Star Tribune
On the last day of high school, a slow tractor roll into a bright future for these Minnesota seniors
FOLEY, Minn. — It was the last day of senior year. The first day of everything that comes next.
At Foley High School, that could mean only one thing.
Tractor Day.
The first tractors rumbled into the high school parking lot early Friday morning. Dozens followed. Sparkling clean, decked with balloons and streamers, pulling trailers loaded with laughing teenagers on hay bales.
For decades, high schoolers in this central Minnesota town have rolled to the last day of school at the lowest possible speed, in the grandest possible style.
“It’s a good way to kind of close it out,” said senior Megan Trigg, standing next to a trailer covered in pink balloons and streamers. The tractor ride to school took a leisurely 25 minutes that morning, giving motorists behind them plenty of time to enjoy the jokey sign tied to the back — a riff on the classic line from “Mean Girls”: Get in Losers, We’re Graduating.
Trigg and her friends — Megan Latterell, Gabby Johnson and Gracie Blank — grew up watching the tractors roll through each May. Now it was their turn.
“People come out and wave, people drive by and honk. It’s pretty cool,” Johnson said.
No one seems sure when or why the tradition began. There are other rural high schools that celebrate tractor days. Few do it bigger or better than Foley.
“Wow! A John Deere!” Emily Miller’s youngest son, Beckham, called out, pointing as a vintage green tractor pulled up to the school. As adult volunteers directed traffic, the green tractor joined the orderly rows of parked farm equipment — with the kindergartner excitedly narrating every turn. “Look, Mom!”
Tractor Day is an event for the whole community. Neighbors wave from the curbs. Families head to the high school to watch the fun.
But this day was for the Class of ’23. Seniors like Miller’s older son, Evan, who worked late with his friends on Thursday; getting the tractor ready, putting the final touches on the cutoff jean short-shorts for their group costume.
Seniors hugged, snapped selfies and danced across the parking lot. The airspace over Foley High School filled with arcing water balloons.
The seniors were freshmen in March 2020. Their high school years were marked by pandemic disruptions, distance learning and missed milestones. Give these kids all the water balloons their hearts desire.
“That’s why a lot of us want to do the traditions now so much,” said senior Kristen Drexler, standing with classmates Madelyn Craft, AJ Rahm and Haley Hamilton, sporting matching cowboy hats. “We want to try to get everything in that we had to miss for so many years.”
Foley High Principal Joel Foss estimated that some students had to be on the road as early as 5 a.m. with their slow-moving rigs. A tractor can’t exactly cruise down country roads at 60 miles an hour. Some parents trailed the tractor convoys in their cars, hazard lights flashing.
For the students, Tractor Day is worth the early start and extra effort.
“It’s a farming community and kids like to show off their tractors,” said Noah Lentner, who rode in with friends Ben Lewandowski, Emmit Olson, Alex Wirtzfeld and Mason Arnold.
Students compete for titles like cleanest tractor, smallest tractor, biggest tractor and, of course, best-decorated tractor. The machines were festooned with taxidermy and decoys, sporting llama balloons, draped in American flags.
One student brought a push lawn mower and left it parked next to one of the John Deeres with a sign arguing the case that lawn mowers are just very, very, very small tractors.
There was a trailer decked in rainbows and trans pride flags. There was a tractor waving a Trump 2024 flag. It was Tractor Day in America.
A group of students gathered by the rainbow-draped tractor, keeping an eye on it for the classmates who had decorated it. A few water balloons had been lobbed its way. The Class of ’23 looks out for each other.
“I think it taught me how important friends are,” Craft said.
“Tractor Day is a good get-together with everybody,” she added. “Foley’s a very rural and country place, and we can celebrate in a way that feels like us.”
After months of maintenance problems and safety concerns in downtown St. Paul’s Lowry Apartments, city officials condemned the building, forcing dozens of tenants to abruptly relocate to hotels this week.
On Monday afternoon, city staff responded to a plumbing leak in the 11-story building at 345 Wabasha St. N. Officials reported significant damage and signs of vandalism, including copper wire theft that left electrical systems exposed. The leak also raised concerns about mold.
To make repairs, the building’s water must be shut off — a move that would leave tenants without boiler heat and fire sprinklers, Deputy Mayor Jaime Tincher said in a Tuesday email to state Rep. Maria Isa Pérez-Vega and City Council Member Rebecca Noecker, who represent the area.
After determining heat and water could not be restored quickly, Tincher wrote: “There was no other option than to conclude the building was not safe for residents to stay.”
Property manager Halverson and Blaiser Group (HBG) agreed to provide alternative housing for tenants for up to 30 days, Tincher said. City staff worked with Ramsey County’s Housing Stability team and Metro Transit to help 71 residents pack and move.
Before then, the building belonged to downtown St. Paul’s largest property owner, Madison Equities. After the January death of the company’s founder and longtime principal, Jim Crockarell, the dire state of the group’s real estate portfolio became apparent.
The Lowry Apartments, the sole property with a high concentration of low-income housing, quickly became the most troubled. Residents reported frequent break-ins, pest infestations, inoperable elevators and more, to no avail.
Star Tribune
Metro Transit allocated $12 million to boost security, cleanliness on Twin Cities light rail and buses
They will be soon. With more money to spend, Metro Transit plans to bring on 40 more this year. With their ranks growing, TRIP agents, clad in blue, have recently started covering the Metro C and D rapid transit lines between Brooklyn Center and downtown Minneapolis.
The big investment in public safety initiatives comes as Metro Transit is seeing an uptick in ridership that plunged dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic and has been slow to recover. This year ridership has been a bright spot, the agency said.
Through October, the agency has provided 40.1 million rides, up 7% compared with the first 10 months of 2023. In September, the agency saw its highest monthly ridership in four years, averaging nearly 157,000 rides on weekdays, agency data shows.
At the same time, crime is down 8.4% during the first three quarters of 2024 compared to the same time period last year, according to Metro Transit Interim Police Chief Joe Dotseth. However, problems still persist.
On Nov. 29, Sharif Darryl Walker-El, Jr., 33, was fatally shot on a Green Line train in St. Paul. Just a week earlier, a woman was shot in the leg while on the train and taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Earlier this year, a robbery attempt on the Green Line in St. Paul left a passenger shot and wounded.
“Our officers are spending time on the system and sending a clear message to everyone: Crime will not be tolerated on transit,” Dotseth said. “And we will work to ensure those commit those crimes are held accountable.”
The ACLU of Minnesota has sued Otter Tail County, its sheriff and correctional officers at its jail, alleging unlawful punishment of a man known to them who has serious mental health issues.
Ramsey Kettle, 33, a member of White Earth Nation and lifelong Otter Tail County resident, was jailed in February on charges that were dropped two months later. The ACLU says that the sheriff’s office attempted to cover up the mistreatment, but a whistleblower working at the jail reported the abuse to the state. A 46-page lawsuit was filed this week in U.S. District Court of Minnesota.
“Mr. Kettle was subjected to extreme, punitive treatment in violation of his constitutional rights and standards for basic human dignity,” the ACLU said in a statement. “Otter Tail County officers, with approval of the acting jail administrator, kept Mr. Kettle locked up in solitary confinement for days without food, water, or appropriate medical and mental health care.”
Otter Tail County spokesperson Shannon Terry said in an email to the Minnesota Star Tribune that “Due to the impending litigation, Otter Tail County has no comment or statement at this time.” Terry did confirm that Kettle was released from custody April 24, when the charges were dropped.
Kettle was immediately placed in solitary confinement after he arrived at the jail Feb. 9, the lawsuit says. Jail staff didn’t assess Kettle’s poor mental health, which the ACLU says was well-documented and known to officers. The ACLU says Kettle “exhibited increasing signs of physical and mental distress” and officers allegedly “laughed at him, mocked him, and left him to suffer.”
Kettle had been booked at the jail multiple times before. In March 2022, he was convicted of making terroristic threats and sentenced to two years. On the day he was scheduled to be released from Rush City Correctional Facility after serving his full sentence, he was charged in Otter Tail with four counts of aggravated witness tampering stemming from the conviction.
“Rather than going home on February 9, 2024, as he had anticipated for nearly two years, he was transferred to Otter Tail County Jail to await trial on these new charges. The new charges were unfounded and intended solely to keep Mr. Kettle incarcerated,” the lawsuit states.
District Judge Johnathan Judd dismissed the charges as lacking foundation.
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