February 27, 1998 - Minnesota convicts are about to make a six million dollar difference in the state's schools by breaking up old computers. Inmates at the state prisons in Lino Lakes and Stillwater are cannibalising, rebuilding and upgrading thousands of used, computers which will end up at schools throughout Minnesota. Statewide, there are now about seven students for each computer in the schools. Organizers of the Computers For Schools project say they hope to lower that ratio to five to one. Minnesota Public Radio's Tim Pugmire reports... 4197 (Sound) A remodeled industrial classroom at the Minnesota Correctional Faci
February 27, 1998 - In the art world, sometimes the story behind an artist is just as important and capitivating as his or her work. Such is the case with Minneapolis artist Dennis Behr (Bear), who's having his drawings shown for the first time at Bloomington City Hall, as part of the Bloomington Art Center's Art in Public Spaces program. Behr is 52-years old and lives in a nursing home, because he's severely schizophrenic. He says he creates art to break out of the isolation imposed by his living quarters, and to do battle with the dark forces of his mental illness. Minnesota Public Radio's Chris Roberts reports. --------------------------------------------------------- | D-CART ITEM: 5123 | TIME: 11:55 | OUTCUE: "...SOC ---------------------------------------------------------
March 2, 1998 - Last spring the flood-swollen Red, Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers carved a trail of destruction across the upper Midwest. Through a combination of backbreaking sandbagging and a healthy dose of luck some communities such as Fargo Moorhead, Mankato, and St Paul held off the floodwaters. Other towns lost the battle... Ada and Breckenridge were swamped twice...and hundreds of people were evacuated. But when the Red River rolled over the dikes into Grand Forks and East Grand Forks on April 18th the eyes of the nation were drawn to the unfolding tragedy. Nearly 60- thousand people were forced to leave...the largest single evacuation in U-S history. Then fire broke out in the flooded downtown and people watched in horror while a dozen buildings burned as firefighters looked on helplessly. In the first of a five part series on the Flood on 1997 Minnesota Public Radios Dan Gunderson looks back at that catastrophic weekend.
March 3, 1998 - Minneapolis will spend millions of dollars over the next few years to upgrade its water treatment system, and St. Paul may have to follow suit. The expenditure is in response to proposed federal regulations which are largely the result of the 1993 cryptosporidium outbreak in Milwaukee. 100 people died and 400,000 got sick from a parasite in the water. Minnesota Public Radio's Perry Finelli reports.
March 3, 1998 - The cities of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks... at least as the locals knew them... disappeared April 19th, 1997, when the Red River burst the dikes, washing through the streets, destroying houses and businesses. In the days following the flood local officials worried about a mass exodus from the area. Some people predicted as many as 20 percent of the people would leave forever. That didn't happen.... in the end, only three percent moved elsewhere. But as Minnesota Public Radio's Hope Deutscher reports in the second report of our flood series, rebuilding has been a long and frustrating process that is still far from over.... (sound of measuring...work, etc.)
March 4, 1998 - The devastating flood and fire that struck Grand Forks and East Grand Forks nearly a year ago forever changed the physical face of the communities. The less immediately noticeable changes are perhaps more profound...the disaster stretched and tore the social fabric of the community. In part three of our series on the flood of 1997 Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Gunderson examines how people were changed by disaster.
March 5, 1998 - FOR AIR THURSDAY AM Late last week the Grand Forks and East Grand Forks City councils officially endorsed a 300-million dollar flood protection plan. The proposed dikes will snake along both sides of the Red River...and if all goes as the Army Corps of Engineers plan it will prevent the re-occurrance of flooding on the scale of 1997. But as Minnesota Public Radio's Hope Deutscher reports in Part 4 of our flood series, the construction of new dikes will come at the cost of more peoples homes and local history. For the people of Greater Grand Forks, the planning see
March 5, 1998 - Carl Vogt, an Extension Forester with the University of Minnesota, discusses how the maple sap is flowing and the prospects for the syrup harvest.
March 6, 1998 - The flood of 1997 set records all along the Red River of the North. The river rose to levels no one alive has ever seen. The high water caused billions of dollars in damage, but it also gave flood fighters some valuable insights that may help their communities and communities across the country fight future floods. In the final part of our series on the flood of '97, Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Gunderson examines what lessons were learned.
March 17, 1998 - Resort owners in the Northwest Angle of Minnesota are fed up with Canadian fishing regulations and the U-S's lack of response to their concerns. So fed up, in fact, that they're threatening to secede from the United States and join Canada. The Northwest Angle is that little notch of territory on the top of Minnesota. Thanks to a surveyor's error in 1775, the Angle is part of the United States, even though it's attached to Canada on one side, and otherwise surrounded by Lake of the Woods. The problem, say resort owners, is Canada won't allow people staying in Northwest Angle resorts to keep fish caught in Canadian waters. That's bad for businesses that depend on anglers. The one hundred or so residents of the Northwest Angle have one powerful ally in their quest for fishing justice... Minnesota 7th District Democratic Congressman Collin Peterson. Peterson's planning to introduce a bill in the next couple days that would allow the Northwest Angle to secede: