April showers bring May flowers. This year it has been many showers but I haven’t seen flowers. Next Friday and Saturday, May 20 and 21, a very important flower will appear in the area of Brainerd-Baxter businesses. Our Veterans of Foreign Wars, also known as the VFW members, will be popping up ne...

Xcel Energy Inc. has canceled plans to fund EnXco Inc. to build the $400 million, 150 MW Merricourt wind farm in southeastern North Dakota. Xcel noted that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service expressed concern that two endangered bird species were at risk from the turbines.  Xcel has another g...

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I work as a Brainerd lakes area emergency medical responder and too many times I have seen the deadly results of traffic crashes when a person isn’t buckled up. I have also heard stories about crashes in which motorists claim a seat belt caused them injury or that a motorist survived a crash becau...

Why is the city of Baxter involved in Kuepers Inc. building Sprucewood Townhomes? City governments should not be involved in regulating housing projects, or raising taxes to pay for a single company’s project, or zoning, or permits, or regulating architecture. The state government should not issue...

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Just over year ago, a friend asked me to help out with the political campaign of a young, up-and-coming candidate running for office for the first time. I had always been somewhat interested in politics but had never been involved in a campaign. Taylor Stevenson asked me to be the change I wished to...

There has been a lot written about homosexuals having the right to marry and should that right be left up to public vote.  By all means, if we are going to live in this state the public should have some say in what goes on.  My objection is to the use of the word marriage. Up until now if ...

 There was a poker game going on where all the players were different  combinations of race, religion, gender, and sexual preference. The game had  been going on for quite some time and numerous players had lost all or most  of their chips. The big winner at the table was a Cauca...

“Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and  four times seven is — oh dear! I shall never get to 20 at that rate!”  —Alice from ‘Alice in Wonderland’...