Strands move vintage merry-go-round to their home

Agnes and Wayne Strand just added a bit of nostalgia to their home in Imperial.
Wayne’s dad, Henry Strand, bought an old and unique merry-go-round with five individual bench seats at the Labor Day auction in 1990, placing it at their home in Imperial.
The merry-go-round was eventually moved to the Strand farm north of Lamar, Agnes said.
Strands are good friends with the Chad Yaw family, so at one point, the merry-go-round was moved to Yaw’s place in Champion, she said.
After all of its travels, the merry-go-round is now at home in Imperial again at 146 E. 10th Street.
“We don’t know how old it actually is, but it’s really neat,” Agnes said.
Yaw helped install the merry-go-round in Strand’s yard.
“I was just going to paint the wood on the seats all white, but Chad’s daughter, Jecca, came up with the idea to create five individual designs for each seat,” Strand said.
She said Yaw was very creative and ramrodded the whole thing with the help of some of her friends.
Yaw enlisted her brother, Bodie, and friends Bella Maddox and Sammy Schrotberger to help bring her creative vision to life, Strand said.
Yaw designed each seat with a particular theme in mind.
One seat has musical notes for Agnes, agriculture and tractors for Wayne, sunflowers and the Strand family name, Huskers and Longhorns for, a design for the Strands’ granddaughters Stella and Pria and one with an airplane and clouds for Strand’s son, Brian, who’s a private pilot and grandsons Oliver and Theo.
“Jecca did such a good job with the designs. She has such a good imagination, and I would have just left them white,” Strand said.
People are welcome to drive by to see the merry-go-round if they like, she said.
“We hope our grandkids and their friends will enjoy playing on it,” she added.