The erudite and delightful woman helping transform southern Minnesotans into global adventurers has fixed her heart on other worthy causes that facilitate communication and relationships.
She is Dr. Yvonne Cariveau, but she grimaces as if stabbed when you call her that. Just plain “Yvonne” would be satisfactory, thank you.
It’s easy to understand why Barb Haroldson regrets being confined to her office on the second level of 16 North Minnesota Street in New Ulm.
Downstairs, the rich aroma of hot coffee lingers in the air; the warmth of hot ovens filters through the space, mingling with the pleasant chitchat stretching from one end of the building to the next. Soft chairs and sturdy tables encourage friendly conversations over a wasabi chicken salad or a cup of Hungarian mushroom soup. The European street scenes painted along the walls provide a brief interlude from a gray winter day in southern Minnesota. And the customers come and go with cheerful greetings for the familiar faces behind the counters.
Since its 1981 genesis, $3 million Kenway Engineering in large measure has made its profits Ken Detloff’s way—by applying old-fashioned elbow grease and adapting well to changing market conditions in the U.S. off-road vehicle, air conditioning/heating unit industry. Detloff was raised on a central Minnesota turkey farm and had to fix whatever his older brothers broke doing fieldwork. It was on that farm where he learned a solid work ethic and developed a sixth sense for adapting to change.
Last fall, some friends in Bob Coughlan’s ballroom dancing class mentioned they were taking a weekend trip to Philadelphia for a teacher’s conference. Coughlan, the great-grandson of T.R. Coughlan, who founded Mankato Kasota Stone in 1885, immediately offered his input on the couple’s itinerary while in the city of brotherly love.
“If you’re going to Philly, you have to go see the Philadelphia Museum of Art,” he told the couple. “My grandfather supplied the stone for that building.”
Say cheese, Dennis.
It’s easy getting Dennis Miller to smile. On November 18, 2005, $10 billion Alltel of Little Rock, Arkansas, announced it would buy Mankato-based Midwest Wireless for a bit more than $1 billion.
Happy days are here again.
In Bob Weerts exist all the trappings of a folk legend.
Like Minnesota’s homegrown Babe the Blue Ox and Paul Bunyan, Weerts at times seems much larger than real-life. In a regional business climate often preferring quiet parentheses, he’s an entrepreneur with an exclamation point after his name.
One frosty morning soon in Winnebago, Minn.—perhaps near the blazing-white welcome sign promoting the town’s annual celebration, Motofest—you might catch a local or two stretching a colorful vinyl banner above U.S. 169.
Perhaps it will say: Welcome to Winnebago. Home of Corn Plus. In 2005, first in the world to make ethanol production truly energy efficient.
It’s 5 a.m.
Pam and Roger Barnlund are up and ready for the first walk of the day. They wake the dogs—today there are only 12, but there could be up to 30—and start out with one on each of their arms. It takes an hour to give all of them a brisk morning romp.
Healthcare Academy overlooks the city of Henderson. A homely, handmade sign showing the letters “HDD” leans into a window of this 114-year-old Historical Register site at the corner of Eighth and Minnesota. The sign faces Eighth Street, so most passersby driving up steep Minnesota Street hill never see it. Since “HDD” is no longer the company’s name, the sign, if seen, really wouldn’t help most first-time visitors anyway.
