Opinions
For the past several months, there has undoubtedly been a tense relationship between this newspaper and at least some parts of the Kasson-Mantorville School District.
A newspaper’s job is to hold the powerful accountable, which led us to pursue a series of stories that some didn’t like.
This...
The assassination of House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and the attack on Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, early Saturday morning took something we can never get back.
Both the heart-breaking loss and the nature of the crimes have changed Minnesota forever.
In the...
In 1969, John Howell, a man from Greenwich Connecticut, bought my hometown paper, the Warwick Beacon, in Rhode Island.
To put it into context, my parents, who are both from Warwick, and have lived there their entire lives, were two years old.
For 55 years, Howell was publisher, owner, and editor of...
Cows milking themselves?
That might be a little bit of a stretch, but not far off at the Balzer Dairy Farm east of Medford.
Rick Balzer and his son, Scott, have been milking with the assistance of robots for almost 10 years. What once took lots of physical labor twice a day has now been replaced...
June has arrived and in Minnesota, that means county fairs, all leading up to the Great Minnesota Get-Together at the State Fair.
And that, of course, includes our own Dodge County Free Fair. This year’s fair is scheduled from Wednesday, July 16, through Sunday, July 20. Even though there is just...
After 18 years of sharing stories with southern Minnesota readers, this is my last op-ed as President and CEO of Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation (SMIF). As I prepare to retire, I do so with immense gratitude and pride.
For nearly two decades, I’ve had the privilege of working alongside...
For the past few years, I’ve covered a number of folks who have been passionate pickleball players.
I had one source in particular, at my last newspaper, who anytime I tried to get a hold of him, if he didn’t answer, there was a good chance he was going to call me back and tell me he was playing a...
A corporate culture of indifference permeates America. A crash earlier this month that resulted in the death of 43 pigs near our family farm in Dodge County is illustrative of this indifference. Disposal of the dead pigs was easy. Within hours, the euthanized pigs were added to dead boxes or...
Friends and neighbors,
The 2025 regular legislative session came to a disappointing conclusion at midnight on May 20. The Constitution requires us to write a new state budget this year. Unfortunately, despite my hope and optimism, we were unable to finish our work.
The reality is that we were...
Minnesota relies on the strength of our state’s rural communities and farmlands. As your Senator and as one of the leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee, it’s important to me to hear directly about the challenges you are facing. Every year I go to all 87 of Minnesota’s counties, and last...