A Crazy 2020 Summer

Since COVID-19 interrupted life in Dodge County and surrounding areas of southeastern Minnesota, it’s been totally unusual.
First, businesses were closed, unless the State of Minnesota deemed them essential. Restaurants and bars were limited to carry out only, no inside service. No church services.
Then all in-class school was sent home for distance learning. Wow! That was revolutionary education. Teachers, students, parents, bus drivers, and all vendors serving area schools with milk and other lunch items were either cut off or limited to the provision of meeting students at designated sites to distribute lunches. Parents were forced to find day care for children if they were considered essential employees. If they were furloughed, entire families were holed up together in the confines of their homes, whether they be single family homes, apartments or other forms of shelter.
COVID-19 created a panic in Minnesota. Especially with broadcast news focusing on the riots that followed the death of George Floyd. It was a dark time.
Rest homes, senior housing and care facilities that provided for the vulnerable population in the area isolated residents from loved ones and family.
With all of the gloom and doom that the pandemic brought to our region of the state, there were bright spots in this summer of 2020.
Our Kasson Aquatic Center, the Byron pool, and other pools in the area were opened before the July Fourth weekend, giving area residents a means to cool off an set aside the fear created by an invisible virus.
It was during the start of her shift on June 30, that Moriah Mastin, a 16-year-old lifeguard at KAC realized that a 4-year-old was drowning. Mastin and fellow lifeguards Marley Smith and Alayna Gossard jumped in a found the young swimmer.
Mastin began compressions on the young child. The training of those three young women saved the life of another. Yes, they did what they were trained for, but the horror of having to perform CPR on a child had to have been beyond the imagination of the three heroes.
That one bright spot in the summer of pandemic overload gave our area a sense of relief and pride in the quality of young people called upon to save a life gave all of us hope.
KAC’s last day of operations is Sunday, Aug. 30 at 3:30 p.m. As we head back to school, work and a new normal, we will never forget the quick actions of these three young lifeguards. It was a great summer for young and old.
Let’s hope and pray that as we embark on September and the fall harvest that is just around the corner, our hope continues to grow in spite of this pandemic.