Parade grand marshals are dedicated to vets

When Lil LaVoy and Carl Schenk were asked to be the grand marshals in this year's veterans' celebration parade on July Fourth, LaVoy said her first reaction was "why?"

"What did we do?" she said.

The real question is, "What don't they do?"

The pair - who met online and then in a Duluth restaurant several years back - are constantly on the go.

If they're not organizing the music and dances at the Hebert-Kennedy VFW Post 3979 in Cloquet - the first and third Wednesdays and most weekends - they're visiting veterans and others at Sunnyside Healthcare Center or Bayshore in Duluth. Or they're organizing the bingo games at the Post, or driving up to the Silver Bay Veterans Home for a board meeting or just to visit with the veterans there.

LaVoy has family members who served in WWII and Vietnam, and a long history with the Cloquet VFW. She joined after moving to Cloquet and meeting Jack LaVoy - who was very involved at all levels of the VFW - whom she later married. While they were married, Lil started climbing the ladder of the VFW Auxiliary, even serving as state president at one time.

She met Schenk several years after her husband passed away.

A veteran, Schenk was drafted in 1954 and was sent to Germany for postwar occupation duties with the Army. Discharged in 1956, he re-enlisted in the Air Force in 1957, and first worked as a radio operator for five years before going into the growing computer data processing field, retiring in 1975.

The way he tells it, he fell hard for Lil when they met.

"I told him that I was busy because I was very involved with the VFW Auxiliary, and he said, 'I'm a veteran and I used to belong to Post 137, but I dropped my membership,'" LaVoy recalled. "And I told him he'd better join in Cloquet then."

The rest, as they say, is history. A born promoter, Schenk got busy volunteering in various roles at the VFW. He found his niche in music first, often strolling over to the newspaper office in dark sunglasses to extol the virtues of the latest band.

Attendance at the almost weekly dances and potluck dinners hovers around 50 or 60.

"They're like family here," LaVoy said, both of them sharing stories of how dancers will check up on each other when there's a no-show.

Schenk has since moved to Cloquet from Duluth. He has also climbed the ranks at the Cloquet VFW. He represented Cloquet at the state VFW convention, and later this summer he's headed to the national convention in Orlando.

"I moved here for one reason, and then she found a lot of reasons why I should stay," he said.

Lil chuckled.

"Idle hands are trouble," she said. "You gotta keep people busy. They love longer and they're healthier that way."

LaVoy points to a jar filled with raffle tickets on a nearby table. That's another thing Carl does to raise money for various veterans' causes, including Honor Flight, OPeration: 23 to Zero, MACV (Minnesota Assistance Council for Veterans) and the Silver Bay Veterans Home.

"When you donate $5 or $10 for a raffle ticket, you're a winner whether you get a prize or not," said Schenk. "Because you helped someone else."

LaVoy loves to see their donations at work, taking veterans disabled by age, illness or injury out fishing or hunting, or simply out to breakfast. When volunteering, LaVoy said, "your pay is a smile."

"This is really why we're here," LaVoy said. "You can really only do things like this if you belong to an organization like the VFW."