As we close out 2024, I wanted to share some of my work from the past year that will stay with me, and I hope you, into 2025. These were fun, exciting pieces I reported on. But more than anything, they were fulfilling.
Working tirelessly to keep the lights on and the news flowing
Working at MinnPost has given me an inside look into what goes into writing stories, connecting with audiences and keeping a newsroom running. But after a series of newspapers shut down in April, I wondered how those responsibilities pan out in rural parts of the state and what pressures smaller news outlets face.
So I went to Mahnomen, where the community had one local weekly paper. One paper with two employees covers everything from government meetings to local small businesses to high school sports. My reporting includes details about newspaper closures across the state and how one community has held on to its paper as a pillar of democracy.
Farmers adding up their losses in southwestern Minnesota after flooding devastates crops
I guess what they say is true: You can’t control the weather. Remember that intense rainfall this summer that led to severe floods in southern Minnesota and eventually led to President Biden declaring a major disaster? Well, it just so happened that I’d need to go through some of that flooding to get to an interview I had for another story. That led me to write about how bad the flood was for the yields of some farmers in Wilmont, and the kinds of support they needed.
I hopped into Jim Joens’ pickup as he drove around showing field after field of damaged crops and township roads that would need to be fixed. My personal highlight from this story was when he showed me some cattle nearby. Those were the muddiest cows I’ve seen to this day.
It’s no contest: In many Minnesota towns, some races in November will feature just one candidate — or none at all.
While we produced several stories explaining the dynamics and importance of certain consequential legislative races leading up to the election, we also wanted to write about what civic engagement was looking like in Greater Minnesota, something that we had heard was a challenge.
What I quickly found after looking through local candidate filings was that many communities had races where a candidate was running uncontested. This story explored why that’s happening and how local communities are responding to the strain it puts on democracy.
An elopement, quarry carving and letters home: records shed light on Pipestone’s Indian boarding school
In this story, I got to experience reporting from a historical perspective. I had heard about the Pipestone Indian Training School, which operated from 1893 to 1953 in the southwestern corner of the state, and I was curious about what the local community knew about it. I found out that people were trying to teach the community the history, so I went to see how that was coming along.
I visited the National Monument that sits near where the Indian Training School once was. I heard stories of what the Pipestone quarries meant to the Yankton Sioux Tribe, read school records and talked with descendants of students at the school to see what the school was like, and in the process learned about the more than 500 other Indian boarding schools in the nation.
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These were just a couple of the stories from this year that I’m proud of on my beat, although I had lots of fun writing some outside of that too, like for this story about defunct LGBTQ+ publications. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this coverage this past year, and I’m excited to bring more in 2025. Happy holidays!
