Cleaning up

Here's a section of the newspaper that got "botched" at the printing press this week.

Click on the image to enlarge it.

For some Brooten PO box holders, this page was severely damaged at the printing press. However, not all newspapers (over 2,800 were printed) had a damaged page 11.

Twice, I've gotten "July 12" wrong

For those keeping track...twice I've gotten "July 12" wrong in the Bonanza Valley Voice. In the June 18 issue, I had the date wrong for the Bonanza Valley Days Grand Parade! Yikes. It is on Sunday, July 12 at 1:30 p.m. It was corrected for the June 25 issue.

The Brooten Class of 1976 class reunion is on Sunday, July 12 starting at noon at the KaDe Shack in Brooten.

Now you've got the correct information.

Natural gas leak...and rain

A natural gas leak occurred mid-afternoon on Thursday in Brooten. The area affected is the Park Street and Western Avenue intersection neighborhood. Please stay away from this area! You are not helping by driving by as a gawker. Additional information is posted at the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper: BrootenNaturalGasLeak.

On a brighter note, it's raining! It was raining quite heavily at about 4 p.m. today. We need it.

Here's a video featuring the end of Elrosa's game against Spring Hill:


The Saints won 10-4 over their neighboring division rivals.

On Friday, the Elrosa Saints are set to host Starbuck in an exhibition game. First pitch is set for 7:30 p.m.

The Mexico Querido restaurant website can be found by clicking here: MexicoQueridoBelgradeWeb. I have them featured on The Voice website: MexicoQueridoBelgrade.

Have you paid your property taxes? For small businesses, this is especially a big deal to do. Don't forget! Friday, May 15 is the due date in Stearns County.

GAME NIGHT! In Benton County (VIDEOS*)

We make the trek once again over to Foley high school for the Sub-Section 5A-East playoffs. The B-B-E Jaguars girls' basketball team will face top-seeded Braham in the subsection championship with a 7 p.m. tip-off. The game will be aired on Smooth Magic 107 FM of Glenwood. (Thanks, Brady!)

I'm guessing the Minnewaska boys play tonight...so 107.1 FM will have their game tonight instead. I'll see what I can find out about the radio stations that are here in Foley.

If you want to get caught up on local events, click over to the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website's community calendar: BBEareaEvents2026.

Here's a video featuring the end of the Swanville game:


That video above begins with about 1 minute, 8 seconds left in the game.

Here's a video starting with just over 5 minutes left against Swanville:


When that video started, the Jaguars led 41-36. They outscored the Bulldogs 10-3 in those final 5 minutes.

Tonight's opponent, Braham, is 22-6 overall while seeking their first state tournament trip since 2012-2013. In that season, Braham went 32-1 and lost a heartbreaker 60-59 in the Class 2A state title game. The Bombers are ranked No. 14 in the most recent QRF rankings, while the Jaguars are No. 17.

UPDATES:
With just under 3 minutes left, Braham senior guard Bridget Golly drained a deep three-pointer for a go-ahead basket by the Bombers. This shot lifted Braham to a 25-24 advantage. HALFTIME: Braham 30, B-B-E 26. At the break, Mya Worms has 8 points, Macey Roering has 6 points, and Kacey Fischer has scored 5 as the leading scorers. Braham's sensational junior guard Morgan Rysdam is leading the Bombers with 11 points.

With 1:25 left, Rysdam drained a clutch three-pointer just before the shot clock expired. This three put Braham ahead 28-26 after Mya Worms scored to lift B-B-E ahead 26-25. The second half is starting at about 7:42 p.m.

**With 7 minutes left in the game, the Bombers are ahead 52-40.

The final score will be posted in a new blog post.

In the other subsection, Cass Lake-Bena and Pine River-Backus are playing in overtime.

B-B-E's Sno-Daze begins tomorrow morning *(UPDATED)

Sno-Daze is being held at B-B-E schools this week for the 36th time in school history. The senior royalty candidates were featured on page 5 in the February 5 issue of the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper. You can read more at the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website by clicking here: BBESnoDazeWeek.

In the attached video in that web article, you can watch footage from Sno-Daze coronation in February 2015.

And now it's late Tuesday morning...
The 36th B-B-E Sno-Daze King and Queen are seniors Aiden Radermacher and Annie Schmidt. Video is uploading.

Here you can see the coronation crowning take place...click over to the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website: BBESnoDazeCoronation.


**The girls' basketball team is at Paynesville on Tuesday night. The varsity team tips off at 5:30 p.m.

Tonight's activities are nixed, and newspapers continue to go missing for days on end!

Due to the oncoming bitter cold temperatures, tonight's B-B-E school activities have been canceled. This announcement was made shortly after 11 a.m. today. Also, B-B-E schools is closed for Friday, January 23. The Friday evening activities have all been postponed.

In other news...
The Post Office continues to lose my newspapers. For 6 straight days this past week, the Post Office failed to deliver my Willmar/Benson/Spicer/New London newspapers. Multiple subscribers from those communities all received the January 15 issue in today's mail - today! Thursday, January 22. In November, the Post Office did the same thing the week before B-B-E's fall two-act play took place. I am STILL very SORE about that! 

Let's stop for a moment and see how big the failures are. Each Wednesday night, without question, roughly 800 of my newspapers are delivered to the St. Cloud Post Office headquarters. They're separated in totes and bundles in highly organized fashion. It's been this way for decades. The next day, Thursday, subscribers all across central Minnesota are supposed to get my newspaper. Lately, that has not been the case (especially since 2021)...where do they put the newspapers? The January 15 newspapers designated for routes in Willmar, New London, Benson...where were they for the past 6 days? What do they do with them in St. Cloud? How bad can that organization be? It's insane.

Last night, Wednesday, the January 22 issues were brought to St. Cloud. Now the waiting game takes place to see where the heck the U.S. Post Office puts them before getting them to subscribers.

I'm not sure if we can keep the business going when our product is not delivered on time to our subscribers. It is killing us when our advertisers can't get their marketing messaging to the public in a timely fashion. If you add it all up, what this does is make the newspaper an unsustainable business venture.

There's saving grace here, at least a little - the Post Office has been breathing down my neck to spend $2,000+ on fancy software and a new system for the labels. I've been telling them: there's no way I'll invest that money if they keep losing my papers like they have been doing. So if nothing else, I've got a lot of bargaining power to push back on them!! They have to straighten out their organization.

Happy New Year! (VIDEO)

Happy New Year from the sports department of the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper. Part of my family enjoyed staying at the Holiday Inn in Alexandria on New Year's Eve with well over a dozen other B-B-E area families. (We're still there.)

Here's the last seconds of the countdown at midnight in Alexandria:


Through the short video, basically everyone shown are B-B-E families. It made for a thoroughly enjoyable evening as the year of 2025 came to a conclusion.

With PayPal, I created a convenient payment link for out-of-area subscriptions. The link is: https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/JULR2NCJ75HX4. Out-of-area subscriptions currently cost $37 a year. This includes all subscribers who do not live in these counties of central Minnesota: Pope, Swift, Kandiyohi and Stearns. If you're a new subscriber, you'll have to email me your address to get yourself added: lifeinbonanzavalley@gmail.com.

I'm not sure how much worshiping you were able to participate in over the Christmas holiday season. Hopefully you got a fair amount! I've added video from Trinity Lutheran church in Brooten to the newspaper website. This video was recorded on Christmas Eve last week: TrinityBrootenChristmasEve.

A fresh update at The Voice website - and Merry Christmas!

A fresh set of web articles with video are posted at the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website: http://www.bonanzavalleyvoice.com. Also, Merry Christmas to you and your family.

On Friday: the B-B-E Jaguars girls' basketball team travels to the Granite City Breakdown. The JV squad plays first, and their game is at 12:45 p.m. at Sartell-St. Stephen high school. The varsity game plays at 4:15 p.m. just a bit farther east at Sauk Rapids-Rice high school. The Jaguars face the host Storm, a Class 3A school. On Saturday, the JV and varsity Jaguars both play at Sartell, and the varsity game has a 1:45 p.m. tip-off against New Life Academy, who competes in the Skyline Conference and Section 4AA.

Heading back to the Twin Cities

It feels like I was just in the Twin Cities, and that's probably because I was...a little less than 2 weeks ago. It was 13 days ago at this time (late afternoon) that I was driving home from the state volleyball tournament in Saint Paul.

Right now, I'm gearing up for a jaunt down I-94 and Highway 169 to Minnetonka. Here's why: FarmBureauAwardStory. More on this and the Farm Bureau convention will be reported next week.

In other news...
The Brooten city council meets in regular session next Monday. The agenda summary is posted at my editor's blog: BrootenCouncilAgenda.

Just two more days...

We have just two days remaining before the opening night of The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon two-act play will be performed at Olson Auditorium, B-B-E high school. Which show or shows are you going to?

The Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website is getting articles updated: https://www.bonanzavalleyvoice.com. One of the new web articles features coverage from the Brooten Veterans Day program held on Tuesday at the elementary school.

**UPDATE on Thursday...
Here's a fix from a big mistake I made in the newspaper this week: https://shorturl.at/9XmPW.

GAME DAY! In Cass County, NoDak! (SPORTS SHOW!)

Friday is GAME DAY for the B-B-E Jaguars football team as they wake up bright and early to drive to Cass County, North Dakota. Kickoff at the FargoDome is at 10 a.m. on Halloween Day. The Section 5A championship will be broadcast on Smooth Magic 107 FM of Glenwood. They stream online at their website: https://www.kmgk1071.com. Thanks, Brady!

In today's game, Upsala/Swanville Area is the opponent, and the Patriots are 8-1 overall after thrashing Browerville 42-0 in the section semifinals last Saturday in Swanville. U/SA has played in the section championship every year since 2021. In each of the past 5 seasons, the Jaguars and Patriots have met in the playoffs. In 4 of those 5 seasons, the Jaguars and Patriots have played for STATE. This is quite a run by both teams! In 2022, U/SA upset the Jaguars in the section semifinals by a 22-6 win, but they fell 7-6 in the Section 4A championship in Fargo to Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg. U/SA finally punched through to state last year with a 19-12 win over our Jaguars in the section finals. That game tore my heart out. It was by far the toughest football playoff loss I've watched since the 1997 Section 5AA championship (which was exactly 28 years ago today.

Here's my latest installment of a fall sports show. The focus here is on the benefits of youth sports and how it provides kids with purpose, structure and reward! Not necessarily in that order.

Sports show video:


About Upsala/Swanville Area...
Their quarterback is third-year signal caller Frankie Meagher, a senior. He's one of the top small-school quarterbacks in central Minnesota. On defense, the Patriots are outstanding. In Saturday's section semis, they held resurging Browerville to 135 net yards from scrimmage. U/SA had 345 total yards against Browerville, 200 in the air and 145 on the ground. Meagher was 9-of-11 for 131 yards with one touchdown. Their QB2 (Schafer) was 2-for-3 for 69 yards and one touchdown.

Here's a long video from the end of the 2nd quarter last Saturday:


This blog post will include game updates from the FargoDome.

Some light volleyball news...in the Section 6AA championship tonight at St. Cloud Apollo, the Albany Huskies upended previously undefeated Minnewaska Area by a 3-1 margin to advance to the state tournament for the second straight season. For the Lakers, they look to next year with a team that graduates just 2 seniors and just 1 player in their top rotation. In Section 5A, the Swanville Bulldogs saw their season end in a 3-1 loss to perennial power Nevis. This was the state qualifier and was played at Crosby-Ironton. In Section 3A, Minneota ended MACCRAY's season with a 3-1 win for the north sub-section title.

Game updates to follow here after 10 a.m. on Friday...
Kickoff was at 10:02 a.m.

With 1:17 left in the 1st quarter, U/SA score their second touchdown on a one yard run. The extra point conversion run was good for a score of 16-6.

Halftime: U/SA 32, BBE 6. The second half starts at 11:30.

The final score and more will be posted in a NEW blog post.

Catching up, gearing up! (VIDEOS)

Sunday is catch up and gearing up day! Gearing up for a BIG week!

The Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper's sports department photo gallery from the fall season is being updated. You can find that by clicking here: https://www.smugmug.com/app/organize/BBE-Fall-Sports-2025.

To see the general, non-sports events folder for 2025, you can find that here: https://bonanzavalley.smugmug.com/2025-B-B-EBonanza-Valley-area-events.

Here's a video from the most recent Fellowship of Christian Students gathering, which was on Friday morning:


And hats off to Grace Lutheran Church of Belgrade for hosting this each Friday morning.

On Sunday, we had quite strong sunshine, moderate winds out of the south plus a high of about 63 degrees in Brooten. It was a marvelous day for outdoor work.

Here's a video from the middle of game 3 against Park Christian last Friday:


The Jaguars had a rough patch in the beginning of the video, but after the Falcons cut a deficit down to 17-11, the Jaguars scored two straight. Teagan Dingmann had a nice attack on the right side.

About Hillcrest Lutheran Academy's volleyball team...
I'll probably move this small scouting report to a new blog post later tonight.

Senior Ella Knutson (5'10" MH/OH) had a career-high 20 kills against Underwood in the playoff opener last Wednesday. She also racked up 12 ace serves and 2 blocks. Their setters, Stella Moline and Brooke Swedberg, had 24 and 16 assists, respectively, running the 6-2 offense. Moline was perfect on 16 serve attempts.

Sophomore Elsa Retzlaff (5'10" OH) had 21 digs, and libero Chloe Walkup (5'6" senior) had 13 ace serves with errorless serving. The Comets totaled 81 digs, 48 kills, 10 blocks and 43 set assists.

ON MONDAY...
The Brooten city council meets in regular session on Monday night, October 27 at 7 p.m. The meeting agenda can be found at the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper's editor's blog: https://shorturl.at/Parav.

I am in a high-pressure race to get this week's newspaper ready for the printing press. I have to shorten up the hours I can spend on it to accommodate two major tasks: (1.) get ample sleep tonight and Tuesday night; and (2.) make the trip on Tuesday to Fergus Falls. The paper may suffer! But I can't help it. On Wednesday night, I have a trip to Rochester Mayo looming. That is the big one, and it's right ahead of a Fargo trip! Yikes!!

I'll write a little more on this in my newspaper column this week, but I want to give a huge shout-out to Principal Trent Johnson for the concern and effort he is putting into this year's Veterans Day program at the elementary school. This program, led by the Brooten American Legion and Legion Auxiliary, is on Tuesday, November 11 at 9:30 a.m. in the elementary gymnasium. In recent conversations about Veterans Day, Johnson talked about the importance of Veterans Day and the importance that children learn about this event, its history and about properly honoring our veterans.

While I'm giving shout outs, here's a shout out for B-B-E Class of 2024 graduate Brooklyn Fischer, who is a standout volleyball player for the St. Cloud Technical and Community College Cyclones. She is one of eight sophomores on the team. On Saturday, SCTCC hosted Western Technical College in a conference match and won in 4 sets. During that match, Fischer broke her college's career kills record. In a 2-1 weekend where the Cyclones beat Rochester Community in 5 sets and lost to Ridgewater College in 5 sets, Fischer had 45 kills, 102 digs and 12 ace serves. Those stats led those categories for her team. The Cyclones are 16-13 overall and 10-6 in the Minnesota College Athletic Conference South Division.

Tennis playoffs brings success for the Jaguars (VIDEOS + Fall Sports Show No. 5)

Breaking news!

The B-B-E Jaguars girls' tennis team is advancing in the playoffs. They have defeated Long Prairie-Grey Eagle/Upsala-Swanville Area in the opening round of the Section 6A tournament. The final score is yet to be decided. At No. 3 singles, freshman Olive Olson is still playing in her match. In the first set at No. 3 singles, the set lasted 70 minutes.

Final score: B-B-E 4, LPGE/USA 3. At No. 3 singles, Olive Olson fell in nailbiters with 7-6 scores in both sets. In the tiebreakers, LPGE/USA's Jaden Ludvigson won 7-5 in the first set tiebreaker and 7-2 in the second set tiebreaker. The entire match lasted 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Temperatures were in the low 80s at the start of the match. The winds were strong out of the south coming off of the LPGE high school parking lot. I'd venture a guess they were gusting at 10 to 20 miles an hour.

The Jaguars travel west to top-seeded Minnewaska Area tomorrow for the Section 6A quarterfinals. 

Note: a sports show video was added to this blog post on Thursday morning. It had one glaring mistake! I wrote about that below.

Thursday includes Levi's Celebration of Life, playoff tennis at Minnewaska and home volleyball against Paynesville. Back to back to back.

  

Here's a video from the tiebreaker of the 1st set at No. 3 singles:


Here's a video from the No. 2 singles match which clinched the win for B-B-E:


How tonight's playoff match developed:
The Jaguars picked up a straight set win for the first team point when Jena Borgerding won at No. 4 singles. At No. 3 doubles, Harper Herickhoff and Abby Coners picked up a straight set win, and Kylie Zins and Kwynn Quade then picked up a straight set win at No. 2 doubles. LPGE/USA won at No. 1 singles, so the match was still undecided. That changed when Andrea Douvier won 6-2, 6-2 at No. 2 singles to clinch the team win and make the score 4-1.

The visitation for Levi Adrian was held tonight at the Belgrade funeral home. I had a long and healing conversation with Grant Adrian, Levi's uncle. He is a 1998 graduate of B-B-E high school. The Adrian family has always been full of love and concern for others. Grant spoke about how eye-opening the support was. It's important that the community pay it back.

I just recorded my latest sports podcast. That is uploading now.

And here's my Fall Sports Show No. 5 of this season:


A reminder that school is dismissed at B-B-E at 11:30 a.m. today. If you know parents or families who need help with their children this afternoon, please reach out to them. Be inquisitive while being supportive! We got this. B-B-E's staff is on their own journey to find healing as they rally around and show support for their colleague and his family.

About Grant Adrian's senior football team! That season was 1997! Not 1998. Yikes! The Class of 1998 played their football season in the fall of 1997 - of course! The Section 5AA championship was held on October 31, 1997 in Eden Valley. As stated in the video, the Eagles won 14-12 to advance to state. In the state quarterfinals, EV-W was soundly defeated by Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton, although I don't remember that exact score. The 1997 season became a "rebirth" season for EV-W, and by the early 2000s, they were regularly one of the top teams in the Central Minnesota Conference.

And now it's Monday - tennis team heading to Yellow Medicine County + Fall Sports Show #2 (VIDEO)

The Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper's sports department has a long road trip ahead. Today, The Voice will head to Granite Falls to cover the non-conference match between our B-B-E Jaguars girls' tennis team and the Yellow Medicine East Sting. The match starts at 4:30 p.m.

If you want to see the agenda for tonight's Belgrade City Council meeting, click over to the newspaper's editor's blog at this link: https://shorturl.at/hamq9.

Finally, I got back in the saddle and recorded a fall sports show. It has been a full 13 days! The fall is moving too fast.

Here's The Voice sports department's Fall Sports Show No. 2:


Time to pack up for the 65-mile trip south.

Temperatures climbed into the upper 80s today. It was a crazy but necessary level of heat to help push the crops along. It's also been great for our family garden!

The weekend is here (VIDEOS*)

Lots of catching up to do today, first, here's the link to the Bonanza Valley Voice website. It's got a fresh set of news articles available: https://www.bonanzavalleyvoice.com.

We had two exciting wins for hometown fans on Tuesday and Thursday nights. The volleyball match was a border battle mostly for bragging rights, with New London-Spicer being a Class 2A school and a non-conference opponent. The football game on Thursday was a thriller while the Jaguars made numerous defensive plays in the second half to hang on for the win.

I just did a full review of B-B-E football. Since 1988, the Jaguars have won just 11 season openers. Four of those 11 season-opening wins have been in the last 5 seasons! This means that from 1988 through 2020, the Jaguars won just 7 season opening games (in 33 seasons!) Officially, this will be the 38th season of B-B-E Jaguar athletics, and it is my 23rd season covering them as their sports reporter. This all began for me back in the fall of 2003, when the Jaguars fielded a state contender in Class 2A volleyball and also had a strong football team that won its playoff opener by a 20-13 score at Osakis in late October.

A huge key to victory was the Jaguars having no turnovers, while their defense forced 3 Eagles turnovers on a fumble recovery by Nate Geer and interceptions by Lance Radermacher and Kaden Kollman. Also key was a 3-for-30 penalty mark for B-B-E compared to NYM committing 9 penalties for 55 yards. Offensively, B-B-E gained an average of 8.4 yards per play from scrimmage, while NYM earned less than half that per play at 4.1 yards each.

Here's the postgame interview with Coach Moscho:


This news did not make it into any of my preseason coverage for the football team. This fall marks the first time since 2008 that the Jaguars will compete in Section 5A in the postseason. They made runs for state from 2009 through 2024 in Section 4A. Most of the Section 5A teams this fall made up the former Section 4A. More coverage on that will follow in October. The new group of teams in Section 5A include Benson, Upsala/Swanville Area, Browerville, Long Prairie-Grey Eagle, West Central Area and Ashby/Brandon-Evansville for a total of 7 teams.

More to come. I've got a mountain of items to tend to in the family garden! The tomato crop is coming in, and there's green peppers, squash, carrots, green beans and more to harvest this weekend.

Here's action from the 2nd quarter in the football opener on Thursday:


On Sunday afternoon, I hope to get the rest of my volleyball videos edited and uploaded.

And on Sunday night...after many hours of gardening have been completed, here's more volleyball coverage...

Here's a video featuring the last 4 minutes of game 2 against NL-S:


As I said in the video, the Jaguars trailed 22-18 late in game 2 against NL-S on Tuesday night. They stormed back to tie it at 22-22. NL-S came out as winners by a 26-24 score.

Coming on Monday, Labor Day, September 1:
The community of Sunburg will host their annual Sunburg Trolls Classic Car and Truck show at Willie Reigstad baseball field and their school grounds. The event concludes with the awards ceremony at 2 p.m.

Also! The Pope County Farm Bureau will host the annual Breakfast on the Farm event at Malecha Dairy Farm south of Westport. This runs from 8 a.m. to noon, and the free breakfast will be served from 8 to 11 a.m. This event was advertised in the August 21 issue of the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper.

Area football scores in Week One on August 29:
Goodridge/Grygla 46, Hancock 6
Verndale 14, South Ridge 6
Stephen-Argyle 34, Border West 16
Breckenridge 55, Benson 34
Holy Family Catholic 39, New London-Spicer 8
Springfield 68, Canby 7
Fergus Falls 21, Willmar 13
Frazee 22, Browerville 0
Wadena-Deer Creek 8, Long Prairie-Grey Eagle 0
Parkers Prairie 34, Upsala/Swanville Area 22
Dawson-Boyd 7, Murray County Central 0
Annandale 54, Little Falls 6
Paynesville Area 46, Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg 8

Big event tonight for the Belgrade Lions! (VIDEO)

Click to read all about it at the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper.

Link: https://shorturl.at/sNTT7.

Before this event, or during this event, don't miss out on the Brooten Farmers Market. You can read more on that here: https://shorturl.at/yPtdA. That runs 4 to 7 p.m., so you can take in both events in each town. Yes, you can!

Let's go back to Bonanza Valley Days! This event featured in the video was sponsored and hosted by the B-B-E Jaguars Wrestling Club.

Here's a video from the finish line of the Bonanza Valley Days Walk-Run event:


Other news has been updated at the Bonanza Valley Voice website: https://www.bonanzavalleyvoice.com.

Tonight! The B-B-E Jaguars fastpitch 17-U American Legion team will play in the West Central Sub-Region playoffs. Their first game is at 5 p.m. at Minnewaska Area. It is a two-game evening. Depending on the outcome of the 5 o'clock game, the Jaguars will play for third place or for first place in the second game this evening.

In the 5 p.m. game, the Jaguars face No. 3-seeded Albany. It's a HUGE game! More to come later tonight.

West Central Sub-Region fastpitch seeding:
1. Melrose Area
2. B-B-E
3. Albany
4. Glenwood-Lowry
5. Sauk Centre

Winter Sports Show No. 2 and more Christmas music (VIDEOS, *UPDATES)

The B-B-E high school choirs and bands performed their Holiday Christmas concert on December 16 at Olson Auditorium. This week's Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper featured articles highlighting both the choir and band's performances that night.

Here's the last song performed by the choir at the Christmas concert:


Two videos from the high school winter concert have been posted at the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website in a web article. You can find that one by clicking on the following link: https://www.bonanzavalleyvoice.com/section/bbe. In the next web article after that, you can watch the K-3 elementary Christmas concert from December 4.

Here's another link that directs to the high school choir and jazz band performing at Olson Auditorium on December 16: https://shorturl.at/vfcT9.

Also, I recorded a podcast tonight, and it is uploading now.

And here it is! My second sports show of the winter season:


As usual for these sports podcast recordings, it's entirely off the top of my head with no notes to speak of. While talking about the dance team, I forgot to mention an important point. At this juncture of the winter sports season, the Pirouettes dance team are far and away having the most success out of our winter sports programs. By a mile! Good for them, too, they have earned it. I hope to bring them dramatically better sports coverage in the newspaper in January.

Fingers crossed!

Thursday night, December 26 updates:
Getting back to basketball...the B-B-E Jaguars girls' basketball team will have their hands full in a major way when they take on state-ranked Cass Lake-Bena on Friday this week at Sartell-St. Stephen. The Jaguars (4-5) will face the CL-B Panthers (8-1) in the first day of the Granite City Classic. CL-B's team is built around senior Gabby Fineday, who surpassed 2,000 career points this past February. Her Panthers started the season with 8 straight wins before they took a recent loss to Class 2A powerhouse Minnehaha Academy by a 101-35 score this past Saturday in Minneapolis.

In last year's meeting between our Jaguars and CL-B, which was also on the first day of the Granite City Classic, the Panthers won 71-45.

The Jaguars face another strong team in Saturday's game, when they take on Walker-Hackensack-Akeley at 10 a.m. at St. Cloud Tech high school. The W-H-A Wolves (8-0) are one of the favorites in Section 5A while currently being the top-ranked team in Sub-Section 5A-West. The Jaguars compete in Sub-Section 5A-East, where Braham (8-1) is the current top-ranked team (by QRF).

A few recent Fine Arts events have been uploaded to the newspaper's online gallery: https://bonanzavalley.smugmug.com/BBEBonanza-Valley-Area-Fine-Arts-2024.

A new web article from the Brooten Santa Day has been added to the newspaper website, and you can find it by clicking here: https://shorturl.at/pNA3j.

Winter sports shows get underway, and weekend updates (VIDEOS)

I didn't get around to a second podcast recording on Friday night after the evening of college and high school sports had concluded. I'm re-posting the first winter sports show, which I recorded late Thursday night. Topics in that first winter sports show included comments on the girls' basketball game against K-M-S plus other notes on winter sports teams, including props given to boys' basketball head coach Austin Rambow.

Here's winter sports podcast No. 1 of the 2024-2025 season:


On Saturday, the 7th/8th grade girls' basketball teams hosted the Central Minnesota Conference tournament. At the high school, the Class of 2029 8th graders played their tournament, and the Class of 2030 7th graders hosted at the elementary. Updates from that to follow.

Here's video from the 4th quarter at Ridgewater College on Friday night:


More to come.

Here's a business announcement...Bonanza Valley State Bank has their Christmas/Holiday open house for their customers on Friday this week! Click here to read all about it at the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper: https://shorturl.at/mg7OJ.

B-B-E's grades 6-12 Christmas band and choir concert is at 7 p.m. on Monday night at Olson Auditorium. I'll post the live player in a new blog post.

Fall Sports is a wrap, The Voice Sports Show shifting towards winter (VIDEOS*)

I had a lot to say here! I did get angry at times, as you'll see if you watch the full clip. This is about 14 minutes long.

Video here featuring my final fall sports podcast of 2024:


The last 13 minutes was basically devoted to the issue of participation and turnout in athletic activities. I have had a front row seat to this for over 10 years now, and I will continue saying that I am extremely grateful for all the opportunties available to students in Jaguar Country to better themselves both in the classroom and in extra-curricular activities. We do a great job here with what we have in an environment of limited resources, but it's crucial that parents and families do their part to make sure we can continue offering extra-curricular activities here.

Here's a bright spot in all this: the wrestling program. In grades 7-12, they have 27 students on the team, which includes one female wrestler. A partial season preview was published in last week's Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper.

Below, here's a video from practice last Tuesday:


The varsity wrestling season opener is Wednesday this week at Melrose.

The Voice Fall Sports Show No. 10 - Let's Make Travel Plans and support our Jaguars! (VIDEO)

Right after returning home from the Bonanza Valley Royal Strutters Gun Blast last night at the Padua Pub, I went straight to the recording studio with the camera equipment. Instead of drawing up an intricate outline and speech for this 10th Fall Sports show of the season, I wanted to record it right away and get it done. With football and volleyball fresh on my mind last night, I figured I'd get most of what I wanted to say included.

Here's what I did not stress in the podcast: the trip to Fergus Falls on Tuesday night to cheer on our volleyball team is crucial! They will be playing on Tuesday without the support of the football team, who will be remaining home and just about wrapping up with their practice while the volleyball team is running pre-match drills. Let me be very clear on this: the match against West Central Area will be essentially a home game for the Knights. Their school district is neighbors right to the south of Fergus Falls. It's more or less a 20 to 30 minute drive for WCA Knights fans. For B-B-E fans, it's about a 1 1/2 hour drive. This is a HUGE hurdle to overcome! Please spread the word and fill up the car pools! Fan support goes a long way in the playoffs!

Without further ado...here's the latest installment of The Voice sports department's fall sports show:


Today I thoroughly enjoyed having lunch at the Sunburg Free Lutheran church! They had an old-fashioned and delicious Lutheran potluck meal. They are hard to beat! Yah, sure, you betcha!

I looked ahead on the forecast, and it appears that our family garden vegetables will not make it into November. On the night of Halloween, a hard frost will take out what we have left growing with a low of 28 degrees. It is unclear if blankets will help. I may try a sleeping bag over a couple of our tomato plants. We'll see how the week goes.

Looking ahead to a few section football championship games...
Section 6AAA: Minnewaska Area faces Albany in that section final at 7 p.m. on Friday, November 1 at Rocori high school in Cold Spring.
Section 5A: BOLD faces Minneota on Friday, November 1 at 3 p.m. at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall.
Section 5AA: Kimball Area faces Holdingford on Friday, November 1 at 7 p.m. at St. John's University.
Section 6AA: Staples-Motley faces Osakis on Friday, November 1 at the FargoDome at 3 p.m.
Section 6A: West Central Area faces Parkers Prairie on Friday, November 1 at the FargoDome at 12:30 p.m.
Section 4 9-man: Hancock faces Border West on Thursday, October 31 at the FargoDome at 11:30 a.m.