The Gale Fletchall Award is an award given to an individual or group who have given a lifetime of service and love to the Scandinavian Festival. This year the honor goes to the Andresen Family and the Swedish Pancake Booth.
What started out as a way to pay their way through college, has turned into a 46 year enterprise! Glen Andresen, Gordon Andresen and Karsten Rasmussen started the Swedish Pancake Booth in 1979 while in their 20’s. Glen says that the brothers learned to make the crepe like pancakes from their paternal Swedish-American grandmother in the 1960’s. She once admitted that her grandson’s pancakes were better than hers! Once their maternal grandmother even hired a taxi to take her from McMinnville to Junction City just to have some of their pancakes. During the Festival they serve these fresh, hot Swedish pancakes with either strawberry or blackberry jam, which Glen hand makes, as well as lingonberry jam from their iconic blue and yellow booth.
The booth is currently located at the corner of Greenwood and 6th Street but their original location was by the Post Office near the Mall Platform. In the early years the brothers would recruit their parents, Vern and Alves Andresen for evening booth duties so they could participate in community dance at the Mall Platform. Vern has also helped with the assembly of the booth for many years. Other family members have helped as well; Gordon’s wife Gayla has been a batter maker while Gordon and Gayla’s two children, Danica and Jake, have also assisted in the booth. A third brother, Bruce, joined the team after Karsten moved on to devote more time pursuing his career. Bruce took over some of the duties including cashier, making him the “taker” while Gordon is the “maker” and Glen is the “baker”! The brothers do switch around but Gordon and Glen’s roles have been the same for most of the years they have served in the Swedish Pancake Booth.
The brothers have had a great run. Reminiscing, Glen said that he’s “enjoyed working with Gordon and Bruce over the years” and that he “has appreciated all that the Festival Board has done for them” and have “always been there to help, whether it was a blown fuse or a sewer issue”. Now after 46 years of working the 12-hour days of Festival and behind-the-scenes preparations which included assembling the booth and making the jam, they have decided it is time to retire from the Swedish pancake-making business. The 2022 Festival will be their last. In anticipation of the last year of operation, Bruce is having some coins made to commemorate this booth’s momentous run. It will be about the size of ½ dollar and have a Viking ship on one side and the words Andresen Bros on the other side. It will also have the dates of operations and the words, JC Scandinavian Festival.
The Andresen brothers and the Swedish Pancake booth will be sorely missed but they have certainly earned a rest from their hard work! So it is with a great deal of gratitude that the Junction City Scandinavian Festival Board is proud to award the Gale Fletchall Award to the Andresen Family and the Swedish Pancake Booth!
Written by: Debbie Lemhouse
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