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GUEST POST: Taconite Roads: what’s old is new
The following is part of an occasional series of guest posts from historian Jeff Manuel. Thanks, Jeff! File this one under everything old is new again. Aaron’s recent post about a company hoping to use overburden and tailings as road construction material reminded me of several old efforts to use mining byproducts in road construction.…
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COLUMN: Turning leaves, reading the signs
This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Sept. 26, 2010 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Turning leaves, reading the signs By Aaron J. Brown The grass grows slowly now. Cool and dry, the lawn cuts smoother than at any time in 2010. But you’d never know it the way the leaves are falling.…
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Ten million Benjamins lined up for Essar’s new Range mine?
If it’s Friday afternoon on the Iron Range, some distant corporation must be quietly releasing an extremely important piece of news in a highly controlled manner. Folks ’round here just call this Miller Time. The Hibbing Daily Tribune reports today that “foreign media outlets” are reporting that Essar Steel Minnesota has secured $1 billion in…
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Brown on the Air: ANGER!
This week’s edition of “Between You and Me” on 91.7 KAXE explores the topic of anger. Excuse me, ANGER!! $%&$&#&%@!!!! My weekly contribution tackles the anger trend in American culture and the anger trend among our preschool children. The differences between the two are slight. I also discuss how anger is a source of Midwestern…
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The ’72 Floodwood student insurrection
I enjoyed this story from the vault of the Duluth News Tribune, shared in the paper’s online “News Attic” feature. In 1972, students at Floodwood High School staged a rather dramatic walkout and protest surrounding the dismissal of a popular young English teacher. Floodwood is one of the hayfield swamp towns south of the Iron…
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(Fe)eeling good about this upcoming (Fe)st
The Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm is doing a big fall shindig to celebrate some of the popular local bands from the summer “Art in the Park” series. Anyone looking for some Sunday evening fun on the Iron Range should check out IronFest. See what they did there. Iron, with “fest.” My suggestion would have…
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Click on this airport post to increase your enreadments
Headline: “Enplanements keep rising.” This is from a Hibbing Daily Tribune story about how one (!) additional passenger flew out of Hibbing’s Range Regional Airport in August compared to July. Now, the news itself is unremarkable, maybe even good in these economic times. But feel free to let your mind work over the wordplay for…
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Saint Louie, Louie
The Duluth News Tribune has been doing some investigative journalism lately. I’m just going to let that linger on the screen for a second. Nice. OK, so the DNT ran some good stuff Monday about the St. Louis County Board and its travel reimbursements for its seven county commissioners. The smoking gun scandal is not…
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Open house aims to win support for Range planetarium
The Paulucci Space Theatre in Hibbing, a (literally!) star-spangled beacon of astronomical knowledge on the Iron Range, faces its own existential threat this year. The destructive gravitational forces in this case are provided by the state budget crisis. The planetarium’s operator, Hibbing Community College, cannot afford to operate the facility at a loss, which it…
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Lyric Center for the Arts needs help
Unfortunately, this is the first of a couple “save this Iron Range arts and/or culture institution” posts I’ll be dropping this week. The Lyric Center for the Arts is the group restoring the old Lyric Opera House in downtown Virginia, Minnesota. They’ve opened the First Stage performing hall, where music, literary and visual arts events…
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Notable Range history, culture center names new CEO
Lisa Vesel, former communications official for the Hibbing hospital, was named the permanent CEO of the Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm last Friday. She replaces Paul Dwyer who had been the interim CEO after the facility re-opened this year from its embarrassing shutdown last year. It’s been good to see the place open, fulfilling its…
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COLUMN: The wheels on the bus go away
This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Sept. 19, 2010 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. The wheels on the bus go awayBy Aaron J. Brown The frost glittered off the cold gray highway, yellow lines the warmest part of a crisp winter morning. Bright, flat sunlight beamed off the snow, deadening in the…
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Brown on the Air: INVENTIONS!
This week’s edition of “Between You and Me” on 91.7 KAXE explores inventions: things you’ve invented, inventions you’ve loved, inventions you wish were invented. The topic will be dissected in traditional call-in and music-playing fashion, blending the unique voices of northern Minnesota and the expert moderation of host/producer Heidi Holtan. My regular contribution explores an…
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Making the moves
Scene: a northern Minnesota McDonald’s Play Place. My son George, 3, approaches a similarly aged girl outside the tube slide. GEORGE: “We’re going to Wal-Mart next.” GIRL: (stares blankly) GEORGE: (points to coat) “This is my coat.” GIRL: (stares blankly) GEORGE: “Do you like my coat?” GIRL: (pauses) “We’re at the McDonald’s.” GEORGE: Yeah. (long…
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Lincoln, Power and Perpich
With another political season upon us, the Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm has opened a new exhibit reminding us of times when politics was even more important (and somehow even dirtier). “Abraham Lincoln, a Man of His Time, a Man for All Times” debuted this week, with a localized exhibit highlighting two important Iron Range…