Briefs

The Good News 2008
Top of the list, of course is the retirement of Bush/Cheney. But there was much in the news to warm hearts, both in Minnesota and around the world.

The Nation's Most Honorable Politician. Todd Erskine was running for mayor of Hudson, Wis., and decided to study the positions and qualifications of his opponent when he came to the following conclusion: "I think he's more qualified for the job," Erskine said of his opponent, "so I'm publicly supporting him."

Minnesota's Most Honorable Politician. Wyoming's mayor, Sheldon Anderson, promised that he would keep the Forest Lake Area Teen Center open when funding became a problem. To raise the $35,000 needed, Mayor Anderson built a tent on the roof of city hall and promised not to come down from it until the money was raised. After almost two weeks in the cold he descended, cold, tired, dirty and a man who kept his promise.

A First for Women. For the first time in American history, a woman-Lt. Gen. Ann Dunwoody-was chosen for promotion to four-star general.

Teenage Philanthropists. Four St. Paul Johnson High School students who say they have experienced poverty themselves-Pan Lor, Jayvin Miller-Murphy, Sampos Mhul and Arthur Nguyen-spent their summer working to raise more than $20,000 for the food shelves at Catholic Charities.

A Resurgence of Man's Closest Relatives. Last year the western lowland gorilla, the world's largest primate, was listed as a critically endangered species by international wildlife organizations because its populations had been devastated by hunting and outbreaks of Ebola virus. But in a rare fairy-tale ending, a grueling survey of vast tracts of forest and swamp in the Northern Congo Republic has revealed the presence of more than 125,000 western lowland gorillas, a rare example of abundance in a world of rapidly vanishing primate populations.

Visionary in Virginia, Minn. Iraq vet Noah Charles Pierce left the military for his
hometown of Virginia, crippled with post-traumatic stress disorder, and not long after committed suicide. In his honor, the AMVETS Post 33 in Virginia named its group after him. "As far as I'm concerned," says post commander Shawn Carr, "Noah died of injuries received in combat."

A Hispanic De Tocqueville. Louis Mendoza is the chairman of the University of Minnesota's Chicano Studies program. Mendoza, though, is not the type to discover knowledge only from books. So to study the "Latinoization" of America and the impact of Hispanic immigration on the country, Mendoza rode his bike on an almost 12,000-mile journey around the perimeter of the U.S., investigating the influence of Hispanics in America.

A Drop in Abortions. The number of abortions in the U.S. dropped to its lowest level since 1976, continuing a fall of 9 percent between 2000 and 2005. In Minnesota the number of abortions dropped 1.5 percent.

47. Now His Lucky Number. Window washer Alcides Moreno fell 47 stories, after the platform on which he was working dropped and fell into a New York City alley. Moreno not only lived, he was able to leave the hospital after six weeks.

Love After 60 Years. Rita Miskimen and Vernon Braun first met in 1940, at a 4-H event in Doyle, Minn. She was 18 and he was 22. They immediately began a courtship that was interrupted by World War II. Their lives took different paths until last year when they met again and rekindled the courtship. Last February Miskimen, now 85, and Braun, 89, were married in a ceremony at St. Rose of Lima Church in Roseville.

Things You Find in the Garbage. Elizabeth Gibson was walking by her home in New York City when she spotted a large abstract painting between two trash bags. She liked the painting and took it home. It was only after several years that she discovered the painting was a 1970 piece by Rufino Tamayo that had been stolen 20 years earlier. The piece ended up at Sotheby's, where it sold for just over a million dollars.

And last year a retired school teacher named Peggy Dunievitz discovered that the piles of rolled-up drawings that had sat for years atop her refrigerator, where her cat usually slept, were unknown works by Martin Ramirez, a major self-taught artist, and worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The Castle. James Westin, with help from members of the U of M's Habitat for Humanity chapter, built a three-story snow castle in the backyard of his Edina home to raise money for Habitat work.

Born When Grover Cleveland Was President. Catherine Hagel, at 113 years old, is the longest-lived resident of Minnesota, the fourth-oldest person in America and the seventh-oldest in the world. And who held the Minnesota record before her? Her sister-in-law Delvina Dahlheimer, who died at 113 and 72 days in 2002.

Brazil Gets Tough on Rainforest Destroyers. In an unprecedented move against rogue cattle ranchers in the Amazon, the Brazilian government has begun seizing livestock grazing there illegally, a warning to ranchers grazing an estimated 60,000 head on illegally deforested land.

The Supreme Court Upbraids Cheney/Bush. "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times," wrote Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority upholding the right of Guantánamo Bay prisoners to challenge their detention in U.S. federal courts.

Walking in Jesus' Path. The murder of 20-year-old Joseph Sodd III was a brutal one. Sodd was killed in what was likely a robbery and left for dead on a Minneapolis street, stabbed once in the throat. His father, Joseph Sodd Jr., reacted in hurt, but not revenge. "I'm all about forgiveness at this point," Joe Sodd said the day after the attack. "I can't be angry. Do you think my son would want that?"

Walking the Buddha's Path. Rimpo Lama, of Bloomington, wanted to call attention to the conflicts between the Tibetans and the Chinese government, and he wanted to highlight the disappearance of the second-highest religious figure in Tibetan Buddhism, the Panchen Lama, who disappeared at age 6 after China rejected the Dalai Lama's selection of the boy for that post. So Rimpo went on a prostration-prayer pilgrimage from the state Capitol to Minneapolis City Hall. Rimpo made his way taking one step, putting his hands in prayer above his head, then under his chin, then prostration on the ground. Then a step and repeating the process.

Beating Cancer. The Minnesota Masonic Charities gave $65 million to expand the U of M's biological and clinical research at the U's cancer center, allowing it to pursue exciting but unproven approaches to cancer care.

A Hero's Hero. Matthew Miller, a 22-year-old student at Bethel University, was chosen by recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor as a winner of their Above and Beyond Citizen Honor, for his work in rescuing injured workers at last year's I-35 bridge collapse.

Loony Tunes. Iva Weir was no rich lady. She was an elementary school teacher all her life but, growing up in Bemidji, she loved the loons. When she died at age 85, almost all of the $2 million she had saved was left for the preservation of the Minnesota loon.

Husky Pride. Vera Russell earned her bachelor's degree from St. Cloud State University in 1940 and two years later was making $1,450 a year as a teacher. Although she never made more than $27,064 a year during her next 35 years as a teacher and principal, Russell, who died in May at age 92, left to the university a retirement account and farmland that, in combination with her previous land donation and other gifts, amount to more than $1.2 million.  L&P

 

Minnesota Tops the Charts

The Twin Cities took the top spot among the 50 major U.S. cities for the number of adults who volunteer in their community, as evaluated by the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Minneapolis and St. Paul combined ranked as the seventh "smartest" city of the top 100 metropolitan cities in the U.S. according to Bizjournals.com.

Glenn Morehouse Olson, the journalism adviser at St. Francis High School, was named for the Annual Rising Star award given by the Journalism Education Association for her work in fighting for a free press-and thereby putting her job in danger-when the St. Francis school's administration tried to bar a photograph from the student newspaper.

Chris Chike, 16, of Rochester, is the Guinness World Record holder for the highest score for a song on the video game Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.

St. Paul police officer Robert Edwards and Rico, his K-9 partner, were named the team of the year by Police K-9 magazine, for their work capturing a drug dealer. Rico was shot in the capture, but recovered.

Minneapolis has supplanted Seattle as the most literate city in America, according to a Central Connecticut State University study.

For the fourth year in a row, Brian Zachau of Maple Grove was named the best bartender in the U.S. at the TGI Friday's World Bartender Championships.

Mariska, a 20-year-old Sumatran orangutan, was named Mother of the Year by Como Park Zoo.

U.S. News & World Report ranked Eden Prairie as the third-best place in the U.S. to retire.

 

Flipping for It
Larkin Hoffman Turns 50

The lawyers at Larkin Hoffman no longer leave important matters to chance. "We don't make decisions by flipping coins anymore," says Peter Coyle, who joined the firm in 1984 and has been its president for two years. "Now that we have shareholders and business models, that sort of eliminates the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants nature." The infamous decision that was made by tossing a coin came in 1958, when founders Bob Hoffman and Jim Larkin let Lady Luck decide whose name would be listed first on the sign.

As Larkin Hoffman celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, Coyle and of counsel Kenneth Lindgren reminisce about the firm's pioneering spirit. "There weren't any copy machines back then that were worth a darn," says Lindgren. "We used carbon onion paper in the typewriters." The firm's secretaries eventually persuaded their bosses to buy new programmable IBM typewriters, resulting in significantly quicker document turnaround times, which helped the firm develop a larger clientele.

It was also the first firm in the nation, Coyle guesses, to produce a promotional brochure. "The firm got an ethics citation from the American Bar Association in the late '70s for doing some proactive marketing," he says. "This was pre-free speech communications rights." The citation was eventually dismissed. "Now if you're not in the Yellow Pages it really shows you're out of touch," he says.

The same may also be said if you don't have a Web page. "Ten years ago we didn't know what a Web was," says Coyle. "Now it's our primary way of communication. We're working on moving away from paper altogether. We do a lot of innovative things. It's something we pride ourselves on," adds Lindgren.

The firm threw a party on October 2 and is planning another on December 5 in honor of the event. "We're still celebrating!" Coyle says.

—Courtney Mault

 

Mea Culpas

• In a piece about Rep. Keith Ellison our writer said, "When Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten didn't drag his religion (Muslim) into things, she got on his wife, Kim Ellison, about parking tickets." This reference to Kersten-untrue accusations, it turns out-somehow passed by all our edit staff, which should have immediately suspected it on first reading. For the record, Ms. Kersten did not "drag" Ellison's religion through her pieces, nor did she bring in his wife's parking tickets.
• Our friends at Leonard, Street and Deinard wrote to let us know that Lowell Noteboom, in whose honor the firm commissioned an original concerto, has not retired and is still busy cranking away in construction law. Our bad.
• Judge Allen Oleisky's wife, Marcia, called to let us know that we shortened her husband's judiciary career from 36 years to 26 years in our piece about him in our October/November issue. Sorry for short-changing you, Judge.