Heather Fisher, owner of Salvage Sisters in Mankato, joins Marnie and Jim to talk about Shop Small Saturday and the importance of small businesses to cities small and large in Greater Minnesota.

EXCERPT: “There are 60,000 job openings in Greater Minnesota, the most openings since the state first conducted the Job Vacancy Survey in 2001. Most of the overall gain in job openings was caused by a sharp increase in six low-wage occupations: food preparation and serving, sales, personal care, office support, janitorial, and farming. Compared with ...

EXCERPT: “Does Becker County have a child care shortage? The short answer is, yes — a big one. A total of 648 child care slots are needed to meet the county’s current needs, according to data gathered from a recent survey conducted by the Rural Child Care Innovation Program, or RCCIP. The RCCIP is an ...

  In the third and final part of our interview with CRPD board member and Crow Wing County Administrator Tim Houle, Tim talks about how federal transportation dollars are divided among Minnesota’s communities, and why with the upcoming Census in 2020 it will be especially important that everyone gets counted. Minnesota is on the verge ...

EXCERPT: “Nearly 70 percent of Minnesota school districts with operating levies on the ballot got approval from voters in last week’s election, and the success rate for bond referendums was even higher. Nearly all the districts where voters said ‘no’ are in Greater Minnesota — and Greg Abbott with the Minnesota School Boards Association says ...

EXCERPT: “Sometime in 2007, labor and delivery nurses at Sanford Bemidji Medical Center began seeing a disturbing shift in their patient population. The opioid-addiction crisis had taken hold in the region, and its impact was being felt among its youngest and most vulnerable residents. More and more mothers with opioid use disorder (OUD) were giving birth at the hospital to ...

  Crow Wing County Administrator and CRPD board member Tim Houle joins us again this week to talk about the complicated relationship between the county, state and federal governments. This week we look at the need for counties to communicate the local perspective to state lawmakers in St. Paul. As an example, Tim talks about ...

Welcome to the summer issue of the Rural Minnesota Journal. In this quarter’s issue, we continue looking at the question of “Who owns rural Minnesota” with two articles concerning the complex and sometimes confusing issue of land ownership by Minnesota’s Native Americans. Solving a land-control dilemma As the land owned by American Indians dwindled to a small patchwork of property ...

EXCERPT: “A new traveling exhibit is raising awareness of just how and why water is important to Minnesotans and their environment. The Minnesota Humanities Center’s We Are Water MN exhibit is crossing the state, sharing stories of Minnesotans and the water that surrounds them. The goal? To shape a stronger bond between the two. U of ...

EXCERPT: “Ask a traveler where they’d like to visit in Minnesota outside of the big cities. Litchfield, a town of 7,000 west of the Twin Cities, probably isn’t the first place to come to mind. With one-of-a-kind relics and recreational amenities, the community might change that, with a little additional effort. Nearby Willmar and Hutchinson oft overshadow the ...