Omer proves there's an art to collecting pencils

It seems almost everyone collects something; stamps, coins, autographs, figurines just to name a few.
Sometimes a collection begins in a junk drawer when certain items begin to accumulate. That's how Omer Laleman's collection began.
As you walk downstairs in Laleman's home on Jefferson Street you might not notice his collection right away even though it's in plain view.
Laleman has a collection of over 8,000 pencils, as well as around 2,000 various types of pens, including around 50 fountain pens.
The reason you might not realize there's a pencil collection right in front of you at first glance is because they are displayed in an artistic design on an entire wall in his basement.
"I collected them for about 30 years," said Laleman, 95, a retired farmer. "I had more, but I sold about 500 bullet pencils to someone in Clarkfield not too long ago."Bullet pencils are pencils whose casings are made from spent rifle cartridges. They originated on battlefields and were sold as souvenirs with business names or other slogans on them.
As pencils started to compile in a drawer, Laleman's late wife, Zona, told him that something needed to be done with them.
"She told me to get rid of them or display them," Laleman said. "So I decided to put together a display in the basement. I started out with 100 or so and then kept collecting more and more of them."
None of the pencils in the collection necessarily hold any special meaning or came from a special trip he took.
"Just plain old pencils," he said with a laugh. "I purchased $900 worth of pencils one time when we went on a tour group trip we took to Nunda, South Dakota. There are only about 10 or 15 duplicates. I don't really collect them anymore, though."
The various colors of the pencils make an impressive display, making it look more like decorative art than a bunch of pencils clinging to a wall.
Laleman displays the pencils on wood panels against the wall. Each one is held onto the panels by elastic bands that he fastened to the boards.
"They've been up there for so long that the elastic is stretching and some of the pencils are falling out," he said.
The various pens in his smaller collection are displayed on panel boards that Laleman built that can be turned to view either side, much like poster displays in a store.
"I just picked the pens up at different businesses and other places," he said. "Pretty soon, I had a bunch of them, too. I don't think there are too many duplicates of the pens either."
Laleman said his granddaughter in Pierre, SD will inherit the collection one day.