Wow! I received a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from our District’s Representative Jim Hagedorn for the “Hidden Gem” award I received from the Faribault Virtues Project. It was an honor to be recognized for some work I’ve done over the years preserving history in Faribault and Rice County. If we all pitched in and helped our community in one or two small ways, what a wonderful place our world could become!

By ANDREW DEZIEL adeziel@faribault.com Sep 12, 2019

Two Brians from Faribault were honored on Wednesday for selflessly using their spare time to preserve a bit of Faribault’s history.

Community members heading the Faribault Virtues Project Virtues Project seeks to strengthen are hoping to identify unsung heroes in the city with the Hidden Gems initiative.

The surprise event was to honor the men as Hidden Gems, a program spearheaded by the Virtues Project-Faribault, part of an international campaign launched in 1991. The Virtues Project seeks to strengthen communities and help people to live more self-empowered lives. Among the 100 virtues which the project seeks to highlight are creativity, flexibility, and self-discipline.

A hallmark of the Hidden Gems recognition is that the recognition is intended to come as a total surprise to the honoree.

When Brian Schmidt and Brian Klier walked into the Carlander Family Room at the Rice County Historical Society, they were greeted by several dozen friends, family members and co-workers, excited to honor them for their generous donations to the community and the way they exemplify the 100 virtues.

Brian Schmidt

Brian Schmidt currently serves as the president of the Rice County Historical Society. When he’s not working at Malt O’Meal/Post Consumer Brands, the Faribault native loves to share his immense passion for Rice County history with the community.

Schmidt wasn’t much for history in high school, but his interest in local history was piqued when he started to explore the then-abandoned Fleckenstein Brewery and found hundreds of old, unique bottles. Schmidt ultimately donated the bottles and other Fleckenstein artifacts to the Rice County Historical Society and soon became deeply involved as a volunteer.

Schmidt says he’s always eager to see what historical artifacts people bring to the historical society on a daily basis. Schmidt noted that even though many of the Historical Society’s collections are full of simple relics that had meaning to only a small number of people, those artifacts can still give someone a unique sense of what life in Faribault used to be like.

Schmidt is grateful that he can play a role in preserving a little bit of Rice County’s past for future generations to appreciate and gives tremendous credit to the Historical Society’s volunteers and thousands of members, who he says are like family to him.

“It’s easy for a person to be a volunteer because we have such a great group of people,” he said.

Brian Klier

Like Schmidt, Klier is a lifelong Faribault resident who has worked as a computer technician with the Faribault Public Schools for the last 24 years. Also like Schmidt, Klier said he was never much for history class in high school.

Klier’s interest in local history was piqued in part by a more modern piece of history. While at work, Klier learned that photos of Faribault by the Faribault Junior High School’s video and photography club from the 1970s and 1980s were about to be disposed of.

Klier saved the slides and donated them to the Rice County Historical Society, but not before scanning them and uploading them online. He’s posted many of them in the Facebook group he moderates, “You know you grew up in Faribault when…”

An original user of the group, although not the creator, Klier offered to moderate it after he noticed the quality of the group begin to deteriorate, with few active users and an increased number of spam posts.

With Klier as an active moderator and contributing his own unique content, the group has become one of the most popular Faribault-related Facebook groups. Somehow, Klier also finds time to operate the Rice County Skywarn page on Facebook.

Klier encouraged community members to find what they are passionate about, and consider spending what free time they have supporting related groups.

“If each of us shared one or two things that we are passionate about with the community, I think Faribault would be a much better place,” he said.

Reach Reporter Andrew Deziel at 507-333-3129 or follow him on Twitter @FDNandrew.

Being a narrow road, one must yield to all kinds of traffic.

Ranchers clearing the road of their cattle on the narrow stretch of highway around the south coast of Maui.