February 2026 Newsletter
- American Legion Post #64
- Feb 4
- 4 min read
Our Christmas Family Dinner was held at Bob Roe’s in which 10 post members attended with their spouses, and two members of the Riders also attended with their families
We are having our Honor Guard M1’s cleaned and serviced by American Brothers in Arms gun shop at no charge.
Our Honor Guard has only been needed a couple of times to give Honors at funerals. (Which is a good thing IMO) If you are interested in serving in the Honor Guard please contact the post, you do not have to attend all the regular meetings, and it is truly an honor to serve our fallen veterans and their families in this way.
There are four amendments to the By-Laws up for consideration. This serves as your official notification that we are voting on them during the March meeting as per the by-laws.
We are working on updating our website and hope to have it up and running in a couple of weeks.
The Post is available for the community to use, and the rentals help us complete our mission. The Leeds Girl Scouts, Marine Corps League, and now the VFW use the Post every month for their meetings.
The Dept of Iowa’s Mid-Winter Conference was held Feb 13- 15 in Des Moines. The National Judge Advocate was there and provided valuable information concerning our post insurance, and incorporation.
District 9 Spring Conference is Apr 11th in Paulina. Registration starts at 8am. If you are interested in going, contact the post.
We have an upcoming event on April 25th, which is “Celebrate the Legion Family Day”. we want to have a Family Day at the post. It was proposed to serve hotdogs, hamburgers, chips and a drink for a small price. It is suggested we run it from noon until 4pm. Please plan on joining this party at the post!
Pizza Ranch Community Night is set up for Mar 2nd. Please join us for an hour or 2 as we bus tables and earn tips (donations). If you can’t work, please come to PR to eat! We earn 10% of sales each night we work. We usually do this on the last Monday of the month, but we couldn’t in February.
Remember the Legionnaire newspaper that was sent out? Due to the rising cost of mailing it, they stopped the print version, but they do have an email version that you can sign up for at ialegion.org/signup.
While checking out the site for on the previous information, I found a listing of places where we can interact with our Iowa Government legislators. It looks like on Mar 28th, 10:00 am, there will be a Legislative Town Hall, at the Sioux City Public Museum. If you have questions about legislative bills in Iowa, this would be the place to be.
We would like to get a post auxiliary going since we don’t have one. We do have ladies from neighboring auxiliaries who can help us get one started.
Our Sons group is growing! Norm Gries, our commander, is working to get meetings going again soon.
Veteran Spotlight
Todd Tastad, born in Storm Lake Iowa in 1953. Went to Central High and graduated in 1971. He joined the Army in ’71, worked as an Equipment Storage Specialist, which meant he helped with storing, packing, and shipping equipment. With detailing the equipment to be stored, some items needed special care when packing/shipping.
Todd served in the Army for three years, stationed in Anchorage for two years, then was stationed in Fort Eustes, VA until he left the service.
He took a couple years off to enjoy life. In 1975 was in a serious motorcycle accident, and spent two weeks in a coma. He was sent to Des Moines for rehab and discovered he was best suited for musical instrument repair. He attended Western Iowa Tech and learned to tune pianos. He went to Barber School in ’80, worked as a barber for ten years, until he got married. He then worked at Gateway for a few years. He sold cars for Charlie Zook Motors for several years, and divorced during this time. Later, he went back to cutting hair, until he retired.
Todd met his second wife, Julie, at a singles dance in Storm Lake in 1996. He spent rest of his life with Julie, until her passing in 2025.
He has been a Legionnaire for 17 years, the entire time as a member of Post #64.
Highlights from the February 26 meeting:
If you know a junior boy or girl, who would be interested in attending Boys or Girls State, please leave a message or email the post. We will need the candidate’s name and email, so we can send them the information to apply. We voted to sponsor up to 3 boys from North, West, or Heelan.
Our post was asked to help financially support the East High Girls Softball team. We think it would be great if we also supported in person, so after we get the schedule we will get it on post Facebook page (American Legion Monahan-Nelson Post 64) and maybe our new post website (souxcitylegion64.com) will be up and running by then, too!
Every now and then, we receive calls to the post from veterans or their families seeking help with basic household tasks that they can no longer perform. Would you be interested on being on a list to help out with this? If so, please contact the post.
Did you know that one of the Marines hoisting the large American Flag at Iwo Jima on February 23rd, 1945 was Cpl. Harold Keller from Brooklyn, Iowa? Three of the marines in the photograph were incorrectly identified and only after the Marine Corps announced in 2019 the results of an investigation did Cpl. Keller receive his well-deserved recognition.
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