Remember Cinco de Mayo block party? Encore now
Rochester tradition. The downtown bar Tap House is is hosting its 10th annual Cinco de Mayo beer and taco street social — the season’s first major outdoor event in Rochester. From 5 to 10:30 p.m. on blocked-off Third Street. To perform: The party band Incognito and the blues-rock ensemble Avey Grouws.
Fulbright award to Ecuador for WSU grad
WINONA, Minn. – A 2022 Winona State University graduate, Ava De Jonge. has been awarded a Fulbright teaching assistantship in Ecuador. De Jinge’s degree is in degree in Spanish teaching. She is from Stillwater.
De Jonge. Selected by U.S. State Deparrment
New police challenge from looser marijuana law
WINONA, Minn. – The state will need more police trained as drug recognition evaluators when a looser Minnesota marijuana law goes into effect, says the Winona County deputy Chad Myers. He now is one of only a handful of DREs in southeast Minnesota. Counties around Winona rely on him to evaluate field tests from suspected drug-impaired drivers. Myers noted the state has only 200 officers certified to determine whether marijuana has been involved in a traffic accident or crime. Not enough, Myers said, noting more use of recreational marijuana can be expected to increase drug-imairment cases. The state will need 500 DREs at least, he said. There are no field tests for impairment due to marijuana, as there are for alcohol, he said.
Earlier: How they voted: Marijuana legalization / 2
Earlier: Senate echoes House, OKs marijuana as legal
Earlier: How they voted: Marijuana legalization / 1
Earlier: Marijuana legalization bill passes House
Earlier: Democrats push to OK adults-only marijuana
Earlier: Sheriff: Police unready for marijuana problems
Earlier: Walz: Let’s legalize marijuana; prohibition a failure
Myers. The only certified drug recognition evaluator in Winona and neighboring counties.
Romance author brings book-signing tour to Winona
WINONA, Minn. – A Minnesota romance novelist who’s been a television celebrity baker, Abby Jimenez, will visit the Winona library on Saturday. Jimenez will be signing copies of “Part of Your World,” her latest book, and “Life’s Too Short.” Her “Part of Your World” has been called “a refreshingly modern fairy tale.” The novel was published by the Hachette imprint Forever. It runs 400 pages in tracking the daughter of wealthy parents who is magnetically attracted to a carpenter 10 years her junior. The question: Can she bring him into her world? Time: 12 p.m., 151 West Fifth Street.
Jimenez. Her day job is her cake shops in Maple Grove and Woodbury. Winner of “Cupcake Wars” on Food Network in 2013.
College scores
Softball: Winona State 12, MSU-Moorhead 9
Softball: Bethel 6, Saint Mary’s 5
Softball: Bethel 3, Saint Mary’s 1
Olmsted Medical face masks now optional
ROCHESTER, Minn. – Olmsted Medical Center lifted its precautionary CoVid face-mask requirement. Masks haad ben required since March 2020. The hospital said that the U.S. Centers for Disease had reclassified Olmsted County to a low category for community transmission. The revised policy says patients should feel free to ask examination staff to wear masks during visits.
Earlier: Gundersen Health goes mask-free
Earlier: Mayo scales back face-mask rule
How they voted: Paid family leave / 1
ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Minnesota House voted 68-64 to create an employer-employee- funded account for as much as 18 weeks of paid family and medical leave. The bill next goes to the Senate. How southeast members of the Minnesota House voted:
For leave
Kim Hicks, D-25A (Rochester)
Tina Liebling, D-24B (Rochester)
Andy Smith, D-25B (Rochester
Absent
John Petersburg, R-19B (Waseca)
Against
Peggy Bennett, R-23A (Albert Lea)
Bjorn Olson, R-22A (Elmore)
Greg Davids, R-26B (Preston)
Marj Fogelman, R-21B (Fulda)
Steve Jacob, R-20B (Elba)
Patricia Mueller, R-23B (Austin)
Gene Pelowski, D-26A (Winona)
Joe Schomacker, R-21A (Luverne)
Brian Pfarr, R-22B (LeSueur)
Emergency, fire crews make 53 calls
WINONA, Minn. – The Fire Department reported 42 emergency medical calls plus 15 fire calls in recent days:
> Tuesday, May 2: 5 medical calls plus 1 fire calls.
> Monday, May 1: 8 medical calls plus 3 fire call.
> Sunday, April 30: 4 medical calls plus 4 fire calls.
> Saturday, April 29: 5 medical calls plus 4 fire calls.
> Friday, April 28: 6 medical calls plus 2 fire calls.
> Thursday, April 27: 7 medical calls plus no fire calls.
> Wednesday, April 26: 7 medical calls plus 1 fire call.
Earlier: Emergency, fire crews 48 calls
R.I.P.: Clare Denzer
MINNESOTA CITY, Minn. – Clare Denzer, 91, of Minnesota City, who worked 17 years at Lake Center Switch, died at Whitewater Healthcare Center in St. Charles. She graduated from Holy Trinity High School in Rollingstone in 1950
Details: Fawcett-Junker Funeral Home
Fountain City’s North Shore Drive again passable
FOUNTAIN CITY, Wis. – After 10 days, traffic was allowed through flood-prone North Shore Drive through Fountain County. Traffic moved slowly around road crews dropping gravel into pits where Mississippi flood waters seeped, then shot up through the pavement. Meanwhile, townspeople have begun removng sandbags that had kept the river itself from encroaching.
Again accessible: Fountain City Ford, Wing Dam Saloon and Grill, Golden Frog, River Valley Mutual Insurance, Bronston Chiropractic, Ole Je’s Bar, and the Monarch beer garden.
R.I.P.: Howard Hoffmaster
WINONA, Minn. – Howard Lee Hoffmaster, 86, of Winona, a retired publisher of the Winona Daily News who wasn’t afraid to rattle cages with his local editorials, died at Lake Winona Manor. In retirement, after 1997, he was a Mississippi Rver fixture on his mini-tugboat the Amiable Turtle with a distinctive its cheery toot-toot. As an editorialist he crusaded for desegregating schools, radical environmental reform, and personal responsibility. He held a degree in biological chemistry from Park College in Missouri caught got printer’s ink in his blood as a parttime copy editor. He worked at newspapers in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Oregon, Wisconsin and finally Winona. These were mostly Lee Enterprises properties. During his career, he shepherded two newspapers to top state awards. He won awards himself for editorials, personal columns, and news coverage. He chaired the Winona Area Historical Society Board. He was a devotee of Ernest Hemingway’s work, and in tribute, he sported white beard when he arrived in Winona as publisher and invited everyone in the newsroom to call him “Papa.” He resisted corporate pressure to cut costs at Daily News but with limited success. In retirement he watched sadly as the Daily News withered under incessant corporate emands4to reduce costs.
-30-
Details: Fawcett-Junker Funeral Home
1936-2023
Faculty union blasts “secrecy” in St. Cloud layoffs
WINONA, Minn. – The statewide MinnState college faculty union accused the president of St. Cloud State as high-handed with faculty layoffs and program suspensions. The Inter-Faculty Organization said the layoff decision was made without consultation. A 10-minute Zoom announcement to deans and faculty was out of line, said state IFO President Jenna Chernega. The first the union heard of the plan was “anguished messages” from retrenched faculty, Chernega said.
Verbatim
Chernega: “Every retrenchment is devastating and erodes both academic freedom and the importance of tenure. The way this played out at St. Cloud State was especially cruel because of how the administration undermined shared governance. Wacker even branded the five-year employee reduction plan as “It’s Time.” We all know what it is time for: It’s time for the secrecy to end and for faculty voices to be heard. SCSU faculty, like all of us, deserve transparency, accountability, data accuracy, and shared governance, and we will stand with them.”
Chernega. State faculty union president. A sociology prof at Winona State.
College scores
Baseball: Augustana 10, Winona State 6
Baseball: Winona State 18, Augustana 12, doubleheader
Baseball: Saint Mary’s 14, Hamline 2
Baseball: Saint Mary’s 14, Hamline 2, doubleheader
Baseball: UW-LaCrosse 12, Luther of Iowa 3
Softball: Saint Mary’s 7, Concordia of Moorhead 4
Softball: Saint Mary’s 6, Concordia of Moorhead 2, doubleheader
Wisconsin prep
Baseball: Onalaska Hilltoppers 5, Galesvlle-Ettrick-Trempealeau Red Hawks 1
I-90 roll-over claims life; also a serious injury
ST. CHARLES, Minn. – An Illinois woman was killed in a one-car rollover on Interstate 90 east of the St. Charles ramps. The State Patrol said Anastasia Payne, 51, of Chicago, was a passenger in the vehicle, which rolled several times. The driver, Sean Robert Payne, 40, of Chicago, was seriously hurt ad taken 25 miles to a Rochester hospital. They were in a 2004 Toyota 4Runner eastbound toward Winona. This was about 6:35 p.m. The interstate was closed after the accident.
House: Yes to 18 weeks paid family leave
ST.PAUL, Minn. – The Minnesota House voted 68-64 to require paid family and medical leave. Under the bill, employers and employers would pay into a state fund from which employees could collect up to 18 weeks pay to welcome a new child, to recover from illness, or to care for a loved one. The bill was supported by faith leaders, unions and health organizations. A similar bill is working its way through Sente committees. The issue of a state-mandated program has been a Democratic priority in the Legislature for eight years. Most Republicans have come around to support the concept but objected to how Democrats had structured the the plan. Republicans instead preferred tax incentives to businesses set up leave policies businesses but no state mandate. In final form the House bill’s original 24 weeks of leave was trimmed to 18.
Triumphant pose. Paid family leave advocates all smile “cheese” for a portrait after House passage.
Verbatim
Ruth Richardson, a Democrat elected from Mendota Heights and the bill’s sponsor: “At the foundation of this bill is a recognition of our shared humanity. At some point, we are all going to be tied to either care for ourselves or to care for a loved one.”
Verbatim
Dave Baker, a Republican elected from Willmar: “I think the private industry knows this industry better than government. They have to live and breathe. They have to make it work financially. They do it every day, all day.”
Winds push flames from fence into garage, house
ROCHESTER, Minn. – A northwest Rochester neighborhood was evacuated during a fire in a fence that winds whipped into a detached garage and a nearby house. The garage was engulfed already when fire crews arrived. A propane tank was a worry. This was about 2:15 p.m. at 2028 Valleyhigh Drive Northwest. Neighbors were allowed back as soon as the flames were suppressed. There were no injuries.
Oxygen-equipped firefighters. Rushed into house, found everyone had made it out. Image: Rochester Fire Department
Semiautomatic handgun stolen at Hidden Valley
MINNESOTA CITY, Minn. – A handgun was reported stolen from a residential trailer house in Hidden Valley. Missing: A Bresa 380 semiautomatic valued at $400. The owner said the theft occurred apparently in a five-day window from Thursday to Monday. A number of people were in and out of the place in his absence, he said.
Wabasba’s flooded main gateway reopens
Highway 60. The access from Highway 61 into Wabasha under the railroad viaduct. Image: Minnesota Transportation Department
Dip filled with water: Closed since April 14
WABASHA, Minn. – After being flooded 1-1/2 weeks, the dip in the main road into Wabasha, under the Canadian Pacific mainline, has drained enough for traffic to be allowed through. The Mississippi River had crested at a record level. The state Transportation Department diverted traffic into town elsewhere to get to the Michael Duane Clickner Memorial Bridge to Wisconsin. Other MnDOT updates:
> Minnesota River Valley: Highway 19 reopened near Henderson along the Minnesota River.
> Red River Valley: Several highways in northwest Minnesota remained closed.
Child dog-bite victim home recuperating
WINONA, Minn. – A 5-year-old boy attacked by a dog returned home from surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. His family said the boy was upright and talking and doing well. A neighbor’s dog went after the boy, who was with playmates in a next-door yard. Police said the dog had not had legally required shots and was in quarantine.
Southeast collegians named Coca-Cola scholars
WINONA, Minn. – Two Southeast College Tech students, Jack Guimont and Katelyn Lindsey, have been recognized as Coca-Cola academic scholars. They were among 100 community college students nationwide to receive the honor. Guimont, of Anoka, will receive a $1,500 scholarship, and Lindsey, of Utica, a $1,250 scholarship.
Guimont. Studying English.
Lindsey. Studying arts and sciences.
Latest conviction in George Floyd murder
MINNEAPOLIS – A judge convicted Minneapolis police officer Tou Thao of aiding and abetting in the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a fellow officer. The presumptive sentence would be 12-1/2 years. Thau had bypassed a plea agreement. Judge Peter Cahill decided the verdict based on written filings and a record established in an earlier federal civil trial. Thao was last of the four officers facing judgment in state court in the Floyd case. The prosecution argued that Thao “acted without courage and displayed no compassion” despite nine years of experience. Floyd, a Black man, died as officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, pinned him to the ground with his knee.. Two other officers, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting.
Finishing touches: Flora into new rotaries
Mankato Avenue. Telementry gear in place to pinpoint placement of shrubs and final signage. Image: Steve Lunde
Eyota eyes new city hall: Voters to decide
EYOTA, Minn. – The Eyota City Council is asking for $400,000 to buy the former Bremer Bank building and convert it into a new city hall. A special election is Tuesday. Mayor Tyrel Clark said the current city hall is too small and falling apart. The computer system is in a closet, the mayor said. The Bremer building would cost $300,000. Renovation would take another $100,000.
Relocation. From storefront to stand-alone building.
Dems: Van Orden a rail safety hypocrite
WASHINGTON – Congressman Derrick Van Orden has been grand-standing for railroad safety after a major derailment at Ferrryville, Wisconsin, but only days earlier voted with House Republicans to cut rail safety inspections. Hypocrisy, said Tommy Garcia, of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Garcia said that Van Orden voted for a bill that would cut 22% from federal rail safety inspections budgets. The bill, Garcia said, would eliminate 140 rail safety inspection days a year in Wisconsin. Nationwide, this would mean 7,000 fewer rail safety inspection days next year alone and over 30,000 fewer miles of track inspected annually, he said.
Verbatim
Garcia: “Derrick Van Orden turned his back on Wisconsinites when he voted with extreme MAGA Republicans to push America closer to default and cut money for essential rail safety inspections. Van Orden cannot be trusted to keep Wisconsinites safe.”
Earlier: Van Orden to railroad: I told you so
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