‘Cover Stories’ Archives
Bill Parker – Friend to the Indian Community
BY LAURA WATERMAN WITTSTOCK Opera devotees tuned in to the Opera program one evening every week to hear Bill Parker play and comment on great music as probably no one has since on Minnesota Public Radio. When the traveling portion of the Metropolitan Opera came to Minneapolis, Bill would pull out all the stops to record interviews with visiting [...]
Annie Young, Phillips Elder has died
Statement by Brad Bourn, Mpls. Park and Recreation Board, President, early Jan. 23rd Annie Young passed away this evening. Annie was the second longest serving Commissioner in the history of the Mpls. Park Board. I’ve directed Park Board Flag to be at half-staff until Jan. 31st. Like many, I’m still processing this loss. I had the honor of [...]
The Opioid Epidemic in Our Libraries: Hennepin County Needs to Do Better
LINDSEY FENNER On Wednesday, January 17, 2018 a Franklin Library patron died at HCMC, after overdosing in the library restroom. Another patron overdosed the following morning in a Franklin Library restroom. Although this is absolutely heartbreaking, I know as a Hennepin County Library worker it has become far too common for library patrons to [...]
CAROLING WITH CROWS Phillips Neighborhood, Christmas 2016
BY THOMAS R. SMITH Some people came out to greet us, others held back, facades preserving a solemn silence, whether of privacy, vacancy or sorrow. Yet smiles escaped our little roving chorus, whether for our stumbles over the carols’ verses in Spanish, or for having lit a few faces in windows and doorways of South [...]
Nowa Cumig: Dennis Banks 1937-2017
By Laura Waterman Wittstock A tribute to a life well-lived should not start with a quarrel with the New York Times, but this instance is an exception. On October 30th the New York Times called the Ojibwe patriot a militant as he had been labeled so many times before during his lifetime. The newspaper, in its apparent omniscient wisdom said he [...]
“As the Crow Flies” and the Phillips Community
By Harvey Winje In Native American folklore, the intelligence of crows is usually portrayed as the most important characteristic of crows. Seeing a crow was and is still considered good luck by many Native American tribes. “As the crow flies” refers to the shortest distance between two points because the common belief is that crows fly a [...]
Frances Fairbanks: 1929 – 2017
BY LAURA WATERMAN WITTSTOCK An all-night beginning of the mahjon for Frances Fairbanks took place on November 8th at the Minneapolis American Indian Center. This was a place she knew intimately, because she worked there for nearly all of the Center’s 43-year history. She was one of a kind, having worked her way up through the operational and [...]
AUTUMN IN OUR HEARTS
This future leader will be able to walk through the English curtain at will and leave it all behind having learned Objibwe and/or Dakota culture, traditions, and language; and the wholeness of the circle of life. He will understand how important autumn is…the timing of the leaves that turn to color – bronze, yellow, orange, red – signal when [...]