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Duluth Chamber’s Ross wins Solon Leadership Award

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Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce President and CEO David Ross was presented the Sam Solon Leadership Award on Thursday at a legislative breakfast that capped the annual two-day Duluth and St. Louis County at the Capitol lobbying event.

Ross joined the Duluth Chamber of Commerce in August 1997. (2008 file / News Tribune)

The award is named for the late lawmaker from Duluth. His widow, Lt. Gov. Yvonne Prettner Solon, made the presentation at the Crowne Plaza St. Paul Riverfront hotel, lauding Ross’ tireless support of Duluth, his cheerleading for the community and his infamous speaker introductions.

“It takes a community of citizen leaders working together to make our community a great place,” Prettner Solon said. “We are fortunate to have people like David fighting for the city of Duluth.”

Ross, a Duluth native and 1974 East High School graduate, joined the Chamber in August 1997 and has worked closely with area business leaders and elected officials on lobbying efforts at the Capitol for the past 15 of the city and county’s 16 total years.

Still, the honor came as a surprise.

“I know Yvonne Prettner Solon keeps it very much within her area of decision-making, so the fact that it would be a surprise to someone made perfect sense to me,” Ross said. “There’s many people that could have received this.”

To Ross’ colleagues, the choice made sense.

“When people are bestowed that award, it’s a lot of times for everything that happens publicly. But with his history with Yvonne and Sam, it’s a lot more from his heart,” said Linda Kratt, the Chamber’s director of events and retention. “It’s great to work with a leader like that. I just think it’s fitting.”

Duluth-area leaders bring a message of thanks to Capitol

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Members of the Duluth East High School Jazz Band perform during a rally at the rotunda inside the Capitol building in St. Paul on Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2013. Andrew Zimmerman is seen in the foreground. (Chuck Frederick / cfrederick@duluthnews.com)

ST. PAUL — Previous years’ visits to the state Capitol by Northeastern Minnesota community leaders included requests to fund projects such as an airport terminal, a hockey arena, an intermodal transportation hub and wastewater treatment.

This year, the message was one of thanks.

An estimated 500 business leaders, local elected officials and students participated in the 16th annual Duluth & St. Louis County Days at the Capitol event that included meeting with state lawmakers, a rally at the rotunda and a reception of Duluth and county exhibitors at the Crowne Plaza St. Paul Riverfront hotel. A legislative breakfast with an address from Gov. Mark Dayton is scheduled for this morning at the hotel.

Participation numbers took a hit at the 2012 event because of a statewide snowstorm. The Duluth Chamber of Commerce, which organizes the event often referred to as “Duluth Days,” was pleased with the rebound this year.

“I would say we have surpassed the energy of past years,” said David Ross, president and CEO of the Duluth Chamber.

“The final indicator will be how many people we have at our legislative Grand Reception,” which was set for later Wednesday evening. “Every indication is that it’s going to be a banner year.”

The thank-yous were extended for Dayton and the Legislature’s quick action in the days that followed flooding in Northeastern Minnesota last June.

“They came in and supported our community when we needed it most,” said Dan Hartman, a Duluth city councilor. “Everyone who lives in Duluth knows how much that impacted our community.”

There also was a chance to meet the newest members of the Legislature, which Hartman hopes will help come budget time.

“We’ve been asking for years for a proper balance of the budget, and they’re trying to figure that out,” he said. “Part of that process is they’re going to extend the sales tax and possibly some services, maybe some clothing; we’ll see. For what’s been projected already in the governor’s budget, if that were to pass, would give $6 (million) to $8 million of new revenue to the city.”

The city’s lawsuit with Fond-du-Luth Casino over annual payments that once went to street repairs has left a pothole-sized gap in funding.

“We’ve lost $6 million a year,” Hartman said. “If this (budget) were to pass, we’d have money for streets again.”

And Hartman doesn’t want lawmakers to forget about Local Government Aid, which has decreased in recent years.

“It’s 40 percent, almost, of our entire revenue,” he said. “Any hit to that is a major hit to our community.”

Other topics mentioned at the Capitol on Wednesday were the ever-rising cost of tuition in higher education — students from the University of Minnesota Duluth and the College of St. Scholastica attended — and mass transit, specifically the Northern Lights Express passenger train between the Twin Cities and Duluth.

Progress in the NLX project hinges on rail authorization and money made available by the federal government.

“That’s going to be, no doubt, a debate in Congress this year,” said Jeff Anderson, a former Duluth city councilor now working as district director for U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan, D-Minn. Anderson said he was at the Capitol on Wednesday as a citizen. “Where it goes, I don’t know. But Congressman Nolan is very supportive of the Northern Lights Express.”

Before the annual visits to the Capitol, lawmakers stormed Duluth by the busloads for first-class treatment and pampering by city leaders hoping for generous state funding. Ethics regulations put a stop to such practices.

Duluth gets $285,000 grant to assist Georgia-Pacific workers; offer for plant site rejected

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Duluth Mayor Don Ness said Georgia-Pacific has hindered the city’s efforts to find a new occupant for the company’s hardboard plant that closed earlier this year.

Dwight Wickstrom, 56, of Esko, who worked at Georgia-Pacific for 37 years as a maintenance planner, describes how much he appreciates the opportunity to be retrained thanks to a $285,000 grant by the state of Minnesota to Duluth Workforce Development. Wickstrom and other workers attended a news conference at City Hall on Friday, Nov. 30, 2012, along with Mayor Don Ness (not pictured) and Don Hoag (center), manager of Duluth Workforce Development. (Bob King / rking@duluthnews.com)

The comments came during a news conference to announce a state grant the city received to help displaced workers of the shuttered facility. The $285,000 grant from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development will help the city and Duluth Workforce Development provide professional re-employment assistance for up to 80 of the 141 workers who lost their jobs when the plant began its shutdown in August and want to return to the workforce.

Ness said a “local company” made an offer to buy the plant.

“We’ve been discouraged with some of the lack of cooperation that we’ve seen from GP. I know that the employees are discouraged on that front as well,” Ness said. “And if GP has closed the door in operating on that site, well then we want to shift our focus and encourage them to allow somebody else to come in and use that site to put it to productive use.”

Anna Umphress, a spokeswoman at Georgia-Pacific’s headquarters in Atlanta, told the News Tribune today that the company rejected the local offer to buy the plant.

“GP has discontinued talks with the local group. The offer we received was well below the value of the property,” Umphress said. She and Ness didn’t name the company involved. “We understand the city’s interest in finding an owner. We are in discussions in other parties.”

The Duluth plant made a thin hardboard product called Superwood that’s widely used in the auto industry for interior parts like visors, door inserts, rear shelves and spare-tire parts. It opened in 1948 as a locally owned Superwood Corp. Georgia-Pacific bought the company in 1987. Koch Industries became its parent company in 2005.

Georgia-Pacific decided to close the plant to “optimize” business based on its long-term product strategy, company spokesman Eric Abercrombie said in August. The Duluth operations closed Oct. 19.

The plant’s manufacturing has since been shifted to Georgia-Pacific’s other facilities.

“The equipment and the plant that’s in place could be used for a similar operation,” Ness said.

In October, Umphress said Georgia-Pacific won’t sell to a similar company.

“We made it very clear we would not be willing to sell the plant to a competitor,” she said.

Ness said Georgia-Pacific should realize the impact its decision to close the plant has had on the Duluth community and what a once-again-productive site would mean.

“The more conditions that GP puts on its sale, the more difficult it is to put it to productive use,” he said. “So, we’re encouraging GP to have as few restrictions as possible so that we can get it into the hands of an owner who wants to operate it, who wants to put this equipment to its intended purpose and can put people back to work.”

Bill Drallmeier, a former driver who worked at the Duluth plant for 25 years, said he was surprised by the closing despite noticing a difference in operations about six to nine months before the plant closed.

“We saw a change happening in the quality, the style of the board,” the 56-year-old Superior man said today. “They weren’t replacing things. Doors that were breaking, they weren’t replacing, so we had a hint. You always heard it’s a 50-year-old plant. You always hear they’re going to shut the doors. You talk to the guys who have been there 30 years say, ‘I’ve heard that since we got here.’ ”

Dennis McCort, 61, of Duluth, another former driver who worked at the plant for 25 years, said workers began to wonder if the plant was going to close based on the reduction of orders.

“I think that the company was saying that we couldn’t produce the board properly, which we could. And we would cut back on orders and then cut down our days,” said McCort, who hopes with retraining he can work for five more years instead of retiring at age 62 with a smaller pension. “We were off for a week a month for a while then they said, ‘Well, you can’t keep up with what the orders are.’

“Well, yeah, we were down for eight days a month. You kind of knew it was coming, but just kept hoping in the background maybe not.”

The company gave its laid-off workers a severance package, though it was not required in their union contract. For the first 15 years of service, the company is giving workers 20 hours of pay for each year worked. Those with 16 to 26 or more years with the company also get a full week’s pay for each of those added years worked, up to 26 years, Drallmeier said in October.

Under federal law for a plant closure involving more than 100 workers, the company also must compensate employees with two months of pay, whether they work it or not, starting with the Aug. 21 plant closure announcement, Drallmeier said. But the eight weeks of pay is being subtracted from the severance package, he said.

Efforts by the union to better the severance package weren’t successful, Drallmeier said. No severance is required, “so when they come and offer this, you got to take what they give you,” he said.

With the average age of the laid-off workers in their 50s, some longtime employees are eligible to retire. Some have found new jobs.

The grant announced by the city today is effective immediately and will run through Dec. 31, 2013, with the possibility of an extension to the end of 2014. Don Hoag, Duluth Workforce Development Manager, said the grants will focus on two tracks — job search and retraining — for displaced Georgia-Pacific workers.

“It’s a good thing,” Dwight Wickstrom, 56, of Esko, who worked at the plant for 37 years, said at the news conference, “and I believe it’s going to get better.”

Former Georgia-Pacific employees interested in assistance should contact the Duluth Workforce Development Center at (218) 302-8400, or visit the office at 402 W. First St.

News Tribune reporter Candace Renalls contributed to this report. This story originally appeared on duluthnewstribune.com.

Flood proved worth of electronic media

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Duluth was treated to Mother Nature’s softer side during Grandma’s Marathon weekend — so much so that the News Tribune pointed it out in the headline of a follow-up story Monday.

People interacted with the Duluth News Tribune via Twitter throughout the week of flooding in Duluth. (Jimmy Bellamy / jbellamy@duluthnews.com)

What she brought out for an encore, though, few could have predicted.

The storms and subsequent flooding that ravaged Northeastern Minnesota and Northwestern Wisconsin painted a picture of chaos across its beautiful landscape: cars under water, roads crumbled, bridges decimated, homes’ basements resembling fish tanks.

The road to restoration will be long, no doubt, but these are the trials that bring out the best in humankind. Video camera in tow, while documenting the devastation in Moose Lake, the overwhelming spirit, optimism and positivity of its residents stood out more than the cold, murky water through which I waded.

Like any maelstrom event with wide public interest, the storm and flood brought out the best in the News Tribune newsroom. Fellow multimedia editor Andrew Krueger provided a Herculian effort that began with the creation of a severe-weather live blog on Tuesday that he kept watch over well into Wednesday morning. His all-hands-on-deck e-mail to newsroom staff shortly after 3 a.m. triggered what since has been nonstop coverage and updates at every turn.

People flocked to duluthnewstribune.com, our Facebook page, Twitter feed and our — most-recent addition — iPad app for the latest news, photos, videos and chatter about road closures, relief efforts and everything related to the massive storms and floods.

Our Twitter handle — @duluthnews — jumped from roughly 4,300 followers to more than 5,100 in a 24-hour period between Wednesday and Thursday, and our Facebook page increased by more than 1,000 “likes” to just under 5,000 in the same timeframe. Each has been an interactive platform that leads to even more information on our website.

The News Tribune iPad app, which can be downloaded free from the app store on an iPad, is another way for you to stay in touch with us any time.

When things have looked the worst, we’ve been there. And we’ll be with you throughout every step of this recovery.

Jimmy Bellamy is a News Tribune multimedia editor. He may be reached at jbellamy@duluthnews.com and on Twitter and Facebook. This post originally appeared on duluthnewstribune.com.

Plane, pilot go missing near Duluth

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Searchers are looking for a missing pilot and plane near Duluth.

A Civil Air Patrol plane engaged in the search for a plane missing in Northeastern Minnesota departs Duluth International Airport on Sunday, June 10, 2012. (Steve Kuchera / skuchera@duluthnews.com)

The Civil Air Patrol says the plane — described as a white twin-engine Piper PA-31 Navajo with red and blue striping — with one person on board was reported to be on a flight from Fleming Field in South St. Paul to the Duluth airport and back to St. Paul on Friday.

A longtime friend of the missing pilot has confirmed to the News Tribune that searchers are looking for Michael Arthur Bratlie, 67, of Lakeville, Minn.

Don Nemcek, who attends St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Bloomington, Minn., with Bratlie, said he has known the retired Navy and Northwest Airlines pilot for 17 years.

“He raised two wonderful kids who are both doing well. I think the world of Mike; he’s a great person,” said Nemcek, who is a member of the Vernacular Video Mission International board of directors with Bratlie. “I’m really sad to hear that this has happened, but very hopeful that something can be found.”

The search area Sunday extended from Silver Bay to the Canadian border, including Lake Superior, said Col. Jerry Rosendahl of the Civil Air Patrol.

“Unfortunately, we’re not rich in clues or solid information,” Rosendahl said Sunday afternoon. “Our planning section is working on every kind of idea of what might have happened and sending our crews out to the search area. We work the inland searches and the Coast Guard works the water.”

Eight Civil Air Patrol airplanes and six ground teams are involved in the search. About 60 Civil Air Patrol volunteers are participating, working from a base at the Duluth airport.

Rosendahl said he expected crews to stop searching for the night as wind and thunderstorms rolled into Northeastern Minnesota before resuming this morning, weather pending.

“The weather situation is what will determine when the search stops for the night. It could be pretty well closed up by now,” he said just after 7 p.m. while on his way home to the Twin Cities. “As long as we can fly, we’ll be flying. We will continue to search as we can.”

Rosendahl said nothing in the flight plan indicated that the pilot would deviate from the St. Paul-to-Duluth and Duluth-to-St. Paul routes.

The incident may not have been the first for Bratlie.

According to federal aviation records cited on the website aircraftone.com, on Dec. 16, 1999, a plane owned and piloted by Michael A. Bratlie of Lakeville, Minn., made a forced landing about two miles short of a runway at Centennial Airport in Englewood, Colo., on a flight from North Platte, Neb., after a complete loss of power. The National Transportation Safety Board reported the pilot and one other passenger on board were not injured.

Nemcek said he has flown with Bratlie twice and attended the Oshkosh, Wis., airshow with him five years ago.

“Mike is a very meticulous, detailed person. When you flew with him, he had a reason for everything he did; very detailed and very systematic,” Nemcek said. “That’s why this news is very surprising.”

Chief Petty Officer Kyle Niemi with the Coast Guard 9th District public affairs office in Cleveland told the News Tribune the Coast Guard was contacted by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, which coordinates federal search-and-rescue missions in the Lower 48 for inland areas — essentially, any searches not taking place over ocean waters.

The Coast Guard was asked to search an area of Lake Superior where cell phone tracing had placed the plane at some point in its journey. A boat crew out of Duluth did not find anything, and had completed its involvement in the search as of Sunday morning, Niemi said.

“He’s a wonderful Christian man” with an active lifestyle that includes traveling and painting, Nemcek said. He said Bratlie has created paintings of the places to which he has traveled and went on several mission trips to the Philippines as a part of the VVMI board, which he joined in 2000.

Both men are members of their church choir.

“I probably run into him; probably talk to him three or four times a month, usually at church,” Nemcek said. “I sing in the choir, and Mike plays in the orchestra. He plays the trombone, and actually he is very musically inclined. I know he has a couple brass bands that he essentially leads and plays with outside in the community.”

The Civil Air Patrol asks anyone in Northeastern Minnesota with information to contact Maj. Paul Pieper at (651) 398-4044.

News Tribune staff writer Mark Stodghill, multimedia editor Andrew Krueger and the Associated Press contributed to this report. This story originally appeared at duluthnewstribune.com.

Death isn’t funny, but Twitter and Kim Jong Il changed that

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s death wasn’t violent like the ones experienced earlier this year by fellow world-famous bad guys Osama bin Laden and Moammar Gadhafi.

The 69-year-old communist wasn’t overthrown by the people he oppressed and hurt. And he didn’t get gunned down by U.S. military forces. He reportedly died of heart failure while riding on a train.

Kim Jong Il in puppet form was the main villain in the 2004 film “Team America: World Police.” (Photo from rottentomatoes.com)

No mass celebrations.

No cell phone-camera footage on YouTube.

No faux death photos.

One common thread they did share? Plenty of one-liners and jokes on Twitter.
“Kim Jong Il’s son has some tiny shoes to fill,” actor Jeff B. Davis said, referring to the diminutive stature of Kim, whose son, Kim Jong Un, was named his successor.

“Kim Jong Il? More like Kim Jong Dead,” tweeted a flurry of people, each of whom I like to imagine thought they were the only person in the world funny enough to come up with the line.

My Twitter timeline blew up shortly after 9 p.m. Sunday with everything from that last piece of comedy gold to news reports with as much detail as one could get from a less-than-cooperative North Korean government.

One of my favorite tweets came from comedian Jimmy Kimmel.

“Rest in peace Kim Jong Il. You were a very sweet lady,” Kimmel said of Kim, who I’m almost certain looks like somebody’s grandma somewhere.

But nothing appeared as often as references to “Team America: World Police,” the 2004 movie made by Trey Parker and Matt Stone — the creators of “South Park” — that used marionette puppets for characters. The terms “Team America” and “World Police” quickly entered the website’s list of trending topics in the U.S. The main villain in the film was Kim Jong Il in puppet form, complete with oversized glasses, bulldog jowls and tan jumpsuit.

“We did it Twitter. We made every Kim Jong-Il joke there was to make,” musician Brendan Maclean tweeted. “I’m sure North Korea will appreciate it once they get the Internet.”

Like it or not, to my generation, that’s how Kim Jong Il is best known. One of world’s most hated men is seen by millions of people as a puppet with a voice that sounds like South Park character Eric Cartman’s.

Jimmy Bellamy is a Duluth News Tribune columnist and multimedia editor in Duluth, Minn. Contact him at (218) 723-5390 or jbellamy@duluthnews.com. This column originally appeared here.

‘Two thousand’ is over, and it’s time for the twenties

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2012.
How does that sound? Seriously, how does it read to you?
Did you hear “two thousand twelve” or “twenty-twelve” in your head when you read it?
Since 2010, I’ve heard it with a mix of “two thousands” and “twenties,” and “two thousand,” sadly, is winning in a heavily lopsided battle.
The year 2000 was quick and easy to say. And we didn’t have much choice in how we said years 2001 through 2009 — I never heard someone say “twenty-o-one,” for example, when talking about 2001.
But 2010 and beyond has offered options. Do we stick with what we knew for a decade or save time and syllables for the next 87 years? I’d go with the latter.
Just do a comparison using the 1900s.
The year 1900, I only can assume, was said at the time as “nineteen hundred,” not “one thousand nine hundred.” Just like the year 1910 was “nineteen ten” instead of “one thousand nine hundred ten.”
I cringe each time I hear someone on TV or the radio, and in everyday conversation, talk about the current year and start with “two thousand.” Saying “twenty-eleven” flows better. Plus, no year should take six syllables to say.
Hopefully with 2012, a year long talked about for its connection to the end of the Mayan calendar and the belief of some that the world will end, people will drop the two thousand and stick with twenty. I mean, even the 2009 movie “2012” was pronounced “twenty-twelve.” And think about how fun it will be to say “2020” when we get there.
Comedian Bill Burr, who hosts my favorite podcast, “The Monday Morning Podcast,” starts every show by saying, “Hey, what’s going on? It’s Bill Burr, and it’s the Monday Morning Podcast for Monday, (whatever the date is), 2011.” He almost always says the year as “two thousand eleven” or even “two thousand and eleven.” And it bugs me to an unreasonable and irrational degree.
But this week, something was different. He said “twenty-eleven” for only the second or third time this year, and it sounded so right.
All of us should get behind the twenty and make that battle a little less lopsided.

Jimmy Bellamy is a Duluth News Tribune columnist and multimedia editor in Duluth, Minn. Contact him at (218) 723-5390 or jbellamy@duluthnews.com. This column originally appeared here.

Passion cools for iPhone after latest release

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The more things change, the more they stay the same — at least to some.
People got worked up this week leading up to Apple’s unveiling of the next iPhone.
And some still are — but for a different reason.
Excitement about the rumored release of the iPhone 5 quickly ballooned into disappointment this week after Apple announced that the successor to its iPhone 4 wasn’t a 5 at all, but a 4S.

iPhone

Apple’s iPhone 4S doesn’t differ much from its predecessor, the iPhone 4. (Koji Sasahara / Associated Press)

The wonder of its capabilities went unappreciated by techies from casual to hard-core, all because the company’s latest version is called by the same number and has the same look as its predecessor.
But you can’t blame them for expecting something different.
Technology has changed so rapidly in the past decade-plus that it’s hard for those of us in our 20s and 30s to appreciate incremental improvements to something that only used to make and receive calls.
“I was kind of underwhelmed, initially,” said Max Caven, a 21-year-old from Duluth and a self-professed Apple fanboy. “But as I thought about it, it really didn’t surprise me.”
The news didn’t curb customer interest, though, at the AT&T store on Central Entrance in Duluth, where an employee said a steady stream of calls continued to come in since Apple sent invitations last week about the iPhone media event at its California headquarters.
But tech geeks and basement dwellers throughout the Internet still declared a “fail” by Apple CEO Tim Cook, whose company’s new phone doesn’t have the capability to make breakfast or deliver babies.
“I think a lot of people were expecting a 5, and a lot of people were let down,” Caven said. “For all intents and purposes, this is a 5; it just doesn’t look like a 5.”
So, there’s no way to tell that you’re cooler than the dude with an iPhone 4. People will just have to take your word.
We’re waiting for the first phone to flip a pancake and cut an umbilical cord. But until then, we’ll have to settle for the cool stuff the iPhone 4S promises to do. Cook says the phone is faster, carries an improved camera, and even has a voice-activated service called Siri, which responds to a user’s questions and commands.
“This is the typical Apple scenario: People keep wanting it to do the impossible,” Tim Bajarin, a Creative Strategies analyst, said in an Associated Press story.
“I’m not impressed with the new #iPhone4S,” Joshua Gonzales (@SpanishJedi) said via Twitter. “Sure it’s faster & has a few more upgrades, but nothing to impress me.”
And you won’t be until the arrival of that long-awaited toaster-oven app.

Jimmy Bellamy is the multimedia editor at the Duluth News Tribune in Duluth, Minn. Contact him at (218) 723-5390 or jbellamy@duluthnews.com. This column originally appeared here.

Bulldogs’ winning ways prompt more fans to wear their pride

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Where my ’Dogs at? These days, they’re everywhere.
The University of Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs are on shirts. Hats. Car windows. Even cupcakes. (My favorite is chocolate, with gold frosting.)
It wasn’t always this way, though.
As a child growing up in Duluth, the only thing I knew UMD for was a hockey team that never won quite as many games as I’d hoped.
“I remember 15 years ago, when if you only looked in the crowd and not on the ice, you wouldn’t know what teams were playing based on what fans were wearing,” UMD sports information director Bob Nygaard said. “Apparel or sporting your school colors is the most visible sign of school pride. Nothing is a bigger marketer tool than getting your image out there on everything from stuffed mascots to notebooks.”
The past decade-plus has brought expansion — I can’t remember a day during my time there as a student that something wasn’t under construction — and with it, a grip load of students.
Sure, new facilities have made UMD a more desirable institution, but I never saw anyone wearing a T-shirt with the Swenson Science Building on it. It wasn’t until the school’s recent athletic success that it got something that all the fundraising, top-notch courses and ever-rising tuition costs could never buy — swagger.
It began in 2008, when the Bulldogs went undefeated in football and won the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II championship for the first time in school history.
I didn’t attend a football game in my four years at UMD, but I couldn’t have been happier than I was jumping in front of my TV with my maroon Bulldogs T-shirt on that day.
“Part of the reason I came here was they were already coming off a national championship,” said Chase Vogler, a junior from the Twin Cities area.
He’s now the Bulldogs’ starting quarterback and held that position last year when they again won an NCAA title — in an unbeaten season.
In 2009, the UMD men’s hockey team made a remarkable playoff run highlighted by becoming the first No. 5 seed to win the Western Collegiate Hockey Association Final Five and a final-seconds comeback in an NCAA regional game.
I almost tore my Bulldogs T-shirt off Hulk Hogan-style after watching Evan Oberg’s tying goal with 0.8 seconds left in the third and Mike Connolly’s overtime winner in that game against Princeton.
The volleyball and women’s hockey teams had impressive seasons, too, bookended by the women’s hockey team’s NCAA Division I titles in 2008 and 2010 — cementing the respect they earned in 2001, 2002 and 2003.
Then in April came the icing on those gold-frosted cupcakes: The Bulldogs won their first NCAA Division I men’s hockey championship — in overtime, nonetheless — in their home state. And I witnessed it from my third-row seat along with my younger brother, Josh, and thousands of fans in Bulldogs gear.

Kenny Reiter

Junior goaltender Kenny Reiter led Minnesota Duluth to its first NCAA Division I men's hockey title April 9, 2011, in St. Paul. (Clint Austin / caustin@duluthnews.com)

All this happening on national TV suddenly made UMD a “sexy” school.
In the past year, I can’t walk downtown or fill up at the Spur or buy ant killer at Marshall’s Hardware without seeing people decked out in Bulldogs clothing. And it’s not my imagination. As of the end of May, UMD had sold a quarter-million dollars in NCAA championship-related apparel in 2011, Nygaard said.
“People like to come in and get their championship stuff as well as other stuff and support their team,” said Caroleen Zylka, who works at UMD Stores.
Not to mention the explosion of another Bulldog-embossed item — the championship ring.
Can’t buy that.

Jimmy Bellamy is the multimedia editor at the Duluth News Tribune in Duluth, Minn. Contact him at (218) 723-5390 or jbellamy@duluthnews.com. This column originally appeared here.

Postal Service is so 20th century, but we need it

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In 2011, the post office is as dated as a Cliff Clavin reference.
But I like the idea of it, just like I like Cliffy. I’d miss it if the Postal Service really did default, as it has threatened to do at the end of the month.
Bob Pokorney, 33, of Duluth was at the Mount Royal branch Wednesday with a batch of envelopes in his hand.
“I think it’s probably pretty likely that they are going to close (some post offices), but I’m

Lincoln Park post office

This is the post office in Duluth's Lincoln Park. (2011 file / Duluth News Tribune)

going to try to keep it going as long as I can,” he said.
Your heart’s in the right place, Bob, but it’ll take more than your handful.
“I think it would be nice for the elderly folks in town, too,” he continued. “They depend on, in the area here, this post office more than we young folks do.”
Helping him make his point was the shadow of Mount Royal Manor.
Duluth has a main post office and six neighborhood branches. Could some be closed and still meet the community’s needs?
“We could close a couple,” said Giovanni Santodonato of Duluth, 18, also at Mount Royal. “I think this one should stay open; it’s in a good area. It does (get a lot of traffic).”
Much less busy was the Spirit Valley branch, where Duluth’s Shirley Boe, whose husband is a retired postal worker, was passing by.
“They’re going to have to cut service to five days a week, very easily,” she said. “You’re going to shut some of those small post offices that are maintained, not earning money, but just maintained.”
Closing post offices is a reality since the advent of the Internet. People always will have a need to ship stuff, but FedEx and UPS are willing to do that.
I’m part of that change. Other than bills, I have no idea when I last mailed a letter. Maybe 20 years ago, to Nintendo, for help on getting to the next level of “Shadowgate.” I pay most of my bills online and probably will soon pay all of them that way. And other than shipping the occasional hockey jersey I’ve sold on eBay, you won’t find me running to beat the 5 p.m. window closing time.
Yet I can’t imagine getting a wedding invitation through FedEx or UPS, or even Evite.
I doubt the Postal Service really will close in a month, or even the next decade. Boe, who is 73, says it might make it another 20 years if enough of us do our part.
“There’s still a few of us that could last that long,” she said.
And me? I could always start a stamp collection. Either retro baseball players or “The Simpsons.”

Jimmy Bellamy is the multimedia editor at the Duluth News Tribune in Duluth, Minn. Contact him at (218) 723-5390 or jbellamy@duluthnews.com. This column originally appeared here.