April 17, 1997 - We're reporting that at midday, the Red River at Fargo was just under 39-point-four feet -- 22 feet over flood stage. And for the last few weeks, we've been talking about crests, flood stages, and other flooding terms ... but what exactly does it mean? I called the Army Corps of Engineers' Ken Gardener to find out. Ken Gardener, the public affairs officer of the Army Corps of Engineers. Sun 28-MAY 19:56:26 MPR NewsPro Archive - Wed 04/11/2001
April 16, 1997 - If you went to sleep a country music fan, maybe you got a shock this morning. Here's a sample of what it sounded like this morning on WBOB.
April 16, 1997 - MPR’s John Rabe talks with poet/writer Bill Holm about stoicism and exhaustion of Midwesterners during regional floods.
April 8, 1997 - Not that it's much consolation to the people losing their homes in the flood of 1997, or to the volunteers filling and stacking sandbags in the freezing cold, but it could have been worse. It could have been worse if there hadn't been the great flood of 1927, when man and nature conspired to cause one of the country's worst disasters ... worse if a flood seventy years ago hadn't forced a major change in the way we deal with disasters. Journalist John Barry is author of "Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed the World." John Barry's book is called "Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed the World." He'll be at Barnes & Noble in the Galleria in Edina at 7 tonight. Sun 28-MAY 20:01:01 MPR NewsPro Archive - Wed 04/11/200
April 7, 1997 - Governor Carlson goes on the air tonite at six for a three minute plea for calm. Many fear there will be violence when Indians begin exercising their treaty fishing rights on Lake Mille Lacs, perhaps the most popular walleye lake in the state. Minnesota residents and officials have a model for the worst case scenario in this state's treaty fishing rights controversy. It comes from the years of trouble in Wisconsin starting in earnest in the mid-80s. Angry protesters crowded boat landings on lakeshores in many parts of northern Wisconsin. They taunted and threatened Chippewa spearfishers, overturning their boats and breaking their spears. Eventually, a judge issued injunctions against protestors, and some of the loudest were hit with huge financial settlements for violating the Indians' civil rights. There were demonstrations when in 1983 a panel of appellate judges ruled in favor of tribal fishing in Wisconsin, but there was no significant violence until the last night of the first spear fishing season in 1985. John Sherer was a radio reporter for WWMH in Minocq.
April 4, 1997 - SELF-CONTAINED. BEGINS WITH FILM CLIP, ENDS WITH MUSIC SCRIPT, SUCH AS IT IS: CLIP: IT WAS ONLY A FILM. Maybe it's unfair to use this particular clip from the Peter Greenaway film "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover" to introduce our next piece. But if it's transgressive of radio tradition, that fits Greenaway, who's spent his life seducing and unsettling audiences. Tonite, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis begins a
April 4, 1997 - It's apiary time in Minnesota. Yesterday in Collegeville, Kenwood Trail Junior High School seventh-grader Jennifer Meyer won the state spelling bee by correctly spelling the word "barnacled". As in "the hull of Bob Potter's boat is heavily barnacled." Meyer goes to the nationals next month. Some of the words she got right that were: hyrax, vinaigrette, and jeremiad. The state finals in the National Geography Bee were held today at Macalester College in Saint Paul. One-hundred fourth through eighth graders competed for the chance to go to the nationals in Washington D.C. next month.
April 3, 1997 - State Representative Todd Van Dellen wants to use slot machines to plug a loophole that would let the Twins break their Metrodome contract. The Plymouth Republican would allow slot machines at Canterbury Park, and would use about 21-million dollars of the money they bring in to buy around 800-thousand Twins tickets and cover some Twins operating losses. The Twins' contract says they can only leave the Metrodome before 2013 if they don't fill a certain number of seats or post losses for the '95 through '97 seasons. Van Dellen would also use some of the slot revenue to bring a hockey team to the Twin Cities and help cities change their property tax system. Twins officials say they're not interested in the proposal, to say the least. I asked Van Dellen what he makes of Twins President Jerry Bell's assertion that the Van Dellen plan would constitute inappropriate interference and would probably be illegal. | D-CART ITEM: 5057 | TIME: 3:21 | OUTCUE: "...THAT THEY SIGNED."
April 3, 1997 - Crews are sandbagging in Cold Spring, Minnesota, where some homes are threatened by the rising Sauk River. The river has risen three-and-a-half feet since Monday and is expected to crest eight to nine feet above flood stage. In Waite Park, rising water is starting to inundate a supper club. More flooding problems in eastern North Dakota -- this time in Milnor, in the southeastern part of the state. City auditor Kristen Looneborg (LOO'-nuh-berg) says water is surrounding several houses and a trailer park. had water on the main floor. Local officials are meeting with the Army Corps of Engineers to see whether an earthen dike is needed. The city engineer in Casselton says dikes started overnight have put the city in better shape to battle unexpected flooding. But engineer Roger Fenstad says the fight is not over -- and students are being excused from classes early today to help with sandbagging. Meanwhile, farmers near Amenia have asked Casselton for help in battling floodwaters. And around Fargo, the call is going out for thousands more volunteers to fill sandbags and build dikes. I talked with Mary Kenna at the Cass and Cl
March 31, 1997 - The San Diego County coroner's office has released the identity of the Minnesota man who died in the Heaven's Gate mass suicide. He is Alphonzo Ricardo Foster, and he reportedly lived in the Twin Cities for about twenty years before joining the group in 1994. Foster was 45 when he died, was born in Detroit, and had three sisters and a brother. Officials are still looking his Foster's next-of-kin. Since they couldn't find relatives, they notified a Minneapolis man who says he was friends with Foster for twenty years. James Hannon says he met Foster October 7, 1974, the day they began training to drive bus for the MTC. It took a while, Hannon says, to get to know Foster, but once he did they were fast friends.