Photo by Jody Isaackson Members of the original barrel rolling team from 1970 roll the original keg in the SMSU Homecoming Parade in Marshall Saturday morning. Thomas Karlson is shown taking his turn behind the ‘wheel’ while other members marched alongside. See more parade photos on Page 8A.

MARSHALL — Thomas Karlson reunited with his keg rolling team after 40-plus years to reenact the event during the Southwest Minnesota State University 50th Anniversary Homecoming Parade Saturday morning.

“It’s great! It was like 47 years ago when we did this,” Thomas Karlson said. “We did it to set a world’s record and got a scholarship set up out of it.”

Karlson was one of four original keg rollers from SMSU. He is a Pipestone native. His team consisted of Brad Kingeray, Windom, Richard King, Jr., Minneapolis and Ronald Hagen, Edina.

“The original trip was 619.7 miles,” Karlson said. “Four of us did it the fist time. Ten years later, 10 guys went to St. Louis and back.”

“It was Thanksgiving Day 1970 when we left. It had been freezing rain, 5 inches of snow the night before,” as Karlson told it. “We found an old bicycle just outside of Marshall, ripped off the tire and wrapped it around the keg for traction. We took it off after we got to Iowa and out of the snow. We stayed at fraternity houses, a couple of jails and fire houses because we didn’t have any money.

“We would just go. People were out looking for us,” he said. “We’d get into a town. We’d run about 50 miles a day, roughly, but never knew how far we’d go.”

Back in Marshall for the all-school reunion was an exciting challenge.

“I hadn’t seen two of these guys since college, I didn’t recognize them,” Karlson said. “Two are from the Minneapolis area and one now lives in Colorado. We walked around campus yesterday and drove around town a bit.”

They had a great time remembering the first keg roll to St. Louis, Missouri.

“All the TV stations and press on the way down there gave us attention,” Karlson said. “We got a little scholarship fund for the college.”

The local Hamm’s distributor got wind of their plans and upped the ante, offering a $250 scholarship to SMSU in their names. Hamms provided an aluminum keg, which was much lighter than Budweiser’s stainless steel one.

Where has the keg been this whole time?

It’s always been at the college, Karlson said, on display at student union with a photograph of the original four guys in front of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. Another picture of the other group, is on display there, as well.

“The alumni (director) at SMSU said that anyone going through the display, this is the one that gets all the attention,” Karlson said.