Born between 1939 and ’44, four rural kids grew up in the undulating farm hills near Plainview — down near the toe of southeastern Minnesota overlooking the Mississippi River.

By 1963, there was nothing plain about their views. Ken Fliés found himself immersed in community projects along the São Francisco River in remote northeastern Brazil. Philip Mahle was building an African school in Sierra Leone. Charles Rheingans and Walter Mishcke were providing similar service in Thailand and Venezuela.

The four guys from Plainview became pioneers in the early days of the Peace Corps — defying the odds in the process. Nearly 60,000 people applied to join the organization when it formed in the early 1960s, but only 3,000 were selected and dispatched around the globe to work on rural community projects from 1962-64. Today, more than 200,000 men and women have served in the Peace Corps.

“The fact that four of these first Volunteers in 1962 came from this small, rural town and area in America speaks to the uniqueness of the community’s citizens …” says a plaque erected in September at the intersection of Hwy. 42 and 3rd Street in Plainview.

Journalist Bill Moyers, a Peace Corps volunteer and its deputy director in 1963, is quoted on the Plainview plaque, recalling those early days “when the bright flame of conviction took hold in the imagination of the country and the Peace Corps became a promise fulfilled.”

Called “one of America’s greatest social experiments,” the Peace Corps was largely the brainchild of then-Sen. Hubert Humphrey. He helped push the plan through Congress during President John Kennedy’s term and was appointed chairman of the Peace Corps Advisory Council under President Lyndon Johnson.


Peace Corps memoir event

What: Eagan’s Ken Fliés will discuss his book, “Into the Backlands” — a memoir of his pioneering Peace Corps service in early-1960s Brazil.
When: Saturday, Feb. 16, 2 p.m.
Where: Minnesota History Theatre, 30 E. 10th St., St. Paul.
Music: Pavel Jany and his musical group, “Ticket to Brasil” will play beforehand.
Cost: Free
As vice president in the mid-1960s, Humphrey once welcomed home a group of Peace Corps volunteers, saying: “You have demonstrated that there exists a moral dimension of service … you have demonstrated to the world this is the real America.”
Cold War, be damned.

“We ought not to be doing things in this world just because the Communists are frightening us into it,” Humphrey said. “We ought to be doing things because we know it is right to do them. We don’t need a red devil to make free people act like just people!”

His grandson, Hubert (Buck) Humphrey, spoke at the plaque’s unveiling last fall.

“Minnesota was consistently one of the top five recruiting states and Plainview’s involvement is the essence of what my grandfather … had envisioned when he first thought of the idea of a U.S. Peace Corps,” Humphrey said, adding that his grandfather considered it one of his greatest accomplishments.

Joining at 19, Fliés was the youngest of the four Plainview Peace Corps pioneers. Sadly, he’s the only one still alive. He’ll discuss his Peace Corps memoir, “Into the Backlands,” at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 16, at the Minnesota History Theatre in downtown St. Paul.

The second of 11 children, Fliés grew up doing dairy farm chores, graduating from Plainview High School and enrolling at what was then Mankato State University.

“Studying philosophy and other world topics caused me to question what my life was all about and recognize in myself a growing yearning for adventure,” he writes in his memoir.

The Peace Corps posters on campus caught his eye. His parents worried that if he trained for the Peace Corps but wasn’t invited to join, he might lose his college deferment and get drafted to fight in Vietnam.

“My parents’ position was indeed sobering,” he writes. “… Eventually my youthful idealism prevailed. … A teenager who led a relatively isolated life on a Minnesota dairy farm” headed to rural Brazil “during one of the most turbulent decades in American history.”

Fliés went on to become an accomplished entrepreneur who helped launch and develop a dozen companies, including a Brazilian agricultural firm.

Mahle, the oldest of the four, died of cancer in 2010 in Montana at 71. The school he helped build in Sierra Leone is still standing. He returned to Plainview in 1975, raising two daughters and working as a carpenter and a real estate appraiser and playing in the community band before retiring to Montana.

Mischke died in a 1995 farm tractor accident in Wabasha County, where he farmed with his brother near Theilman, Minn., after his Peace Corps stint in Venezuela. He was 54.

Rheingans died in Virginia in 2012 at 71. His Peace Corps days in Thailand led to a 35-year career in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines as a worker with the U.S. Agricultural Development agency.

His family recalled how he signed up with Mahle as University of Minnesota students — never thinking he’d get picked. When he was told he was Thailand-bound, he had to look at a map to see where he was going.

“Their premature passing has left me wishing I had spent more time with them to share their experiences,” Fliés said. “I am left in awe of … what they undertook and accomplished as young men off on an adventure of a lifetime.”

(St. Paul) – In 1958 Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey proposed the idea of a US Peace Corps, and gave it its name. In 1961 President John Kennedy took up the idea in his presidential campaign and in March 1961, by executive order, established the Peace Corps. Humphrey then championed the passage of legislation officially establishing the Peace Corps in September of 1961. Historically, Minnesota has been one of the leading states in providing Volunteers. Ken Fliés was one of the first Volunteers to answer the President’s inaugural call of “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” Fliés was the youngest of the first Volunteers to serve from Minnesota at nineteen years of age.
At 2:00 pm Saturday February 16, 2019, at the History Theater in St. Paul, Fliés will present the Twin Cities debut of his newly-released memoir Into the Backlands (Lost Lake Folk Art 2018, a Shipwreckt Books Publishing Company imprint). Fliés will share his memories of his youthful odyssey. The event will include a presentation of the history and current activities of the Peace Corps, as a prelude celebration of National Peace Corps Day, March 1, 2019. Come and also enjoy a post-Valentine’s outing of beautiful Brazilian samba and bossa nova music by artist Pavel Jany and vocalist Natania. The event is free and open to the public.
The Minnesota Historical Society encouraged Fliés to write his memoir from a diary, letters and other notes he kept during his service. Into the Backlands shares details about a young man’s adventures in the backlands of Brazil and of incredible moments in history he witnessed in the turbulent early 1960s. In the words of author Elliott Foster the memoir “touches on themes of adventure, coming-of-age, religious faith, family, and politics and above all – love.”
Fliés’ project group trained in Alabama in Oct. 1962, when James Meredith – the first African American at an all-white Southern university – attempted to enter the University of Mississippi, igniting race riots across the South. His project group then flew to Brazil, possibly as a government oversight or deliberate act, on the day of the announcement of the Cuban Missile Crisis (Oct. 22, 1962), arriving to riots in the streets of Rio de Janeiro, from where they were immediately dispersed over 15,000 square miles of northeast Brazil and left to find their own way forward.
While in Brazil the group would suffer the loss of its inspirational leader, President Kennedy, witness the overthrow of the Brazilian government by the military, survive the startup difficulties of the Peace Corp in its first two years – all while living in the remote interior of one of the world’s largest underdeveloped countries. Through all of these challenges Fliés would not hear the voices of family or loved ones from the day he left for Brazil until the day he returned – some 21 months.
The History Theater is located at 30 10th St. E, in St. Paul. For more information about Into the Backlands, go to www.kenflies.com. The book is available for purchase on line at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Author Note
Ken Fliés grew up on a dairy farm in Southeastern Minnesota, and says he led a relatively sheltered life during his youth. When he returned home, Fliés became an accomplished national and international business and social entrepreneur, involved in the startup and development of more than a dozen companies and organizations domestically and internationally.
In addition to being a pioneer in the Peace Corps and business, Fliés was one of the founders of the Rural America Writers’ Center and Rural America Arts Partnership; and founded and assisted in developing what is now the Great River Ridge State Recreation Trail.  Fliés was recognized by Minnesota Governors Tim Pawlenty and Mark Dayton, first in 2002 as an outstanding rural entrepreneur and in 2012 for his entrepreneurial contributions to the State of Minnesota.
In addition to Into the Backlands, Fliés is also the co-author of the memoir Retrieving Isaac & Jason, published by Hiawatha Press in 2012; and he collaborated on the novel Whispering Pines:  Tales from a Northwood’s Cabin.  He has also authored numerous essays and articles on rural America and the American Civil War, and is a past recipient of The Editor Choice Award of the National Library of Poetry.

Book Summary

Into the Backlands is an account of a farm kid’s journey to Brazil. Rich with anecdotes, this memoir will resonate with you—a wide-eyed coming-of-age story set during the climatic early 1960s. From training in the Deep South as racial tensions and Civil Rights protests began to explode, to venturing to South America just as the Cuban Missile Crisis ratcheted up, there’s a Forrest Gump-like quality to Into the Backlands: a spirited young man witnessing and interacting with history first hand.

(Plainview, MN) – Saturday, September 22, 2018, marks the 57th anniversary of the day Congress passed the Peace Corps Act, and Plainview, Minn., played a key role in what has been called “one of America’s greatest social experiments.”

In 1962, four of the first 3,000 volunteers that staffed the first countries (out of some 58,000 applicants) came from the Plainview area, a town that at the time had only 1,400 citizens. To celebrate the Southern Minnesota town’s contribution, the first Peace Corps marker to be placed in the United States will be dedicated in Plainview on Sept. 22.

The dedication ceremony will begin at 1 p.m. at the Great River Ridge Bike trailhead at the intersection Minnesota State Highway 42 and 3rd Street in Plainview. The public is encouraged to park at the American Legion building at the corner of 3rd Street and 4th Avenue where there is ample parking. The trailhead is located two blocks south of the American Legion.

The only surviving member of the original group of volunteers, Ken Flies, will be on hand for the ceremony. He was just 19 when he joined the Peace Corps.

The marker dedication will be followed by a book signing event for Flies’ memoir, Into the Backlands, which will be held at the American Legion Hall in Plainview beginning at 2 p.m. At the time of the marker’s conception, Flies was encouraged by the Minnesota Historical Society to write a memoir of his experience in the backlands of Brazil in the early days of the Corps. Into the Backlands was released on July 13th of this year. This event marks the public launch of the memoir.

History of the Peace Corps

The idea of the Peace Corps was first formulated by then Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey, who championed the bill through Congress and also gave the Peace Corps its name. He considered the establish of the Peace Corps as one of his three great accomplishments as a Senator, along with his leadership in establishing the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the early years of the Peace Corps Minnesota was consistently in the top five of all states in supplying Volunteers.

(St. Paul) – When we are young we dream of the great adventures we will go on one day. Oftentimes, these adventures are inspired by books we have read in our youth, like “Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain and J.M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan.”

But how many of us in our youth actually answer the call for adventure? In 1962, Ken Fliés was among the first few thousand Americans who answered President Kennedy’s call made during his inaugural speech: “Ask not what their country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

In his new memoir, Into the Backlands, (Lost Lake Folk Art 2018, a Shipwreckt Books Publishing Company imprint) Fliés shares his memories of his youthful odyssey. It is a book the Minnesota Historical Society encouraged the retiree to write from an extensive diary and other notes he kept during his service. Part memoir, part history book, Into the Backlands not only shares details about a young man’s adventures in the backlands of Brazil, but of the incredible moments in history he witnessed.

The first of many, during training in Alabama, were the race riots across the South, ignited in Oct. 1962, when James Meredith attempted to enter the University of Mississippi as the first African American at an all-white Southern university. Ken’s project group then flew to Brazil, possibly as a government oversight, on the day of the announcement of the Cuban Missile Crisis (Oct. 22, 1962), and arrived to more riots in the street of Rio de Janeiro. Instead of staying in one of the most beautiful place in the world as planned for in-country training, the group was quickly dispersed over 15,000 square mile of northeast Brazil and left to find its own way forward.

Just when they were starting to settle in, the group suffered the loss of its inspirational leader, President Kennedy, who was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963. The group would also live through a revolution, and experience the trauma of the overthrow of the Brazilian government by the military.

“Our Brazil project was the largest ever attempted in the more than 50-year history of the Peace Corps. This plus the startup difficulties of the Peace Corps in its first year and living in the remote interior of one of the world’s largest underdeveloped countries made for a most unique adventure and youthful odyssey,” said Fliés.

Towards the end of the book, Fliés sums up his adventure in these words: “As a young nineteen year old American who had rarely traveled out of the Minnesota County in which I was raised, my epic journey to the remote central highlands of Brazil, where I did not speak with my family or loved one for twenty-one month, proved to be more than I could have hoped for. Indeed, just as its slogan promised, the Peace Corps became the toughest job I would ever love.”