BROOKINGS – It’s been about five years since Grant Peterson’s world of on-air radio ended abruptly, when he experienced a stroke.
He now lives quietly in retirement with his wife Mary.
They will celebrate their 60th anniversary this year. They have three children, eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. At 79, Grant is thankful for “a lot of good years.”
“I was sure I was going to die. When I first had the stroke, I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t talk,” he said in looking back at a treatment and rehabilitation regimen in Sioux Falls that took several months.
On his road to recovery, he said he received “300 to 400 cards: unbelievable, just unbelievable.”
“I still feel like I’m 26 years old.,” Peterson, said with a smile as he talked about those tough days of his life and how he came through. “I enjoy life most of the time.”
During his more than 50 years in radio, most of them spent in Brookings, he became known for his signature “Great Afternoon Smorgasbord” talk show which first aired about 15 years ago on Depot Radio KBRK 1430 AM, broadcasting out of the old and historic Brookings train depot.
Downtown Hecla, Peever slough
On the Smorgasbord show, Peterson had a variety of guests, known and unknown, local and just passing through. He also had a collection of characters, real and possibly fictional, whose life events he shared with guests and his radio audience.
He laughed when asked if he heard from the Olson sisters once in awhile.
“In fact about two weeks ago at HyVee, somebody asked me about the girls up in Hecla,” he said.
In Grant’s smorgasbord world, Tillie and Millie Olson operated a millinery and corset shop in “beautiful downtown Hecla.” The girls were especially skilled at fitting larger, buxom German fraus and frauleins.
The girls also designed hats, which they decorated with specially theme-designed hat pins matched to the seasons of the year and special holidays.
Around Mother’s Day and the Christmas holidays, Tillie and Millie brought in a niece or two to help out when the pace of work picked up. Grant recommended that patrons not visit the girls’ shop at those times of year, because the crush of mail order business would not allow them away from their sewing machines.
While Tillie and Millie had a large extended family of aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins, they had never married. Grant hinted that either one or both may have had their hearts broken in long-ago romances that went awry.
Another interesting spot that was talked about on the show was Pickle Pete’s Pool Hall and Beer Parlor on the shores of Peever Slough.
Peterson is well known to other radio and television broadcasters in South Dakota. Now retired Keloland television broadcaster Doug Lund recalled a visit – “A Smorgasbord of Memories,” posted online in September 2007 – that he and fellow retired broadcasters Dave Dedrick and Steve Hemmingsen had with Peterson at Nick’s Hamburgers in downtown Brookings “sharing stories and laughter.”
Brookings to Minneapolis and back
Peterson is a native of Westbrook, Minnesota. Following graduation from high school there in 1956, he attended Minnesota State University (Mankato) for a year. He then attended Brown Institute, a well-known broadcasting school in Minneapolis, for a year.
Following graduation from Brown, he worked at Minnesota radio stations in Mankato, Redwood Falls and Worthington before coming to Brookings in fall 1963.
He said that at the time, KBRK was a “daylight station,” coming on the air at 8 a.m. and going off later in the afternoon. In those days, on-air time meant working with reel-to-reel tape and playing music via vinyl records: 78s, 45s and LPs.
In addition to on-air time, Grant spent a lot of time selling advertising. For a while he sold insurance for the Brookings International Life Insurance Company.
Then about 1997 or 1998, Grant went to Minneapolis and radio station WCCO.
“I just loved it,” he said. “That’s the highlife of my life. That was the best station in the United States.”
He stayed at WCCO for about four years before returning to Brookings to stay in 2002 or 2003. Shortly thereafter, the Great Afternoon Smorgasbord went on the air. It proved very popular and successful and is still remembered fondly by listeners in the Brookings area.
Grant is no longer on the air, but he has great memories of those smorgasbord days at KBRK. And perhaps Tillie and Millie are still fitting corsets in downtown Hecla.
Meanwhile patrons still enjoy a beer and a game of 8-ball down at Pickle Pete’s Pool Hall and Beer Parlor on the shores of Peever Slough.
Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.
