We held a concert in Winona (previously spelled Wehnonah), Minnesota at Winona State University. How many lakes are in Minnesota?...10,000! This is the oldest teacher's college west of the Mississippi. Next year is their sesquicentennial. 150 years! It would make sense also, because of proximity, that many of the Ramblers from near-by Cotter High School must attend. Our front-of-house soundman, Will Cotter, was given a very nice sweatshirt for the relation of nomenclature.

Moorhead has a Polish Museum in its downtown, where if you visit on a quiet Friday afternoon, you might have the luck to find local Polish elders in the midst of a friendly rant and rave session that booms across the building in an exciting way. These were surely war heroes. Although we missed the October kielbasa competition by a long shot, there was still a good display of many of the crafts and social contributions of the Polish in Europe and in the United States.

Historically, the lumber and ice industries were in big play here due to circumstances of geography. The Mississippi river provided excellent transport for both. The abundant natural resource of trees and the growth of America's frontier dictated that Winona's earliest industry be lumbering. In the decade 1878-1888 Winona was known as "Lumbertown USA". During this ten year period seven sawmills turned out 1,150,000,000 feet of lumber and employed 2000 men, approximately 1,500 of whom were of Polish heritage.

It was a pleasant surprise to find that the J. R. Watkins Medical Company has its origins and modern day headquarters in Winona. Since 1868, the Watkins company has offered many remedies (liniments, extracts, and toilet articles) to aid in health and wellness. In1935, Watkins reportedly had the world's largest selling vanilla flavoring, and their wide distribution of herbs, spices, and cleaning agents made Watkins a household name in the 1940's kitchen. The number and variety of items they have sold over the years is amazing: Watkin's "Little Pills" for constipation, jaundice, headache, and promoting appetite,
Oriental gall cure for horses and cattle, pine tar cough balsam, cream of camphor for man or beast, fly spray, hog mineral compound, multi-vitamins, and poultry tonic to name just a few.
J.R. Watkins set up shop here in 1868 selling homemade remedies from a horse drawn wagon, not pedaling snake oil, but promoting common sense health and wellness.
Their 70's ad campaign featured the friendly "Watkins Man", in the same spirit as the Avon lady or the Fuller brush man. Currently, a star pitcher on the Minnesota Twins uses Watkin's liniment on his throwing arm.

Winona has a unique manmade geological structure of visual distinction. It is currently known as Sugarloaf. It used to be called Wapasha's cap, and was a rounded limestone hill, however it became a quarry and what is left of that original cap is a mesa and a prominent sturdy spire of red limestone.

Tip of the hat to the students at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pensylvania. They participated in a very good debate that was televised on C-Span. The student speakers were given an audience to voice their opinion regarding how the sitting U.S. President should be received and whether or not he should still be welcome to speak at their 2007 commencement.

Thank-you Spartans of Winona State University.