WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2017
Serving Polk County’s St. Croix Valley since 1897
VOL. 120 NO. 4 www.osceolasun.com $1.00
SPORTS: Osceola football kicks off season with win. PAGE 10
County fairgrounds grandstand will likely fall BY SUZANNE LINDGREN EDITOR@OSCEOLASUN.COM
Voting against further structural evaluation of the fairgrounds grandstand, the Polk County Board of Supervisors has voted in effect to demolish the building and construct of a new one. A committee tasked with investigating whether to repair or replace the 1909 structure had proposed hiring a consultant to determine restoration costs. The evaluation itself might have cost as much as $21,000. “There’s a big group that wants us to exhaust those possibilities to SEE GRANDSTAND, PAGE 8
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St. Louis serves as a halfway point for the trip. Swiontek arrived on Day 33 and snapped a photo of the arch from the water. “Once I got into St. Louis the current picked up to 4 mph,” he wrote. “There is a lot to look at but the tow boats were everywhere and making huge waves. Their loads were enormous.” FIRSTNAME LATENAME | PAPER NAME
Channeling Huck Finn, Osceola teacher paddles the Mississippi
A harness pull at the Polk County Fair, circa 1940s, with spectators in the 1909 grandstand. The Polk County Board rejected further structural evaluation of the structure, in effect opting for demolition and reconstruction.
Osceola battery ends in nine-year sentence BY SUZANNE LINDGREN EDITOR@OSCEOLASUN.COM
Bringing conclusion to a February 2016 clash between two men in Osceola, Paul Krueger has been sentenced to nine years — four in prison and another five in extended supervision — for a felony count of aggravated battery. After that, he will serve up to three years probation for violating the terms of his bond while he was out on bail last winter. Krueger has been in custody at the Polk County Jail since January, when his bail was revoked and he reportedly tested positive for methamphetamine use. The
264 days spent in jail will go toward his prison sentence. Prosecution requests 15 years At the sentencing hearing the court heard statements from victim, his family members, long-term girlfriend and members of her family. In describing the victim’s injuries after the incident, nearly everyone said the fight had left his face so swollen and bruised he was unrecognizable. Many emphasized the sense of betrayal and loss of trust that resulted from the intoxicated brawl between two close friends. SEE SENTENCING, PAGE 8
BY SUZANNE LINDGREN EDITOR@OSCEOLASUN.COM
Osceola adventurer and teacher Mark Swiontek returned safely last week from a 38-day journey down the Mississippi. Low water and slow moving currents prompted him to return earlier than he’d planned. Still, the trip was exciting and Swiontek came home brimming with stories. Inspiration for the trip struck in the dead of last winter. Having first considered climbing the highest mountain in Africa — Kilimanjaro — he eventually settled on kayaking the Mississippi from its source at Lake
SUZANNE LINDGREN | THE SUN
Paul Krueger apologizes to the man he beat in February 2016. The two were close friends at the time. Krueger was sentenced last week to nine years for aggravated battery in connection with the case.
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Itasca, Minn., to the Gulf of Mexico. He wrote the Minnesota Department of Resources for maps. He sought out journals and watched videos. He read Mark Twain. And on July 7 — 7/7/17 at 7 a.m. to be exact — he set out. “Putting in, the Mississippi was like Osceola Creek,” he recalled, “crystal clear and really shallow. You could pretty much stretch across it with your legs… It was pretty wild up north. The lakes were so low they turned into creeks with cattails and weeds growing up. Five miles on the
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