February 9, 1985

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Phyllis Olson played the piano. Kathy Lieser baked a cake. Joe Kiselewski couldn't make it because of a bad cold. But Mary Hanson came out, even with all the sidewalk ice. The postmaster was there, and Jeanine Wolbeck. And Al Tingley and Dave Jacobson seemed to get along for once. At one point everybody in the hotel here sang ''Happy Birthday'' to Harry Lewis, who wasn't there. Mr. Lewis, Red to his friends, is better known to the world as Sinclair Lewis, the writer, born 100 years ago. And Sauk Centre is better known as Gopher Prairie, the not really fictional setting of Lewis's most famous novel, ''Main Street,'' which was written in 1920. Harry Sinclair Lewis, who died in Italy in 1951 at the age of 65 and had his ashes sent back home, was not the first Middle Western youth to forsake his small town for the bright lights of the big city. Nor, according to a number of older parents here, was he anywhere near the last.

Gen. Vernon A. Walters, an experienced envoy and former Central Intelligence Agency official, was nominated by President Reagan today to succeed Jeane J. Kirkpatrick as chief United States delegate to the United Nations. After the announcement, the 68-year- old retired Army general told reporters at the State Department, ''I will do my best to continue the superb work that Ambassador Kirkpatrick has done in the United Nations to restore and enhance the position of the United States.'' In accepting the post, General Walters made it clear that he would hold Cabinet rank, as had Dr. Kirkpatrick. In recent weeks, Administration officials have said Secretary of State George P. Shultz was seeking to remove the post from Cabinet status.

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