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Summertime means Shakespeare in the Park

If you are ever in New York City in the summertime, you can wait in line for the better part of a day to attend a free performance of a Shakespeare in Central Park. Or, if you are lucky enough to reside in or near Marshall, this summer, you can attend up to three free productions of Shakespeare in the Liberty Park Bandshell with no waiting at all. This weekend the traveling Starling Shakespeare Company will perform two ninety minute performances with 5 actors playing multiple roles. First, they will show “As You Like It” on Saturday at 6 p.m. This romantic comedy features the ...

‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ — To sing or not to sing?

One of the better ideas to come out of the Reformation was the notion of community singing of hymns; it might be odd to consider, but congregational hymn-singing represents only 25% of the history of Christianity, coming into existence around the early 1500s. It was a way (so thought ol’ Luther himself) of binding people together during a very religiously and politically divisive time (sound familiar?...) and to mark with music a strong bond, if only for the duration of the hymn, between people that were working out their religious tenets in the newly-reformed faith. Later, with ...

A final thank you to our carriers

From the first issue of the first paper published in Marshall, carriers have been the mainstay of the Independent’s distribution system. Every day, through rain and snow, through summer heat or winter’s cold, our carriers have brought the papers to our readers’ doors, with only occasional misplaced tosses into the bushes. Our carriers are not just school-aged kids. We have grownups, retirees, people who like to get up early and want to start the day with some exercise. We have families who have delivered papers for a decade or more, passing their routes down from older child to ...

Time for state to pick up special education costs

For years, Minnesota school districts have swallowed the cost imposed on them by unfunded state and federal mandates — rules and programs the government says they must provide, but for which the government provides little or no funding. One of these mandates, in particular, is the cost of providing special education. School districts are required to provide — rightly so — educational programs for special needs students. Those programs may require extra teachers and aides, special materials and curricula, separate classrooms and facilities. These cost money, and over the years the ...

Durenberger an example for today’s Republicans

David Durenberger, the former Republican U.S. senator from Minnesota, died on Tuesday, nearly 30 years after he left office. After three decades, he stands more now than ever as an example for politicians on how to serve their constituents. Over his 16 years in the Senate, Durenberger made friends and forged alliances with senators on both sides of the aisle. He was a moderate, a progressive politician who believed in government making life better for people where it could. He wanted people to have affordable health care. He wanted disabled people to live without discrimination in ...

Shop local to help make our community grow

Our mission is to increase awareness of how shopping locally creates economic growth in the Marshall community. — Marshall Area Chamber of Commerce A profile on today’s front page presents a good reminder for us about the benefits of shopping local. Shauna Bjorklund tells her story about taking over the Gambler Sports Bar and Grill from longtime owner Tom Pearcy. The 2012 Tracy High School graduate also earned a marketing degree at Southwest Minnesota State University. “Owning a business was something I’d thought about,” she said. “It was something I maybe wanted at some ...