The season of lights.
What better time to recognize the people who lit the Land of 10,000 stories in 2018 as brightly as Jerry Lageson’s I-35 oak tree: https://kare11.tv/2R2KRgN
THE GOOD SOULS:
Stacey Achterhoff - as Mrs. Delicious - gives Dulutians the privilege of treating strangers to pay-it-forward ice cream: https://kare11.tv/2D86Mkd
Lucy Elliot, a retired educator, converted an old South Minneapolis auto repair shop into play space for neighborhood kids: https://kare11.tv/2KO7UYz
Mark Coen, a former Catholic priest working out of a former Lutheran church in Hibbing, is on a new mission to make caskets affordable: https://kare11.tv/2znAxeS
Bob Knutson collected 17,000 old record albums in a Red Wing storefront, he now shares - via monthly deliveries - with seniors: https://kare11.tv/2ISINV5
Dennis Frandsen offered free technical college to the entire Rush City High School senior class: https://kare11.tv/2ji89Qw
Jack Carlson fixed up bikes for children with disabilities. Then, a viewer touched by his story fixed Jack's teeth: http://kare11.tv/2GMyP5J
Paul Schulz provided free ice time for hundreds of children in the farm shed his family still converts each winter to a hockey arena, 13 years after Paul's untimely death: http://kare11.tv/2EWnQa1
KIDS WHO SHINED BRIGHTLY:
Franklin Middle School students reminded Super Bowl visitors to pack their “coats, hats and gloves.” http://kare11.tv/2DKPLYU
Ruby Minder, a shy 10-year-old from Monticello, asked for, and got, her Land of 10,000 Stories singing debut: http://kare11.tv/2FNg1af
Seventeen-year-old Ryley Pollock learned CPR and saved a life: https://kare11.tv/2pYaIKr
Eight-year-old Cameron Mack learned concertina and is helping save a New Ulm tradition: https://kare11.tv/2ELVzRT
Fourteen-year-old Sydney Dutton hands out hundreds of flags each year to honor her police officer father, who died on flag day: https://kare11.tv/2Mys4rC
The daily hugs with which Birchwood, Wisconsin’s kindergartners greet each other inspired a viral video: https://kare11.tv/2Bd5C2H
Stillwater High School students Trey Kruse and Adam Potter first taught their classmates – then the world - friendship knows no bounds. In 2018, their story was viewed more than 14 million times: https://kare11.tv/2CQVGyd
CRITTERS:
Monarch butterflies have a true friend in Kay Hamilton. The Eagan woman has been “mom” to thousands of them: https://kare11.tv/2LWu1N2
Cassie, a yellow lab from Sartell, hasn't taken a walk without her stick in eleven years: http://kare11.tv/2mcBrBO
George, a gopher tortoise, became the pet of 10-year-old Jeanna Smith. Fifty-six years later, Jeanna and George are still best friends: http://kare11.tv/2Imz1u2
OUR DELIGHTFUL QUIRKINESS:
Jim Spinler, a former garbage hauler from Medford, has spent three decades amassing a collection of more than three-million pop tabs: https://kare11.tv/2M2vVjr
RJ Smith has collected 70,000 golf balls he stores floor to ceiling in a Rochester garage: https://kare11.tv/2lteZng
Whalen hosts Minnesota’s only Stand Still Parade. On the two-block Main Street of the Fillmore County community, the parade stands still, while spectators walk around it: https://kare11.tv/2LzYr93
Ely hosts the nation’s only canoe marathon. Participants run 26.2 miles while portaging canoes. Some of them actually finish: https://kare11.tv/2zLnuSC
HISTORY HONORED:
2018 marked the 100th anniversary of the Cloquet-Moose Lake fire, the deadliest natural disaster in Minnesota history. More than 450 people lost their lives, including 14 members of the Soderburg family, asphyxiated in a root cellar where they had sought shelter: https://kare11.tv/2pOvgp4
John Donaldson lost to racism a major league career. Pete Gordon works every day to make sure Donaldson isn’t also lost to history: https://kare11.tv/2D2A6aL
HONORING OUR VETERANS:
Ray “Bubba” Sorenson has painted more than 70 “Freedom Rocks” across Iowa. In 2018, he brought his first to Minnesota: https://kare11.tv/2LXMidD
Bordered by an international airport, an interstate highway, and a light rail line, Fort Snelling National Cemetery offers a respite to 228,000 souls and the families who visit them: https://kare11.tv/2KYkV3d
The sisters of Skip Schmidt – a casualty of the Vietnam War - welcomed to Minnesota, the son, neither they, nor Skip, knew he had: https://kare11.tv/2GAV0Lx
STRENGTH THROUGH DIFFICULT TIMES:
After three generations, The Huppert Dairy Farm in River Falls, Wisconsin, was among hundreds forced out of business by consolidation and a collapse in milk prices: https://kare11.tv/2rqavAl
St. Paul Park Firefighter Jeremy Bourasa and his wife Krista had their fire station wedding interrupted when Jeremy left to fight a fire: https://kare11.tv/2O1ffKj
Gene Ertel and Janet Skillingstad broke off their engagement as teenagers. Sixty-four years later, 81-year-old Gene, newly diagnosed with cancer, found 82-year-old Janet, and they married: https://kare11.tv/2zXuwTo
Twenty-two years ago, Danny Givens shot, and nearly killed, lawman Art Blakey. Blakey not only forgave his shooter, he befriended and mentored him: https://kare11.tv/2wm1kUR
Bob Husby purchased an ’85 VW Cabriolet convertible, into which he lifts his wife Kathy, who has Multiple Sclerosis, for summer rides: https://kare11.tv/2JoPu4d
Forty-six years after her young son was hit and killed by a car, Maggie Kron found healing through an adopt-a-highway sign: https://kare11.tv/2yYOrBE
At 72, Denice Juneski and Linda Jourdeans learned they were accidentally switched at birth at the St. Paul hospital where they were born 31 minutes apart – leading Linda and Denice to an unlikely friendship: https://kare11.tv/2Jt0zSz
Land of 10,000 Stories will resume with a new segment on Sunday, January 6 at 10 pm, and continue on Sunday nights thereafter. Thanks to everyone the past year who's kept the Land of 10,000 stories shining bright!
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