Vicki Gerdes
Primary tabs
Staff writer at Detroit Lakes Newspapers for the past 16 years, currently editor of the entertainment and community pages as well as covering city council and the Lake Park-Audubon School Board. Living in DL with my cat, Smokey.
Contact Email
History
- Member for
- 3 years 10 months
Author Content
A public informational meeting to discuss high water issues on LaBelle and Boyer lakes in western Becker County is set to take place this Monday, Aug.
Just call them "mythbusters." Late last week, representatives from AARP Minnesota were in Detroit Lakes to talk health care reform -- or more specifically, the many myths that abound on both sides of what has become a hotly contested national debate. One of the latest came from the lips of President Obama himself, said Amy McDonough, associate state director of communications for AARP. "He (Obama) said AARP had endorsed his health care legislation (now pending in Congress)," McDonough said.
Becker County's solid waste management and recycling facilities are in need of an overhaul, according to the results of a study completed recently by a Twin Cities-area consulting firm. The consulting team of Wenck Associates, Inc., and Tim Goodman & Associates of Maple Plain were hired several months ago by the county board to complete a comprehensive study of the Becker County Transfer Station and recycling program. Steve Skoog, Becker County Environmental Services administrator, was at Tuesday's Becker County Board meeting to go over the findings of the study. "Basically, (the transfe
The struggling economy is taking its toll on animal shelters across the country. Families who are facing hard financial times are being forced to surrender their dogs, cats and other pets to animal shelters at an alarming rate. In turn, animal shelters are having a hard time keeping up because while demand for their services is skyrocketing, financial donations to these shelters -- also due to the economy -- are dramatically declining. Detroit Lakes has not been immune to the trend.
Enrollment at the Detroit Lakes campus of Minnesota State Community & Technical College (M-State) has reached a new milestone for the fall semester, with over 1,000 students. A total of 1,013 students were enrolled at M-State as of Tuesday, said Dale Westley, enrollment manager for the college. "We've reached that five-year plateau, which we're pretty excited about," he added. The total includes 709 full and part-time students attending classes at the DL campus, and another 355 enrolled in online classes taught by DL instructors.
Minnesota State Community & Technical College (M-State) in Detroit Lakes is offering a unique opportunity to 20 area high school students to earn a 14-credit college certificate in technical studies -- for free. Through a $200,000 grant from the Minnesota Renewable Energy Marketplace (MNREM), the school has established a new program where area high school juniors and seniors will receive training in welding, electronics, CADD-drafting, mechanical design and technical math, among other skills. "The grant pays for everything -- the parents don't owe anything, the school (district where the
Many young people have a dream career in mind from a relatively early age. Such was the case for Nelaina Daggett, who is about to begin her first year as the new preschool teacher at Community Alliance Church in Detroit Lakes. "I always wanted to be a teacher," she said. But she wasn't really convinced she had "the gift" for shaping young minds. So when Daggett, a Rochert native, graduated from Frazee High School, she decided to seek a business major at St.
Though the 2010 Becker County budget is still about a month away from being finalized, early figures indicate that the county tax levy is going to increase a mere 1.7 percent for next year. The preliminary budget presented during a county board work session Tuesday included a net levy of $17,557,235 for 2010 -- an increase of $294,234 over the previous year's levy of $17,263,001. This figure reflects not only the general fund levy, but also levies for public safety, human services and highway. An informal poll of the commissioners taken at the end of Tuesday's work session indicated tha
Music, comedy, drama... the upcoming season at Detroit Lakes' Historic Holmes Theatre promises to be its most entertaining to date. Season ticket packages for 2009-10 went on sale this Monday, Aug. 17, with individual show tickets becoming available Aug. 31. "Step inside our theater, and see the world," said Amy Stoller Stearns, executive director of the Historic Holmes Theatre. International acts like West Africa's Kusun Ensemble -- which officially kicks off the 2009-10 season on Oct.
The possibility that Lake Park-Audubon Schools will be able to tap into federal stimulus money for approximately $20 million in school facility improvements is looking less and less likely -- at least for the coming year. Superintendent Dale Hogie said Wednesday that he has not yet received official word from the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) as to whether the district's application has been approved for federal Qualified School Construction Bonds (QSCB) of $16 million and Qualified Zone Academy Bonds (QZAB) of $3 million. In informal discussions with an MDE official, however, Ho
