I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.
Jan. 12, 1997
By Devlyn Brooks
Staff Writer
On the heels of receiving a $250,000 Electronic Academy grant from the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system, Bemidji State University has been awarded yet another grant from the state of Minnesota.
In the second grant, BSU and Ridgewater College of Willmar, Minn., jointly received a $193,329 Minnesota Job Skills Partnership grant "to deliver both broad-based education programs and industry-specific training to employees of two southern Minnesota companies," according to the MnSCU publication "Performance."
The grant will be used to establish partnerships between the two higher education institutions and Tyler Industries Inc. of Benson Kleespie Tank and Equipment Inc. of Morris, BSU President Jim Bensen said. The education programs should benefit nearly 700 employees over a two-year period.
Bensen said the grant was the result of a new initiative by BSU called a "community blitz," which is designed to raise the university's level of exposure in more Minnesota communities.
He explained that in a community a group of BSU faculty, staff and administrators and various other people affiliated with the university visit a community for an entire day, attending many local events and meeting local leaders. For instance, at a recent blitz in Thief River Falls, Minn., BSU representatives met with everybody from the mayor to county commissioners, business executives and Northland Community and Technical College officials.
It was at a blitz in Benson that Tyler Industries' president approached Bensen about the partnership. Later, Kleespie Inc. and Ridgewater College were added to the equation, which increased the benefits for all parties involved, Bensen said.
"Some of the stuff Ridgewater teaches, we don't have. Some of the stuff we teach, they don't have,"Bensen said. "But together we'll get it done."
The Minnesota Job Skills grant is a matching grant authorized by the Minnesota Job Skills Partnership Act, Bensen said, which is a program to help increase the abilities of employees to cope with the fast-changing work force.
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