COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. – Saint John’s University has been a central part of Bob Dumonceaux’s life for almost 70 years now.
But as a kid growing up on a farm just north of Foley in the early 1950s, he had mixed emotions about the place.
“I was the third of four boys,” he recalled. “We had a 128-acre farm and everybody worked on it. My oldest brother graduated high school and never came home. We had to take him to St. Cloud to get on the train that night because he’d been drafted. Then my brother Leonard, who is nine years older than me, disappeared the fall after he graduated. My dad took him to this place called Saint John’s way on the other side of St. Cloud.
“That was a sad time for me. We didn’t see him again until Christmas. So to me, Saint John’s was the place that took him away.”
As the next in line, Dumonceaux became his father’s right-hand man on the farm while also going on to a stellar high school athletic career. In 1957, the senior became the first of what would become many Foley High School wrestlers to advance to the state tournament. Continue reading at gojohnnies.com →