Virginia Elaine Durst, 94, died of natural causes on Feb. 9, 2016 at Pine Haven Care Center in Pine Island, Minnesota.
Virginia was born on Nov. 27, 1921 in Pine Island, Minnesota. She grew up on the Egger family farm in Milton township in rural Pine Island.

If you noticed a group of people running around Kasson last Saturday taping Valentines on buildings don’t worry; they had not been out in the cold too long.
They were members and friends of Kasson Alliance for Restoration, KARE, out “heart bombing” the buildings. Think photo bombing with hearts is how they described it on their Facebook page.

The Dodge County Board dealt with a variety of mostly routine issues at last week’s meeting with the most discussion centering on a renewal of the waste hauler license for Skeveland Enterprises in Claremont.

The Kasson-Mantorville/Triton gymnastics team enjoyed a banner year as they set team records and won its first meet during the third year of the co-op between the two schools. As they continued to improve, they saw their scores rise on a weekly basis and laid a solid foundation going forward.

The K-M dance team finished up a tremendous season last week as they  became the HVL section champs in Jazz routine.
 

Over the course of high school tournaments, it’s understandable if a team should falter during the intense pressure that comes with the territory. For the Kasson-Mantorville wrestling team, they’ve been able to block that out and find a way to get to the state tournament seven out of the past eight years after defeating Albert Lea to claim the Section 1AA dual championship on Saturday afternoon.

A newly-retired Episcopal priest from Rochester delivered an upbeat and often humorous message on “Survivorship and Spirituality” and how it relates to being in the “people business” to members of the Dodge Center Chamber of Commerce last week at their annual meeting at the Dodge Center American Legion.

Two Kenyon-Wanamingo teachers are in the running for the 2016 Teacher of Year.
Anna Bauer, a Spanish teacher at the high school and Jan Strand, elementary music, have been nominated for the honor and have completed the required materials and are among the 114 Minnesota teachers chosen.
Over the coming weeks a 25-member panel of community leaders will name a group of semifinalists and finalists.

Hearts are plentiful during the month of February. The biggie involving hearts comes on some romantic day when lovers of all ages share their hearts and lots of love.
But as I grow older in years, I have found something even bigger than Valentine’s Day involving hearts. February is American Heart Month. It seems the older I get the more I pay special attention to medical issues, especially anything involving the heart.