April 2020

The Benson baseball team and Benson-KMS track and field squads were set to get the 2020 high school spring sports season underway last Thursday when the Braves were set to host MACCRAY on Chiefs’ Field and the tracksters were set to host the first meet of the season at the track around Brock Field.

However, the COVID-19 shutdown has halted the season, with the first possible games now being set for early May, but also a strong possibility that the season may not ever begin.

“I think it hit me last Thursday (March 26),” said Benson head baseball coach Mark Grussing.  “We were supposed to get out of school early and go to St. John’s Dome and scrimmage against Brandon-Evansville.  Then, we were going to go to Buffalo Wild Wings and watch the end of the Twins; season opener.  Yes, you miss the competition; but, what you miss more are the times spent with your athletes and teammates.”

By Reed Anfinson
Publisher
Swift County Monitor-News

Famed hockey player Wayne Gretzky said he was taught to “skate to where the puck will be, not where it has been.” In rural Minnesota, anyone who has ever hunted or shot at clay targets knows the principal of leading the target.

In business, it’s the same. You constantly look to where the market and your customers are going while maintaining your core services and products.

For local governments, economic development is capitalizing on the opportunities your community provides entrepreneurs by anticipating their needs and being poised to provide them when opportunity strikes.

A core economic development fact is that we do best when we promote and support those businesses in our community that are the mainstay of main street and our employment base in business and manufacturing. Never has a commitment to that principal been more necessary than today.

By Reed Anfinson
Publisher
Swift County Monitor-News

Voters in District 777 will be going to the polls next Tuesday to cast ballots on a $1.5 million levy referendum for the construction of a new school recreational facility that will be primarily used by the gymnastics program.

District 777’s levy referendum is one of four elections taking place in Minnesota April 14. Montevideo and Bertha-Hewitt schools are also conducting levy referendums and Houston County is filling a vacancy on its county board.

Voting this spring has had a heavy emphasis on casting absentee ballots in light of the deadly and highly contagious coronavirus sweeping the country. The goal is to keep people from having to mingle with others while casting ballots.

Marjorie Mills, age 88 of Benson, died Thursday, March 19, 2020 in Lutheran Haven Nursing Home in Montevideo.  A private burial will be held at a later date.  Arrangements are with Zniewski Funeral Home in Benson.