A 55-year-old Crosslake man was killed and another was injured when a small airplane crashed July 22 into Upper Whitefish Lake near Crosslake.

It looks like winter has most definitely arrived in the Brainerd lakes area this year. Blanketed in white and temperatures expected out of Minnesota winters, this year looks to be the complete opposite of what was seen less than a year ago.

The founder of Confidence Learning Center, Dick Endres, died Aug. 13 at the age of 84, and friends and colleagues reflected on his career of consistency, compassion and confidence.

The severe drought conditions currently listed for most of the Brainerd lakes area are a far cry from where the region was at in late spring and early summer.

In 2012, Brainerd's unemployment rate did something it hadn't been able to accomplish since December of 2007. In 54 months, the city's jobless rate dropped below double-digits just four times, three times in 2008 and once in 2011.

Candidates campaigned long and hard in 2012 with the end results on Nov. 6 a mixed bag, depending upon one's political leanings.

Ongoing since spring 2012 - with discussion and disputes dating to years before that - construction on College Drive was completed in fall 2012. Included in that completion, the city of Brainerd introduced drivers and the community to roundabouts Oct.

After an economic drought, 2012 saw an increase in commercial construction in the lakes area. In Baxter, property tax collection from "new commercial construction" rose from $9.6 million in 2005 to $25.5 million in 2006.

Twelve families lost their homes Sept. 27 when a fire destroyed the Hillcrest Apartment building in south Brainerd, leaving 20 people without. All the families were able to escape to safety and were offered emergency shelter at the Brainerd Lakes Hotel.

Tragedy seems to run a little deeper when it affects a small town. On Thanksgiving Day Byron David Smith admittedly shot and killed teens Nicholas Brady and Haile Kifer as the pair allegedly attempted to burglarize Smith's rural Little Falls home.