This spring, after Peggy and I moved to Minnesota, I took a job as a reporter for RiverTown Multimedia, a company which publishes nine newspapers in eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin.

Fortunately, the job focuses on my favorite types of writing—features and outdoors. In the few months since taking the job, I have had the opportunity to meet and talk with some amazing people about some interesting topics.

Here are four of my favorites so far:

South of St. Paul along Highway 52 is a farm dotted with small red sheds. It is the Hmong American Farmers Association land and a cooperative which helps 25 Hmong families make a living. I visited the farm and talked with several people leading the effort to help these hard-working people. The resulting article is called Cooperative Helps Hmong Farmers.

That experience created a strong interest in what these farmers are doing. I visited their tables at the farmers market in St. Paul, then returned to the HAFA farm after I arranged to interview an individual farmer about her work there. She was a delight and walked me through the rows of vegetables and flowers she was raising. The joy in her work was evident and the article about her is titled HAFA Farmer Takes Pride in Produce.

Two other stories interested me because of my background as a teacher. I heard about two elementary teachers who had volunteered to go to Tanzania, a place I had visited earlier, to help local teachers develop skills and improved their teaching techniques. The pair outlined their month-long plans in an article called Lake City Teachers Will Assist in Tanzania.

And how could I resist writing a story about a high school senior who had struggled with stuttering through years of school only to win the state speech meet her senior year? Emily tells an inspiring story in Determination Drives Humphrey to Success.

I hope you enjoy these stories.  Living next to the Mississippi River has given me a chance to learn much about the river invironment, and I have several stories in the works about related topics.  In the future, I'll share links to some of them.