“Masquerade Ball! Easter Monday, April 7, 1890, at the Opera House. Tickets $1, gallery 50¢ with the privilege of dancing after 11 o’clock. Everybody

Dundas residents got an early glimpse of the precocious talent of 3-year-old Marilyn Sellars when, in the middle of a Sunday sermon at the

When I lived in New York and told anyone that my alma mater was St. Olaf, more often than not the response was, “Oh,

In the latter part of the 19th century, Northfielders celebrated the 4th of July with fireworks, band concerts, flights of oratory, baseball games, races

The first “Jesse James Day” was held in Northfield on September 11, 1948, as part of a two-day Jaycee Fall Festival. The event was

Mike (“Doc”) Hildebrandt has a motto, taken from John Denver’s song Thank God, I’m a Country Boy. It is, “I fiddle when I can and

L.K. (Larry) Hanson, creator of a popular St. Olaf comic strip in the ’60s and long-time StarTribune illustrator and writer, came to Northfield recently to talk

Northfielders reading Reed Whittemore’s memoir Against the Grain: The Literary Life of a Poet (Dryad Press, 2007) may have an irresistible urge to start with Chapter

A clause inserted into every deed of land by Northfield’s founder John North was “No intoxicating drinks shall be sold or in any manner

“You’re listening to the new sound in town, KYMN radio. Let’s boogie!” The uplifting strains of “Up, Up and Away,” sung by the Fifth

Originally Published in the May 2014 Entertainment Guide “Do you remember your first bike?” This is the question KYMN radio’s Wayne Eddy likes to

On April 26, 2015, Betty White received a lifetime achievement award at the 42nd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards. The 93-year-old actress has a career

You won’t find too many interviews with John S. Campbell, who founded a company to produce the cereal known as Malt-O-Meal in Owatonna in

John North President Abraham Lincoln never set foot in Northfield. Nevertheless, as the nation celebrates the 200th birthday of Lincoln on Feb. 12, Northfield

Prior to embarking on a tour of Norway, Denmark and Germany in 1966, the St. Olaf College Band, under the direction of Miles Johnson,

“As we felt the necessity of the civilizing influence of music in our semi-savage state, a band of young men was formed, led by

An almost palpable air of excitement has hung over the Paradise Center for the Arts in Faribault ever since July 20, opening night of

“Noted Organist Accepts Offer: Carleton Secures James R. Gillette, Nationally Known Organist.” This was the front page headline in the Northfield News of Aug. 24, 1923.

It is not surprising that Susan Garwood, executive director of the Rice County Historical Society, expresses a fondness for history. But it turns out

“Anyone who thinks Northfield is not a good show town should have seen the hundreds of people who could not get into the opera

Let’s get this out of the way from the start. You can’t pay me enough to watch the 40 or more mostly mediocre (and

I have occasionally been asked, “When will there be a book of your columns?” Now I have an answer: A book with the catchy