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“Where Fillmore County News Comes First” Weekly Edition
Teams Grab Hardware
Priority - the health of our country page
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Monday, June 4, 2018
Rushford considers last minute option page
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Volume 33 Issue 37
Interpretation of ordinance creates snag over precedence page
Drag racing stalls in Spring Valley
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Canton • Chatfield • Fountain • Harmony • Houston • Lanesboro • Mabel • Ostrander • Peterson • Preston • Rushford • Rushford Village • Spring Valley • Whalan • Wykoff
A step closer to the dream
Formed in the Driftless: Flowstone Fishing catches momentum By K irsten Zoellner kirsten@fillmorecountyjournal.com
On May 31, 2018, Rep. Greg Davids spoke to a crowd at the site of a future veterans home in Preston. The day before, its funding was included in the 2018 Minnesota bonding bill. Photo by Taylor Case By K aren R eisner karen@fillmorecountyjournal.com
cials have trekked to St. Paul as well as Washington, DC to garner support. Rep. Greg Davids and Senator Jeremy Miller have supported the quest in the legislature along with other legislators. Minnesota has a federal designation allowing for a total of 1,058 beds, which means there are 234 new beds possible. The Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs will submit an application to get the Preston site into the federal queue. Demand for federal grant funding exceeds available funds. There is a rolling priority list. EDA director Cathy Enerson credits Rep. Greg Davids for his good instincts to get the effort started for a veterSee VETERANS HOME Page 2
See FLOWSTONE Page 8
New dog grooming business opens in Preston By H annah Wingert hannah@fillmorecountyjournal.com
“It’s not what I do, it’s who I am,” Lanesboro resident Kristy Richards said about her work grooming and caring for dogs. Richards recently opened a new dog grooming business in Preston on Main Street called TheDogLdy. She began by offering Toenail Tuesdays where owners can bring their dogs in for a free toenail trim and has now expanded to accepting bookings for full grooming. Richard’s love of dog grooming started in the mid 1980s when she replied to an ad for a veterinarian tech with no experience. She was hired, but was
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trained for grooming instead. Since then, she has consistently worked in the dog grooming field. She did a stint at a big-box retailer for three years, but other than that, has worked out of her home. When her kids were young it allowed her to work while still taking care of them. “I was able to put my son in a playpen when he was little while I groomed dogs,” she remembered. Over the last few years, Richards had been taking a break as the house she lives in with her husband Doug, is too small to accommodate dog grooming, but she was itching to get back See DOG GROOMING Page 12
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Veterans, local officials, and community members gathered at the entrance of a soybean field on a sunny May 31 morning to celebrate the inclusion of veterans home funding in the 2018 Minnesota bonding bill. Preston Mayor Kurt Reicks welcomed everyone to the future site of the veterans home, calling it a great day for veterans in southeast Minnesota. Since 2013 there has been an effort to have a veterans home constructed in Fillmore County. On May 20 as the midnight hour approached, signaling the end of the 2018 legislative session an $825 million public works construction bill was
passed (42 to 25 in the Senate and 113 to 13 in the House). Among the projects slated to receive funding was the effort for three new veterans homes in Minnesota. Thirty-two million dollars was included in the bonding bill for homes in Preston, Bemidji, and Montevideo (Preston $10.2 million). Governor Mark Dayton signed the bill into law on May 30. Five years of Veterans Home Committee meetings in Preston and Spring Valley preceded a decision by the county board in early April to support the Preston location for a 72 bed veterans home in Fillmore County. To get to this point in the process local American Legions, VFW posts and communities have telegraphed their support for a veterans home. Local offi-
While underway for more than a year, Flowstone Fishing in Chatfield officially opened its online business this past April. Named for the area’s flowing, cool waters, which create subterranean mineral sheets, or flowstones, owner Bret Klaehn is hoping to combine his enthusiasm for fishing with a niche for quality, handmade lures and personalized, local service. “I have been sort of obsessed with fishing and everything related to it ever since I can remember,” says Klaehn. “I have also always been curious and like to create things and mess around with things to change them or
make them better. I think building lures is the nexus of these two things.” Klaehn was a Grand Meadow transplant in junior high, the son of former school Superintendent Bruce Klaehn. When they moved to the area, the younger Klaehn quickly discovered the convenience of the area’s abundant trout streams. “I used bait and spinners to catch them at first and then eventually transitioned to fly fishing,” he adds. Years later, after going off to school, earning his own teaching degree, and settling in Chatfield, Klaehn learned to tie his own flies. By that point, he was married with two young sons. Sharing his hobby with his