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.”
Northern State 35, Concordia (St. Paul) 34: Wyatt Block’s 2-yard TD run and the PAT with 10 seconds remaining lifted the Wolves past the host Golden Bears. Block’s touchdown capped an 11-play, 72-yard drive by the Wolves, who trailed 24-7 in the second quarter. Jeff Isotalo-McGuire’s 34-yard field goal with three minutes, 32 seconds remaining gave the Golden Bears a 34-28 lead.
Winona State 31, Bemidji State 28: Cade Stenstrom rushed for two TDs and passed for 150 yards and a TD to help the host Warriors outlast the Beavers. Stenstrom’s 1-yard TD run and the PAT with two minutes, 10 seconds remaining gave the Warriors a 31-21 lead. The Beavers responded with an 11-play, 93-yard drive to pull within 31-28 with 18 seconds remaining but the Warriors recovered the ensuing kickoff.
Div. I-AA
North Dakota State 59, Murray State 6: The top-ranked Bison built a 42-3 lead in the first half and went on to defeat the host Racers in Murray, Ken. CharMar Brown ran for 97 yards and three TDs for the Bison.
South Dakota State 20, South Dakota 17 (OT): Amar Johnson’s 3-yard TD run in overtime lifted the host Jackrabbits to the victory. The Coyotes opened the OT with a 40-yard field goal.
Youngstown State 41, North Dakota 40 (OT): The host Penguins went first in OT and scored and then stopped North Dakota’s two-point conversion to hold on for the victory. The Penguins sent the game into OT on a 35-yard field goal with 12 seconds remaining.
Div. III
Augsburg 35, St. Olaf 34 (OT): The host Auggies stopped a two-point conversion in overtime to outlast the Oles. The Auggies went first in the overtime and scored on a 25-yard pass from Ryan Harvey to Tyrone Wilson. It was Harvey’s fifth TD pass — the fourth to Wilson. After the Auggies’ PAT, the Oles scored on a 25-yard TD pass from Theo Doran to Braden Menz. But the Oles’ pass attempt for the conversion failed.
After splitting their two-game West Coast trip to begin the season, the Wolves improved to 2-1 with a 112-101 win over Toronto in their home opener. It was a wire-to-wire win that featured some strong bursts of play from the Wolves and other times when their decision-making was suspect. But those moments when they were on, specifically the start of the game and most of the third quarter, were enough to carry them against a shorthanded Raptors team that was without RJ Barrett, Bruce Brown and Immanuel Quickley.
Julius Randle had 24 points while Anthony Edwards had 24 on 21 shot attempts. Donte DiVincenzo had 16 off the bench. Nickeil Alexander-Walker left the game in the fourth quarter and did not return, though he was in the bench area for the final minutes after going to the locker room briefly.
The Wolves’ starting lineup had its best stretch of basketball on the season after that unit started off sluggish in the first two games. Mike Conley, who was 3-for-16 to open the year, hit two early threes to set the tone, though Conley would finish 2-for-8.
Donte DiVincenzo replaced him at point guard halfway through the quarter and continued the hot shooting from the point guard slot with three threes of his own. The Wolves forced five Toronto turnovers and had a 32-18 lead after one.
Coach Chris Finch toyed with some different lineup combinations in the first half as he had Conley and DiVincenzo begin the quarter together while having Joe Ingles run the point later in the quarter. It led to an uneven second, and the Wolves led 56-44 at halftime.
But the Wolves played inspired coming out of the break. Jaden McDaniels, who didn’t take a shot in the first half, had nine points in the opening minutes of the third. Edwards hit a pair of threes as they pushed their lead to 22. The Wolves weren’t sharp closing the night, and the Raptors had the game within right inside of two minutes, but the Wolves had built enough of a cushion.
Rudy Gobert. Gobert had 15 points and 13 rebounds and was the beneficiary of some lobs from his teammates like Edwards, Conley, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Joe Ingles. Gobert also finished with four blocks.
Gobert had two blocks on one possession in the fourth quarter that got the crowd off its feet and Gobert pounding his chest. Gobert blocked D.J. Carton and Jamison Battle.
Star Tribune
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
NOVI, Mich. — Donald Trump further denigrated Detroit while appealing for votes Saturday in a suburb of the largest city in swing state Michigan.
”I think Detroit and some of our areas makes us a developing nation,” the former president told supporters in Novi. He said people want him to say Detroit is ”great,” but he thinks it ”needs help.”
The Republican nominee for the White House had told an economic group in Detroit earlier this month that the ”whole country will end up being like Detroit” if Democrat Kamala Harris wins the presidency. That comment drew harsh criticism from Democrats who praised the city for its recent drop in crime and growing population.
Trump’s stop in Novi, after an event Friday night in Traverse City, is a sign of Michigan’s importance in the tight race. Harris is scheduled for a rally in Kalamazoo later Saturday with former first lady Michelle Obama on the first day that early in-person voting becomes available across Michigan. More than 1.4 million ballots have already been submitted, representing 20% of registered voters. Trump won the state in 2016, but Democrat Joe Biden carried it four years later.
Michigan is home to major car companies and the nation’s largest concentration of members of the United Auto Workers. It also has a significant Arab American population, and many have been frustrated by the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza after the attack by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
During his rally, Trump spotlighted local Muslim and Arab American leaders who joined him on stage. These voters ”could turn the election one way or the other,” Trump said, adding that he was banking on ”overwhelming support” from those voters in Michigan.
“When President Trump was president, it was peace,” said one of those leaders, Mayor Bill Bazzi of Dearborn Heights. ”We didn’t have any issues. There was no wars.”
While Trump is trying to capitalize on the community’s frustration with the Democratic administration, he has a history of policies hostile to this group, including a travel ban targeting Muslim countries while in office and a pledge to expand it to include refugees from Gaza if he wins on Nov. 5.
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