Minster—Heritage Manor Skilled Nursing & Rehabilitation Center won the 2009 Minster Oktoberfest Parade “Mayor’s Award” for having the best decorated commercial float.  The 35^th annual parade theme was a “Salute to the Volunteer.” Over 100 volunteers donate countless hours a year to the Heritage Manor family. In honor of their dedicated work,  a few of the volunteers sat on the float with hometown celebrity, Paul Stukenberg, a resident of the Renaissance Unit at Heritage Manor. Still to this day, Stukenberg is highlighted in the town newspaper, The Community Post.  He is a guest columnist for “Stukenberg Says” predicting game scores for area and college teams.

The float was decorated with colorful stars on white lattice outlining the phrase, “Heritage Heroes, Stars of Service.”  Along with the volunteers, Nancy Livingston, a talented performer, sang and danced to polka entertaining a crowd of 80,000 people. Thirty-five Heritage Manor employees and their families walked beside the float handing out over 40,000 pieces of candy, notepads, raffle slips and coolie cups. 

The Village of Minster offers the ease of small town living and has a current population of 2,794. The community is known for the annual Minster Oktoberfest, held during the first weekend that contains a date in October.