Greater Minnesota

Lexi Hugeback is Minnesota's first professional cornhole player, and according to her, cornhole isn't just a game where you throw a beanbag into a hole in a board — it's a game of the mind.

Host Cathy Wurzer talked with Karla Bloem, executive director of the International Owl Center in Houston, Minn., where staff members teach visitors how to identify owls during small-group “owl prowls.”

As the pandemic tested hospital workers, so too did it test houses of worship. But Rev. Beth Royalty, leader of the 163-year-old church that stands next door to the Mayo Clinic, says her congregation has come out the other side with a fresh perspective. “We can let go of the past. We have to let go of the past.”

Northwestern Minnesota butcher shop She Said has gone viral online after a visit from an unexpected patron — who didn’t even bother to open the front door properly.

The Plains Art Museum has been around in one form or another since 1965. It now produces a couple podcasts, including 5 Plain Questions, which poses five general questions to Indigenous artists, creators, musicians, writers, and culture bearers. MPR News host Cathy Wurzer talks with Native American Programs Director Joe Williams, who hosts the podcast.

“Matriarchate” by Nicole Havekost opens at the Rochester Art Center. Also on view is “Proto Language” by Chris Delisle and “Walk With Us,” a juried international exhibition including 16 artists.

Two small Minnesota towns were hit hard by tornadoes earlier this year. As the year ends, each is still recovering and rebuilding, and community leaders see success and struggle.

For what may be the last time, Dakota riders on horseback are braving bitter December weather to travel hundreds of miles to honor 38 men hanged in the largest mass execution in U.S. history. The ride also remembers the many others who died as a result of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862.

Writer Marcie Rendon lived a lot before she got her first novel published. Now the White Earth Member has released three books in the award-winning Cash Blackbear series. Recently, she visited the Bemidji Public Library in northwest Minnesota, to read and to talk about the history, locations and experiences behind the books.

While it was Sarah Jane Olson who made headlines for her St. Paul arrest in 1999, a lesser-known Symbionese Liberation Army member mentioned in the coverage caught the attention of author Rachael Hanel. She explores Camilla Hall’s journey from St. Peter, Minn., to the SLA in her new book, “Not the Camilla We Knew.”