With the rising demand for healthcare workers throughout the nation, Minnesota West Community & Technical College has been collaborating with our local healthcare partners to expand some of our Allied Health programs to the Granite Falls campus to meet those needs. “We started looking at expanding a couple programs to our Granite Falls location because of the shortage in our northern service area. With the local support from Avera Granite Falls, we can make this happen as soon as fall 2022,” says Dean of Allied Health Jackie Otkin. “Once the college determined which programs to offer first, we submitted our request to Minnesota State Colleges and Universities for approval to replicate a program including exploring the accreditation requirements. For this to happen so quickly, the college leaned heavily on our local partners to assist in providing equipment, supplies, and hopefully provide some adjunct faculty.”

On March 30th, the Montevideo Police Department notified the public of a Risk Level Three release in the Montevideo community. The notification was pursuant to Minnesota Statutes 244.052 and 253D, which authorizes law enforcement agencies in the state to inform the public of a public registrant’s release from either prison or a secure treatment facility when the police department believes the release of that information will enhance public safety.

Kara Jorges, originally from Montevideo, recently published work in an anthology of authors titled Bookriders and will be hosting an author’s book signing at the Chippewa County Public Library on Saturday, April 16th, beginning at 10:30 a.m. The anthology features five different fiction works centering on the topic of horseback librarians in Kentucky in the 1930s. “They were a real thing. It was part of the WPA program to put people to work,” explains Jorges. “These were in the rural areas of Kentucky. There were very few roads, so they got the idea to put librarians on horseback to deliver books to the remote areas.”

When Kevin Wald started Ritalka, Inc. in March of 1997, it was housed in a single room of his home – a house built by C.A. Fosnes in Montevideo. At the time, Wald says he had no grandiose plan for how large the company could grow but knew he wanted to try his hand at being an entrepreneur. Wald, who had grown up in Pierre, South Dakota, was a graduate of the University of Minnesota with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics. He had started his career in Los Angeles, where he worked on ballistic missiles for land and submarine launch platforms. From there, he moved to Minnesota, completing his MBA at the University of St. Thomas and moving into a career at a company in Benson that was on the brink of becoming Case New Holland. “I knew they were getting ready to sell. I had already worked for a large corporation back in the 80s. I wasn’t excited to be with a large corporation, and so I decided I wanted to try the entrepreneurial thing,” Wald says.