Duluth doesn’t need outsiders to tell its story. It never did. The lake tells it. The bridge tells it. The sports teams tell it. The old bars tell it. People tell it every time they complain about the snow in April and brag about the sunset in July.
But here’s the bet: Duluthians are sick of the excuses. They’re sick of levy hikes passed off as inevitabilities. They’re sick of being told to feel guilty if they say no. And they’re ready to support someone who actually treats their money with respect.
On Superior Street, the contrast remains: laughter spilling from one door, papered windows a few steps away. The Imagine Downtown plan will not erase that reality overnight. But it offers a vision, backed by community and guided by outside expertise, that says decline is not destiny.
Minnesota publishers aren't listening to readers when they cut print or redesign their websites for the hundredth time. The future isn’t in the layout. It’s in the personality. It’s in having columnists embedded in every neighborhood, every small town, every city council chamber, every rink and gym.
So here’s Neal Pionk, sitting in the back row of orientation camp, probably wondering if anyone will remember that winning hockey games requires more than highlight-reel goals and “branding initiatives.” If history holds, they won’t.
“Overall it was a beautiful night for football … a big crowd, a new flag pole dedicated to a tremendous man and coach (former Hawks coach Gary Bowen) and a Hermantown win … really couldn’t ask for much more than that.” -- Hermantown Coach Mike Zagelmeyer.
Picture it: Ham in sweats, headset strapped on, coaching up young backs on the sideline like he’s been auditioning for the job all summer. He’s never been the rah-rah type in uniform, but suddenly he’s Mr. Clipboard? This isn’t rehab. This is a trial run for the next phase of his career.
And lest anyone think St. Scholastica is just a nice regional option, the rankings folks beg to differ. U.S. News puts them among the Best National Universities, Money magazine says it’s one of the “Best Colleges for Your Money,” and the Princeton Review keeps listing it among the Midwest’s best.
The real story is simple: the Vikings needed a guy who knows the offense and won’t panic on third-and-six. Nostalgia just happened to be the bonus prize.
I’ve met many people eager to be called heroes. Fred is the opposite. He shrugs away attention. He’d rather talk about his students than himself. But the truth is this: Fred Friedman is the greatest man I’ve ever met in my career — a hero who never wanted the title.
If Mayor Roger Reinert wants to prove he was worth the risk, he better deliver more than slogans. Because otherwise, the next election’s motto writes itself: We voted for change, and all we got was “cost of living.”
We can either keep patching potholes with pennies, or we can get bold — not reckless, but bold — about what we already have: a city on the edge of the world’s largest freshwater lake, in a century when water, livability, and resilience will decide which cities thrive.
They’re already whispering about Chloe Johnson the way Minnesotans used to whisper about Gophers hockey legends who walked out of Iron Range barns like they owned the world. Only this isn’t the 1970s and Johnson isn’t some elitely-talented kid headed to a smoky college fieldhouse. She’s
The numbers are stacked against the status quo, and the clock is ticking. In 2025, Duluth shoveled $1.2 million in tourism tax money into Spirit Mountain, propping up a ski hill meant to stand independently. That annual subsidy has turned into an open-ended drain, all while one of the
Public ceremonies like this one don’t always make the evening news. But they should. They are checkpoints in the life of a department that few of us notice until a siren wails down our street or a medic kneels over a loved one.
In Milwaukee, people struggling with addiction or mental illness weren’t being cycled through ERs or dumped onto downtown sidewalks. Instead, they had real places to go, real people to meet them, real pathways to stability. That shift gave residents confidence to come back.