Berg Family Gift Honors Campus’ WCSA History
Carol and Charlie Berg
The Berg family’s connection with the University of Minnesota Morris was through its predecessor, the West Central School of Agriculture (WCSA). It started with Carl Berg and Bertha Osterberg who graduated from the WCSA in the early 1920s (the family still has the graduation certificates). They married and farmed northwest of Chokio. All of their children, Charlie, Bob, Jan and Pat, also attended and graduated from the WCSA.
Charlie Berg met Carol Lamb from Motley at the WCSA. After graduation, they married and also started farming northwest of Chokio. They raised seven children on their diversified crops and livestock farm.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Charlie became involved in politics and worked as a lobbyist for the Minnesota Livestock Feeders Association and the Minnesota Taxpayers Association. He helped convince legislators to drop the personal property tax, which included a tax on owned farm machinery and equipment. In place of the personal property tax the state enacted a 3% sales tax.
Charlie ran for and was elected to the Minnesota State Senate in 1972. Charlie served in that capacity for 26 of the next 30 years, retiring in 2002. Although the legislative district lines would change every 10 years based on the census, Charlie always represented Stevens County and the University of Minnesota Morris. Charlie Berg was the only legislator to be elected as an Independent, as a Republican, and as a Democrat, at different times in his capacity as a legislator.
Later in life, Charlie and Carol decided to start an annual scholarship fund at UMN Morris, as a tribute to all of those who attended the WCSA. Their children, along with other family members and friends, endowed the Charlie and Carol Berg Scholarship Fund upon their passing. Some family members have made a commitment to the growth of the scholarship fund through modest annual contributions and through planned gifts by listing UMN Morris as a beneficiary on an investment account.
“It’s hard to explain the impact that the WCSA had on the Berg family and countless other families in West Central Minnesota,” says Colin Berg, the fifth of the seven children. “Dad and Mom were always excited to attend the annual WCSA reunions to get together with their friends from school. Those friends were kind of like a second family.”
Like the Berg family, when you give to UMN Morris you provide educational opportunities for the next generation of students. For more information, please contact Susan Schmidgall, CDO, at 320-589-6160 or sschmidg@morris.umn.edu.
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