With a reputation for being one of the community’s most dedicated volunteers, it may be easier to list the things Winthrop “Windy” Block hasn’t done for St. Peter than all the ways he’s made his hometown a better place.
St. Peter Fire Chief, President of the Nicollet County Fair Board, Public Works Maintenance Superintendent, Vice President of the Red Men Club, founding member of the Vietnam War Era Last Man Club of St. Peter, Commander of American Legion Post 37 and Nicollet County Assistant Emergency Management Director — these are only a few of the titles that Block has worn in his 78 years of service to the St. Peter community.
To those who knew him — which was just about everybody — Block was always the man you could call when you needed a helping hand. But now St. Peter is mourning the loss of one of its key community contributors after Block’s death in a battle with pneumonia on June 22, 2024.
An ever-present emergency responder and community volunteer, Block has left big shoes to fill, but people like his son and Nicollet County Emergency Management Director Justin Block hope to carry on his legacy of community service.
Growing up, Justin watched his father live a life of public service. For 38 years, Block helped maintain the city’s services as a dedicated member of the St. Peter Public Works Department until he retired in 2008 from the role of maintenance superintendent. Off the clock, Block continued to aid his community as a firefighter. He spent 34 years on the St. Peter Volunteer Fire Department, and led the department for 13 years as Fire Chief.
His work in the public sector and as an emergency responder put Block on the frontlines confronting disasters like the infamous 1998 tornado. After retiring from Public Works, it wasn’t long before he felt the itch to aid his community again and joined Nicollet County as the Assistant Emergency Management Director until retiring for good in 2017.
“He just found his niche helping people,” said Justin. “I’m not just saying this because he’s my dad, there isn’t anybody that I know that cared about the city as much as he did.”
Block’s extensive career in public service inspired all three of his sons to follow in his footsteps. His son Adam Block currently serves as a boating law administrator at the DNR while Travis Block heads Faribault’s Public Works Department. Justin stuck close to his father, serving 10 years as a volunteer firefighter alongside Windy. He had the opportunity to work side by side with Windy once again in 2017, when he took over the director’s chair at Nicollet County Emergency Management.
“He got to be my assistant for a handful of months before he finally retired for good and taught me a lot about what I’m doing right now,” said Justin. “I’ve been around him with so many of the floods over the years and he gave me a lot of contacts and a lot of knowledge on how to take care of people that were in need.”
“To have all this happen in the middle of a historic weather event … I truly think this is my dad’s way of testing me to see if the knowledge sunk in and I’m able to do the job as well as he did it.
But for all of Block’s work in public service, the longtime St. Peter resident might be best known for his spirit of volunteerism. For over 40 years, Block has helped put on one of the region’s biggest summer celebrations as a member of the Nicollet County Fair Board. He spent the past nine years as the fair board’s president, recruiting and assigning duties to dozens of volunteers to ensure each festival would be as successful as the year before.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Block’s extensive resume of community service. He was also an active member of the Red Men Club for 44 years and spent half that time on the board of directors and about 11 years as the club’s vice president.
“He wasn’t just a board member that came to the meetings, he was one of them guys that if we needed help, he pitched in,” said Red Men Club President Ed Johnson. “There were several parades he pulled the floats in for us, a couple remodel jobs he’s helped us on. So if there was ever work to be done and you needed it, all you had to do was ask and he’d help.”
“[His impact was] huge. He wanted to visit with everybody. He’s going to be missed by a lot of people,” Johnson continued.
Block spent much of what free time he had left working to improve the livelihoods of St. Peter’s veterans. He was a veteran himself and was drafted into the Vietnam War in November, 1965, two years after he graduated from St. Peter High School. The draft took Block away from his studies at Minnesota State University, Mankato, and sent him to Fort Leonard Wood Missouri for basic training. He went on to serve at Fort Gordon, southwest of Atlanta Georgia, where he specialized in sending encrypted communications.
In 1966, Block continued his work sending secret messages for the military at Camp Irwin, California before being stationed overseas near a Michelin rubber plantation in the Dau Tieng District of the Binh Duong province of southern Vietnam. He remained at his post northwest of Saigon until he was honorably discharged from the military in November, 1967 as a SPEC-4.
After returning to St. Peter, Block found a home in the veterans community. He was a founding member of the Vietnam War Era Last Man Club of the St. Peter Area and was the club’s chaplain after previously serving in the roles of clerk and commander. Block was also a lifetime member of American Legion Post 37 and previously served as a commander of the chapter,a past president of the Vietnam Veterans of America chapter in Mankato and a member of the Disabled American Veterans.
He took his work helping veterans seriously. When Block was in charge of emptying a clothing bin outside the Red Men Club for the DAV veterans clothing drive, Justin recalled that Block would make constant trips back and forth from St. Peter to the drop off site in Mankato.
“I can’t tell you the number of trips he made of clothing over there because that was a very important task for him that I tried getting him to pass on to someone else a long time ago,” said Justin. “He checked that bin several times a week, and it’s in the hundreds how many loads he took of clothing he took over to Mankato.”
Block’s constant work for the local veterans community left a permanent mark in St. Peter when he played a pivotal role in raising $600,000 toward the construction of the St. Peter Area Veterans Memorial in Minnesota Square Park. In coordination with a small group of veterans, Block served as the committee’s treasurer and kept an inventory of the funds needed to build the black granite honor wall which now stands tall bearing the names of the community’s deceased veterans.
But if you believed that was the end of Block’s storied history of community service, think again. With ties to the Fourth of July Committee, the Nicollet Conservation Club, Kiwanis, the St. Peter Lions Club, the St. Peter Parks Advisory Committee, the First Lutheran Church of St. Peter, the Investment Club and the St. Peter Masonic Lodge his record as a volunteer goes on and on and on.
“It kept him going. He loved helping people out,” said Justin. “Everywhere I turn, if I bump into somebody out in the community, the first thing they always say is, ‘Who do I call now?’ Because anytime anybody needed something done, the answer was always, ‘Call Windy.’ If he couldn’t do it, he had a phone number for someone who could.’’
On the side, Block enjoyed helping people with their landscaping. Driving around town with a dump truck, skid loader and a small payloader, Block hauled loads of dirt and gravel for customers looking to fix up their yards.
Despite all of the community clubs and organizations he was involved in, Block always had time for family. He raised three children with his wife of 54 years, Diane Block, and never missed a sporting event. When his kids grew up, Block continued to be a constant presence on the bleachers watching his grandchildren play.
In his free time, Block revelled in the outdoors. In 2014 he bought a shack on Swan Lake and would regularly make trips out to feed the wildlife. He also owned several acres of woods in St. Thomas so that he would always have a place to hunt. An avid fisherman as well, Block took many trips up to Canada to fish.
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