Fluctuating temperatures on a  windy Thursday, Jan. 13, led to snow on roads that became compacted and turned icy toward nightfall. A Yellow Medicine School bus was involved in an accident with a red Chevy Lumina driven by Shannon Marie Koehl traveling along Highway 67 toward Clarkfield.

  Another local family is without their home this new year. A second story fire at the residence of Jerry and Jessica Zwart, located at the corner of 9th Avenue and 6th Street across the street from the Yellow Medicine East football field, destroyed much of their house in the early morning hours of Friday.

The Granite Falls Fire Department was called to a fire at the home of Kim and Chuck Savig in Wang Township northeast of Granite Falls on Monday evening shortly after 8:00 p.m.
The fire, which caused extensive damage to the house is still under investigation, but is believed to have originated in the garage. No one was injured, although the Savigs were said to have lost family pets.

This past year, the legislature considered cutting the state courts funding by seven percent before thanking better of it when it came to finalize the budget. However, the idea of the reduction illustrates the state’s desire to find cost savings, which may have a major impact on Yellow Medicine and the associated 13 Eighth Judicial District counties as one potential cost saving involves a reduction in judges.

“He’s one of the best judges in the state that I have ever appeared in front of ... Its his intellect, how he treats and deals with people, his patience, his compassion, how he’s courteous and kind to people,”
“Through the last 20 plus years, our analysis of issue not always on same page but I’ve never felt cheated or abused or that my clients have been treated unfairly.”

Weary that an individual who had given testimony in court might recognize his own case, Christopherson was hesitant to recall some of the most important matters  on which he provided judgment. However, he was willing to discuss motivating factors behind his decisions.
“The only outcome a judge should achieve going into a case is a fair outcome,” he said. “Most judges, if they can be called fair, would place competence second... They’d rather be fair than right. We’re all wrong. We should always be fair.”

His reverence for the legal system and inclination toward the positive make it no surprise that Judge Bruce Christopherson will welcome the state law that mandates he retire from his judgeship at age 70.
For his peers, welcoming the end  of the judge’s tenure is a bit tougher.
 

Allen Chancey Olson, a 59-year-old paraplegic who was convicted of assault following an incident where he leveled a cocked and loaded pistol at a township supervisor was sentenced by District Judge Bruce Christopherson to serve a minimum of 14 months in prison last Wednseday, Dec. 26.

Ardis Mahon and her daughter Teresa received a rude awakening when a twelve-year-old girl driving in an oldsmobile smashed through the front porch of their home just before 2:00 a.m., Monday morning.
 

It’s strange to walk into the usually bright and bustling  Family Foods store in Clarkfield since an electrical fire quieted and stilled its now darkened placid aisles.

With the store now closed, owner Corey Field and only a couple of employees are on hand at the store.

It has been closed and relatively quiet since almost 6:00 p.m. the evening of October 27  and has been dark since brownouts rolled through the city of Clarkfield starting around 5:00 p.m. that day.

Once power was restored, heat began to build in the breaker box of Family Foods, frying the wiring throughout the building and causing smoke to rise and settle among boxed-goods and produce.

 Curtis David Quale, 68, Granite Falls, plead guilty to first degree attempted murder while committing a pattern of domestic abuse, during a hearing at the Chipppewa County Courthouse on Wednesday.

A tearful Quale told the Judge Paul A. Nelson that he stabbed his housemate, Michelle Young, 47, and then failed to kill himself before he informed police of his crime hours after he had committed the act.

In Dakota “Akicita’ refers to the men who defend their tribe and family as a warrior, provider and protector. 
To be associated with such a term is admittedly an honor for Lisa Marie ‘Sherman’ Smith. She confesses a profound respect for the culture, but she is not a man, nor Dakota, and so such an application is rare. Of course, Smith is no typical woman, which was why she has been asked to represent not only her own nation, but that of Upper Sioux’s, upon her deployment into the war-torn country of Afghanistan come this November.

Curtis David Quale, 68, Granite Falls, entered no plea during Wednesday's settlement conference  presided over by Judge Paul A. Nelson at the Yellow Medicine County Courthouse. An additional settlement conference has been scheduled for November 2 at the Chippewa County Courthouse.