COUNTRY
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 2017
Serving Marine on St. Croix, Scandia, May Township
VOL. 33 NO. 48 www.countrymessenger.com $.75
SCANDIA CITY COUNCIL: One-sided letter resulting in new policy. PAGE 2
Watershed District calls to end trout stocking in Square Lake BY SUZANNE LINDGREN EDITOR@COUNTRYMESSENGER.COM
SUZANNE LINDGREN | COUNTRY MESSENGER
Scandia Country Store location manager Selby Marshall amidst the gutted former Todd’s Home Center. The store is open and the remodel is expected to be complete in late April.
Scandia Country Store open for business BY SUZANNE LINDGREN EDITOR@COUNTRYMESSENGER.COM
The Scandia Country Store is open, though work continues inside and out. Federated Co-ops is in the process of remodeling the building’s interior, the company’s CEO, Mike McMahon, reported earlier this month. “We’ve gutted it,” he said, noting that when all is finished, the site will be a combination Super America and Federated Co-ops country store. The convenience
store will have food including sandwiches, donuts and coffee. Along with redesigned bathrooms and coolers, a new door on the east side of the building will lead to a garden center. The store had its soft opening two weeks ago. The doors are open from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., and location manager Shelby Marshall said inventory will be increasing as the store comes together. They’ve already added diesel and off-road to the fuel selection. And they do plan to stock some hardware.
“Everyone who pokes their head in says, are you going to have any hardware?” said McMahon. “We won’t have all the hardware, but we took the top selling items from the hardware section.” Although they’ll try to draw traffic from Highway 97, McMahon said they planned the Scandia Country Store with the community in mind. They plan to be finished with remodeling and stocked with their full inventory April 27.
The Carnelian-Marine-St. Croix Watershed District advised against stocking rainbow trout in Square Lake last week, an opinion the Department of Natural Resources has said it will consider in deciding whether to restock the lake this spring. The opinion was issued after board members confirmed that the non-native trout are detrimental to water quality and clarity in Square Lake, one of the clearest waters in the state. The watershed district board based its findings on observations made during a three-year moratorium on stocking, during which researchers monitored levels of algae and an algae-eating organism, daphnia. Jim Shaver, administrator for the watershed district, estimated that $250,000 had been spent to gather data and analyze results. “That’s the amount of money we’ve invested to get an answer to this situation,” he said. “We feel we have an answer.” The group’s decision echoes a call they made last June to continue the moratorium, but is more permanent, recommending that the DNR fully cease stocking the lake with trout. Although the watershed district’s opinion does not prohibit the DNR from stocking, fisheries manager TJ DeBates has said it will be a factor in the agency’s decision-making process. After residents of Square Lake announced opposition to renewed stocking earlier this month, DeBates was hoping they might reach a compromise with a plan to stock in spring only, rather than in spring and fall. But the watershed district, an organization tasked with protecting and improving water in its SEE TROUT, PAGE 2
Sixty years and counting The man who’s graded May’s roads for more than half a century BY SUZANNE LINDGREN EDITOR@COUNTRYMESSENGER.COM
In a rural township that has resisted the pressure to pave roads — even as gravel has given way to pavement seemingly everywhere else — the man who began grading May Township’s roads in 1957 is the same
one you’ll find in the cab of the grader today. On a late-March morning, Marv Schroeder exits his pole barn as the engine of a massive yellow and black road grader idles nearby. Surrounded by vehicles, machinery and outbuildings, he hardly seems to notice the steady rumble. "Are we gonna talk politics?" he kids as a welcome. For the last 60 years, the responsibility for grading the township’s roads has primarily been Schroeder's. It’s essential work in a place where
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gravel roads outnumber paved by a long shot. "I started in 1957, when I got out of the Army," he says. "I've been at it ever since." After a second, he adds, "And I still don't know it all." Schroeder doesn’t readily reveal his age, joking that he's 105, minus 20. He was born in 1931, at home, "down the road a ways" from his current May Township farmstead. Over the decades his work as a farmer has changed form, from dairy to crops. The Schroeders sold their milk cows in
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1994, but Schroeder still raises a few head of cattle. Retirement isn't something he seems to put much stock into. "I gotta do something," he said of grading the roads, "to keep my brain functioning. What little I got left." In truth he's razor sharp, joking as he tells stories about his life as a Minnesota farmer, from being audited by IRS agents who didn’t know a combine from a box drill to trying to make straight deals with a gambling cattle jockey. He
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calls Scandia “Swede Hollow,” and easily recalls the names of three generations’ worth of a certain Lindgren family raised in the Swedish settlement. Still spry, Schroeder says of his health, “I feel good.” But he’s loathe to have his picture taken. “You couldn’t pay me enough,” he said, smiling but serious. And with that he climbed into the cab of the grader, engine running, ready to get to work. BREAKING NEWS, UPDATES Whenever, wherever you are! Scan me with your smartphone