Star Tribune
Kay Emel-Powell, a real-life Betty Crocker, dies at 76
Her name never made the cover, but Kay Emel-Powell was the creative power behind a number of popular Betty Crocker cookbooks that landed on supermarket shelves and other retail outlets in the 1980s.
As a 20-year veteran of Pillsbury, Emel-Powell was a key figure in the Betty Crocker Kitchens, where she wrote and tested hundreds of recipes that appeared in such publications as “Harvest Time Pies” and “Creative Holiday Recipes.”
The booklets sold for as little as $1.98 and were routinely placed in magazine racks at supermarket checkout lines across the United States. Before retiring in 2003, Emel-Powell also helped launch Bettycrocker.com, which continues to provide kitchen tips to 12 million visitors each month.
“We personified Betty Crocker,” said Mary Bartz, who worked with Emel-Powell and now coordinates the canning and baking competitions at the Minnesota State Fair. “The essence of Betty Crocker was to offer a warm, friendly approach … We appealed to Middle America.”
Emel-Powell of Bloomington died Aug. 9 after two decades of living with progressive multiple sclerosis. She was 76.
She grew up in rural Kansas, where she won her first cookbook by becoming the local 4-H baking champion at the age of 16. After graduating from Kansas State University with degrees in foods and nutrition and business, she was hired in 1969 as a home economist at Pillsbury, which launched the iconic Betty Crocker brand in 1921.
“At the time, Pillsbury was looking for employees who came from different parts of the country to represent what those places were doing in the kitchen,” said Karen Sorensen, who joined Emel-Powell at Pillsbury in 1969. “I was Illinois and Kay was Kansas.”
One of their jobs brought them into people’s kitchens, where they observed mothers baking brownies and biscuits to see if they had trouble opening the packages or following the directions. They also conducted so-called “tolerance tests,” seeing how much they could mess up a recipe without ruining the end result.
“If a product was so sensitive that it failed if you were off by a teaspoon of water, we’d go back and say we may need to reformulate the mix so it is more forgiving to consumers,” said Anne Klein, another former Pillsbury colleague.
Emel-Powell left Pillsbury for 15 years to sell housewares and establish her own consulting business. She returned to the company in 1986 after working on the Pillsbury Bake-Off and developing several Betty Crocker cookbooks as a freelancer.
Colleagues said one of her passions was developing and testing recipes for the company, which required constant monitoring of food trends in restaurants, bakeries and competing cookbooks.
“Betty Crocker was aiming at the average cook, and it was a constant question of how far do you push into the gourmet world,” Sorensen said.
To keep things simple, many dishes were limited to three or five ingredients. Another factor: recipes should promote Pillsbury products, such as biscuits or rolls.
“It has always been the premise that if you get recipes in front of the consumer, they will buy your product,” Sorensen said. “You just had to have the right recipe and the recipe had to be good.”
Some of the books are now collectors’ items that sell for many times their original price online. One fan of Betty Crocker’s Smart Cook, which Emel-Powell edited in 1988, said she has given several copies of the cookbook to friends.
“This is a super great cookbook for the cook who wants to put something special on their table, but has time constraints,” the buyer said in a 2009 review.
Emel-Powell is survived by her husband, Mark Moore Powell. Services have been held.
Star Tribune
Former Hubbard County official, school bus driver gets six-year sentence for sex crimes against students
A former Hubbard County commissioner and school bus driver was sentenced Friday to six years in prison for sex crimes involving minors.
Daniel J. Stacey, 60, was charged in April 2023 with criminal sexual conduct and electronic solicitation of a minor, both felonies, in Beltrami County District Court. He was then charged in November with nine additional felony counts related to criminal sexual contact with a minor.
Stacey pleaded guilty in June to four felony counts as part of a plea deal that dropped the remaining charges. His attorney, Joseph Tamburino, declined to comment Friday on the sentence, and officials with the Nevis school district did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment.
Stacey resigned from the Hubbard County Board in January 2023 and was placed on leave from his school bus job during an investigation by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) that began after the parent of a Nevis student filed a complaint.
In an email Friday, Hubbard County Administrator Jeffrey Cadwell said he had no comment other than that Stacey’s actions “did not occur within the course and scope of his duties with the County and the County was completely unaware of them.”
According to a criminal complaint, Stacey offered to mentor a 13-year-old male on his bus route. He brought the boy to his property, asked him to watch pornography and tried to touch him in a sexual manner, court documents state.
The boy told investigators that Stacey told him not to tell anyone, and helped him rehearse what to say about doing chores at his property. Investigators said they found footage showing times Stacey would deactivate the school bus camera when the boy was the only student left on the bus.
A second criminal complaint outlines similar allegations against Stacey with a minor who was 14 years old.
Star Tribune
Woman charged as investigation into attack on north Minneapolis homeless shelter continues
A 33-year-old woman has been charged with two felonies in connection with an attack on a north Minneapolis homeless shelter that forced 54 women and children to relocate last week.
Eureka D. Riser, 33, of Minneapolis, is charged with second-degree rioting with a dangerous weapon and first-degree damage to property, according to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office. She was in custody Friday, a day after Minneapolis police confirmed her arrest.
Riser, also known as Eureka Willis, is alleged to have been in a group of at least three people who on Sept. 5 went to St. Anne’s Place, 2634 Russell Av. N., and threatened residents, smashing doors with a baseball bat.
Residents were forced to vacate the shelter, leaving it boarded with plywood and watched over by armed security. Building managers estimate that property damage amounts to more than $10,000, according to the county attorney’s office. Additional charges may be brought against others involved.
“This violent attack on some of our most vulnerable community members, unhoused women and children, in a place where they had gone to seek shelter and safety cannot be tolerated,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement.
Hoang Murphy, the CEO of People Serving People, which operates the shelter, said earlier this week that the four-hour episode was the culmination of an argument between shelter residents and neighbors over street parking that started days earlier and spilled over into violence.
According to the criminal complaint, which cites surveillance footage, Riser allegedly swung a baseball bat against the shelter’s doors, shattering glass while residents were inside. Another member of the group pointed what appears to be a gun at the front door of the building, the complaint says.
Residents have since been relocated to a hotel for safety reasons, costing People Serving People $9,000 a night — a figure that Murphy called unsustainable.
Star Tribune
6 months in jail for man shot by Minnesota deputies while resisting arrest
A man who was shot and wounded by sheriff’s deputies in east-central Minnesota while resisting arrest received a six-month jail term Friday.
Leo H. Hacker, 71, was sentenced in Pine County District Court in connection with his guilty plea in two cases of assault, and obstructing and fleeing law enforcement in connection with his clashes with deputies in February 2023.
Hacker’s sentences will be served concurrently and includes Judge Jason Steffen setting aside a three-year sentence sought by the County Attorney’s Office. Steffen’s terms also include five years’ probation and community work service.
According to the charges in each case and related court documents:
On Feb. 21, deputies tried to pull over Hacker’s pickup truck on a gravel road about a mile from his Pine City home. As two deputies approached his vehicle, he drove toward them. Both deputies opened fire on Hacker and wounded him.
Hacker was wanted at the time on charges of second-degree assault and obstructing law enforcement in connection with allegations that he pointed a gun at a deputy outside his home on Feb. 14 and angrily defied orders to drop the weapon.
At one point, Hacker warned the deputies that if they did not leave, he would return with “something bigger,” the charges quoted him as saying.
The deputy was there to seize Hacker’s SUV stemming from a dispute over his unpaid attorney fees, the charges read. However, law enforcement outside the home “determined that based on the totality of circumstances, it was in the interest of safety to leave the scene at that time” and instead seek a warrant for Hacker’s arrest, the criminal complaint continued.
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