The St. Croix Valley Syttende Mai Society will host a banquet May 15 to observe Norway’s Constitution Day.
“Syttende Mai” is Norwegian for “17th of May,” the day in 1814 the Norwegian Constitution was adopted, said Roger Bosmoe, president of the society.
The holiday is “often thought of as Norway’s Fourth of July,” Bosmoe said. “Comparing it to our Independence Day is appropriate because Norway’s Constitution was patterned after the American Constitution.”
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Leif Erickson, who was selected in 1964 to represent Minnesota’s Norwegian community at the first annual national Leif Erickson Day ceremony held in Washington D.C., will be the featured speaker. Erickson, a longtime member and former president of Synnøve-Nordkap Lodge of Sons of Norway, retired from Century College in White Bear Lake in 2008, where he served as a physics and mathematics faculty member for 33 years
The event will be at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Stillwater. Social hour starts at 5 p.m.; dinner at 6 p.m.
Tickets are $30. Reservations, which must be made by May 11, are required; contact Bosmoe at 651-439-9423 or rbosmoe@yahoo.com.