Opinions
To the Editor:
Quarter-section housing density numbers in Mantorville Township need to change. Allow non-tillable land owners the option to divide their land for housing. SOME landowners may choose to divide/develop their property, SOME may not. Give them a choice.
Mantorville Township is located...
Despite my plea to “embrace winter” a couple of weeks ago, winters can seem long in Minnesota. That is especially true since we have some friends that are wintering in Hawaii, another in Gulf Shores and yet another couple in Arizona. Whenever I hear of someone escaping for a while to warmer areas,...
Yesterday was Ash Wednesday which means that the season of Lent has officially started. Lent is a time of reflection.
I think about the words the prophet Joel proclaimed, “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts...
Insulin is an essential, life-saving drug that has been around for more than a century. Despite that, leading manufacturers have drastically increased prices by more than 600 percent over the past two decades. I will always remember hearing about a 65-year-old retiree in Minnesota with diabetes who...
Last fall, I accompanied a friend of mine to visit his Aunt Rosie in an assisted living facility in Mason City. I had met this extraordinary woman once before and was taken in by her positive attitude and zest for life. What is even more amazing, is that Rosie suffers from a form of dementia where...
I had a fun conversation with person who was fairly new to faith and new to being a regular part of any church. It started out with, “Pastor John, this church thing really surprised me!”
That led to a funny conversation from my point of view. It was funny because this person was realizing for the...
Being on the Kasson-Mantorville School Board has taught me many lessons about the system at large and at the collegial level. I found taking on such a leadership role without much previous experience interesting, especially that I was only 22 at the time. When I decided to run, it wasn’t with any...
Minnesota lost one of the state’s great politicians and leaders last week with the death of former Sen. Dave Durenberger on January 31 at age 88.
Durenberger first ran for the U.S. Senate in 1978 to replace Sen. Hubert Humphrey who had died earlier that year. He remains the only Minnesota...
Poets and artists have written about or painted scenes of wintery splendor forever. We have a photograph of a beautiful winter setting captured by a local photographer of a snow-covered bridge. A print by Ron Hunt of an old farm located along a snowy road hangs in our living room.
With my limited...
At Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation (SMIF) we are starting off the new year by reflecting on how we have worked to strengthen the fabric of our region over time. In part, we do this by celebrating a handful of our partners through stories in our Foundation’s annual Impact Report.
In the...