Click on the link below to read my review of the MACA home football opener, a win over Montevideo. This post is on my companion website, "Morris of Course." Thanks for reading. - B.W.
Maple Lake had the top girls team at Holdingford. Albany was second and Sauk Centre third, after which the Tigers occupied fourth. Albany's Kristine Kalthoff was the top female performer, time of 21 minutes on the nose. Kate O'Brien of Sauk Centre was second, time of 21:27.52. Continuing with the top five we have Andrea Fromelt of St. Cloud Cathedral, Sophie Pribyl of Maple Lake and Mary Miller of Melrose.
Meredith Carrington carries the Carrington family banner alone, and this budding athlete had a 22:28.43 time to place ninth. Also representing the orange and black were Malory Anderson (23:12.31), Kaylie Raths (23:57.27), Madlyn Siegel (23:58.07) and Crystal Nohl (24:04.63).
Isabel Fynboh took third in the junior high race, time of 15:49.1. Katya Lackey took seventh (16:25.96) and Alexis Motz was No. 10 (16:40.73). Other orange and black jr. high runners were Caryn Marty (17:00), Meghan Goulet (18:12.46), Victoria Vargas (19:07.5) and Bobbi Wohlers (19:55.73).
In the varsity boys race it was Tiger Noah Stewart excelling to finish third with his clocking of 18:05.30. Stewart was joined by these teammates: Tate Nelson (18:50.23), Tyler Reimers (19:44.66), Bradley Rohloff (21:22.98), Judah Malek (22:39.62) and Micah Aanerud (22:57.52).
Ben Hernandez was third in the JV race with his time of 19:08.3. Other JV Tigers were Colton Wohlers (23:47.01) and Dakota Roberts (24:38.56). Thomas Tiernan was second in the junior high race, time of 13:36.94. The MACA jr. high roster also included: Tyce Anderson (15:05.73), Reid Tolifson (15:20.42), Barron Schneider (15:36.83), Gavin Stallman (15:41.91), Sam Jordan (16:07.91) and Pierce Richards (16:10.96).
Jake Andres of Pierz was the boys varsity champion with his time of 17:20.57. Preston Poepping of Melrose was second (17:52.14), then came our Stewart at No. 3. Tristan Thompson of New London-Spicer placed fourth, and Michael Miller of Melrose was No. 5.
The champion boys team was Holdingford while our MACA Tigers placed sixth. There were eleven boys teams.
Morris paper's shrinkage continues
Is 16 pages the new norm for the absolutely minimal Morris newspaper? It wasn't long ago that the paper slid from an average size of 24 pages to 18. But then we started seeing some 16-pagers. Is there a sense of alarm in the community?
A newspaper person from out of the area emailed me to say that by contrast, the Elbow Lake paper has 16 pages. . .in the 'A' section alone!
Why the minimal approach here in Morris? Is the day coming when Forum Communications will decide to just start mailing the Alexandria paper to people on the Morris subscription list? We may end up getting the same treatment that Hancock got, in effect losing our paper. Have we become this much of a satellite community for Alexandria? Maybe the answer is yes.
This morning (Monday) I checked the Morris paper website and only found about two sentences about the Morris/Montevideo football game. Compare that to my "Morris of Course" blog where you can at least read a game review by someone who gives a rip. If that had been me at the Morris paper, writing two sentences about the game and then having the chutzpah to put my "byline" on it, people would insult me all over town. What would Mike Martin say about such a lousy commitment?
All these developments come as the Morris paper still pretends it has "combined" with the Hancock paper. In the weeks following that announcement, the paper stayed the same size as before, which means that literally it could not have "combined" with anything. Now it's worse: the Morris-based paper has gotten still smaller.
How do they answer phone calls about this? They still posture like they're trying to incorporate Hancock. Look at Saturday's paper: there's extensive coverage of the Hancock football opener: article and photos. Wow! Before the announced combination, the Morris paper didn't even cover Hancock sports. Now that it's at least trying, the coverage is going to push aside some coverage of Morris. I'm 100 percent certain that in the days before the announced combination, Morris would have sent its sports photographer to Holdingford for the opener. Now the paper turns its eyes to Hancock.
Eyes still on referendum
I have written recently about the referendum being put forward by the Morris school district. I think it's fundamentally awful for the school to use the referendum tool for what amounts to necessary maintenance. I also think it's terrible PR for the school to be broadcasting all these awful problems as part of "selling" the referendum.
On Sunday I had a chance to talk with a very knowledgeable person with a background of being involved in the Morris school district. I won't type his name here, but what he offered to me was this: The cost of the project exceeds what we're getting in return. If my arguments don't fly, maybe his will.
A "consultant" came here to analyze what needs to be done. Isn't that how we got the recommendation to build a jail? Those consultants have their own agenda, incentives and bottom line to promote. Bring in a string of consultants and they'll clean you out. We have highly-paid administrators. Don't let them sit back, take it easy and "contract out" all sorts of stuff.
The jail issue brought an explosion of controversy and resulting rubble of ill feeling. Wasn't there a county commissioner who was quoted in the print media saying "I'm glad none of my children live or work in Stevens County." What strange people we are, to elect a commissioner like that.
- Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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