Month: September 2016

Housing is Available in Big Stone County, Minnesota! – Check out Ortonville!

Housing is Available in Big Stone County, Minnesota! – Check out Ortonville!

Great housing opportunities in Big Stone County!   The City of Ortonville via Ortonville Area Health Services has expanded their senior housing campus (located on a beautiful 18-hole golf course) which has opened up a number of single-family homes over the past few months adding to our 

What do our local artists do?

What do our local artists do?

First, this is certainly not an all inclusive list that covers everything that those within our arts’ community do! I’m starting with one project that was recently featured on 1350 KDIO‘s Morning Show with Julie & Adam.  The Cari Me Project (click here for more info). 

The Business First Stop Team Tours the Graceville Grain Terminal

The Business First Stop Team Tours the Graceville Grain Terminal

State agency leaders visit 11 communities (one was Graceville in Big Stone County!) to highlight investments in water, energy, agriculture innovation in Greater Minnesota.

Among the goals of the trip is to increase awareness of Minnesota Business First Stop, which Gov. Mark Dayton created in 2012 to help businesses cut through red tape when working with state agencies.  Minnesota Business First Stop streamlines the process for financing, licensing, permitting, technical assistance and other resources that state agencies provide to businesses.

Commissioner Hardy will be joined on the trip by leaders from the following state agencies:

Andrea Vaubel, assistant commissioner, Department of Agriculture
John Linc Stine, commissioner, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
Tom Landwehr, commissioner, Department of Natural Resources
Mark Phillips, commissioner, Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board
Charlie Zelle, commissioner, Department of Transportation
Cynthia Bauerly, commissioner, Department of Revenue
Ken Peterson, commissioner, Department of Labor and Industry
Mike Rothman, commissioner, Department of Commerce

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Vaughn Maudal & Phil Deal providing tour
Vaughn Maudal & Phil Deal providing tour

Graceville, Wheaton-Dumont Co-op Elevator’s Graceville Grain Terminal – provided the Commissioners a tour of this newer unit train loading facility.  The tour was provided by Co-op Board President Vaughn Maudal and General Manager Phil Deal.

graceville-grain-terminal-13

Very interesting presentation – a few highlights:

This is a locally-owned and operated agricultural cooperative that serves more than 1,200 patrons and operates facilities in 14 communities in over 7 counties and three states (Minnesota, South & North Dakota).  In Minnesota, they operate 7 grain facilities and 2 agronomy centers.  The communities are Ortonville, Clinton, and Graceville in Big Stone County; and Dumont and Wheaton in Traverse County; and Tenney and Campbell in Wilkin County.

Graceville opened about 3 years ago.  Deal noted that this is their flagship property in Minnesota.  Cost a little more than $28 million dollars to build.  Here they receive grain by truck from area farmers and then load shuttle trains which are usually about 115 cars long totally more than 450,000 bushels each!  They load the trains using a loop-track model where the entire train is stored on their property and moved around a loop almost continuously while it is loaded (they can load a train in about 6 hours!)

Some economic highlights:
  • Average sales of $350 million (very dependent on the price of grain)
  • About 85% of their sales come from grain & about 15% from agronomy
  • Service revenues average $8 million per year
  • $2 million per month expenses
  • 120 employees with almost all positions full time!
  • Payroll averages $8.5 million per year (includes payroll taxes, & employee benefits)
  • 420,000 in real-estate property taxes per year
  • Pay between a $0.5 million and $1.5 million a year in income taxes

Their grain goes all over the world with soybeans mainly to China and corn mainly going to Korea or Japan.

graceville-grain-terminal-21
Co-op Board President Vaughn Maudal and General Manager Phil Deal

 

 

 

 

Support Needed to Recognize Capt. E. Royce Williams, Retired

Support Needed to Recognize Capt. E. Royce Williams, Retired

Included below are two links  to articles written by Lois Torgerson and published in the Northern Star (we have received authorization to use the articles on this post) 100,000 Signatures are needed – seeking recognition for Clinton native Captain E. Royce Williams, Retired, who served in 

New Lodging Opening Soon on Big Stone Lake

New Lodging Opening Soon on Big Stone Lake

While WCCO was in the area, a drive out to the “Foster Lodge”  or as other know it as “Mallard Point” area boat access to see Tanner Arndt push off for the fishing segment of Goin’ To The Lake, I was also able to tour 

WCCO – Goin’ to the Lake Series in Ortonville

WCCO – Goin’ to the Lake Series in Ortonville

WCCO Day 1

The links below (Day1 & Day 2) each have many video links from their trip!

Going to the Lake (Day 1)

Goin’ To The Lake: Ortonville (Day 1)

Going to the Lake (Day 2)

Goin’ To The Lake: Ortonville (Day 2)

“Maxie’s suiting up with the Ortonville high school football team!”

 

WCCO Ortonville Golf Course

 

Fun tour of the Ortonville Golf Course 🙂

 

WCCO Tox Thomas Interview

Interview with Artie Arndt of Artie’s Bait and Tackle –
Source: 8-18-16 Sports to the Max 8pm

 

Interview with John Thomas – the Rox
John Thomas spoke with Mike Max on Sports to the Max about Rox baseball and his father/Rox manager Ron Thomas.
http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/audio/sports-to-the-max-with-mike-max/8-18-16-sports-to-the-max-7pm/


A State of 10,000 lakes – and Big Stone Lake is one that is picked for WCCO’s Goin’ To The Lake Series – awesome! Watching Tanner taking out the WCCO crew for a short fishing spot for their program was fun to watch – Tanner is one of our young people that is looking for ways to stay in our area — and bonus, his service brings more people to enjoy the MNbump! (video below)

 

Highlights from the Big Stone County Fair 4-H

Highlights from the Big Stone County Fair 4-H

Our Big Stone County Get Together!  Enjoy a few 4-H Highlights – this post comes at a time of excitement from the State Fair.  Check out Suzanne Souza’s Facebook post – Disclaimer:  This blog post focuses on the 4-H livestock, etc.  Watch for other MNbump