Long-time teacher making historical documentaries
By Vivian (Makela) Sazama
Carl Oberholtzer of Detroit Lakes retired in 2009 after a long career as an educator in the Fargo area. And with all the options available to a retiree, Carl has taken a bit of an unconventional path. He has been making documentaries.
First, let’s find out how he got there.
Carl comes from a long line of American-born generations. His father, Max Oberholtzer’s Mennonite great, great grandparents, came to America in 1697 from Switzerland. His mother, Betty’s, family came from Wales in the 1800s. They both grew up in Philadelphia, where Max began work for the Insurance Company of America. The couple moved to a granite quarry town, Barre, Vermont., where Carl was born, the second of three children.
Eventually the family moved to Sipesville, Pa., in the heart of coal mining in southwestern Pennsylvania.
“Dad liked to hunt and fish. We were one of a few non-mining families in town,” said Carl. “Dad was also a successful athlete and started the Little League in Sipesville and the surrounding coal mining towns. There we were, playing baseball in the coal dust!”
In 1963, Carl’s father was offered a transfer to either Atlanta, Ga., or Fargo, N.D. Because of his love for hunting and fishing, Max chose Fargo, where Carl attended school and eventually graduated from Fargo South High School.
“I received a scholarship for football and baseball at NDSU, but my athletic career ended when I ruptured my Achilles tendon running in a track meet,” said Carl. He went on to earn a bachelor’s of science degree in History with a minor in Social Studies at NDSU. Carl’s first teaching job was in 1974 in Hettinger, N.D., where he taught World History and Social Studies for one year.
“I would like to find those students and apologize, but that was 50 years ago, and they are all receiving social security by now,” he said with a laugh.
He then went on to Wahpeton, N.D., in 1975 where he taught U.S. and World History, Sociology and Economics. He became an assistant football coach and coached girls’ track. He met his wife, Carol Haukness, who was from Hankinson, N.D., and the couple married July 3, 1976, America’s Bicentennial.
“I’ve never forgotten our anniversary,” laughed Carl. The couple have been married 48 years. “When I started in Wahpeton there were no winter sports for female athletes,” said Carl. “I started the volleyball program there in 1980 and became the head volleyball and track coach. Our volleyball teams won several State Championships for Wahpeton High School! Our children, son Nicholas and daughter Erin, were born during our time in Wahpeton.”
In 1990, Carl got a call from the Fargo North School Activities Director, who had been the football coach at Fargo North and remembered Carl from his football days at Fargo South, to coach volleyball and teach at Fargo North. Carl began teaching Western Civilization, AP European History and AP U.S. History. He served as the head volleyball coach and assistant track coach. The Fargo North volleyball teams won several North Dakota state volleyball championships.
“I was fortunate to coach so many wonderful student athletes at that time,” he said. Carl also began the Socratic Club, which was a vehicle for students to develop higher order thinking skills.
In the late 1990s, Carl was selected as one of 40 teachers in the United States to receive a Madison Fellowship, which the Kennedy family had started in 1976 to help teachers improve their knowledge of the Constitution. That paid for Carl’s master’s degree. He attended American University in Washington D.C. for one summer and completed his Master’s in History Education at NDSU, while continuing to teach and coach at Fargo North.
During his time in Washington, Carl was invited to meet with President Bill Clinton regarding the Madison Fellowship program. He was one of the few public teachers working on his master’s degree through the Madison Fellowship, the rest of the teachers coming from private schools throughout the nation.
“When the Madison Fellows met with the President we were supposed to just state our name and where we were from,” said Carl. “Well when it was my turn I invited the President to Fargo. He said come over here, and took me to a corner where we talked for what seemed like hours, but was probably only a few minutes. The President said how North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad felt the first time he went onto Air Force One. He said Senator Conrad’s eyes were as big as saucers. He also asked my opinion on censorship of television programs.
I was amazed a President had just asked me for my personal opinion. After visiting with the President, I returned to the other teachers and they asked me, ‘What did you talk about!?’ I just told them, ‘I invited him to Fargo!’ They were all from either the East or West Coast and didn’t understand Midwestern hospitality!” he laughed.
Carl was also one of 20 teachers selected for the Korean Fellowship. He spent three weeks in South Korea to improve his knowledge of Korean history and taught American history to Korean students.
In 2004, Carl became the Social Studies Specialist for all of Fargo schools, which received a $1 million Teaching American History grant to develop a program where teachers in Fargo could receive free history courses through the local universities. Carl directed the program while continuing to teach and coach at Fargo North. He was able to bring in historians and workshops, working with both elementary and secondary teachers as well as the grant administrators.
In 2009, after 33 years of teaching high school, Carl retired. However, he then began teaching classes at NDSU in Classroom Management and Intro to Education. He received a call from Moorhead State University asking him to teach courses in Education and to supervise student teachers, which he did until 2019.
Over the years, Carl had become acquainted with Art Phillips, the owner of Video Arts Studio in Fargo.
“I taught Art’s children at Fargo North High School,” he said. “My involvement in film production began when Ronald Davies High School opened in Fargo. The high school is named after a federal judge, who in 1957 ruled that the high school in Little Rock, Ark., must follow the Supreme Court’s ruling from previous years to desegregate public schools. Judge Davies took action when nine black teenage students were kept from attending the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Ark. Several members of the Little Rock Nine along with Supreme Court Justice Stephen Bryer planned to attend the opening of Davies High School to honor the man who played a pivotal role in the desegregation of U.S. public schools.”
Members of the Little Rock Nine were interviewed by Art and Carl as they attended the opening of the school. Justice Bryer granted an interview at the Supreme Court in Washington.
With the priceless film interviews of these historical figures, Carl and Phillips decided to create a documentary on Little Rock Nine. Carl and Phillips spent some time in Little Rock and became acquainted with the area and members of the Little Rock Nine.
“One of the Little Rock Nine, Terrence Roberts, whom I interviewed, had tremendous respect for Ronald Davies. Supreme Court Justice Steven Bryer had written a book and one chapter focused on Ronald Davies,” said Carl. “After two years we completed the documentary. We presented the documentary to Fargo Public Schools and other schools throughout North Dakota and Arkansas. We traveled around the country with Terrance Roberts presenting the documentary, even at the National Social Studies Convention in St. Louis. In 2013, the documentary even won an Emmy! I really had a lot of fun with Terrance Roberts presenting the documentary,” he said. “The Road to Little Rock” can be found online by Googling North Dakota Studies Teacher Resources “The Road to Little Rock.”
A second documentary that Carl collaborated with came by quite incidentally.
“One day Art Phillips and I were reading the Fargo Forum about Herman Stern receiving the Rough Rider Award. After a list of his accomplishments were cited, the last sentence said how he saved 125 Jewish people from the Holocaust. We looked at each other and said, ‘There’s got to be more to this story!’ We went to the University of North Dakota archives and found papers and letters from Jewish people in Germany asking for help to get out during the holocaust. Stern had come to America when he was just 16 years old and had become a successful businessman. He eventually owned the Straus Clothing Store in Fargo and other cities in North Dakota. At first Stern was able to get only children out of Germany. Until 1939 Jewish people could still get out of Germany if someone would sponsor them. Herman Stern made it his mission to aid as many people as he could to flee Nazi Germany. Art and I co-produced and co-wrote the documentary ‘Mission of Herman Stern,’ which became part of the North Dakota school curriculum. It is available for free and can be found through Google and by downloading NDSU Studies Teacher Resources ‘The Mission of Herman Stern.’ It was very special and sobering to meet some of the survivors of the holocaust,” said Carl.
In 2002, Carl and his wife sold their home in Fargo and built a home on the south side of Little Detroit Lake, where his wife’s family had spent summers since 1943.
“My wife had spent many happy summers with her cousins at the cabin, and when she ended up with the property we decided that’s where we wanted to settle,” he said.
Carl joined the Lake Detroiters Association, which when Detroit Lakes was about to have its 150th anniversary, wanted to come up with a unique idea to celebrate. They asked Carl what they could do and that’s when his third documentary came into being. “What a Beautiful Detroit” focuses on what Lake Detroit has experienced over the last 9,000 years.
“I wanted the focus to be on the lake itself, rather than the city,” he said. Together with the help from Leighton Broadcasting, Becker County Museum (Becky Mitchell) and the Minnesota Historical Society, who paid for the filming and editing, Carl set about producing and writing the history of Detroit Lake, which he has been presenting to groups over the last five years.
“I really enjoy presenting the documentary, and if there’s any group interested please let me know,” he said.
Carl and his wife have also been enjoying their seven grandchildren ranging in age from five to 14.
“When I was a kid, sports were everything to me. I played football, basketball, ran track and played baseball. My American Legion Baseball team went to the American Legion World Series. I knew nothing about lake life, but now I’m loving it!” he said. The Oberholtzers also love to travel and have been to Europe, including Germany, France, Switzerland, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Italy, as well as Norway and Denmark.
“I feel very fortunate that several people helped with my career along the way. Nancy Murphy provided great opportunities for me in Fargo Public Schools and Art Phillips who introduced me to documentary work,” said Carl. “What guided us in our documentaries was my teaching philosophy. I never thought of myself as a history teacher. When I spoke at conferences I would say, ‘I’m not teaching history to students, I’m using history to teach students to think.’”
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