By John Walker

Sioux Falls Argus Leader

LUVERNE — The men around the coffee table at Glen’s Food Center create an image slowly fading to gray.

They know that. They smile when asked about Luverne’s “Last Man Club,” a coffee clique of World War II veterans. Fourteen of the original 24 members now are represented by upside-down coffee cups on a shelf at Glen’s, a symbol of death.

“They were our good friends. It does make us sad, but we’re all getting old,” said Warren Herreid, 91.

Soon the community will have a fresh reminder of their work defending the country along with the work of generations that followed.

A museum inside the old Rock County jail is in early stages of a remodeling to honor men and women from the Korean, Vietnam and Gulf wars and the wars against terror in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Displays on the first and second floors will remain open to salute southwest Minnesota residents who were in World Wars I and II. The building also is home to the Brandenburg photo gallery. Work on the third floor will turn it into a tribute to the local sacrifices of the nation’s more recent wars and the U.S. Civil War. Organizers have set July 2014 as a target date to open the top-floor exhibit.

Luverne, a city of 4,700 residents about 25 miles east of Sioux Falls, has an all-points bulletin out for help on the effort. Organizers are seeking a motley collection of weapons, field gear, booby traps and other war trappings, including a jeep, that they hope people will donate. They also hope for letters, photos, combat uniforms, personal stories and other effects that will turn the effort into something larger than the project itself.

“This will be a place generations come to, a place for grandparents and grandchildren,” said Jane Lanphere, executive director of the Luverne Area Chamber of Commerce.

Lanphere said it’s not such a long shot to think retired soldiers and sailors will step forward with the telltale souvenir to give the museum a signature distinction. Wars take people to strange places. One display today is a 1940s item labeled the “Waffen Schmidt Suhl 7×64 caliber deer rifle,” with the caption, “Hermann Goering’s deer rifle captured by Major Ray Frick at Hermann Goering’s hunting cabin close to Hitler’s eagle’s nest.”

Luverne is hoping to build on its recent fortune in personal connections and national publicity. One side of that is that Luverne was home to Quentin Aanenson, a World War II flier. Aanenson’s pinpoint memories of bombing runs over Europe in World War II led to a friendship with filmmaker Ken Burns, which led Burns to select Luverne as one of four American cities to highlight in his 2007 documentary, “The War.”

That, in turn, led to a renaissance of interest in local newspaperman Al McIntosh, whose columns in the Rock County Star Herald made him what Burns called “the one-man Greek chorus of our film.” It also led Luverne residents to hustle together a $1 million drive, collected in three months, to renovate the Palace theater as the icon of Main Street in time for the Burns premiere in 2007. The whole Burns project has given Luverne what Lanphere calls a billion dollars worth of free publicity.

The other side is the national renewal in patriotism since the Sept. 11 attacks and, not least, the generosity of Herreid’s son, Warren II, to save the old jail and finance the war museum. The Rock County Jail opened in 1900 and housed prisoners and the sheriff’s office until the new law enforcement center moved in 2006, Lanphere said. The jail sat empty until Twin Cities philanthropists Warren G. Herreid II and his wife, Jeannine M. Rivet, through their KAHR Foundation, stepped in with a plan to honor veterans.

The couple spent about $700,000 to finance the creation of the Rock County Veterans Memorial, an open-air plaza that opened in 2007 on the lawn in front of the courthouse. They then covered almost all of the $4.5 million cost to convert the old jail into what is now the Herreid Military Museum. It opened in 2009.

“The sheriff moved out. They didn’t know what to do with the jail. They didn’t have the money to refurbish it, so we took it on as a project,” the younger Herreid said.

The couple also will cover the refurbishing cost to convert the top floor into the exhibit honoring more recent veterans. Herreid II, 67, is a retired lieutenant colonel in the National Guard. He said Sunday the third-floor renovation is a good step to continue the work that already has begun. He said the cost might run about $100,000.

“It’s important to show veterans how much we appreciate the sacrifices they’ve made,” he said.

Much of the work is finding souvenirs, artifacts and family mementos. But much of it will be the intangible contributions that men and women and their families present with their personal stories.

The intangible side is the unknown in any such project. The Herreid museum includes a display of the green wool uniform of Emil Reese, one of five brothers, along with Fred, Alfred, Gus and John, who left their Rock County farm to serve in World War I. Gus died of war wounds.

Alfred and John died of exposure to mustard gas. Emil survived and started a family. The display begs the impossible question of why one and not the other.

The banter is lighter when the Last Man Club meets every afternoon at Glen’s. In an hour’s roundtable last week, there was no talk of war achievements.

“We’re just a bunch of guys that went into the Army,” the elder Herreid said.

To his left sat Helmer Haakenson, 93, who introduced himself as a Norwegian farm boy who grew up two miles away. Jake Boomgaarden, 90, said his father fought in France in World War I. He was a student at Mankato State teacher college in 1941 when a little boy yelling “Extra!” told him about Pearl Harbor and the start of World War II.

Haakenson was on Kodiak Island when the war began and was on his way to Okinawa to invade Japan when it ended. He learned how to use radar during the war, which led to his career as a master electrician.

Earl Glaser, 94, said he learned in the war how to get along with people, including one who would become his wife.

“I married a gal who wanted to marry a farmer, so I became a farmer,” he said. He wanted to be a forest ranger, but was a farmer from 1952 to 1989.

Five of the 11 men at Thursday’s coffee were too young for World War II but served in wars that followed. “We’re second-stringers,” said Claude VanDriel, 82.

Museum sponsors hope many who served will step forward with memories for the new exhibit.