Duluth's homegrown columnist. Since 1971.
Editor & Publisher of HowieHanson.com
I write about power, business, sports and civic life in Duluth and across Minnesota. My columns examine the people making decisions, the organizations behind those decisions and what their choices mean for the communities they serve.
My journalism career began in 1971 at the Cloquet Pine Knot. More than five decades later, I'm still reporting and writing from Duluth. I publish HowieHanson.com, an independent site built around original columns, local reporting and Minnesota sports coverage.
My work combines reporting, analysis and commentary. I believe in checking facts, asking direct questions and giving readers enough information to make up their own minds. My reporting and opinions are mine, and I stand behind the words I publish.
I welcome story ideas, questions, corrections and tips from readers. Email is the best way to reach me.
Email: GuyHowieHanson@gmail.com
I have long believed that communities are only as strong as their local newspaper. Today, I would expand that thought slightly: communities are only as strong as their commitment to local journalism. The future of the Duluth News Tribune matters because the future of local journalism matters.
FOX 21's success demonstrates that there remains an audience for serious local journalism when it is executed at a high level. Despite all the changes affecting the media industry, viewers continue to reward organizations that invest in quality reporting and credible journalism.
ALBANY, N.Y. — Malik Henry threw for five touchdowns and the Michigan Arsenal handed the Albany Firebirds their first loss of the 2026 Arena
DULUTH, Minn. — Ridgeview Country Club has announced its lineup of championship tournaments and member events for the 2026 golf season, highlighted by the 100th
Pionk will likely spend the prime years of the remainder of his career in Winnipeg, continue playing meaningful hockey deep into the spring and further cement his place among the most successful players ever to come through the University of Minnesota Duluth program.
For the first time, several local businesses will join the festival lineup alongside the DECC's culinary team. Participating vendors currently include MidCoast Catering, Burrito Union & Tequila Bar, Azteca's and Hungry Hippie Tacos. Organizers said additional vendors may be added before the event.
Garry Bjorklund and Dick Beardsley are not merely former champions. They helped transform a promising local race into a world-class event.
The screen becomes less important. The assistant becomes more important. That is where Apple believes the future is heading. And I think Apple is right.
The name Minnesota Monsters reflects an opportunity to attract fans from across northern Minnesota rather than solely from Duluth. If the organization continues to build on its current foundation, the franchise could become a long-term community and economic asset for the Twin Ports region.
"It's really exciting to be hosting this event in our community ... and I'm looking forward to the fans in Duluth creating an incredible atmosphere for these athletes and everyone visiting our city." -- Scott Sandelin, head coach of the University of Minnesota Duluth men's hockey team
The upcoming season will feature four major productions, led by the comedy mystery "Clue" on Nov. 11, followed by the Tony Award-winning musical comedy "Shucked" on Jan. 24, the acrobatic spectacle "Cirque Alice" on Feb. 4 and the Neil Diamond musical biography "A Beautiful Noise" on April 22.
The question is whether the senior class can transform potential into production, close the gap on Grand Rapids and bring a Section 7, Class 4A championship trophy back to Centricity Stadium.
Unfortunately, the new currency of leadership is visibility. You’re judged not by budgets balanced or streets repaired, but by how many times your face appears on a feed. The ribbon-cutting is no longer the celebration of work done; it is the work.
Sewell has a chance to become one of the premier players in northeastern Minnesota, and the Lumberjacks have enough returning talent around him to remain a factor in Section 7A.
The modern Duluth enjoyed by residents and visitors did not emerge by accident. It was built by people willing to invest their talent, resources and leadership in a city they believed could become more than its industrial past.
Senior forward Beau Christy (27 GP, 27 G, 17 A, 44 Pts) is the player everyone in Class A should know entering next season. He led Hermantown in goals and points and averaged 1.63 points per game. Nearly 40 percent of his points came from goals.
What happens next at the Minnesota Star Tribune may become one of the clearest signals yet about how major regional journalism survives the next generation in America. Not as a dying factory. Not as a billionaire toy. But as an institution Minnesota ultimately may decide is still worth protecting.
Trump challenged the structure itself. To Trump supporters, he represented long-overdue rebellion against elite management of the country. To his critics, he represented a direct threat to democratic norms, constitutional stability and civic decency.
Tim Meyer is a Duluth architect and community builder. Reach him at tim.meyer@meyergroupduluth.com I attended last week’s public event on
Duluth residents simply need this summer emotionally. They need concerts at Bayfront and families along the Lakewalk. They need baseball games, festivals and tourists asking directions. They need reminders that life cannot become an endless cycle of bills, politics, inflation, anxiety and survival.
Hairball works at Bayfront Festival Park because the band understands something many modern entertainers, marketers and civic leaders often miss entirely: people are starving for shared experiences that feel emotionally uncomplicated.
Howie's daily column is powered by Lyric Kitchen Bar in Downtown Duluth. Arik Forsman on running for mayor of Duluth in 2027:
Bayfront remains one of the few places where the city still functions the way a healthy city is supposed to function: as a shared public space where people continue gathering together because they genuinely want to be there. Every summer, Duluth remembers that again.
Survival, for many old industrial American cities during the late twentieth century, became the central challenge itself. Doty helped Duluth survive long enough to rediscover confidence in itself again. That is not a minor civic legacy.
The emotional political truth in Minnesota: The DFL fears permanently losing working-class and regional voters. Republicans fear nominating candidates who thrill activists but collapse in the suburbs. Both fears are real.
Oberstar approached Congress differently. He understood it as machinery requiring relationships, technical credibility, negotiation and committee leverage rather than ideological performance.
History will remember George Floyd’s murder for many reasons. Protest. Rage. Reform. Politics. Division. Reckoning. But the enduring question may be simpler. Did America merely react to what it saw? Or did it finally learn to tell itself the truth?
The question is no longer whether newspapers are dying. The real question now is which institutions survive the transition from industrial-age newspapers into modern digital civic platforms. And whether Minnesota’s largest news organization fully understands what it must become next.
Whether residents ultimately agree with every proposal or not, the broader framework behind One Park One Vote deserves to be taken seriously because it attempts to connect housing, sustainability, environmental protection and economic development into one larger civic conversation.
In many ways, Minnesota Power became one of the hidden structural pillars underneath modern Duluth’s entire existence. Because in northern Minnesota, power literally meant power. Industrial power. Political power. Economic leverage. Regional influence. Stability. Survival.
Few people believed in that larger vision of Duluth more aggressively than Jeno Paulucci. And few people fought harder for it emotionally.
Hanft Fride's board of directors called the recognition a reflection of the firm's long-standing commitment to clients and the legal profession. And in many ways, that probably explains why the firm continues to occupy such a durable place inside Duluth’s professional ecosystem.