Dream of owning a vintage aircraft or pocketing $35,000? Then mark your calendar for Saturday, Sept. 9. Wings of the North, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) founded in 1998, will host its fourth annual pancake breakfast sweepstakes at Flying Cloud Airport in Eden Prairie. The grand prize is a meticulously refurbished 1948 Beechcraft Bonanza 35, known as “BB8,” or the $35,000. Ticket entries for the sweepstakes, priced at $50 each or three for $120, will be accepted until 5 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 7. All proceeds go toward reopening the group’s popular Minnesota-themed aviation museum at Flying Cloud Airport. Bob Japserson, a spokesperson…
Author: Mike Wilkinson
Nursing facilities across Minnesota are expressing concerns about the financial solvency of their businesses. The increased costs they have incurred due to inflation and COVID-19 mitigation and prevention, combined with the direct-care workforce shortage, have left many struggling to keep their doors open. Now, help has arrived in the form of $300 million approved during the last session of the Minnesota Legislature. Flagstone senior living community in Eden Prairie is included in the funding program. It received $257,094 on Aug. 1 and will receive an equal amount on Aug. 1, 2024. In response to the financial distress of nursing facilities…
July was earmarked as crack-down-on speeding month in Minnesota. If you were looking for a celebrity symbol of recklessness, the Minnesota Vikings’ Jordan Addison would be a prime candidate. The rookie wide receiver, who hails from USC and hasn’t played a regular-season down for the Vikings, was cited for driving 140 mph at 3 a.m. on July 12 in downtown St. Paul. He was behind the wheel of his new Lamborghini Urus, likely purchased with a portion of his early summer signing bonus. The Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s Office of Traffic Safety announced in July that state and local…
Idaho Stop. No, that’s not the name of the new North American Professional Lacrosse League entry. It’s a generic term related to a law that allows people on bicycles not to come to full stops at stop signs. It gets its name going way back to the early 1980s when the state of Idaho established the first law in the U.S. granting cyclists the right to “coast” through stop signs. Since then, many states have passed similar legislation. Minnesota is the latest when the 2023 state Legislature approved Minnesota’s version of the Idaho stop. It went into effect on Aug.…
When it comes to ways a driver can be distracted and pose a possible danger to themselves or others, cell phone distraction is the one that immediately comes to mind. But there are others: adjusting the dials on your car radio, trying to restore order in the backseat with unruly kids, lack of sleep, and gazing out at the passing landscape. Regardless of the cause, the results can be tragic. Vijay Dixit knows this all too well. In 2007, his then 19-year-old daughter Shreya, a dean’s list student at the University of Wisconsin, was a front seat passenger in a…
The recently-concluded annual session of the Minnesota Legislature will be known as having passed a plethora of new, far-reaching legislation. This included a $1.87 billion bonding bill, the largest in history. It is important to keep the “largest in history” in perspective. There was no bonding bill passed in the previous session, so as House Speaker Melissa Hortman said, “This is three years wrapped into one.” This year’s version was targeted toward the University of Minnesota and other public schools, first responders, veteran homes, transportation, economic development, and water treatment facilities, among other areas. What did Eden Prairie realize in…
Remember those masks you had during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic? Do you still have plenty of them? Perhaps they’re tucked away in a kitchen drawer or between your car seats. If you’ve been considering discarding those masks, think again. Not only could the COVID-19 virus or a future virus emerge, but you might also need them to protect yourself from the smoke during forest fires. The Canadian forest fires have been raging for two months, and there are no signs on the horizon indicating a significant improvement in the situation anytime soon. As of late June, more than…
In case you haven’t noticed, the region is currently experiencing a drought, which is being touted as possibly the most severe since the 1980s. Until June 21, the Twin Cities had received only three-fourths of an inch of rain since May 10. “We expect to have generally the same situation through the summer,” said Joe Calderone, senior forecaster at the National Weather Service in Chanhassen. “However, there are some early indications that in the next 30 days, the Twin Cities could see a slightly above normal amount of rainfall.” In Eden Prairie, city officials are watching the situation closely, but…
Melissa Wilsford’s three young children were getting ready to be out of the house during weekdays, and her husband, James, was a science teacher at Eden Prairie High School. Wilsford decided to launch a career in something she had always loved: gardening and landscape design. She registered the business with the State of Minnesota in 2018 and then kicked things off in 2019. Four years later, Rustic Hills has grown 16-fold. “Our niche is a combination of sustainability and creating productive, edible landscapes for people to enjoy,” she said. “We also specialize in native flowers, grasses, shrubs and trees for…
New firearms regulations in Minnesota are now in effect after passage in the state Legislature during the recently concluded 2023 session, signed by Gov. Tim Walz. Pretty much along party lines, the majority Democrats in the House, and particularly in the Senate, were able to craft two important pieces of legislation. The first is the so-called “red flag” passage, in which a judge can take away firearms possession from individuals who are deemed to be a danger to themselves and/or others. This includes persons diagnosed with mental illness, persons with a record of repeated violence, or those with a record…