Former Columbia Heights City Council member, business owner, and American Flyer model train enthusiast Kenneth Hentges died June 15 at age 81.
Hentges’ daughter, Jeanne Myrkle, said that her father was “kind of Mr. Columbia Heights. He was born there, lived there, and worked there.”
She said he had been in business for about 40 years. His first company was in New Brighton, where he partnered with a man named Arlen Johnson, who came from Wisconsin. “After five years, Arlen wanted to go back to farming in Wisconsin.” Her father opened Columbia Metal Fab in Columbia Heights, in a small building on 39th off Central Avenue. “Then he had the opportunity to buy the corner property, and he built a brand new building at 39th and Jefferson. At the height of his business, he had 10 to 15 employees.” She said that the company made roll-off boxes and garbage containers. Hentges retired in 1998 and closed the company.
She said her father got into politics in 1974, because “they were doing some things on Central Avenue that he didn’t agree with. He wanted it to be more office buildings and things like that. He cared about the urban side of Columbia Heights. He was interested in keeping the industrial park on 39th, which he thought of as the backbone of Columbia Heights.
“He loved being on the council,” she said, “but it was a lot of nights and weekends. Sometimes the council meetings went to 10 p.m. or midnight. He served two terms [1976 to 1983] and didn’t run again. It was too much, with also running a business. He felt that he had done enough.”
Myrkle said that at her father’s wake, someone told her that when her father served on the council, he would pay residents’ overdue water bills so their water wouldn’t be shut off. “He did that for five or six years. My mom and dad were givers,” she said. “They grew up with nothing. They had a good business. He was very business-smart. They did a lot of community giving.”
Her father’s hobbies included deer hunting and traveling. He enjoyed taking the family on vacation all over the United States in their motor home.“We saw the country, Florida, Pennsylvania, the Black Hills, Washington D.C.,” Myrkle said.
Hentges served as a board member for the Anoka County Fairgrounds for 12 years. He also collected American Flyer model trains and belonged to the Lakes and Pines Collectors Association. “He started collecting them in 1981. Something clicked and he met a bunch of guys and joined a group that met at Murzyn Hall. He went around the country,” she said. “My family wasn’t so much into it, but my brother-in-law Jim Moe was. He was part of the train group too; every other year they went to a big model train convention in York, Pennsylvania.”
She said her father started selling off his trains about four years ago.
He loved to talk with people at yard sales, Myrkle said, so with the encouragement and help of neighbors, they will get together and offer one last sale in his honor August 23, 24 and part of the day August 25.
Myrkle described her father as “very outgoing, charismatic, and funny. A lot of people said he was a character. He was also a stubborn German, who gave you his opinion whether you wanted it or not. He had many friends. A lot of people respected him.”
Jim LaPlant, Hentges’ life-long friend, said that they had lived half a block from each other on Main Street and had attended Columbia Heights’ Oakwood School. “We grew up in very poor families, and we both lost our fathers when we were young,” LaPlant said. He said that Hentges had quit school to help support his family. He also served in the Korean War.
LaPlant said that in their youth, he hosted dance parties at his house. Many young people, including Hentges, showed up. “My mother was a dance instructor for Arthur Murray. We’d have these parties on Saturday afternoons and would push the furniture out of the way. I introduced him to his wife Nancy at one of my parties.”
He said that Hentges had been an excellent welder. In addition to other products, Columbia Metal Fab made metal truck bodies. “I helped him build his building,” LaPlant said.
He said that Hentges ran for city council because he wanted to have a voice in the way the city was being run. “Everybody knew him, especially when he was on the council. When he wasn’t in a meeting, he was out in the neighborhood seeing what everybody needed.”
Columbia Heights City Council member John Murzyn Jr. said that he had known Hentges since he was 10 years old. “He and my dad (John Murzyn, Sr.) were really good friends. Through my childhood and adulthood, he was always a good person to talk to.”
He added that he himself had worked for Columbia Metal Fab in the early 1970s, doing painting and grinding.
Murzyn said, “Kenny was the first person I went to when I was thinking of running for council. I knew that he would tell me if I should go for it or just forget it. We talked a couple of hours, and I said, ‘What do you think?’ He said, ‘We’re going to do this!’”
Hentges became Murzyn’s campaign manager. “His advice was always right on target,” Murzyn said. “He mentored me through the primary and the general election. It would have been hard without somebody like Kenny. He told me that the best thing to do was to get out there and talk to the people.”
Murzyn added, “He was a great mentor. Everybody liked him. He was a straight shooter and also a funny guy, who always had a smile on his face. He had a loud voice but was a gentle, kind man.
“I miss him,” Murzyn said. “His death is still hard to take.”
Hentges was preceded in death by his wife Nancy, who died in 2013. In Nancy’s honor he donating funds to the peace tower project near the splash pad not far from his former business place. The garden there is named in honor of the Hentges family. He is survived by his daughter Jeanne, daughter Debbie Moe, six grandchildren and two brothers and a sister.
Below: Kenny Hentges admired the plaque honoring him and wife Nancy, at the garden named for them at Huset Park. (Photo by Margo Ashmore) One of the truck bodies that Columbia Metal Fab would make. (Photo courtesy of Jeanne Myrkle)
