As one might expect, it isn’t always easy to operate a windmill in a small town like Elk Horn. There is no lumberyard or hardware store. There aren’t many craftsmen with the time to help with maintenance or repairs, and the people most willing or able to help are stretched too thin. But one community member the windmill has counted upon time and time again still finds creative ways to contribute to our organization and help us grow: Gene “Beaner” Thomsen of Old Danish Workshop.

Gene’s woodshop is a hop, skip, and a jump from the mill. He might be in his 90s, but he’s still there almost every day, tinkering with reclaimed furniture or barnwood, carving out his signature wooden toys, or building a rustic birdhouse. He makes canes, crosses, dollhouse furniture, and decorations like wooden evergreens. Most are simple in design and capture the inviting energy of Gene himself. Perhaps the most interesting items you can find in his shop are his oven squirrels, which can be used to safely pull baking sheets out of the oven or prop the oven door open.

No matter how busy Gene keeps himself with his wood projects, he always makes time for others. Locals frequently rely on him to fix up damaged tables or chairs, outdoor benches, or whatever else might need a joint replacement or patch. He’s a Dane through-and-through, not only because his birth certificate is in Danish, but also owing to his tireless ability to help others.

The windmill has depended on Gene significantly over the years. Having access to his shop for something as simple as a missing nail or wood glue is a greater luxury than it might seem. Even now, he still offers his help with random wood projects whether it’s new shelves for the store or something a bit less routine. This year alone, Gene’s skillful hands helped us out with two unique projects.

The first was a shadow box to display a retired Danish flag. Earlier this year, with the help of some local high school students, we changed out the display cases inside the windmill. In doing so, we uncovered a moldy box that contained two 3x5 flags, American and Danish. These flags were the first to be flown outside the windmill in the 70s and had been presented to the windmill’s original Board of Directors by Senator Tom Harkin. Before that, the American flag had flown over the Capitol building. Displaying an American flag is straightforward, provided you can fold it properly, but displaying a Danish flag required some research. The Dannebrog is retired differently from an American flag. Rather than folded into a triangle, it is folded length-wise and rolled up, so that no white can be seen. Finding the correct box to display it was also challenging, and so we approached Gene about having one custom made. In no time at all he was done, and it’s displayed inside the windmill today.

The second project was just last week and another odd request. Now that we’re grinding in the windmill again, we’ve encountered newer problems that otherwise weren’t as much of an issue before. A major one is the overwhelming number of flies that trap themselves inside, and they die on every surface from the second floor up. We’re hoping the UV trap we installed last week helps with this issue, but we still had to deal with the problem at hand: how to seal the grain in the hopper when the millstones aren’t being used. Between sessions, this grain sits completely exposed, and this results to dead flies dying in the bin and being crushed into the flour. Just because there are bugs in peanut butter and chocolate doesn’t mean they have to be in our flour, too. So, we went to Gene again, asking if he could make a top for us that would help keep the bugs out but still match the aesthetic of the craftsmanship of our millstone casing and hopper. He had it done in a day.

If you plan to stop in Elk Horn soon, Gene’s shop is a must-see wonder. It’s filled with quality trinkets and crafts that couldn’t have been made by a kinder soul. He’s full of surprises, too, and loves keeping his visitors on their toes. Behind the counter you’ll see his custom rack for 50-cent coins sorted by year. He stocks them as mementos and surprises his unsuspecting customers by gifting ones with their birth years. Beyond his ability with a saw, Gene’s grace and thoughtfulness towards others has made him a treasure in our community. He is truly one of a kind and we’re proud to have him with us. He loves what he does, and we could not imagine our town without him.

It is finally May and visitor traffic is hitting a stride. Despite some weird weather, April proved to be a busy month for us. We had over 1,000 visitors at the Mill and 483 travel groups. We had visitors from 46 different states and at least 6 foreign countries. We also have some new local products in the store including Elk Horn and Kimballton mugs featuring the windmill and mermaid respectively. Both designs were done locally by Deborah King and we sourced the mugs through MyWay Design in Audubon. We love finding ways to support local businesses and the mugs have been added to our growing ‘shop local’ section in the gift shop. We’ve also finally restocked our Iowa souvenirs.

            In April, we held our first It Takes A Village fundraiser. Every Sunday of the month we donated all of our tour admissions for the day to our local Kids in the Village daycare center. We opened the windmill early, had it running all day, and partnered with local food vendors that were willing to devote a Sunday each of their own time for the cause. After some bad weather on 4/28, we held our final session on Sunday, May 5 and altogether we raised $1,147 towards the daycare. We want to thank Kringleman Pastries, Norse Horse Tavern, Master Griller Catering, and Hungry Spartan Pizza for their cooperation. We also want to thank those in town, even members that typically enjoy free admission, who came out in support. It is our hope that the windmill may continue to be used for this purpose and that we continue finding creative avenues to help support other vital organizations in town. In our eyes, that is why the windmill was brought here, and we’re more than ready to keep that vision going.

            And speaking of community engagement, another Earth Day has come and gone. This year we had 10 high school students and two teachers join us at the windmill to plant flowers and prepare the grounds for Spring. The weather was windy and a little wet, but that played to our advantage with Atlantic’s 3^rd grade class trip happening at the same time. Every class got to see the millstones grind and the sails turn, and we still stopped the mill for a moment to let each group do a lap of the catwalk. The kids and chaperones alike were amazed to see the windmill going. For many of the teachers that have been making the trip for years, it was their first time witnessing it.

            It might seem hard to believe, but Tivoli Fest is almost here. This year we fully intend to run the windmill and the millstones all weekend long. Our new exhibit panels are installed in the windmill and we’re ready to demonstrate to the crowd just what our intrepid machine can do. We will also have our folk dancers again this year and an enhanced live Viking encampment with dozens of Vikings pillaging around the area. You can find all the information for Tivoli over at our new website: tivolifest.com. The festival schedule will also be posted there once available. The windmill will be selling the new Tivoli Fest t-shirts throughout the festival except Friday night after closing when they will be available for purchase that evening at the Elk Horn Fire Station. The shirts are also available on our website and we’ve even had people from Denmark order them already. Get yours while we have them because they are going fast.

            Finally, we do want to assure our friends and supporters that newsletters are going out soon. April was a busy month between the fundraiser and Tivoli preparations, and it is difficult to find the time to write and design it during business hours. Nevertheless, it will be going out soon, and we think the feature article will pique everyone’s interests. In the meantime, we will continue filling up the gift shop and decorating the store for Tivoli Fest. If you’re driving through Harlan, Exira, Atlantic, Denison, or Carroll, you might even see one of our billboards.

We are still waiting for the travel season to pick up down here at the windmill. April’s unpredictable weather and another early Easter have us waiting with anticipation for the wave to come. We’ve already scheduled two bus tours to come through later this year.

Our It Takes a Village fundraiser is still underway with one Sunday left. All tour admissions generated on Sundays this month are going to the Daycare. This is a great opportunity to tour the Mill, learn something new about it, and see it working while contributing to a great cause for an important local organization to all of us. So far we’ve raised over $500.00 and we think we can do much better. We hope to double that this coming Sunday. We will have Spartan Pizza outside the windmill from 11 to 5 and Viking demonstrators will be onsite, too. Don’t forget there are picnic tables out back. The windmill will be open and running from 10 to 5, and if the wind is there we will even be grinding. We sincerely hope to see an explosion of local support this last week, so please come out and show your support. General admission is $5.00 for adults and FREE for kids 12 and under. Members with free admission may contribute free-will donations. Come see all of the changes and improvements we’ve made. We guarantee you will learn something about the windmill that you didn’t know before and Shaun will be personally giving tours and grinding demonstrations throughout the day. Thank you very much to those that have contributed already and all of our food sponsors for being open on Sundays with us.

And speaking of improvements, we’ve got more exciting changes to announce. First, the Vestergaard ledger is now on display for the first time. Visitors may view the ledger and our new butter cookie tin exhibit inside the video room. And in continuing our efforts to boost engagement for kids, we’ve added both a play area and art board. The gift shop now has a kids table for children to relax and busy themselves while their parents mill about. In the video room, we have a new bulletin board where kids can have their drawings of the windmill displayed. We have coloring sheets at the windmill or it can be hand-drawn, it doesn’t matter to us. Help us get the board filled for the first time! Coloring sheets are available at the windmill or library. We’ll be developing this program more very soon.

We’re also very excited about our new addition to the Welcome Center and our website, our new social media wall! Visitors can post on Facebook or Instagram using our social media tags and be posted on both our TV and online at danishwindmill.org/social. We’re very excited to have this for the coming year and hope to especially get people engaged during Tivoli. Help us get it filled with new content by posting a picture to Facebook with the tag @DanishWindmill or on Instagram using our hashtags: #DanishWindmill; #DanishVillages; #ElkHornIA; #TivoliFest; or #JuleFest.

Finally, we’ve been working on another spectacular Tivoli Fest, too. This year as part of our grant with Iowa Tourism, we will have five small billboards posted in the area advertising for Tivoli. We’ve also built a full webpage for anyone to share over at TivoliFest.com. Check it out and see everything going on in the largest festival of the year in the Danish Villages.

Some exciting changes have been made at the windmill these last few days. Our first set of exhibition panels have been installed inside the mill, providing additional educational material and engagement opportunities for our visitors to learn about the mill and its history. These debuted last weekend, and we’re especially excited about the archive exhibit. Visitors can now view a map showing the location of mills that affected the placement of our own windmill in 1848, documents related to the fires of 1865-66, and a curated section of pages scanned from the Vestergaard ledger with notes and translation aids. The other subjects covered in these new displays are the millstones, the gear system, and the fantail. In addition to smaller signs being made to various smaller aspects of the windmill, we expect to complete a second set of panels coming soon that will cover the sack hoist, the science and nutrition behind cereal grains, Danish scientist Poul la Cour, and our own windmill’s history as an electrical powerplant.

               Most of these will be available for viewing during tours this month as we continue with our It Takes a Village fundraiser for Kids in the Village. Every Sunday in April, we’re donating all revenue generated from tours to the local daycare. It’s a great way to see all of the new things in the windmill for a wonderful cause. And don’t forget we’ve secured food options, too. We want to thank Kringleman Pastries for sponsoring our event last Sunday, and look forward to next Sunday featuring breakfast sandwiches and Danish hotdogs at the Norse Horse from 11 – 2. Regular admission into the windmill is $5.00 per person and members may contribute free-will donations for the daycare.

               Lisa and Mike Riggs represented the Danish Villages at the U.S. Rebild National Park Society’s annual meeting last week. A gift basket donated by the windmill fetched $180 at the auction with the top prize of $3,000 going for a horse halter belonging to American Pharaoh, the Triple-Crown winner from 2015. Altogether the auction raised over $8,000 which will go towards future programming for the United States Rebild chapter.

               In case you missed it. Iowa PBS is airing a new roadtrip series on the scenic byways. The first episode on the western scenic byway aired Wednesday April 3^rd and features interviews with Shaun Sayres (Danish Windmill) and Tova Brandt (Museum of Danish America). The episode can be viewed online via our Facebook page or by looking on the Iowa PBS website. You may learn something new about all of the interesting attractions in western Iowa.

               Finally, after some moisture tests in the video room, we’ve decided to finally put the Vestergaard logbook on full display. The book will be paired with an upcoming Danish Butter Cookie tin exhibit in the video room, and the mill artefacts currently displayed there will be relocated to the new display case inside the windmill. This case in the mill is also an update and features the display of both the US and Denmark flags presented by Senator Tom Harkin to the windmill board. We want to especially thank Gene Thomsen for building us a special box to display the retired Danish flag correctly. We’re always grateful for the local community members who support us through their own knowledge and craft.

*Correction: The original story misreported that the Rebild auction grossed $80,000. The actual sum was $8,000.00. 

Despite the weather outside, we find ourselves slowing inching closer to Spring. Traffic has picked up, as has the wind, and the windmill continues to spin almost every day. Everything appears to be in good order and we’re very excited to start grinding again soon. What we might do with the flour is still unresolved, but we do have small glass bottles for people to take some as a souvenir. Since flour ground in the mill doesn’t have any additives or preservatives in it, it needs to be stored in cold temperatures immediately, and we don’t have the capacity to do that currently.

Another Throwback Thor’s Day has also come and gone. As usual, the Norse Horse sold out of meals within an hour as people clamored through the door for a taste of Danish food. We look forward to celebrating another one again before too long. The windmill ran until about 7:30 that night and it is always a treat to have it going as people mill about town. A few came in to see all the changes made in the store, and we can finally say we’re ready to go as the travel season begins.

There is still plenty to do though. Looking ahead towards our fundraiser for the Kids in the Village daycare, we’re now turning our attention to inside the windmill and preparing our new exhibit spaces. These will feature a number of different educational snippets about the windmill including our archival materials, the millstones, the sack hoist, the fantail, the gear systems, and the farm-to-table processes of grain to flour. Some of these will feature interactive components for visitors. We’re especially excited to finally have integrated our historic Vestergaard Ledger, the last account book kept during the mill’s commercial use, into our tour. All of this is coming soon, and an article outlining the mill’s Danish past will feature in our upcoming newsletter. More news about the upcoming fundraiser sessions will be out later in the week. The first will be Sunday, April 7, and all proceeds from tours that day will be donated to the daycare. All of our exhibits in the windmill should be ready to go by then. The ledger exhibit will include the page showing “Bager Kjeldsen” or Baker Kjeldsen, the founder of Kelsen Group A/S, the company that produces the famous Royal Dansk Danish Butter Cookies in Nørre Snede, today.

Finally, we’re excited to announce that we have received another grant from the Shelby County Community Foundation. These funds will be used to purchase and install a new entertainment building to replace the old concession stand sitting over the stage. This new building will house a new speaker system for the stage, including the folk dancers during Tivoli and other performances throughout the year as needed. This will significantly boost the quality of productions put on the stage and will ensure everyone will be able to hear performances despite crowds or distance. It will also provide us necessary storage for the picnic tables, holiday decorations, and other things taking up a considerable amount of space in our main building currently.

All this and more is on the way. We’re excited for these changes and look forward to another prosperous year.

The winds of change continue to gust through Elk Horn. Our gift shop renovations are finally complete, and we’re excited to see how the opening of this year’s travel season starts for us. The kitchen merchandise area is finally complete, as is the aebleskiver pan display. Our Christmas wall is redone with new and exciting lines we have picked up in the last month, and the facelifts to our candle area and Viking corners are also complete. To add to all of this, our new Welcome Center hub has been running smoothly and we’re able to showcase everything going on with ease.

To highlight a few of these changes, we’re particularly excited about the new aebleskiver display. We sell 5 different pans including 3 cast iron pans, an electric pan, and a cast aluminum pan. Our visitors always have lots of questions about the differences and recommendations, and so now each pan has a small sign highlighting unique features as well as care instructions. Meanwhile, the new shelving we’ve acquired from IKEA gives the area a nice, modern look while keeping all of the food items more organized and easier to find.

We’re also ready to introduce our new line of artificial flowers from Gry & Sif, a Danish design company. We have tulips and anemones in various colors and other accent pieces to compliment any arrangement. To compliment these, we’ve also added a new line of vases, made in 3 sizes using 3D printing and recycled materials.

Finally, we are delighted to share that the Danish Lakrids are back in the shop again after not having them for a few years. Chocolate-licorice candies in a variety of classic flavors are on the shelves now and we have the true licorice candies arriving soon in sweet, red, and salmiak.

Looking ahead, we will soon have two new t-shirt designs featuring our main Danish Windmill – Elk Horn, Iowa design in both solid red and cardinal (the color of our crewneck and hoodies). We will pick up a long sleeve version of the solid red shirt next Fall. We hope to have the new tshirts in the shop sometime next week and we expect them to go quickly.

And on March 21^st we will join the Danish Villages in celebrating another Throwback Thor’s Day featuring a Danish meal at Norse Horse tavern as well as aebleskiver at the bakery. The windmill will be open late as usual along with other businesses in town. This is a great opportunity to get a delicious Danish meal and see all the changes we’ve made.

Finally, we want to remind everyone of our fundraiser for the daycare coming up in April. Every Sunday will feature a food option in town and we will be donating all tour revenue (donations and admissions) to the local daycare, Kids in the Village. The first session will be on Sunday, April 7^th and the Kringle Man will be open from 10am – 2pm serving aebleskiver and medisterpølse.

It’s hard to believe that Spring isn’t here yet, but at least we’re almost there. We want to thank everyone who came out for our second annual Hygge night. We enjoyed seeing people milling about the town and had a great time with those that came down to the windmill. We still have plenty of our signature hygge-themed t-shirts, crewnecks, and stickers in stock, too.

We’ve been busy at the windmill taking advantage of the traffic lull to make some needed improvements and renovations. Our Welcome Center upgrade is now complete and operational. A new TV broadcasts the daily hours of businesses in town and whatever other information we choose to include such as upcoming events, sales, local weather, or anything else. We’re looking forward to adding our social media wall later this year. The public chromebook is now ready for use for travelers in need of additional resources or those seeking to learn more about our organization and the Danish Villages.

Renovations in the store itself are also underway, with two of the three planned projects now completed. We’ve added shelving space to our Christmas area to make a dedicated space for our very traditional bramming collection. We’ve also added a small wall to our Viking and Candle corners to help consolidate and organize merchandise into a more consumer-friendly display. We’ll even have Viking shields for sale soon to go with our swords, axes, and helmets. The last project is underway and involves a partial upgrade to our kitchen & food area. We’re still waiting on the new shelving to arrive later this week, but we’ve very excited for this new setup and all of the new possibilities we will have for merchandising this part of the store. Part of this includes a full aebleskiver pan display featuring every type of pan we sell and some educational materials on the differences between them. We anticipate this project being finished by March if not a little sooner.

We also have new products on their way to the store. A shipment of books is coming with some excellent new titles, and we’ve also dabbled into some new lines including Maileg’s dollhouse collections and Gry & Sif’s felt ornaments and decorations. These are both quality Danish companies and we’re excited to showcase their top-selling merchandise in our shop. We will also have a new Scandinavian-themed bodycare line starting this week featuring high-quality handsoaps, lotions, lip balms, bar soaps, hand sanitizers, and more in a variety of alluring scents and fragrances. Finally, we’re excited for the return of Lakrids by Bülow and their classic licorice candies. All of this and much more is being made available in the gift shop every day. And if there’s something else you would like to see us carry, let us know.

We also recently announced an upcoming fundraiser. We’re partnering with Elk Horn’s local Kids in the Village daycare center on a multi-day fundraiser to help raise money for daycare. Every Sunday in April, we will be donating all of our revenue generated from tour admissions to the daycare. This is a great way to see the windmill for a wonderful cause. We’ve already secured food options for part of each Sunday for people to plan their trips around, and the windmill will have new educational exhibits on the first two floors. More details on food vendor times will be released soon, but we hope to see a lot of familiar faces touring the windmill again soon. We will even grind if the weather permits.

Finally, the windmill has already received two new volunteers for this year! We can’t wait for them to get started and encourage anyone interested in helping out to come talk to us. There are plenty of fun things to do whether it’s visitor services, giving tours, or even running the windmill. Contact us for more information or visit our volunteer landing page at danishwindmill.org.

The windmill held its annual meeting on January 30^th at the town hall. Shaun gave a presentation on the financial position of the organization followed by a review of 2023 and everything we accomplished last year. We’re hopeful we can build on the year we’ve had and enter a new era of prosperity for the windmill and community, but as attendees learned, we still have a lot of work to do. If you missed the annual meeting, it is available on our YouTube channel for viewing. We want to thank all of those who joined us in support for the evening. We also want to thank Chad Juelsgaard for his service to the Board of Directors. Finally, please join us in welcoming Nicole Butler onto the Board. She will assume the office of treasurer for 2024. If you wish to be considered for the Board of Directors in 2025, please get in touch with Bill Rollins or Joanne Greving.

A lot of information about the windmill was given at the annual meeting, including two big announcements that we are excited about this year. The first is our new digital Welcome Center station is ready. To supplement the Chromebook we obtained via grant for travelers last year, we have added a full desk with community brochures and literature in addition to a TV that displays local business hours, weather, upcoming events, and whatever else we want to put on it. Later this year we will add a “social media wall” which will allow visitors to upload photos they take of themselves or the windmill onto the TV using our hashtags. This is a trending business tool right now that will generate both exciting engagement and free advertising for our organization.

The second bit of news is even more thrilling. We’ve signed an agreement with Midwest Pano to produce a full virtual tour of our windmill. If you are familiar with Google street-view, the interface is very similar. Users will be able to explore the entire windmill, view everything inside in high-resolution detail, and even interact with digital engagement buttons we can customize the tour with. The tour will also include our outdoor exhibits, allowing far-flung visitors to take in our entire complex from the comfort of home. We believe this will be a monumental resource for us, not just as a membership benefit, but also as a means to draw additional tour revenue from people unlikely to visit us in person. Expect more announcements on this as we get closer to launch. We will be having the imaging done once the weather is nicer and our complex is green again.

A final piece of information that we would like to share regarding the annual meeting, is that we are actively encouraging people to attend. This event is held once a year, as required by our by-laws, and it is an easy opportunity to learn about what we’re up to and the help we need. We are doing everything we can to grow and keep everything running, but the challenges of outpacing our operating expenses are mounting. We need all the help we can get, and it doesn’t have to be just donations. We are inviting community members to explore our volunteering opportunities including giving tours, helping us digitize archival materials, and even running the windmill! Just contact us at the windmill to learn more or visit our volunteer page at danishwindmill.org.

In the meantime, we’re excited to be participating in a community hygge evening again. Come down to the windmill and see all of our sales. If you would like an annual report from the meeting, we have plenty of copies left at the windmill.

Click this link to view the annual meeting presentations. This was our first time doing this and Shaun ended up out of frame after we adjusted the camera, but we will keep recording these meetings going forward: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP-46-YOT-k

Snow, snow, snow. What more can be said? We found ourselves forced to close the windmill a number of days these past two weeks due to inclement weather and frigid temperatures. On the positive side, we've managed to get some great snowscape shots for future promotional use. We’re more than happy to welcome the more moderate winter temperatures this week as businesses open back up and return to stride. Needless to say, not a lot has happened since our last update. Business has been understandably slow and while we do have some exciting announcements waiting in queue, we’re not releasing them just yet. 

The next issue of our newsletter, The Breeze, is being finalized now and nearly ready to go to print before going out to all of our members. If you want your own copy mailed to you, it is never too late to sign up for a membership at the low cost of just $10 per year. You can learn more about our membership programs, as well as fundraising and volunteering opportunities on our new membership website: danishwindmill.org (now live!) We have also introduced a family membership for 2024 which includes unlimited free admission for two adults and all children under the age of 18 in the same household! To learn more or sign up just give us a call or visit us in-person or online.

We have a couple of events coming up, too. First as a reminder the Windmill Expo & Membership Drive is next week on Tuesday, January 30^th. We kickoff at 5:30 featuring a presentation by Shaun Sayres on the state of the windmill and a review of 2023. We hope you can make it. The event is also a membership drive and we encourage anyone to come and learn about our organization and programs.

Second, the Danish Villages are having another ‘Hygge Night’ on Thursday, February 8^th. Grace on Main will be offering Danish smørrebrød (open-face sandwiches) and there will be other events and specials going on throughout town. The Windmill will be offering gløgg to visitors and will also be kicking off a quick winter sale inspired by Valentine’s Day. There’s no better way to prepare for that special occasion than 10% off candy and chocolate, 20% off candles and candleholders, and 30% off ALL of our gnomes! The sale begins on the 8^th and runs through February 15^th and is in-store only. So come visit us and take advantage of these great deals at the windmill and around the Danish Villages!

Finally, our 2024 Royal Copenhagen and Bing & Grøndahl collectible plates are in. We have limited quantities right now and can’t show them online yet, but they are beautiful as always and we look forward to having them displayed in the store very soon.

There are some other VERY exciting things we’d like to share, but you’ll have to come to the Windmill Expo to find out what they are!

Another year is upon us and we’re excited to see it here. There aren’t too many updates to provide at the moment. Apart from inventory and other year-end processes, not too much happens at the windmill this time of year.

We’re still waiting on the official Welcome Center numbers, but it looks like we experienced at least a 12-13% increase in visitor traffic this year. We had visitors from all 50 states again in addition to a number of foreign countries including every continent besides Antarctica. We’re optimistic about our gift shop revenue as well, with sales figures that will likely be our highest on record since 2009. We hope to have all of the official numbers soon.

In the meantime, planning for the annual meeting is underway. This year we’re rebranding the event as the “Windmill Expo” in an attempt to make the event more appealing to the community and encourage attendance. The usual annual meeting and election of board members will take place, but we hope to encourage the public to attend this event and learn about everything we do as an organization over the course of the year. This event also typically doubles as a membership drive, and as usual, we encourage everyone not already part of our membership program to consider getting involved this year. We need all of the support we can get from our community and hope to have a strong showing when we gather together at the end of this month.

The Expo will be held on Tuesday, January 30^th at 5:30PM in the Elk Horn Town Hall. Food and drinks will be provided and the event will feature a presentation by Shaun on everything the organization accomplished in 2023 and what our projected plans are for foreseeable future including 2024. This is a great opportunity to come and talk with our staff and Board of Directors about everything our organization does and what else you might like to see us get involved with in the future. As always, this event is free to attend and open to the public. We hope everyone can make it.

Finally, we are seeking volunteers this year for a number of different projects. The windmill is sitting on a large archive of photographs, newspaper clippings, and documents that need to be digitized. This work can be done on site using our own equipment. Anyone interested in helping us document these records is welcome to do so, only basic proficiency of operating a computer is required. To learn more or express interest, get in touch with Shaun at 712-764-7472 or via email at mgr@danishwindmill.com.