January 2023

150th anniversary of historic, deadly blizzard this week Just in time for the 150th anniversary of the Great Blizzard of 1873, former Kandiyohi County resident Carolyn Mankell Sowinski has published a book titled “The Great Storm: Minnesota’s Victims in the Blizzard of January 7, 1873.” Sowinski became interested in the idea of writing the book when doing research on her own genealogy, and discovering that her great-great grandfather had been caught in the blizzard. He survived, but in her research, Sowinski discovered that in Kandiyohi County alone, twelve people had died as a result of the storm.

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Patricia Lubeck is a local author who has just released her new book, Asylum Scandals. This book is about two of Minnesota’s two oldest state hospitals. One in St. Pete (that opened in 1866) and one in Rochester (that opened in 1879). Her latest book tells the harrowing tales of patients who were locked away in the asylums.

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HUTCHINSON, Minn.—Southwest Initiative Foundation’s (SWIF) Microenterprise Loan Program, in partnership with the redstar marketing un/academy, recently received recognition for their work helping small businesses in rural Minnesota overcome adversity. In November, The Mid-America Economic Development Council presented its annual Economic Development awards at the 2021 Mid-America Competitiveness Conference in Chicago. This awards competition recognizes and stimulates the creative use of quality marketing and programs by economic development organizations throughout the council’s 13-state region.