Author: admin

I wish every daughter adored and admired her father as much as Minnesota author Kao Kalia Yang. Her new book, “The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father,” is, in brief, one of the most moving, disturbing and, ultimately, hopeful books I’ve ever read. As with previous generations of immigrants, there is so much to learn from and honor about what Hmong in general, and this family in particular, have experienced and bring to Minnesota.
This is Yang’s second book. Her first book, “The Latehomecomer,” was about her grandmother. It won both statewide and national recognition.broadstreet.zone(48036);
“Song Poet” begins with people at a Hmong New Year celebration in St. Paul asking her father, Bee Yang, to share one of his song poems. These are something like a Hmong version of blues music and poetry.
Kao Kalia Yang had not realized how eloquent her father was. People asked him to make a recording, which

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Photos by Cliff BuchanThurnbeck Farm was founded more than 120 years ago. The farm, now ceasing its turkey operation, has been an economic staple of Columbus for decades, and the Thurnbecks who farmed it have been community pillars in both Columbus and Forest Lake for generations.
Darrell Thurnbeck knows full well the ups and downs of farming. It’s part of his family history.
Thurnbeck, 72, and his sister, Diane Rueb, 76, grew up on the Columbus farm 4 miles west of Forest Lake hearing stories of the Armistice Day blizzard of Nov. 11, 1940, when the family’s turkey flock was nearly wiped out by the sudden and fierce storm that struck with little notice. The family, desperate to save some of the flock, sheltered 200 birds in the farm home.broadstreet.zone(48036);
In 1991, the Halloween blizzard hit Darrell Thurnbeck’s turkeys with a cruel blow. As the late fall snowstorm pounded the area with more

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