were lifelong friends and had a hunting shack together for many years. Another fellow starter, Harry Bergstedt, died in February.

Anderson revelled in the memory of the 1955 team. He averaged double digits in scoring that season. He told Korby about some moments from the Minnesota State High School Basketball Tournament in which Esko lost the opening game but then won two in the consolation bracket for a trophy.

"At that exciting first tourney game, in front of over 18,000 screaming fans, Esko was down 16 points at halftime," Jerry said. "But we only lost to New Prague by 18. It inspired us to feel we belonged, and we won our next two games and the consolation title."

Esko lost to Duluth's Morgan Park that season, the team's only regular season defeat. It was early in the season and the game was at Morgan Park. Anderson said starter Ron Korby was ill and didn't play, and others were "under the weather." When they played them again at Esko, the home team won by more than 20 points.

The starters included Anderson, who was a junior, as a guard, and seniors Terwey, Bergstedt, Ron Korby and Ernie Bylkas. Other players were Roger Pykkonen, Dave Mattinen, Ed Pantsar, Art Manisto, Dan Bergstedt, Davis Helberg and Sherman Johnson, along with coach Coopen Johnson.

Anderson didn't play fall or spring sports in high school. "I had jobs in the fall and spring that kept me away from sports, but in my mind basketball was king," he said.

Anderson married Lois Duzan in 1956. She was a 1955 basketball cheerleader and homecoming queen at Esko, and they lived on Old Highway 61. He worked for the Wood Conversion company and the Raiter Clinic in Cloquet and Elliot Meats in Duluth. He retired from his own commercial cleaning business in 2016. They marked their 64th wedding anniversary in October, although a celebration had been postponed until next year.

Lois said Wednesday that her husband loved basketball along with many sports on television. He had been hobbled over the years from back surgery so he was limited in what he could do physically.

She said the accomplishment by that 1955 team was worthy of reminiscing over the years. "We were this small town of dummies," she said with a laugh. "Some of the people who went down (to Minneapolis and the tournament) had never even been to the city."

There were just 87 students in the high school and Esko had about 130 residents, with 2,500 in the surrounding township. The Minneapolis papers couldn't have a tournament story without referring to "tiny Esko," "little Esko," or the "darlings."

"It was a big thing," Lois said. "It's just too bad we had to lose that first game."

She laughed when thinking about cheering at Williams Arena on the campus of the University of Minnesota. The fans were so far up in the stands, "in heaven," that by the time they reacted to the cheerleaders the squad was already done.

She and Jerry supported the county teams that followed, especially the Carlton team that had its own Cinderella story in 1959. And the couple was there to see the Esko boys team win a state championship in 2014.

She reflected on the 64 years of married life with Jerry. "We had our ups and downs like anyone else," she said. "But we held it together. We had a good life."

"It's strange now," Lois said of losing her husband along with Terwey and Bergstedt in just the past year. "I'm sure they're all together again," she said.