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 words of former State Rep. Pat Garofalo, Hortman’s long-time friend, “This is a loss of innocence for our state.”

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 the Beacon, and other newspapers in the suburban part of Rhode Island.

Cows milking themselves?
That might be a little bit of a stretch, but not far off at the Balzer Dairy Farm east of Medford.

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 over a month until the fair opens there is plenty of activity going on at the fairgrounds in preparation.

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 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 game of pickleball.