Welcome News

About once a month, we'll ask two booksellers - one independent and one chain - for current best-sellers. The specific booksellers will change every month.

We congratulate pork producers throughout the region for the recent news that China has agreed to again accept American pork imports.

Last year, the Martin County Library was fortunate to receive a "Young Explorer Learning Center" through the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation.

Welcome back.The 2009 - 2010 Anderson Theater Season at Gustavus Adolphus College this year is opening with three one act plays...Earlier this week... I caught up with the director to talk about the plays and what she hopes the audience will take away...Sorry, no caption available.And: if you'd like to catch the plays...They are October 30 and 31 ...

O n the journey to claim a Minnesota homestead, traveling by covered wagon, Wenstrom's Mercantile is the only store you'll see for two days.

Welcome back.We have an indoor smoking ban here in Minnesota...Now there's a new report out on the effectiveness of such bans...Michelle Gielan has that story and more in today's health watch report.A new study might make you skip acetaminophen after getting the flu shot.Research suggests giving babies acetaminophen to prevent fever when they get ...

With more than 6,500 members, more than 110 employees and annual sales figures and infrastructure-improvement values reaching into the tens of millions of dollars, cooperatives are major players in the economy of Jackson County and the lifestyles of the people who call it home.

It was a perfect fall day, and many students from Martin County West were happy to spend the afternoon outside.

Martin County is facing a hefty price tag for a new emergency radio system mandated by the federal government.

On behalf of the Southern Plains Education Cooperative, its board, students, faculty and staff, let me thank two services organizations for their generous donations to students with disabilities.

The downbeat story in Thursday's Star Tribune about the job-slashing bankruptcy of construction equipment manufacturer Schwing America of White Bear Township is another painful reminder that we're in the very early stages of an economic recovery that probably won't lead to job growth until 2010.

Three bad accidents have occurred at the intersection of Highway 263 and County Road 26 in Welcome in 2009, and officials don't know if it is a trend or just a string of bad luck.

We start our new blog today - and say goodbye to The Big Question. Several Star Tribune staffers will be posting into the blog, from both Minnesota and Washington.

A display at the Pioneer Museum in Fairmont shows that the history of musical groups runs deep in the Martin County area.

Dirt-track racing in southeastern Minnesota is no longer our own secret in this part of the country.

A day more than six years in the making came to pass Thursday with a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Valero ethanol plant in Welcome.

I was injured in a car accident in Welcome on Aug. 10, 2009. I was treated by Welcome's First Responders, Gold Cross Ambulance and airlifted to St.

The creed "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night," seems to apply to Granada postal carrier John Larson.

Hazel Bohm, 91, of Butterfield, Minn., died on Monday, Sept. 7, 2009, at Good Samaritan Village in Mountain Lake, Minn.

Another summer break has come and gone. One wonders how time goes by so quickly.