VGI Updates

Eldorado, Misiones Province

Volga German families settled in Eldorado in the Misiones Province of Argentina.

Colonia Diecinueve de Abril, Paysandú Department, Uruguay

Volga German families from Argentina moved to Colonia Diecinueve de Abril in Uruguay in 1915 along with Jewish and Italian settlers. It was a part of the agrarian colonization efforts of the Batllista period.

Jorge Schneider from Entre Ríos Province in Argentina arrived in 1916 during the First World War. By 1920, 32 families had settled in Ulmenau. Many had come from Ramírez with a few from the southern colonies in Buenos Aires Province.

Vilas County, Wisconsin

Volga German families settled in Vilas County, Wisconsin.

Bothfeld, Hannover (Stadt), Niedersachsen

Today, Bothfeld is a neighborhood in the northeast sector of the city of Hannover. It is part of the Bothfeld-Vahrenheide administrative area.

Bender, Trey

Trey Bender, son of Gary Nedrow Bender & Linda Wright, was born 19 March 1968. He grew up in the Phoenix area.

Trey is an American sportscaster having called football, basketball, baseball, and swimming athletic competitions for ESPNU, ESPN Plus, ESPN3, and NBC. He was the voice of the Loyola Ramblers men's basketball team and an anchor on Sporting News Radio.

His father Gary was also a noted sportscaster and his daughter Landry is an actress [see separate entries]. Trey's wife Amy is also a sportscaster.

Bender, Landry

American actress Landry Bender, daughter of Trey and Amy Bender, was born 3 August 2000 in Chicago, Illinois.

Her filmography includes The Sitter (2011), Crash & Bernstein (2012-2014), Best Friends Whenever (2015-2016), Fuller House (2017-2020), Looking for Alaska (2019), and The Republic of Sarah (2021).

Both her father (Trey) and grandfather (Gary) are noted sportscasters [see separate entries].

Landry's Volga German ancestors came to Kansas from the colonies of Kratzke and Ährenfeld.

Bender, Gary

American sportscaster Gary Nedrow Bender, son of Herbert Leo Bender & H. Dolores Nedrow, was born 1 September 1940 in Norton, Kansas. He grew up in Ulysses, Kansas and holds degrees from the University of Wichita (now Wichita State University) and the University of Kansas.

He began his career calling games at Hutchinson Community College and the University of Kansas. He went on to Wisconsin where he called games for the Green Bay Packers and Milwaukee Brewers.