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Unique story of underground mine radio show in Iowa
Photo / Martin Marietta Materials A longtime reader from Iowa, Fred Borgen, shared this story of a radio broadcast from an underground mine located under, of all places, the cornfields of his home state. I hadn’t heard about any mines in Iowa until this, and now I’m deeply upset that I haven’t done a radio…
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Free clinic available to low income people on the Iron Range
Project Care is a volunteer organization that provides a free clinic to residents of northern Minnesota’s Iron Range region who don’t have insurance or can’t afford medical care. I just recently became aware of this group as they announced that they are adding a clinic in Virginia to their existing ones in Ely, Hibbing and…
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Time to tell your northern MN story
A group from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design are spending the summer in residence in the city of Grand Rapids, Minnesota. It’s part of MCAD’s Greater Minnesota Arts Initiative (read more). Three artists are collecting stories — both face to face with people in northern Minnesota and online. They’re doing a contest of…
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Gilbert, Eveleth weekly newspapers shut down
The twin newspapers of the Eveleth Scene and Gilbert Herald published their final editions earlier this month. These two Iron Range weekly papers enjoyed a long history in two of the most interesting towns on the Mesabi. The Gilbert Herald in particular had published more than a century. Publisher Nathan Krause, who took over the…
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Iron Range ethnic foods draw national attention
The NPR show America’s Test Kitchen shared a two-part series that writer Carolynn Purpura MacKay penned for Cook’s Magazine about two popular ethnic foods from northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. She traveled to Hibbing last January to learn about the Italian spiced pork dish porketta and the eastern European dessert bread potica. (puh-TEET-za) It’s a very…
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Origins of sport
This is my Sunday column for the July 14, 2013 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Origins of sportBy Aaron J. Brown Tuesday brings one of my favorite events in all of summer, Major League Baseball’s All-Star game. This might seem a bit strange to some, as the all-star game is often not very good.…
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Former Iron Range rep is on Met Council
Something occured to me as I perused the list of people Gov. Mark Dayton appointed to the Metropolitan Council today. Lona Schreider of Brooklyn Park, who was reappointed, is the only person in history to serve on the IRRRB and the Met Council. She was Rep. Lona Minne (DFL-Hibbing) before she left office, remarried and…
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Know what the mining debate needs? Mercenaries
If you’ve ever been around a debate between people who want to dig up city-sized portions of earth to extract minerals and people who are against that, you see some common themes. Jobs vs. the Environment. Need for minerals in everyday goods vs. the need to preserve natural places. Growth and progress vs. air and…
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Hibbing Jubilee marks summer’s halftime on the Range
This weekend brings the Hibbing Jubilee, this central Mesabi Iron Range city’s summer celebration of mines and pines (but don’t call it Mines and Pines because that was the old name and there are proprietary concerns). Hibbing is “the town that moved” for the iron mines, five miles south where they got arguably the most…
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Iron Range board names ‘NextGen’ task force members
The Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (previously Iron Range Resources, Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Agency and Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board, known locally, always and forever, as the IRRRB) is trying to plan for the future of northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. That’s why Commissioner Tony Sertich and agency officials have crafted the…
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Iron ore price dip a cause for (measured) concern
BusinessNorth‘s Ron Brochu has a fascinating story on the recent downturn in iron ore prices. Though no major production slowdowns are currently slated for the iron mines here in northern Minnesota, several future projects are facing some serious headwind, according to this story. I wrote about the slow progress at Essar Steel in Nashwauk earlier…
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Northern MN artists drop politically-charged mining album
An impressive group of northern Minnesota musicians, including the dean of the Duluth music scene Charlie Parr, have lent songs to a compilation album called “The Arrowhead Story.” This album is due for a Sept. 7 release, but has a digital page up now. It’d be an interesting collection on its own and it listens…
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B’nai Abraham welcomes classical & down-home musicians
The B’nai Abraham Cultural Center in Virginia announces another event this Saturday, July 13 at 7 p.m. It would not be summer without a much anticipated appearance by the Northern Lights Music Festival players, under the direction of their remarkable Festival founder, Veda Zuponcic. Her musicians come from all over the world, and study for…
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Construction continues at Essar Steel
A source with knowledge of the proceedings of the Itasca County Railroad Authority told me about an update on the construction of Essar Steel near Nashwauk, which was shared at a recent meeting of the authority. Essar has increased their staff to about 100 people, on its way to about 325 permanent personnel to run…
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Fly, bird, fly
This is my Sunday column for the July 7, 2013 Hibbing Daily Tribune. Fly, bird, flyBy Aaron J. Brown No one who lives in the woods lives alone. Sometimes amid the din of family life we forgot that we share our address with thousands of creatures who regard us with the same indifference we usually…