Sun Newspaper Man of the Year 1971
Sun Honors West St. Paul Youth Worker | Jan. 13, 1971
Man of Year: John Hoene
By ROGER VESSELS
“I’ve been called a fanatic, said The West St. Paul Sun’s “Man of the Year” last week.
‘If I have to be a fanatic to keep kids from drugs and alcohol, I’ll take the title. I
don’t care what it takes.
John V. Hoene is a 56-year-old father of 11 who has spark-plugged youth sports programs since he moved here from Duluth eight years ago. The Sun has named him 1970 “Man of the Year” in recognition of his efforts for young people.
Hoene perhaps is best known locally as a longtime leader and current president of the Youth Hockey Association. But he has many other volunteer irons in the fire, which combined with his “paying job” of executive vice president of the Minnesota Asphalt Pavement Association, mean much work and little sleep.
HOENE HELPED save Mud Lake. He hopes to get panfish stocked in Thompson Lake. He is aiming for a competitive playground tennis program. He wants more park development.
All his volunteer efforts are directed for the young people.
“You have to keep kids busy,” he said. “They’re going to be doing something, either good or bad. You might as well give them something good.”
Hoene recalls a priest at Cornell University from where he graduated in 1937.
“This priest often told us, ‘An idle mind is the devil’s workshop, Hoene said. “That has stuck with me.”
Hoene knows the wonder and excitement of the outdoors. Raised in Duluth with nine brothers and two sisters, Hoene and his family have been involved in sports all their lives.
“MY BROTHERS were great tennis players. We lived near some real good clay courts in Duluth,” he said ‘But I wasn’t nearly as good a tennis player as they because I was the nature lover. When they were playing tennis I was out roaming in the woods.”
Hoene started playing hockey at age 10 and has been a hockey fan ever since. IN ADDITION to heading the Youth Hockey Association, he coaches the local Pee Wee traveling team.
Hoene and his family moved here from Duluth eight years ago when he took the asphalt association job. For 18 years he had been executive secretary of the Timber Producers Association and prior to that he worked for the Duluth park board, four years as superinindent.
Hoene said he found tremendous apathy involving youth programs when he arrived in West
St. Paul.
“I HAD BEEN involved in an extremely high-gear program at Duluth which brought out the best in volunteer efforts from parents in building rinks, shoveling snow, coaching and the like,” he said. “And this involved the moth-ers, too. No program can succeed without the Moms.
“This apathy here has been entirely overcome, but I wouldn’t want to take credit for it,” Hoene said. “Our program is really rolling now and we have the most responsive group of men I’ve ever met. It takes real dedication, a lot of unselfish men and coordinated group effort.”
“Our program is really rolling now and we have the most responsive group of men Ive ever met. It takes real dedication, a lot of unselfish men and coordinated group
THE YOUTH HOCKEY program now involves 360 boys playing on 22 teams in the school district.
Hoene’s group got a solid shot in the arm last week when the city council approved the Ice Arena Study Committee proposal to hire an architect to provide design ideas for the indoor arena.
The city council had OK’d the ice arena project more than a year ago but backers encountered some city hall delays.
“The step taken last week could be considered placing the project on the first rung of the ladder off the ground,” Hoene said.
Hoene and others, including Bob Callahan, Frank Kaiser, George Gouette, Dick Choate and Tom Griffin. are directing the push which started about four years ago.
Asked if the youngsters take all the adult effort for granted and show little appre-
ciation, Hoene said this is not the case.
“THE KIDS are great and they do appreciate the hockey program,” he said.
Hoene said the parents “are getting better all the time. We always have plenty of drivers and other volunteers.
If one man had to be singled out for such worthwhile progress, it would have to be John Hoene. He is a fisherman and favors trout fishing. Due to his all-out winter time hockey efforts, ice fishing doesn’t fit, however.
The Hoene family lives at 1090 Cherokee Ave. in a home they bought when they moved here from Duluth. One reason they bought it was the presence of an outdoor swimming pool. They all are good swimmers.
JOHN AND COSETTE Hoene are parents of five sons and six daughters ranging in age from 31 to 11. Some of the children are married and others are in college.
John himself studied horticulture at Cornell but after he had his degree he found that people didn’t have money to buy shrubs and trees due to the depression.
So he channeled his interest into the Duluth park department and played a major role in revamping the Duluth zoo, building ski jumps, erecting an arboretum and establishing parks.
He convinced the state conservation department that trout could live in Duluth streams and they stocked trout in nine streams and two ponds in the city.
Hoene says he naturally misses the woods of the Duluth area, but his efforts are
attempting to “put a little of the woods down here” by way of park development.
Mud Lake was destined for draining and filling in shortly after the Hoenes moved here
from Duluth. Hoene worked with the Chamber in influencing the city to buy part of it for park, crediting Alderman Jim Kennedy with leadership in that effort.
HOENE STILL is active in the West St. Paul area Chamber, as well as the St. Paul
Chamber and St. Joseph’s church here.
Soon as his hockey season winds up, he figures he’ll resume his efforts to get competitive tennis established in the recreation program here.
He figures it is a great sport for young people … although hockey with Hoene remains Number One.
Hoene said he is concerned about current drug education efforts.
“There are a great number of groups working on the problem, but I fear they often don’t have people serving who can really get through to the kids, such as Scout leaders and coaches.
“WHEN A BOY has been involved in athletics and learns self discipline, he won’t be tampering with drugs and destroying his body. He is the least likely of all to become involved with drugs, liquor and tobacco.”
That evidently is the main eason John Hoene, the Sun’s “Man of the Year,” has been up to his neck–physically and mentally–in hockey and other efforts for young people.
The opposite of fanatic, you know, is apathy,” Hoene said.
Pioneer Press Obituary Article, 2001
Coach Hoene, 1975-76 WSP Mites
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John Hoene, Led Youth Hockey in West St. Paul
January 9, 2001 | St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN) | Bill Gardner, Staff Writer | Page 4B
John Hoene, a longtime leader of the youth hockey program in West St. Paul and a member of the West St. Paul Hockey Hall of Fame, died Sunday of congestive heart failure at the Lyngblomsten Health Care Center in St. Paul. He was 86.
Hoene helped establish the West St. Paul youth hockey program and was named 1970 Man of the Year by the West St. Paul Sun newspaper in recognition of his work with young hockey players.
Hoene played hockey into his early 70s and once played on an old-timers team with four of his sons.
“We were old-timers, and he was an old-, old-timer,” said one son, Bob. “He wasn’t moving quite as fast as the rest of us, but he was still out there.”
Hoene was born in Duluth, Minn., and played hockey as a boy and later at Duluth Junior College. He earned his bachelor’s degree in horticulture from Cornell University in New York. The university had no hockey team, but Hoene organized his fraternity brothers for games.
“They made a rink on the lake there,” Bob Hoene said.
Hoene later served eight years as parks superintendent for Duluth before becoming executive secretary of the Minnesota Timber Producers Association. After 18 years with that organization, Hoene became executive vice president of the Minnesota Asphalt Pavement Association in 1963 and moved the family to West St. Paul.
He loved duck hunting, trout fishing, and gardening and was also a tinkerer who obtained patents on several inventions.
In addition to his son Bob, Hoene is survived by sons Mike, Tim and Pete; daughters Cosette Hobday, Sally Storms, Kristine Latham, Judy Milbery and Patty Krause; brothers Art, Phillip, Robert, Tom, Dave and Herb; sisters June Peterson and Mary Grace Campbell; 19 grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.
Visitation is from 4 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at O’Halloran and Murphy Chapel, 575 S. Snelling Ave., St. Paul.
The funeral will be at 11 a.m. Thursday at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in West St. Paul, with a private burial at Resurrection Cemetery.
Source: NewsBank: America’s News | © 2001 St. Paul Pioneer Press