COUNTRY
Serving Marine on St. Croix, Scandia, May Township
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2019 VOL. 36 NO. 19 www.countrymessenger.com $.75
BUDGET SEASON: Washington County Board continues review. PAGE 2
Marine residents rally to restore neighborhood stream BY ANGIE HONG EAST WATER METRO
It was the weekend after 4th of July and five neighbors in Marine on St. Croix were ready to work. Armed with 1500 native plants, 2000 popsicle sticks, and a cheerful group of friends, family and children, the group tromped into the soggy wild behind their homes and began working to restore a small stream corridor that runs through their neighborhood and down to the St. Croix River. The Judd Street neighborhood stream-restoration project has been in the works since last year, when Marine resident Jeff Roach scheduled a site visit with Washington Conservation District (WCD) to ask for advice on controlling invasive buckthorn on his property. During the visit, Roach learned that many of the plants growing along the stream corridor in his backyard were non-native as well. The stream carries water out of a large wetland complex, under Judd St., and then downhill to the St. Croix River. Many decades ago, the original stream channel was straightened and redirected to make
Changing the story on careers in rural Minnesota BY KELLY ASCHE CENTER FOR RURAL POLICY & DEVELOPMENT
For decades, the narrative speaking to rural high school students has been that to succeed, they must leave. But what if we could do something about that? As the demand for workers increases in Greater Minnesota, employers and workforce development organizations are increasingly examining why so many young people leave rural regions after high school despite growing local opportunity. In part 1 of our research this year on the workforce shortage, we highlighted the growing number of job vacancies in Greater Minnesota. Business owners and economic developers are scrambling harder than ever to find workers to avoid cutting production. Jessica Miller, a regional workforce strategy consultant for the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), sees the challenge employers are up against, not only to attract workers into their regions, but also to keep the high school students already there from leaving. “Businesses and organizations have started to take notice of the high school narrative that [says] there are no opportunities for them in their region.” To combat this perception, employers and regional organizations are working together to open high school students’ eyes to a world they may have never before considered.
SUBMITTED
Marine neighbors plant a stream corridor in July.
room for homes, and the shoreline area along the water’s edge filled in with a mix of plants that were poorly suited
to control erosion and provide quality habitat. With help from Mike Isensee, then a watershed specialist
with WCD and now the administrator for Carnelian-Marine-St. Croix SEE STREAM PAGE 2
Gardener encounters garlic-eating gopher BY SUZANNE LINDGREN EDITOR@COUNTRYMESSENGER.COM
SUBMITTED
Ninety-four percent of students who said that their career exploration course was their primary source of advice believed they could find work in the career they want in the region in which they reside. Source: MN DEED Student Survey
The real influencers in students’ lives A Scandia gardener believes he has encountered something very rare: a garlic-eating pocket gopher. The burrowing rodent left signature mounds as it feasted on 60 of the 600 heads he’d hoped to harvest. “He got 10% of my garlic crop,” reported the gardener, who goes by The Little Shooter and is also variously known as BJ or JB. Although he hasn’t encountered this particular problem with a gopher before and was SEE GOPHER PAGE 11
SUZANNE LINDGREN | COUNTRY MESSENGER
The long-held perception among students in rural areas that to get ahead after high school, they must move away is no surprise to rural residents. What is surprising is that according to research, most students, given the choice, would prefer to live in their hometown or at least their home region—if they thought they could. So where does this idea come from, that youth must leave their rural communities in order to succeed? There has been a large amount of research on just this question over the years. It appears to come down to a handful of primary influencers: immediate family, formal advisors, and experience. A strong influence that’s often overlooked comes
The Little Shooter holds the dried stalks left behind after a pocket gopher feasted on his garlic crop.
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