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Choral judge and director enters hall of fame
Rodney Urtel — Choral Director/Judge 180 students participate each year in the choral groups at Mankato West High School, which includes 4 choirs, all under the direction of Rodney Urtel and merely part of the music program he has created there.
Urtel has directed his students in Thirteen major musicals at Mankato West since coming to Mankato in 1981 from Waterville-Elysian High School where he was a finalist for the Teacher of the Year Award. In 1981 Urtel earned the Minnesota Teacher of Excellence Award. He has hosted Minnesota High School League events, including music adjudication clinics and large group contests. His choirs annually represent Mankato West at both large group and solo/ensemble contests. He also is in demand as a judge for contests in other regions. He is a member of the Minnesota Music Educators Association (MMEA) and the American Choir Directors Association and twice served as a section coach for the All-State choirs. He is active in the MMEA convention every year and often a presenter for clinics. His choirs performed at the association’s state convention in 1998, 1990 and 2002, the most prestigious performance opportunity in Minnesota. His selections for musical productions at Mankato West provide quite a stretch for student vocalists and performers. Performances have included the opera Aida, You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown, The Wizard of Oz, West Side Story, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Godspell. Urtel’s concert choir, women's choir, men's choir, West Connection (a jazz ensemble), small groups, and soloists consistently get excellent ratings in League music competitions. His students have sung in cathedrals and concert halls in New York, Washington D. C., England, Ireland, and Wales. Urtel has provided much leadership as district music chair and participates on several school-wide and professional committees. He is continually in demand as a guest clinician. |
He graduated from Stillwater High School. He earned his B.S. in music education at Winona State University and his masters in music degree at the Minnesota State University, Mankato.
Virgil Vagle — Coach
“Virg” Vagle taught math at Paynesville High School for Thirty-seven years and coached wrestling for Thirty-nine, football for Thirty-two, and junior high baseball for Eighteen years. His wrestlers, among them his 5 sons, won Seventeen section championships, Thirty conference titles that included an 18-year unbeaten streak from 1975 to 1993, and won 4 state championships in 1987, 1990, 1991, and 2000. He also coached 9 individual state champions and the 1991 wrestling team ranked in the top Ten nationally.
The Paynesville Bulldogs broke the state record for career victories in 1997, making him the coach with the most career wins in Minnesota. His record stood until January 2004, the year he retired from coaching with 661 wins and a Class A wrestling team that competed with top-ranked teams in Minnesota regardless of school size.
Vagle served several years as a representative to the Section 5A administrative committee. His football teams won 4 conference championships and he coached in the 1980 Minnesota All-State Football game. He holds many conference and section Coach of the Year honors in both wrestling and football and is a member of the Minnesota Wrestling Hall of Fame, the West Central Tribune (Willmar newspaper) Sports Hall of Fame, and is a charter inductee to the Paynesville Athletic Hall of Fame.
Two Minnesota sports books, published in 2003 and 2004, feature Coach Vagle: Legends and Legacies - Celebrating a Century of Minnesota Coaches, and Grappling Glory - Celebrating a Century of Minnesota Wrestling and Rassling. Wresting USA magazine, sponsors of the National High School Wrestling Coach of the Year Award for which Vagle was runner-up in 1997, selected him to coach the 2005 USA Dream Team at the Keen Athletic Dream Team Classic in Dallas, Texas.
Vagle is a graduate of Oak Grove Lutheran High School in Fargo, North Dakota, and Augsburg College in Minneapolis where he earned his B.A. He also holds an M.S. degree from St. Cloud State University.
This article is in 9 parts.
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