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Hi
there! You have found the official Web site of Ozzie Tollefson, 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. For detailed information on all of Ozzie's shows, click on www.ozziealive.com Check out "Ozzie Stories." Interesting essays for students and adults as well.
Currently,
Ozzie is involved in an exciting project in his hometown of Fosston, Minnesota. The East Polk Heritage Center has been
donated his old one-room country school. On July 9th or 10th of 2010, they are scheduled to move the 103-year-old
Moen School three miles into town, where it will become a living history museum of early American rural education.
Ozzie has created a Web site for the operation, www.moenschool.com For a trip back to early rural schools go to the site and check out all the photos gathered by Heritage Center
president, Dean Vikan and secretary Judy Tollefson Newton, Ozzie's niece. You will laugh when you see the picture of
the lanky 7th grader on the home page.
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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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