Opinion
March 25, 2026It’s nearly April! Spring is officially here. We’re all going to pretend there’s no possibility of any surprise snowstorms. April has one of my all-time favorite programs: Ag Trivia Night. This year it will be at 7 p.m. April 9 at Take 16. It’s the same format as regular Trivia Night: bring your team of four to play five categories with 10 questions apiece. However, Ag Trivia Night is all…
March 25, 2026I was on Day 4 of Gramma duty. I had just finished logging my Kentucky granddaughters into their online Zoom class. With swiftness and confidence, I signed them in, adjusted their cameras and renamed them in their participant profiles. Check. Check. And check. All systems were a go. Until. Until, I glanced out the window and noticed a backyard chicken sauntering across the lawn. …
By RIck Peterson, general managerMarch 25, 2026The weather and basketball have dominated conversations at the office, at coffee and just about everywhere else. This column is about a little bit of both. The past week to 10 days has been one for the record book as far as the weather is concerned. On Saturday, March 14 we had single-digit temperatures, high winds and a snowstorm. Seven days later we had 85-degree temperatures, calm winds…
By Nicole RonchettiMarch 18, 2026It’s difficult to describe what it feels like to taste a familiar family recipe. Every person has one, something that their mother or grandmother made that instantly transports them back to their childhood home, even 60 years later. It’s a mixture of comfort, and memory, and nostalgia. This year will be the first time I’ll be spending a major holiday by myself, and as a result I’m going to be…- March 18, 2026When we talk about transparency in government, it’s natural to focus on the halls of Washington, D.C., or the state capitol building in St. Paul. But as your local community newspaper, we at the Star Herald are proud to say we’ve been advocating for government transparency at the most local levels of town, school and county government. This week, March 15-21, is Sunshine Week when newspapers…
- By Larry GreenMarch 18, 2026To the editor: Last week, a Tomahawk “precision missile” that has been attributed to the United States’ military struck an elementary school in Iran, killing 180 students and teachers. I am a parent of two grown boys, and cannot fathom the pain of losing a child in the “safe haven” of their school. Last week Trump was considering sending “boots on the ground”, American foot soldiers, into…
- By Larry GreenMarch 11, 2026To the editor: I didn't think things could get much darker in our domestic and foreign affairs, but once again I underestimated Trump, "our supreme leader," as he apparently wants to be referred to. And, to a bunch of pandering Republicans in the Congress who refused to use their Constitutional mandate to enforce the War Powers clause. They will ultimately suffer at the polls in November for…
- By Alan HarnackMarch 11, 2026Once again, we’ve grabbed our guns, and sent our daughters, and our sons, to a place where wars, are never won; ALL IN THE NAME OF OIL. Venezuela and Iran, are full of oil, so, what do we do, we bomb their soil. The ground below, will begin to boil, ALL IN THE NAME OF OIL. We break up families, we break up friends; the split to our country, may never end. Will it…
By RIck Peterson, general managerMarch 11, 2026It’s been a while, but I am back at the keyboard hunting and pecking out my first column in over a month and a half. Over the last six weeks I have had two emergency room visits, one at Sanford Luverne and two days later at Sanford Sioux Falls. I have been through two surgeries, two different hospital stays, seven weeks of daily IV infusions at the local hospital, countless blood draws and…
By Lori SorensonMarch 11, 2026According to Wikipedia, “knocking on wood” is a superstitious tradition to avoid “tempting fate after making a favorable prediction or boast, or a declaration concerning one’s own death or another unfavorable situation.” I’m here to tell you, dear readers, knocking on wood did nothing to help my fate after I recently declared, “Gosh, I haven’t been sick in years. In fact, I can’t remember the…- March 11, 2026This week, March 8-14, is National Groundwater Awareness Week, a national observation dedicated to the responsible management and use of groundwater. Established in 1999, the special week raises awareness about the critical role groundwater plays in public health, environmental sustainability and the nation’s economy. Groundwater provides drinking water for more than 44 percent of the U.S.…
March 04, 2026- March 04, 2026The Minnesota Department of Management and Budget’s February forecast projects a $3.7 billion surplus at the end of the fiscal year 2026-27 biennium. That’s $1.3 billion higher than November estimates, with a projected $377 million surplus in FY 28-29 amid an ongoing structural imbalance. This is a significant improvement from the last economic forecast. Today’s budget news means that…
By Brenda Winter, columnistMarch 04, 2026My friend said it so casually you might have missed the poetry of it. We were chatting on the phone when she mentioned her husband had ended his attempt at growing out his hair. After going more than a year without a haircut, he came home with a crisp new look. She said, “He looked great!” Then she added, “But he’s handsome no matter what he looks like.” I laughed and thought “That’s not how…
By Nicole RonchettiFebruary 27, 2026I grew up in the woods, surrounded by the birches, spruce and pines of northern Minnesota. For me, being surrounded by trees is a comfort. It feels like home. Some of my fondest memories are of playing under the pines at my family’s ramshackle cabin, and of long walks in the woods with my mother where she would teach my siblings and I the names of the trees and flowers we passed. Everywhere I’…- February 25, 2026This week over 1 million students across the U.S. are celebrating FFA Week, which aims to highlight Future Farmers of America and the importance of both agriculture and student leadership. For a deeply agricultural community like Rock County, it’s important to celebrate with our FFA students and do everything we can to support them on their journeys. Our Feb. 19 Star Herald carried a full-page…
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