All posts filed under: Blog

Creative Minnesota Report for Big Stone County

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Sheila Smith (Executive Director of Minnesota Citizens for the Arts and Chair, Creative Minnesota) presented the Big Stone County Report on March 22nd at the Ortonville Community Center. Creative Minnesota, Minnesota Citizens for the Arts, Big Stone Arts Council, Big Stone Area Growth and the Ortonville EDA released a new study indicating that the arts have a large impact on Big Stone County!  “Nonprofit arts and culture organizations contribute to the vibrancy of Minnesota’s economy and quality of life and make our state a magnet for jobs and businesses.  Now we can quantify that in Big Stone County,”  said Sheila Smith “In addition to providing life-changing experiences, educational opportunities and accessibility to audiences of all ages in their stages and museums, arts and culture organizations are important employers and economic engines. $400,000 = Economic impact of art and culture organizations, audiences and artists in Big Stone County.  To note, the impacts of the arts in Big Stone County do not include the annual Meander Upper Minnesota River Art Crawl which brings a large number of people …

Music on Main (Ortonville)

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The Big Stone Arts Council “Music On Main” continues its twice-monthly jam sessions! Next session will be Tuesday, April 3rd at 6:30, in the lower level of the Community Center (on the corner of Third & Monroe in beautiful downtown Ortonville!)  They are also meeting on Thursday, April 19th at 6:30. Lee Kanten notes that “Musicians of all stripes and experiences gather and swap songs and stories for three hours and go home with silly smiles.”  Lee encourages everyone to bring an instrument, a voice, or an ear and join the fun!  

Sports & Leisure Show Highlights

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It was an awesome weekend at the Sports & Leisure Show!  We’ve put together a few highlights from the show – starting with a quick video to see a few of the vendors as they were completing their set-up before the start of the Show.  Followed by videos of all of the Just for Kix dance groups (for family & friends that were unable to make this performance!), a Pickleball demonstration (very active league in Ortonville!),  highlights from the Tractor Pull and at the end you’ll find a number of songs from the Swing Time Band which is always a favorite!  (I separated the Swing Time band selections by song since there are some that people may want to share individually).  Enjoy (I know I did!) .. and the Chicken Dance!

MNbump Wellness Challenge

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Fun to see all of the interest!  We’ll post links & latest information on this page as we get teams organized and ready to start. Would you like to be connected with a team in your community?  Please complete this short form & we’ll match you up!  https://goo.gl/forms/ejDnG0arnk4iMeoB2 If you’ve put together a team of 10 (or almost 10 & you’re looking for more to complete your team), you can message on Facebook Sara Tollakson or Vicki Oakes or you can e-mail vicki@ortonvilleeda.com New!  The Rules have been posted – Contest Details V3.pub Our Facebook Group Page has been created!  All of the participants of the Challenge and all of the Business Sponsors will be members of the Group.  The Group page will be an encouragement (and fun!) connection for everyone.  It will provide wellness tips & Challenge updates.  If you’re not participating, you’re still encouraged to follow the page and take advantage of all of the healthy/wellness information that will be provided!  Link to Group Page:  2018 Wellness Challenge Facebook Group More information will be posted …

Two MNbump Area Authors have gone International!

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Sandy Hanson with her “A Camel’s Story Trilogy” and now Michael Larson’s “Easter Sparrows” have been translated in both Russian and Ukrainian and published in Ukraine!  They shared their story at a celebration hosted by Living Hope Fellowship Assembly of God in Ortonville and during Sunday service at New Life Community Baptist Church in Ortonville the following day.  You will find the video of the stories shared below. Bill Arvan of READ Ministries shared his passion for Ukraine.  READ’s motto is “Taking Truth to Tough Places”.  Bill is often referred to as ‘a bridge to Ukraine’. The first Camel Story was ‘born’ as a puppet play performed at Living Hope Fellowship in 2000 – The play and presentations were held in almost every church in the region over the years.  New Life Baptist has a passion for Ukraine – who knew it would spark a mission for our books to get there too?  So far 14, 350 of Sandy’s Camel stories have been distributed in Ukraine through READ Ministries.  Recently a pastor from southern Ukraine has …

National Park Service + NDSU Landscape Architecture Program Students in Ortonville!

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Dr. Yang Song’s NDSU Landscape Architecture Program students along with Brian Leaders of the National Park Service were in Ortonville on Monday (February 12th) presenting the work they’ve done so far to the Ortonville Park Board along with providing an overview of what they found as they toured the community earlier in the day (splitting the group in half and hitting two of our local eateries for lunch!) The students have been reviewing the work that was completed by SDSU (see presentation video below) 2016/17 and laying the foundation for their work by utilizing the Big Stone County GIS mapping data (thanks to Terry Ocana and Darren Wilke of the County for facilitating that ability!)… the students then followed that up with a visit to Ortonville and direct discussions with Ortonville Park Board members along with a few community members.  Becky Parker (Ortonville EDA President) commented on what an opportunity it was to have such a diverse group of students evaluating the parks in Ortonville – from Bismark, Madison, Russia, Peru, Buffalo, Fargo, St. Paul++ …

…and What About Our Youth!?

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They are busy… and adults are so busy making sure that their kids are where they need to be for their next activity that sometimes we forget to stop.  Take a breath… and celebrate their accomplishments and all that they are involved in!  Take this post as an example!  I’ve great intentions to write an article about 4-H –  for quite some time and sent out a request for additional information; however, everyone is busy with that next activity.  So, we’ll give a glimpse into 4-H with some of the pictures and video that we’ve captured. 4-H.  We think “Big Stone County Fair” and many love to head straight to the barns – and watch the horse show, the animal judging – however, we may miss the actual judging of all of projects and accomplishments of the items that are on display in the non-animal 4-H building.  There is so much to take in when you start really looking at the vast opportunities that 4-H provides!  And, really… the fair is a time of show …

House Fire – If you’d like to help…

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So many are offering to help that we thought we’d share a post with links to the various avenues that you can help this family! Note from Becky Stattelman’s Facebook page: (and much help from Amanda Tatro on the post with information!) I’ve taken a few calls asking about our neighbors; the Billy and Dara Gibson family, who lost their home and all possessions in a house fire yesterday. Talked with them last night and they are being brave and thankful for each other. Kids are sweet as ever. Will take a bit to organize thoughts and future. Our good neighbors, Brian and Arleen, have shared a house on our same road so the family has immediate temporary housing. There is a Go Fund Me page set up if you would like to help with getting them back on their feet. If you prefer to help them in another way; cash or check in a card, grocery gift card, bag of groceries, etc. you may certainly connect with me and I will drop it off …

Basketball Tournament

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We take our youth sports seriously – and enjoy a good Saturday morning basketball tournament!  After watching the older teams play with serious reffing, it was fun to watch the refs taking their time and giving some great teaching/coaching pointers to the players… and they continued that help all morning! I was at the tournament on Saturday not as an MNbump blogger but as an aunt with a 4th grader playing on the Ortonville School team; however, when I noticed that a younger team from the Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley school was also in the tournament, I took the opportunity to video one of their games also so that we could show off some of our MNbump basketball skills!  Enjoy! (Note:  One video has the crowd cheering – the other has music background… the only reason for that is that my video skills are hit & miss… 🙂  I accidentally turned off the audio on the camera for part of a game!) Life is Good, here on the MNbump!

Two Camera Crews on Big Stone Lake Today

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What brings two crews out to fish… Artie’s Bait and Tackle to shoot video for their advertising.  Since Artie likes to have them out when the fish are biting – it is probably a good time to head out to Big Stone Lake!  (I know my husband made good time getting home from work and straight out there tonight – unfortunately I’ve been sworn to secrecy when he is catching fish so that is about all I can say on that) I find fisherman kind of a quirky bunch (obviously this may not be reflective of everyone’s opinion, here on the MNbump!) – they all want to know where the fish are biting, what bait & lure to use, etc. However, nobody wants to give out that information.  This makes Artie & his crew at Artie’s Bait and Tackle an awesome group to some… and traitors of sorts to others.  From my point of view, Artie’s marketing and the information that he shares is a very nice bonus for our area – and today was …