News From Greater Minnesota

One of the great things about community journalism is that newspapers can say a lot about very little or a little about quite a lot. The Fergus Falls Journal on Monday published a photo headlined “Seven pregnant educators.” The photo showed seven pregnant women standing against a wall. They name the women: Sarah Moline, Elesha Jyrkas, Tiffany Jennen, Jessica Raguse, April Hoffert, Heather Miller and Tera Oland, who all work at McKinley Elementary School. That’s it. No great exposition. No factoids. No examination on the quality of the school water or the fecundity of Fergus Fallians. Just a photo of seven women with big bellies. I’m not making fun here. This is the stuff people talk about; this is café chat journalism at its finest.

When we see clouds the color of a bruise, we know a storm is on its way. Local governments from around Minnesota have looked toward St. Paul and are battening the hatches in preparation for the potential July 1 government shutdown. Amy Dalrymple of the Fargo Forum says Minnesota State Community and Technical College mailed layoff notices to 177 of its 675 employees on its Moorhead campus. Minnesota State University Moorhead also will be required to give layoff notices this week.

Down in Austin, Trey Mewes reports that up to 200 Riverland Community College employees could temporarily lose their jobs come July 1. Mewes summed it up: “More than 67,000 students taking summer courses could be affected by a shutdown, with about 100 of those attending Riverland. A government shutdown would mean school’s out until a budget’s in. Worse, it would affect the enrollment process at MnSCU colleges and universities as well as the University of Minnesota system. That’s more than 250,000 students in MnSCU alone that could potentially be affected by scheduling issues and enrollment issues.”

In the Marshall Independent, Deb Gau writes that in addition to layoffs at Southwest State, some services at the Lyon County Government Center may be affected by a shutdown, although the county employees and offices would not. “For example, the county recorder's office may not have support for the state birth and death certificates database. Driver's license renewals at the Government Center could also face similar problems. In the Lyon County Auditor's Office, a shutdown could affect voter registration for school board elections and special votes in area school districts.”

Meanwhile, school districts continue to deal with the state’s sloughing off of financial responsibility for K-12 education by going to voters to ask for property tax increases. In the Monday New Ulm Journal, Fritz Busch writes that Sleepy Eye public schools will ask voters two questions this November: The first is whether raise taxes to generate $750 per student a year for seven years, the second to add $250 per student for school district technology improvements. Last November, a 10-year, $1,567.16 per student referendum failed by a vote of 1,526 to 642. Board chairperson Ron Geiger said he heard from people that last fall's referendum was too high and for too long.

At Monday’s school-board meeting in Brainerd, members decided to fire teachers, reading assistants and special-education instructors rather that ask voters for more money to make up for the state’s financial irresponsibility. The moves will save $1.25 million, according to a report by Jennifer Stockinger of the Brainerd Dispatch. Not to be too snarky, but why is Brainerd forced to make moves like this? it’s beyond me how anybody can think that moves like this will create a better learning environment for students.

On a lighter note, the Bemidji Library Book Festival opened Monday with a reading by children’s author Phyliss Root. Other speakers include fiction writer Sandra Benitez, poet Todd Boss, children’s author Mary Casanova, science-fiction writer Cynthia Kraack, and Native American writer Linda LeGarde Grover.

In a story headlined “Arrest in totem pole slaying shocks, but doesn’t surprise neighbors,” Jana Hollingsworth of the Fargo Forum travels to Ray, Minn., to talk to those who knew Carl and Linda Muggli. The couple made and sold totem poles. Linda Muggli, 61, died Nov. 26 when a 700-pound totem pole fell on her. Carl Muggli, 49, was arrested last week in Texas on a charge of second-degree murder. Many in Ray, near Voyageurs National Park, told Hollingsworth that the manner of Linda’s death was shocking but not Carl’s arrest. Malcolm McAuley, owner of the Woodland Inn, has known Carl Muggli for many years and said he was a good but untrustworthy worker who had personal problems before marrying Linda. “He cleaned up and got his life together. She straightened him out.” Bob Neuenschwander, owner of Border Bob’s, a souvenir and gift shop in International Falls, knew the Mugglis for more than 20 years. “The only wonderful thing I can say about Carl is that at one time, he had the good sense to marry her,” he said. Greg House, owner of the Kab-Mill sawmill in Ray, sold Carl Muggli the logs he and Linda used for their totem poles. “He was a very good worker,” House said. “But a lot of people said, ‘Watch out, he’s going to get the best of you.’”

You think last week’s heat wave stank at your home? T&J Turkeys, owned by Tim and Jill Miller in Hanska, lost about 3,000 turkeys to the heat to the tune of about $75,000. Josh Moniz of the New Ulm Journal writes that despite running fans and spraying the birds with water, there was little that could be done. Turkeys cannot be insured for heat stroke and the birds were scheduled to go to market next week. Miller initially had 22,000 turkeys in the flock that suffered the loss and his other flocks of younger birds were largely unaffected. "It could have easily been a lot worse. If we had lost the whole flock, that could have been nearly half a million dollar loss," he said.

No pike record for you! Mark Plumley from St. Croix Falls, Wis., caught a silver-phase pike weighing 18 pounds, 14.56 ounces last Wednesday on Snowbank Lake near Ely. The fish outdistanced the previous Minnesota record for a silver pike of 18 pounds, 14 ounces, caught on Disappointment Lake near Ely in 1978. But Plumley’s catch is no record, wrote Sam Cook of the Duluth News Tribune. “Although records were once kept for silver pike, that color phase is not a distinct species, so the DNR no longer recognizes it among record fish, said Linda Erickson-Eastwood, DNR fisheries program manager,” Cook wrote. Even if it’s just a color phase of a northern pike, it’s still a pretty big fish.

This story doesn’t have much to do with Minnesota, but I couldn’t pass up the headline: “Feds: Winona priest tied to the mob.” What a great headline. The story is by the Associated Press out of Chicago.  Apparently, Eugene Klein, who ministered to mobster Frank Calabrese at the federal prison in Springfield, Mo., collaborated with several others to obtain an expensive violin Calabrese allegedly had stashed in a Williams Bay, Wis., house that the government was preparing to sell for restitution. Klein is a priest with the Diocese of Winona and under contract with the federal prison system as a chaplain in Springfield. He faces charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States and attempting to prevent seizure of Calabrese’s personal property. Each of the two counts carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. An arraignment date has not yet been set. Calabrese is serving a life sentence for 13 murders.

John Myers of the Duluth News Tribune does a nice job of localizing a national story. The Internal Revenue Service last week ended the nonprofit status of 275,000 organizations nationwide because they failed to file annual reports for three consecutive years. That affected 135 organizations in Duluth. Some of those organizations are defunct, such as The Cloquet Nifty Fifty Cruisers, the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles in Two Harbors, the Duluth Glass Block Employees Credit Union and the Duluth Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War. But some are active, such as the Duluth Heights Community Club, Woodland Community Club, the North Shore ATV Club and the Proctor Jack Meade Gun Club. IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said, “We realize there may be some legitimate organizations, especially very small ones that were unaware of their new filing requirement. We are taking additional steps for these groups to maintain their tax-exempt status without jeopardizing their operations or harming their donors.” The News Tribune offers a link to the complete list of groups and their last known address is available at www.irs.gov; click on Charities and Non Profits.

John Fitzgerald is a longtime Minnesotan and freelance journalist who lives in Buffalo.