News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Monday August 3rd 2026
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Open in new tab Karen Clark: July 23, 1945 – June 30, 2026
Determined. Fierce. Driven. Passionate. Kind. Trailblazer. Giant. Mentor.
By CATHY STROBEL-AYERS
These are just a few of the words that come to mind as I remember Karen Clark. And even those words don’t seem like enough to capture her tireless drive to make a better world for communities that had to fight for a place at the table.
Karen was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 1980 and served through 2019 representing Phillips and surrounding neighborhoods. She was the first out lesbian ever elected to the state legislature. A grass roots community organizer at heart, she didn’t just work for her constituents; she worked with them to build their capacity to be their own advocates, to fuel their passion for changing the injustices they saw, and to not be afraid to speak truth to power.… Read the rest “Karen Clark: July 23, 1945 – June 30, 2026”
A New Chapter at Abbott Northwestern Hospital: Built with the Community, for the Community
By WHITNEY JOHNSON, Vice President, Hospital Operations, Allina Health
Care teams at Allina Health’s new Richard M. Schulze Surgical and Critical Care Center will welcome their first patients on August 29. This 620,000-square-foot facility is the centerpiece of the Abbott Northwestern Hospital campus revitalization project, which also included upgrades to 10th Avenue, an energy-efficient Central Utility Plant (CUP) and the Purple Ramp. None of this would be possible without the support of the Phillips community and the generous donors of the Allina Health Foundation.
“We’ve been here for more than 140 years, and this is the next step in providing healthcare to this community and being a good neighbor to this community for another century,” said Tony LaCroix-Dalluhn, vice president, Facilities Management, Allina Health.
The 10-floor center includes 30 operating rooms designed to enhance safety and support advanced technology, including an intraoperative magnetic resonance imaging (iMRI) system that can move between two surgery suites. There are 190 single-occupancy patient rooms, each equipped with a ceiling lift and space for accessibility equipment. Rooms also include a pullout couch so families can stay comfortably with their loved ones.… Read the rest “A New Chapter at Abbott Northwestern Hospital: Built with the Community, for the Community”
No Escaping the Heat
249th from Tales from Pioneers and Soldiers Cemetery…
By SUE HUNTER WEIR
born in Christiana (now Oslo) Norway in 1871. She died from
heatstroke on July 17, 1901. She was 30 years old. Anna
Johnson was buried in the same lot in 1911. Their relationship is
uncertain. PHOTO: Tim McCall
It’s only August and this already feels like a too-long summer. Prolonged temperatures in the nineties. Records being broken. Although the scope and scale are bigger, this isn’t a recent phenomenon. Recorded deaths in Minneapolis due to heat and sunstroke date back to the 1860s and there were undoubtedly many more that went unrecorded before that. The Cemetery’s recorded death due to heatstroke was that of an “unknown German man” on July 16, 1866. Nothing else was known about him.
While conventional wisdom claims that it is the very young and the elderly who are most susceptible to the effects of heat, this was not the case for the twenty-one people whose cause of death was recorded as “sunstroke” or “heatstroke.” Only two of them were in their sixties. Eight were in their forties, and another five were in their thirties.… Read the rest “No Escaping the Heat”
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