MANKATO
From The Editor
magazine
July 2013 • VOLUME 8, ISSUE 7 PUBLISHER James P. Santori EDITOR Joe Spear ASSOCIATE Tanner Kent EDITOR CONTRIBUTING Nell Musolf WRITERS Pete Steiner Jean Lundquist Marie Wood Wess McConville Heidi Sampson Bryce O. Stenzel
PHOTOGRAPHERS John Cross Pat Christman PAGE DESIGNER Christina Sankey ADVERTISING David Habrat MANAGER ADVERTISING Karla Marshall Sales ADVERTISING Barb Wass ASSISTANT ADVERTISING Sue Hammar DESIGNERS Christina Sankey
CIRCULATION Denise Zernechel DIRECTOR
Mankato Magazine is published by The Free Press Media monthly at 418 South Second St., Mankato MN 56001. To subscribe, call 1-800-657-4662 or 507-625-4451. $19.95 for 12 issues. For editorial inquiries, call Tanner Kent at 344-6354, or e-mail tkent@mankatofreepress.com. For advertising, call 344-6336, or e-mail kmarshall@mankatofreepress.com.
6 • July 2013 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
By Joe Spear
Recognizing Mankato’s best
W
hen I was a business reporter, I was always struck by the things that really mattered to merchants. Surprisingly, it usually wasn’t personal wealth or huge profits. It was their relationship with their customers. They loved getting positive feedback about their product or service. The feedback was its own reward for all the hard work and long hours they put into their life’s passion. The best thing about our “Best of” issue is this: Once a year, it connects customers, patients, clients with the merchants and professionals whose service they appreciate. This edition captures that connection and shares the experience with thousands of readers. Our annual Best of Mankato feature offers insights into everything from best places to eat and drink to best places to enjoy a relaxing game of golf. Our readers voted for the favorite places to go for entertainment, their favorite parks and favorite barbers, doctors and lawyers. People told us about the best plumbers, contractors and printers. Readers were able to vote for their favorites in dozens of categories, and we’ve featured a number of those winners in this issue. It’s always a good read and easy to get through. It is the best read issue of the year, and it has a very long shelf life (magazine talk for how long it stays on the coffee table). And while the voting and counting may not be as secured as say the Academy Awards with auditors guarding the “envelopes” to the armored car, we took care to make sure it was a fair and legitimate competition. Ballots were only distributed through Mankato Magazine, which goes to about 10,000 readers in the Mankato/North Mankato area. There were no online ballots as we know those can be loaded through various hacking techniques. Our editors and writers interviewed
some of the dozens of winners in 60-plus categories. You’ll often find out interesting stories about their backgrounds and motivations. They’ll offer advice on everything from back pain to good cabinetry. As a reader, I often find surprises in the selection of winners. You find out you didn’t know that service was offered. You didn’t know that there was a remedy for that ailment. It might be handy the first time I need a chiropractor, or the next time I need a computer repaired. Of course, many of the highly visible places in town -- especially eating and drinking establishments -- usually show up in the top three spots. It’s not surprising. Highvisibility venues draw a lot of people and tend to be good at what they do. The next time you hit that place, you’ll know a little bit more about it and the people who make it tick. The winners also take the voting very seriously and many will display their “Best of” Mankato Magazine certificate in their storefront. It offers customers a kind of reinforcement, like a waitress saying “good choice” when you order a dinner menu item. When you patronize a place that carries a Mankato Magazine Best Of certificate, you can be sure there were more than a few satisfied customers who gave the merchant a thumbs up. When we published the first “Best of” issue a few years ago, we were a little unsure of how it might be accepted. Small towns can have intense rivalries among businesses and professionals. But we were pleasantly surprised. You’ll always have a few who will gripe, but most see it as a friendly competition and a way to show off what they have to the community and be recognized for their hard work and success. That’s the idea and it works pretty well. M Joe Spear is editor of Mankato Magazine. Contact him at jspear@mankatofreepress.com or 344-6382.