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Community Voices

Kids returning home for visit a reminder the importance of childhood

We had kids in the house again. It was a trip back in time. One forgets what it’s like to share bathrooms and use all those dishes. Our children floated back home to live on and off as young adults between school and jobs, but they’ve been gone for a while. Now they live in far-flung ...

New state flag will be raised on Statehood Day

Editor’s note: Aaron Wittnebel wrote this op-ed in response to a New Ulm Journal story. A similar story was published in the Independent By Aaron Wittnebel In response to the Journal’s recent “Minnesota Flags Staying Put” article, I was hoping to clarify some of the misunderstanding, ...

Violent crime produces strong reactions in rural communities

Murder is a major topic of conversation these days in the local area, following two incidents and four deaths in the past month. First we had a domestic stabbing and a shooting by a police officer in Marshall which resulted in two deaths. Then there was a shooting situation in Lake Benton that ...

Cow cuddling questions

There are a lot of creative ways to generate extra income on a farm. For instance, when my sister Diann and I were grade schoolers, we decided to open a sweetcorn stand at the end of our dairy farm’s driveway. Our budding enterprise saw little success due to the fact that our prospective ...

New Year’s non-resolutions

It’s a new year and an unblemished calendar stretches out before us, sparkly and clean, like a freshly washed bed sheet that’s hanging on the clothesline moments before your dog snatches it and gallops through a mud puddle. This is the time of year when people often make resolutions. One ...