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Vicar of Healing Waters Lutheran Parish, Lutheran Seminary Student This next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent. This season begins four Sundays before Christmas Day. And in Advent we celebrate the anticipation and coming of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. The word “advent” is from the Latin word adventus which means “coming” or “arrival.”

Jessica Stölen-Jacobson Editor jstolen-jacobson@cherryroad. com Last Tuesday evening, area leaders gathered at the Pioneer PBS station in rural Granite Falls to hear a presentation given by Deb Brown, of Iowa.

A joint artist’s reception was held recently at the KK Berge building in downtown Granite Falls for painter/ drawer Cat Abbott and potter Ron Kahler. Their reception was held on the evening of Friday, November 18th. This is the first gallery showing at KK Berge’s newly renovated space.

Farewell event for Artist in Residence planned The student film “Voices and Views of the River” will be open for two public screenings coming up this month. The first public screening will be held at the Yellow Medicine East auditorium on Tuesday, November 22nd.

Last Friday, a Veterans Day Program was held at the Fagen Fighters World War II Museum. YME Superintendent Rich Schneider gave the welcome, and the guest speaker was Donald M McPherson, World War II Navy Ace, the YME band and choir performed and the Advancement of the Colors was done by Boy Scout Troop #269, American Legion Post 204 (Echo), and Anderson-Bestland Post 127 (Hanley Falls). Taps was performed by Aiden Martin, and student essays were read by Kindal Meyer and Delaney Myers. After the program, a reception line was formed for guests to greet Veterans, and McPherson signed copies of his recently published book for sale in the museum’s gift shop.

Guests at the annual Granite Falls Area Community Foundation Awards banquet were treated to a live viewing of St. Cloud umpire Louis Thomas Williams IV’s back-flips at the beginning of his speech in the Granite Run Golf Course’s clubhouse.

Franz Albert Richter is a renowned local artist who has recently celebrated his 80th birthday. He is also the current artist on exhibit at the Madison Mercantile located in Madison, Minnesota as well as the recent subject of a documentary celebrating his life and art. According to Pioneer PBS, Richter “has long been considered one of the most influential artists and historians of the Upper Minnesota River Valley region. He grew up on a farm south of Clarkfield and after graduating from Clarkfield High school (Class of 1960) he moved to the Twin Cities to pursue further education. There he met and collaborated with the likes of Garrison Keillor, Robert Bly and Architect Dennis Grebner. After a stint as a Freedom Rider in the civil rights movement in the south and a visit to San Francisco for the “Summer of Love” in 1967, Richter returned to his home farm to pursue “a life in art.”