It was their wedding day—May 15, 1993—and everyone was at their home in Mankato having a good time. Then the phone rang and interrupted their party.
“It was the American Legion,” Lee Bohrer remembers. “They had a wedding of their own going on there, but they were having some problems with their drains. I looked at Kris, and she said, ‘You gotta go.’”
Read MoreSarge ordered them to march.
He was a rough-and-tumble five-foot-five, joined the Army in ’49, and fought communists in Korea from Pusan to the China border. Think Popeye after spinach. As an Army master sergeant, Vernon “Sarge” Carstensen faced the Red Menace again during two tours of duty in South Vietnam, earning the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and Silver Star. He was rough, he was real, he was old-school.
Read MoreUp North, amid emerald-green Norwegian pine forests that overlook crystalline walleye lakes and throngs of moose and bear and wolves, grew Dr. Bill Rupp, president and chief executive officer of 2,100-employee, $200 million ISJ-Mayo Health System.
He spent his first 18 years of life in 5,290-population Chisholm, a boom-and-bust mining outpost that straddled U.S. 169 seven miles north of Hibbing. There, Rupp’s father Clarence and uncle Glenn co-owned two businesses, Rupp Furniture and Rupp Funeral Home.
Read MoreYou have to know where you’re going to find CHAMP Software.
The office building of the company is like a little island, separate from the apartments, houses and other buildings in its Mankato neighborhood and, at first glance, seemingly located in the middle of an intersection.
Read MoreThe erudite and delightful woman helping transform southern Minnesotans into global adventurers has fixed her heart on other worthy causes that facilitate communication and relationships.
She is Dr. Yvonne Cariveau, but she grimaces as if stabbed when you call her that. Just plain “Yvonne” would be satisfactory, thank you.
Read MoreLast fall, some friends in Bob Coughlan’s ballroom dancing class mentioned they were taking a weekend trip to Philadelphia for a teacher’s conference. Coughlan, the great-grandson of T.R. Coughlan, who founded Mankato Kasota Stone in 1885, immediately offered his input on the couple’s itinerary while in the city of brotherly love.
“If you’re going to Philly, you have to go see the Philadelphia Museum of Art,” he told the couple. “My grandfather supplied the stone for that building.”
Read MoreSay cheese, Dennis.
It’s easy getting Dennis Miller to smile. On November 18, 2005, $10 billion Alltel of Little Rock, Arkansas, announced it would buy Mankato-based Midwest Wireless for a bit more than $1 billion.
Happy days are here again.
Read MoreIt’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.
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