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| Ozzie Tollefson on his farm in Pennsylvania |
Hi There!
You
have found the official Web site of Ozzie Tollefson, writer, educator, video director and retired producer of educational
assembly programs serving elementary schools. In the near future, Ozzie plans to produce videos based on his assembly
programs. In the summer of 2010, Ozzie was involved in an exciting project in his hometown of Fosston,
Minnesota. The East Polk Heritage Center was donated his old one-room country school. On July 9, 2010,
they moved the 103-year-old Moen School three miles into town, where it will become a living history museum of early
American rural education. Ozzie was there with his camera to cover the move.
In December of 2010, Ozzie released a 82-minute documentary on this project, "Moving Moen School."
It includes the entire process of jacking up, inserting the beams, attaching the wheels and moving the school into town.
Lora Lee Saeter provided excellent video coverage of the move and placing the building on its new foundation on the Heritage
Center grounds. She also rehearsed and taped a group of Fosston youngsters singing a number of songs popular in rural
schools back in the 40's and 50's. Ozzie included a dozen taped interviews with former teachers and students who
attended one-room schools. "Moving Moen School" can be purchased by contacting Melissa Christen in Fosston,
218-435-6454 or you may e-mail her at fluffy1@gvtel.com.
Ozzie has created a Web site for this operation, www.moenschool.com It includes a news special done by Jamil Donith of Lakeland Public TV in Bemidji, MN. Another
video is an interview with Dean Vikan, the Heritage Center president, which covers the background on acquiring the school
from Rosebud Township. Also, there is a music video done as a personal essay by Ozzie. He received
permission from Robin and Linda Williams to use their beautiful song, "Don't Let Me Come Home a Stranger."
Judy Tollefson Newton, Ozzie's niece, has spent the last two years
collecting stories from former one-room teachers and students. Ozzie has contributed three pieces to that volume, which
will be published and sold as a fund-raiser for the Heritage Center. In Hegins, Pennsylvania, where Ozzie lives on his 30 acre farm, he is the director of the Friedens Lutheran Players.
Over the past 14 years, Ozzie has written and directed four plays, two feature-length movies, and one documentary on Dorothy
Klinger, who has performed in all of Ozzie's productions and will turn 90 this June 10th. On February 18, 2011, the
Friedens Players premiered Ozzie's latest play, "Waiting For George Jones." On April 11th, Ozzie's 71-minute
DVD of the play will be released and available for $15.00+ S/H. Call Lee Kiefer at 570-682-3672.
All proceeds from the sale of this DVD will benefit the Friedens Lutheran Church.
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| Moen School on the road to Fosston |
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| Moen School at its new home, the East Polk Heritage Center |
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Who the heck is Ozzie?
After 48 years in education, Ozzie Tollefson retired in June of 2008.
He spent 15 years as a classroom teacher and 33 years as an educational assembly presenter. On the road for all
those years, he gave over 6500 performances in 1600 schools in 17 states plus Bermuda and Norway. Over one million
students have seen Ozzie's performances.
Born the last of eleven children on a small farm in northern Minnesota,
he has enjoyed a remarkable career in education. In 1997 he received the Outstanding Alumni Award from Bemidji State University,
where he received his Bachelor of Science degree in theater and English. (Award bio on page #6 at this site) http://www.bemidjistate.edu/publications/horizons/files/winter98.pdf Upon graduation in 1960, Ozzie came east
and took a teaching assignment at Bound Brook High School in New Jersey. In the next four years, he directed plays by Shakespeare,
Arthur Miller, Thornton Wilder and Eugene O'Neill. Several of his students went on to achieve extraordinary success in theater
and film. One of his students, John Nutt, became a film editor after serving in the Vietnam War. He has over 90
Hollywood movies to his credit.
Ozzie also taught for 11 years in the Bridgewater-Raritan School District
and continued to direct stage productions. Many of them were original scripts written by his students.
In October
of 1975, Ozzie launched his assembly program business, Ozzie Alive, Inc. Over the next thirty-three years he created educational
shows on colonial life, dinosaurs, whales, Native Americans, inventors, wilderness, Hawaii, Australia and diversity.
In recent years he has ventured into video production. He has written and directed two feature length movies using community
actors. He has also written and directed three stage productions as fund-raisers for Friedens Lutheran Church and the Tri-Valley
Public Library in Hegins, PA. He has also produced a video documentary on Dorothy Klinger, 89, an amazing
actress who has been in all of Ozzie's productions. Available on DVD at the Tri-Valley Public Library, it is titled,
"Dottie." Ozzie's latest video is titled "Canada Geese." This is a 30 minute educational
DVD, designed to appeal to grades 1-6. Each year a pair of Canada geese return to nest on the island of Ozzie's
pond. The video follows the life of two goslings from the day they hatch out until the day they fly away.
For more information on this and other videos Ozzie has produced, go to "Video Production" page.
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| Pair of goslings on the island of Ozzie's pond. Day #1 |
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