It’s 5 a.m.
Pam and Roger Barnlund are up and ready for the first walk of the day. They wake the dogs—today there are only 12, but there could be up to 30—and start out with one on each of their arms. It takes an hour to give all of them a brisk morning romp.
Read MoreHealthcare Academy overlooks the city of Henderson. A homely, handmade sign showing the letters “HDD” leans into a window of this 114-year-old Historical Register site at the corner of Eighth and Minnesota. The sign faces Eighth Street, so most passersby driving up steep Minnesota Street hill never see it. Since “HDD” is no longer the company’s name, the sign, if seen, really wouldn’t help most first-time visitors anyway.
Read MoreIdeas flow from Mary and Wayne Dankert like newsprint off a high-speed printing press. Watch them go. The ideas flow because the two have so many percolating about in their constantly churning minds—so many ideas printing and collating, printing and collating, so many, one, two, three, four. And the ideas leaving make room for more.
Read MoreA girl in a sundress is drawing a picture of herself on a four-sided easel set up in a shady spot—but she needs help with the nose. A little boy in a floppy hat and saggy shorts lifts a chubby leg and climbs into a sand box. At the far end of the playground, several more small children take turns banging melodically on a metal trash can lid mounted strategically on the chain link fence.
Welcome to Pamella Willard’s world.
Read MoreLester Zwach, whose name rhymes with hawk, has razor-sharp vision like one.
Though not Minnesota’s best sporting clay shooter, Zwach can in ten squeezes of a 12-gauge shotgun obliterate from fifty yards out nine out of ten sporting clays—very good by any definition. Besides shooting sporting clays, he enjoys guiding Midwest hunting enthusiasts in search of pheasants over the ridges and through the woods of 800 scenic acres near New Ulm.
Read MoreA young girl’s thoughts on paper.
That’s what started it, really, little poems and journal entries written by Kimberly Rinehart as a teenager in her Mankato home. As kids do with their creative output, she gave hers as gifts to her mom and dad, Forrest and Georgia Rettmer.
Read MoreLate one evening in 1975, 28-year-old Jerry Clark had his moneybag in hand and was last to leave his business near Ceylon, Minn., C’s Gay Paree Ballroom. Two men wearing ski masks suddenly approached him in the dimly lit parking lot.
“Give me your money!” the taller one shouted, elbowing forward, a barrel-like bulge protruding from his coat pocket.
Read MoreThere have been offers—several in fact, including offers from big companies with big budgets. And although each offer has been seriously contemplated by the board of directors, the Madelia Community Hospital has resolutely remained independent.
Read MoreThink back to breakfast.
Did you spoon up crispy flakes or crunchy O’s? Did you slurp down light little puffs or listen to the happy melody of crackling crisps? Did you enjoy a mouthful of sweetened oats or savor the texture of a healthy breakfast bar? And as you were eating them, did you think at all about what went into the way those bites tasted, the way they crunched, crackled, or melted in your mouth?
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