Sometimes in the news business, it can be difficult to look beyond the week, day or hour you're currently experiencing.
Sketching out a plan for the day almost never quite pans out, because so much of our jobs as daily journalists requires reacting to the day's events. It isn't often that those events are anticipated.
The exercise of looking back on our year of coverage, however, reminds our news team just how much we have accomplished, and just how much we are capable of.
It's been almost two years since I joined the KAXE staff as the news director to build a newsroom focused on local stories in Northern Minnesota. It hasn't always been easy — building something new rarely is, I suspect. But it has always been rewarding.
In January 2024, reporter Megan Buffington joined our team of two, including Larissa Donovan and me. Megan has focused her coverage on the Grand Rapids area and the Iron Range, while Larissa holds down the fort in Bemidji and beyond in the Northwest.
Narrowing down our Top Stories list this year to just 10 was a monumental task. Our news and programming teams voted on a list of more like 25 stories to determine the final countdown, and even that original list could have been longer.
Our daily newscast, the Up North Report, continued this year with six fresh episodes each week — five featuring daily news updates and a sixth taking a deeper dive on an issue, person or event in Northern Minnesota. The cast, which can also be found on your favorite podcast app, is now sponsored by Woodland Bank, thanks to the intrepid work of our development team.
We've kept kaxe.org filled with new stories from not only our news team, but also our favorite conversations from the KAXE Morning Show and our music team, who regularly interviews local and national musicians and bands. The tremendous growth of our web visits shows people are appreciating us as a public media source with no paywall.
Election coverage dominated a good chunk of our year, with the production of our 2024 Election Guide representing a massive undertaking. We received positive feedback on how this guide helped people make decisions at the ballot box, and there really isn't a greater compliment than that.
This year, our organization was accepted into the Institute for Nonprofit News, which requires its members to meet the standards of editorial excellence in news coverage, editorial independence and transparency.
We earned three second-place awards in the Public Media Journalists Association annual contest, the first time we've ever entered. The 2023 work recognized included a story on a potential manganese mine in Emily (Digital Writing); a Between You & Me podcast episode on a Brainerd history mystery (Interview Podcast); and an edition of the Up North Report (Newscast).
I shared our journey of growth and success as part of a panel discussion this summer hosted by Angela Davis at the Report for America national gathering in Minneapolis. And I recently took a trip to Washington, D.C., at the invitation of Public News Service to share what local news in rural America looks like with communications professionals in the Beltway.
I'm incredibly grateful to be a part of such a dedicated KAXE team, and am so proud of the work our news team has accomplished. We look forward to continuing this work in 2025, honing in on what our audience — you — find most useful and engaging.
Reach us at news@kaxe.org with story tips, comments, concerns and more. Thanks for all those who've reached out so far and the support you've offered. We look forward to what's ahead!
Here are the Top 10 stories we covered this year.
1. LGBTQ+ community members, events face pushback
2. Essentia Health permanently ends labor and delivery services in Fosston
3. Rural EMS departments struggle to survive
4. Boswell Energy Center's coal ash spill reaches 5.5M gallons
5. Land back efforts gain steam for tribal communities
6. 2024 Election brings surprises, new representation and a flipped seat
7. Importance of Babbitt helium discovery takes shape
8. Educators, school districts grapple with budgetary constraints
9. Wild weather wallops Northern Minnesota
To hear these stories, listen to episodes of the Up North Report, to be posted Dec. 26-31.
1. LGBTQ+ community members, events face pushback
Between pride flags coming down in Bemidji classrooms, pushback against a large Pride event in Grand Rapids, and a drag show called off in Brainerd due to threats of violence, local events reflected some of the national conversation around LGBTQ+ people and their rights.
Grand Rapids’ Itasca Pride event drew thousands of community members to the lawn of the Old Central School in June. But not before some sought to put a stop to it, citing family values.
LGBTQ+ activists shared their own experiences with Grand Rapids City Council members in support of hosting what would become the city’s largest-ever Pride festival.
"We live in a reality where that’s just how it is. You live, you breathe, you exist. I go into my workplace, I put the pride flag out in the morning and I wonder if a car is going to drive by and shoot me," Karter Starling shared. "And that’s my life. That’s our lives.”
A small group of protesters attended the event, but it ultimately went off without much of a hitch.
Shortly before Itasca Pride, however, Central Lakes College in Brainerd called off a student-organized drag show because of what law enforcement called credible threats of violence.
Also last spring in Bemidji, students and concerned community members spoke out against the School District’s neutral stance discouraging items like safe space signs and pride flags.
While described as an unwritten policy, Superintendent Jeremy Olson told us it was based on legal advice.
“We're not going to have conservative classrooms and progressive classrooms. We’re going to have classrooms that teach reading, math and so forth," Olson said. "We're not going to start dividing ourselves based on our own individual teachers’ viewpoints.”
High school students like Finn Jorgensen feel that pride flags are an important symbol of assurance and acceptance.
“In a community like ours, which isn't necessarily the most supportive or accepting, it's really good to know which classrooms are places where you can go and talk to somebody and feel safe about that,” she said.
- Larissa Donovan
2. Essentia Health permanently ends labor and delivery services in Fosston
FOSSTON — When Essentia Health announced plans to permanently nix labor and delivery services at the Fosston hospital, city officials said it violated an agreement outlining core services promised by the provider.
Essentia Health first put a pause on labor and delivery in Fosston in 2022, citing staffing shortages. The health care provider began diverting births to its St. Mary’s hospital in Detroit Lakes — about 60 miles away.
For a time, Essentia leaders said they intended for the service to return. But a virtual public hearing in January preceded the permanent closure of the unit. Dozens of area residents packed into Fosston City Hall, some carrying babies in their arms as they spoke on the impact.
Essentia leaders cited declining population in the Fosston area and workforce challenges, as well as studies showing higher-volume hospitals have safer births for moms and babies.
Fosston city leaders see labor and delivery as a quality-of-life issue and as a core service for a healthy community.
The hospital is owned by city-appointed nonprofit First Care Medical Services, but is operated by Essentia. In September, arbitrators ruled in a 2-1 decision that Essentia Health did not breach its agreement, but city leaders remain committed to “restoring local control.”
Fosston City Administrator Cassie Heide was soon directed to explore legal avenues for ending the city’s agreement with Essentia Health, pointing to other declines in services.
"If you have to wait that long for an appointment, most people are just going to go out of town anyways, and that's what's happening," Heide said. "This is why we have the resolve we do to continue to work to secure our health care future.”
Essentia Health interim West Market President Stefanie Gefroh told us that staffing rural hospitals continues to present challenges, and two-thirds of these hospitals across the country are operating in the red.
“Given the challenges of rural health care, I understand the concern, but we have remained committed in our outreach that we do in the Fosston community so that patients don't have to travel,” Gefroh said.
The Fosston City Council unanimously resolved to terminate the agreement in a symbolic vote at a recent meeting, and there’s likely more to come on the story.
- Larissa Donovan
3. Rural EMS departments struggle to survive
TOWER — Rural emergency medical services across Minnesota faced severe challenges in 2024, with northeastern Minnesota Emergency Medical Services reporting $14 million in losses.
Rural EMS challenges were some of the first issues I covered after joining the news team.
A slew of issues was brought to light after the Minnesota Legislature created an EMS Task Force in response to a 2022 report from the Office of the Legislative Auditor.
The report raised serious concerns about the regulation of EMS, the viability of some ambulance services and the Emergency Medical Services Regulatory Board’s operations.
Legislators hosted meetings throughout the state to learn more about issues locally. They heard about rising call volumes, longer response times, critical staffing shortages, outdated federal reimbursement rates, too-large service areas and complicated insurance billing systems.
Like I said, a slew.
The Legislature ended up approving $24 million in emergency aid. The regulatory board had requested $120 million.
Dena Suihkonen, emergency medical technician and the director of the Tower Area Ambulance Service, said EMS providers are disappointed by the amount and still waiting for a permanent funding solution.
“One of the things that I keep hearing over and over is that this is just the beginning. They’re not done," she said. "And that’s what I’m going to hold them to. To me, it was kind of sad, just like to every other EMS provider. Because they set it so high and then they dropped it very low.”
The Legislature also established pilot programs, changed staffing and regulation requirements and restructured the regulatory board into the Office of EMS.
The impact of EMS challenges was felt in Grand Rapids when locally owned Meds-1 Ambulance Service was sold to North Memorial Health in June. The former owners said the decision to sell was a business one; they never really recovered from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Medicaid reimbursement rates don’t even cover the cost of a run.
The stopgap funding from the Legislature will help, but structural change is still needed to make EMS sustainable in rural Minnesota. There will be more changes to come in 2025, and we’ll be there to cover it.
- Megan Buffington
4. Boswell Energy Center's coal ash spill reaches 5.5M gallons
COHASSET — A major spill was discovered at Minnesota Power’s Boswell Energy Center in Cohasset in July. An initial estimate of 1 million gallons was later revised to up to 5.5 million gallons.
The leak occurred in an underground pipe carrying coal ash wastewater, with material flowing into Blackwater Creek and Blackwater Lake on the Mississippi River, part of the Pokegama Reservoir system.
Early test results showed elevated levels of sulfates, chlorides and boron in the water. According to observers, the spill didn’t impact sewers or drinking water, but it did raise concerns about the impact on nearby wild rice beds.
Two days after the spill, Leech Lake Emergency Management Director Duane Oothoudt drove to the lake to try to learn more about the situation.
“We’re a little bit concerned, people rice here, and they eat the rice. We come up and we harvest it every year. Me and the chief of police, actually, we rice here together from Leech Lake," he said.
"We just want to know cause this impacts a lot of the local harvesters and foragers and our land rights. It’s pretty close to the reservation border, so it does impact us. So, we’re concerned, we just want to know what’s going on.”
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and the Environmental Protection Agency worked on the response with Minnesota Power and its environmental contractor Bay West. Deep-skirted booms and silt curtains were set up to contain the spread of the spill, hundreds of tons of contaminated soil were removed and sump pumps recovered thousands of gallons of water.
The PCA and EPA continue to oversee cleanup and monitoring.
And we do, too. We plan to have more coverage in the new year.
- Megan Buffington
5. Land back efforts gain steam for tribal communities
Looking back at the 2024 legislative session, two bills sparked a lot of conversation in Northern Minnesota: land transfers to tribes. The bills concerning the transfer of the White Earth State Forest or state -held lands around Upper Red Lake did not advance in the DFL-trifecta of state government.
At the last State of the Band address, Red Lake Nation Chairman Darrell Seki reiterated his commitment into restoring a disputed reservation boundary: the eastern shore of Upper Red Lake.
Upper Red is a popular walleye fishing destination with numerous private properties and resorts. The bill would have set aside $20 million in 2025 toward the transfer of lands held by the state within 1 mile of the lake, along with the transfer of the Red Lake State Forest.
The other bill aimed to transfer the White Earth State Forest to the White Earth Nation.
That state forest was established in the 1930s during what is known as the Allotment Era, a period when the federal government parceled off communally owned reservations and sold off unclaimed parcels. American Indian bands lost 90 million acres of land within their territories during this period.
Both land transfer issues raised concerns of land use and accessibility. White Earth leaders maintained that public access in the forest would continue. But Red Lake Nation’s closed reservation status prompted different fears about a loss of a fishing tourism economy, including from the Upper Red Lake Association. Questions also arose about the loss of PILT, or payment-in-lieu of taxes, that the state pays townships and school districts with a lot of public land and low property tax bases.
On a federal level, 12,000 acres of land in the Chippewa National Forest were transferred to the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe this year. The National Forest Service facilitated public comment on the Leech Lake Restoration Act of 2020 in August 2023, and the transfer was finalized this summer.
Leech Lake Chairman Faron Jackson called it “one of the most monumental and positive developments to take place on Leech Lake since the first treaties were signed and the reservation was established in 1855.” U.S. Senator Tina Smith introduced another bill this fall to transfer 4,000 acres of federal land in Cass County to the Band.
The de-centralized Land Back movement is gaining steam across Indian Country as tribes lobby for sovereignty and environmental stewardship. While the White Earth Forest and Upper Red Lake bills didn’t clear committee this year, the tribal nations of White Earth and Red Lake are committed to restoring ancestral homelands.
- Larissa Donovan
6. 2024 election brings surprises, new representation and a flipped seat
With tribal elections, primaries and the main event in November, the KAXE News Team had a long and busy election season. Our major focus was to gather useful information for voters at the local level, but we also kept an eye on partisan politics as Minnesota came under an unexpected spotlight.
Tribal elections in the spring saw success for incumbent chairmen in the three largest reservations in Minnesota: White Earth, Red Lake and Leech Lake.
The national political scene went wild when President Joe Biden announced he was dropping out of the presidential race and endorsing his VP Kamala Harris. When Harris selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, I went to White Earth for the tribal election inauguration event that coincidentally lined up with the unveiling of the Harris-Walz announcement.
Walz’s second-in-command, Peggy Flanagan, is a White Earth band member and could have made history as Governor on multiple fronts if Walz moved to the White House and she moved into the Governor’s mansion. As we now know, that isn’t how things panned out.
But the November election brought plenty of interesting developments beyond the what-ifs.
Republicans flipped the sole DFL state House seat left in rural Northern Minnesota.
And it wasn’t a narrow victory. Republicans won the Iron Range’s House District 7B by a double-digit margin. To borrow from Iron Range Today co-founder and editor Jerry Burnes, "the decades-old political shift of the Range became a complete political realignment."
“This was a resounding win for Republicans, and something really really drastic will have to happen I think for this to start shifting backwards or back to Democrats I should say,” Burnes said on the KAXE Morning Show the day after the election.
But with all the attention on the sea of red, I wanted to remind Northern Minnesotans that we’re more than just red or blue on an election map.
Yes, 63% of rural ballots in the region were cast for Republican state house candidates, but don't forget 36% of Northern Minnesota voted blue. We’re more purple than certain visuals would lead you to believe.
- Megan Buffington and Larissa Donovan
7. Importance of Babbitt helium discovery takes shape
BABBITT — Exploration of what may be the world’s richest helium deposit continued this year, over a decade after the deposit was accidentally discovered.
Testing by Pulsar Helium, the company that owns the rights to the deposit, shows the hidden gas contains helium concentrations between 8% and 15%. Most commercialized deposits have concentrations of just .3%
The discovery occurred along the Midcontinent Rift, a billion-year-old geological formation that created ideal conditions for helium accumulation through natural radioactive decay. But questions remain as to how exactly the helium ended up in the Northern Minnesota deposit.
The timing of all this activity is significant. The federal government sold its helium reserve in January, and the global helium supply has faced instability due to reliance on producers like Qatar, Russia and Algeria.
When most people think of helium, they picture balloons or high-pitched, squeaky voices. But the element plays an important role in manufacturing, research and even national defense. Semi-conductors, fiber optics and electric vehicles all rely on helium, and it cools everything from rockets to nuclear reactors.
While we still don’t know exactly how much helium there is at the site, further testing by Pulsar has continued to be promising. The company is moving ahead with plans for production, including a recent agreement with gas processing facilities manufacturer Chart Industries.
Production could begin as early as next year and would mostly occur on site.
The state’s Gas Resources Technical Advisory Committee is wrapping up the public comment phase of drafting its temporary regulations and will be revising its recommendations, if necessary, by the end of the year.
What we do know is that the Legislature set an 18.75% royalty on gas and oil sales, which would be used in part to compensate landowners for gas extracted from under their property. Because the Babbitt site is surrounded by state-managed land, local schools and government could see millions in royalties.
- Megan Buffington
8. Educators, school districts grapple with budgetary constraints
NORTHERN MINNESOTA — About two-thirds of the state’s educator bargaining units were in varying stages of reaching agreements for their 2023 contracts with school districts as 2024 began.
This came after DFL lawmakers touted historic investment in public schools in the 2023 session, but many districts are still making cuts to meet their budget needs.
Teachers across the region voiced concerns in picket lines and at school board meetings, advocating for better pay and working conditions, like Andrew Dahlby in Bemidji.
“It's just hard to say that we should take less every year. Our teachers simply do not make enough money," he said. "How do we attract quality talent when we pay less than everybody else?”
Tensions rose there when flyers supporting Bemidji Education Association were distributed on school grounds the previous December and district officials issued a cease-and-desist to the union. A Beltrami County Judge even issued an injunction to the district in January, only to rescind it a few days later after the district pointed to a relevant school policy.
Bemidji Area Schools Superintendent Jeremy Olson said that even with the state’s boosts to funding in the last session, districts still anticipate financial woes.
“We’ve had COVID dollars to backfill deficits, this is the last year you can use them, and with rising costs, fuel prices and things like that, districts are finding themselves in maybe a tougher financial situation," Olson said.
While agreements were eventually reached on most contracts through 2025, school districts were also dealing with increased costs and limited options to address budget shortfalls.
Coming off a failed operating referendum, Grand Rapids was forced to cut nearly $1.6 million, resulting in larger class sizes, less technology and fewer resources for staff.
Budget cuts weren’t new for the district, which had already cut 13% of its budget over the last four years. But this round did come with a big change: making East and West Rapids elementaries grade-level buildings.
The change didn’t save the district money. But when a teacher was cut from a grade, its easier to balance class sizes when the whole grade is in one building.
The decision was not popular with parents, who complained of additional drop-offs and that when the new elementaries were built a few years ago, they were presented as neighborhood schools.
When the back to school season hit, teachers in new buildings with larger classes were feeling the difference, said second grade teacher Carrie Thorvig.
“There’s always change, but this year it feels like there’s an exceptional amount of change. And you just really have to focus on what you can control,” Thorvig said.
- Larissa Donovan
9. Wild weather wallops Northern Minnesota
When it comes to weather in Minnesota, we are usually prepared for most anything.
And this year, those of us in the Northland experienced quite a lot.
On the heels of a severe drought in 2023, a mild and relatively snowless winter was perhaps the weird weather epicenter in a remarkable and record-breaking season across the Midwest.
It led to a multitude of impacts. Dozens of stranded anglers needed rescue on multiple lakes due to thin or shifting ice. Events like the Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon and the annual ice fishing contest on Hill Lake were canceled, while the Brainerd Jaycees’ Ice Fishing Extravaganza moved from its usual Hole-in-the-Day Bay to a virtual contest across a swath of Brainerd area lakes because of thin ice.
Then came the incredibly wet weather of late spring and a spate of severe weather in June.
Two supercell tornado storms produced four tornadoes and large hail on June 12, including two that reached wind speeds of about 120 mph. The Crosslake and Cuyuna lakes areas experienced heavy property and tree damage, including on Big Island on Upper Whitefish Lake. Big Island is home to a rare surviving example of an undisturbed old-growth forest of maple and basswood trees.
Just a week later, intense rainfall culminated in severe flash flooding across the Arrowhead, causing rivers to rage, washing out roadways, severing water lines and leaving the city of Cook deep underwater. Both state and federal disasters were declared, with tens of millions of dollars in damage estimated to have occurred across the region.
As cleanup continued over the summer months, the rain dried up and yet another drought descended on the state into the fall, sparking an early fall wildfire season, including some in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
It remains to be seen how this winter will shape up, but thus far, we’ve had some colder temps and at least some snow on the ground.
As usual, we Minnesotans will be ready for anything.
- Chelsey Perkins
10. Community effort saves Hibbing park, encourages better collaboration toward public housing effort
HIBBING — What started as a report of a unique location for a new public housing development in Hibbing became a two-month saga of community organizing and government meetings.
It culminated in a new site and more collaboration between the city and the Housing and Redevelopment Authority of Hibbing.
In May, the HRA proposed partially replacing the aging and blighted Greenhaven Apartments with 52 new workforce housing units.
Working with the city, the HRA selected Cobb Cook Park, one of 15 neighborhood parks in Hibbing, as the site for its central location and potential funding competitiveness.
The project would cost nearly $30 million, and over 80% would need to be covered by highly competitive funding from the state. Given Greenhaven’s disrepair, HRA Executive Director Jackie Prescott said without funding, they’d probably lose the housing stock. And Hibbing already has a housing shortage.
“The investment is so great it’s not something that could ever be funded through our resources,” she explained in May.
But when news broke of the planned development of Cobb Cook Park, funding wasn’t the only challenge the HRA faced.
Local residents complained about the potential public housing in their neighborhood, though not all those opposed to the project shared the same negative sentiment.
Some founded the Cobb Cook Coalition, gathering signatures and hosting a rally at City Hall. The group said they recognized the need for housing but took issue with the lack of public input into the decision.
The Coalition considered legal action and planned to lobby for funding to be denied.
But it didn’t come to that. The city canceled its agreement to sell the park to the HRA, and the two agreed to a new site: a previously considered 5-acre parcel behind Grace Lutheran Church. Prescott said the site was ruled out because of development costs, but now the city agreed to help pay them.
The new location was officially approved in July, but the HRA still didn’t know if it would get the necessary funding.
Months later, the project retains its happy ending: Cobb Cook Place was selected for Multifamily Consolidated funding by Minnesota Housing last week.
We’ll have details on that story and what comes next in the New Year.
- Megan Buffington
Honorable mentions
- Absentee ballot controversy in Crosslake
An effort by Crosslake residents sought to convince city officials to take on more responsibilities for counting absentee ballots cast by locals.
The topic spanned several meetings, including an informal town hall at a bar in the city. The concerns over election administration appeared to align with those who questioned the integrity of the 2020 election.
Ultimately, the Council opted not to take on the task amid concerns over staffing capacity and potential costs.
- Ten Commandments
A tour of the newly constructed Itasca County Jail this spring revealed a giant display of the Ten Commandments, along with other religious quotes throughout the building.
The displays were painted over before inmates moved in, but not before sparking controversy and prompting public commentary for and against.
In Park Rapids, the Ten Commandments also became a topic of conversation when an ex-School Board member offered to donate a monument to be displayed outside the school. The School Board declined.
Both events drew threats of legal action over their unconstitutional nature.