Today I present one of my favorite annual features at MinnesotaBrown: the annual Fourth of July weekend lineup of Iron Range regional parades, street dances and fireworks displays. I’ve only been posting my newspaper columns this year as I finish my book. But I just had to come out of my book-writing cave to put… Read More →
Iron Range parades, street dances and fireworks
June 17, 2018 by Leave a Comment
As a young kid I marched in the Keewatin Fourth of July parade as a patriotic penguin, Donald Duck, and other flag-festooned creatures. As an older kid I remember piling into a car with my friends, touring Range towns for street dances and fireworks. Before cell phones we would often try to anticipate where we… Read More →
Competitive eaters pack away Indian Tacos in Tower
November 3, 2017 by 1 Comment
UPDATE: Results below. ORIGINAL POST: Four of the top ten highest ranked professional eaters, including world #1 Joey Chestnut, will compete at Fortune Bay Resort and Casino in Tower this Saturday for the World Indian Taco Eating Contest. Where to begin? Let’s start with Indian Tacos. These are tacos made with fry bread. Fry bread… Read More →
MINOS lab departs Soudan mine cavern
February 1, 2017 by Leave a Comment
This week crews remove components from the MINOS laboratory on the 27th level of the Soudan Underground Mine on Northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. The picture above shows massive steel “neutrino tracking” panels” being removed from the facility. Since 2003, the lab hosted notable experiments testing the nature of subatomic particles in a beam fired underground… Read More →
The Power of Tower on the Great Northern Radio Show
September 22, 2016 by Leave a Comment
See if you can connect the following: What could all this have in common? This weekend, I’ll head up to Tower, Minnesota, for the next installment of my Great Northern Radio Show on Northern Community Radio. We’ll be broadcasting two one-hour episodes back to back starting at 5 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 24…. Read More →
Great Northern Radio Show to broadcast from Tower
September 13, 2016 by Leave a Comment
On Saturday, Sept. 24, I’ll bring my Great Northern Radio Show to Fortune Bay Resort and Casino near Tower, Minnesota. It’s exciting to start another new season (our sixth!) and to announce some changes. The Great Northern will remain a music and comedy variety show featuring the same talents as before. Instead of broadcasting one live… Read More →
Uncertain fate for Soudan underground physics lab
February 10, 2016 by 2 Comments
I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that advanced physics research takes place a half mile beneath the earth at the retired Soudan Underground Mine on the Minnesota Iron Range. True, what they do there can be explained. (Mostly it’s research related to isolating the neutrino, a sub-atomic particle believed to be critical to understanding the universe). Yet it… Read More →
ANALYSIS: Rob Ecklund wins 3A race
December 9, 2015 by 3 Comments
Rob Ecklund was elected State Representative for Minnesota House District 3A Tuesday by a wide margin. The Koochiching County Commissioner and Boise Cascade union paper worker earned 64 percent of the vote to Republican Roger Skraba’s 19 percent and independent Kelsey Johnson’s 16 percent. Ecklund carried 80 of 83 precincts, losing a pair of small… Read More →
LIVE BLOG: MN House 3A Special Election today
December 8, 2015 by 3 Comments
Today voters head to the polls in Minnesota District 3A. This district is the state’s largest geographic House seat sprawling across Koochiching, northern and eastern St. Louis, most of Lake and all of Cook counties. This is a special election to replace the late Rep. David Dill (DFL-Crane Lake), who died last summer. Polls will… Read More →
The not-so-special election in MN House 3A
November 30, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Remember when the Iron Range political structure appeared poised for street riots heading into a closely-watched DFL primary in House District 3A? Anyway, that was a thing that happened not that long ago. Today we are just shy of a week away from the Dec. 8 House 3A general election that will determine who actually heads… Read More →
