columns

“Reach for the stars,” my parents told me when I was a toddler who got stuck in her turtlenecks. But my parents didn’t just encourage me to reach for the stars when getting dressed. “You can do anything you want,” my mom told me. At the time, I thought she was telling me...

Nature is a cycle of birth and death. It's positive and negative. Creative and destructive. There's a profound kind of collapse and contraction. Just before her 89th birthday, my mother died on May 31. Earlier this month, while facing a burnished sunset, I finally scattered her ashes...

New York Times bestselling novelist Jacqueline West, a River Falls native who lives in Red Wing, Minn., has recently published her first venture into “Young Adult” Fiction. Her previous bestsellers were aimed at a slightly younger audience. I've just finished reading her new effort,...

In February 2015, 75 community members came together to forge a new strategic vision for our district.The result of this day-long process provided a framework for a new five-year district strategic plan. Most notably, the No. 1 strategic priority as identified by the River Falls community...

It’s funny how small the world can get some days. That occurred to me after bombs went off in Brussels. Mind you, I’ve never been to Belgium. Not even close. Yet I couldn’t help but wonder if some guys I encountered a couple years ago might have been victim to the horror. A...