columns

Let us first say goodbye to two professional women who have wonderfully served the arts in the River Falls area for several years. Jera Terreng will not actually leave the River Falls area but she will end her job as events coordinator at the River Falls Public Library.

My final work days in our district are quickly passing, and by the end of June, my "going to school ever since I was five years old" will come to an abrupt end! As every retiree no doubt comes to realize, one's work life passes all too quickly; I can remember my first years as a...

The adage "time flies when you're having fun" rings true for me as I wrap up eight years of reporting in River Falls. A happy kind of job-location change for my husband leads us to Zimmerman, Minn., this week. As much as I try to be a look-forward kind of person, I admit to a quivering...

10 YEARS AGO, MAY 22, 2003 Glen Park pool was set to open Memorial Day weekend, announced Parks and Rec Director Cindy Danke. She said a new liner is in and all ready to go and a brand new slide has been installed.

As the director of finance and facilities at the School District of River Falls, I wanted to take some time to share facts and insights into the benefits of maintaining an appropriate fund balance. What is a fund balance? According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction...

University of Iowa Press has just re-issued a book of poetry by Philip Levine, winner both the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the National Book Award, and who served for a year as United States Poet Laureate. The book is "Sweet Will," published by Prairie Lights after being out of...

The Atlantic Monthly is now 156 years old and still hanging in there. Little wonder. It's still a fine magazine and usually comes up with enough fun stuff to keep a shallow thrill seeker like me amused. In the last issue the editors asked a bunch of famous people "What day most...

20 YEARS AGO, MAY 6, 1993 River Falls Hospital's Sharon Whalen and Cheryl Passe were named chairs of the annual River Falls Days celebration.

Call me a fuddy-duddy, but I'm concerned about all the tweeting and blogging and electronic means of communication that goes on these days. It's dangerous because everyone seems to be doing it while driving high-powered automobiles, but that's not my worry. I wonder about what will...

Serendipity -- The making of pleasant discoveries by accident. --Oxford Dictionary I ran into serendipity the other morning after listening on TV to politicians and media pundits shouting and screaming and arguing about immigration policy. Should we build a wall?

As I wrote about last month, spring break this year found me flying United Airlines for 14 hours to Shanghai, China, as a member of a week-long delegation from UW-River Falls. Except for catching a flu bug on the plane headed to China that resulted in my confinement in a Shanghai...

Forty-seven years ago today, British author Evelyn Waugh died at his home in Combe Florey, Somerset. The photographer Cecil Beaton surmised that Waugh "died of snobbery." There's little doubt that Beaton knew what he was talking about. And why: "His abiding complex and the source...

Three American presidents lead off this week's roster of books: Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. You could fill libraries with what has already been written by these guys, but leave it to the scholars -- they can always find a niche that's unfilled. Such is...

I'm way behind in my coverage of the Scandinavian thriller surge in world publishing, not having even read a Stieg Larsson thriller, so I'll try to make it up by reviewing a finely wrought thriller by first-time Swedish author Alexander Soderberg. It's "The Andalucian Friend," (Crown,...