Sheriff’s office seeks help from area ministers
With every call, every day, law enforcement officers are faced with potentially dangerous, life-threatening situations.
The officer may have to make split-second decisions that are just and right, but often times very difficult. 

The Kasson-Mantorville 16u softball team poses for a team photo after being awarded the Youth 1st Team Award for their performanceduring a tournament in Austin earlier this summer.

One day changed the life of Anthony Putratz, but he’s moving forward with the help of family and friends.
The Brownsdale man was severely burned from an explosion at McNeilus Truck and Manufacturing on Jan. 11 in Dodge Center.
A benefit and silent auction were held this past weekend at the Mantorville Saloon.
“It’s a bit overwhelming, because there are so many people here, even some that I don’t know,” Putratz said.

Usually the new family coming into town receives a house-warming gift, but the opposite happened last week.
NextEra Energy Resources, a wholesale electricity supplier based in Juno Beach, Fla., is moving into an office in Kasson and setting up wind turbines in Dodge Center. Jason Harris, Associate Project Manager for NextEra, presented a check for $15,000 last week to Fairview Care Center.

It was a dark and stormy and hot and beautiful Dodge County Fair.

Last week I talked about what you shouldn’t bring up with strangers: politics.
So this week I’m going to compensate for that by writing about something everyone can talk about: our weather.
The skies looked ominous most of the afternoon, but I didn’t think it would be this bad.
It’s Wednesday, July 19, and it seems like all of Dodge County is in a tornado warning until 6 p.m. this evening.

Both sides of my family kind of contradict themselves. I’d say it has much less to do with my extended family and more to do with my mother and father.
Mom loves Greek food; dad hates Greek food. Mom hates roller coasters; dad loves roller coasters. Mom doesn’t like the outdoors; dad loves the outdoors.

The 160th-annual Dodge County Fair attracted the masses - hundreds of people eager for fun and food here in high summer in good ol’ southeast Minnesota.
Holy cow, the fun: from 4-H judging and bull-riding to hot music to a demolition derby to the talent show, milkshake shoot-out, all those carnival rides, and displays by people like Roger Abrahamson, the old-time bowl-turner.

As I drove around Dodge County surveying storm damage July 19, I came across a grieving woman.
For me, emotion got in the middle of doing my job as a journalist.
It was a tough night for Darlene Schmidt of Owatonna as she stared at serious damage to her son’s turkey barns north of Claremont. Straight line winds whipped into the area, causing thousands of dollars in damages to the barns and knocking out power.