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City completes construction of aquatic park

The city of Marshall recently completed the construction of The Splash, a new aquatic park for the region to enjoy. The project started in the spring of 2025 and due to high anticipation and expectations for the project, some answers to some common questions that we received before, during and most recently after completing this project: Why did the city construct a new aquatic facility? In 2018, the city conducted an assessment and study on the current facility. The study determined that the structures at the current facility are deteriorating, and many areas of the building do not ...

An airborne joyride

The exotic-looking gizmo sat on the tarmac, its bone-white paint gleaming in the summer sun. It’s a peculiar gadget, with two wings that are roughly the same length. Oddly, its elevator is located at the front of the fuselage instead of on the tail. It seemed out of place sitting on the ...

What it takes

As I had hoped for in the humid waning hour of summer sun, the schools of bluegills — quality fish in that eight- to nine-inch range — began swarming all sides of the pontoon, akin to the mosquitoes emerging in the twilight foliage surrounding the lake. Safe from the winged hordes on ...

How high or low

We've all heard or said the phrase: “How high or low can you go,” right? To answer that question is interesting, so here are some personal insights. Back in my younger years on the farm, we always grew corn. Naturally, we had a small patch of sweet corn (yum!), but the largest fields of corn were planted, tilled and harvested to feed our livestock. We didn't grow to sell, but grew to feed — a big difference between today's farmers and the farmers of my youth. The ongoing motto was that the corn should be knee high by the 4th of July. Usually, the corn plant eventually grew to ...

Recalling the day my dad lost his right arm

Writing a column isn’t usually physically challenging. Unless you count wracking my brain. Sometimes I pull a muscle in my cerebellum. Today I’m having to work at this. Wednesday morning, I had carpal tunnel surgery on my right wrist. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to type after that. But here I am, plunking away with a giant, clompy wrap around my right hand. Credit to Tylenol. My post-op instructions mention no strenuous activity for that hand. I’m not sure writing counts as strenuous. Finding the right words and pounding them together to build a sentence are heavy ...

Nuclear energy remains a risky technology after almost 50 years

In the past few weeks I’ve read several editorials about nuclear energy which say that it should maybe become part of our future. One by a libertarian columnist claims that nuclear power has run into too many political obstacles. It states that no one was hurt by the near disaster at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania in the late 1970s. It says that people are exposed to radiation in many ways, air travel as well as other everyday activities. A more objective political editorial states that Minnesota’s moratorium on new nuclear power plants might be an issue in Election 2026. Many ...