Star Tribune
Itasca County voters re-elect dead commissioner
DULUTH – A deceased Itasca County commissioner candidate won re-election Tuesday by a landslide.
Grand Rapids, Minn., resident Burl Ives, 57, died Sept. 11, a loss that was well-publicized in local media. He was vying for his third term of the board that oversees the large county, which sits more than an hour northwest of Duluth.
Ives defeated Brian Oftelie with nearly three-quarters of the vote.
It was legally too late to remove Ives’ name from the ballot, said Austin Rohling, Itasca County auditor. Now, the board must certify the election results to declare Ives a winner before they can announce a vacancy — both needed to trigger a special election and likely primary, Rohling said. If all goes as expected, the election will be held in the spring, with a primary in February. An appointment, rather than a special election, requires at least half a term to be served.
So, why did people vote for him?
Rohling said Ives’ family asked people considering write-in names to instead vote for Ives.
They wanted him to win “one last time,” he said, so, for many, “it was a memorialization of a life’s legacy as a servant to the people.”
According to Ives’ obituary, he “had a knack for making friends wherever he went. Whether he was snowmobiling, cruising on his motorcycle, fishing, cooking up a storm with friends or striking up conversations with strangers, he embraced life.”
The Mataafa was driven ashore and broken in two by a storm. (Minnesota Historical Society)
There are at least 550 vessels that have gone to rest in the world’s largest freshwater lake (by surface area), according to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Whitefish Point, Mich.
The nonprofit behind the museum, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, has its own underwater research vessel that scours the lake for wreckage.
The team has had successes finding many long-lost storied ships.
The team was also part of an expedition that recovered the 200-pound bronze bell from the Edmund Fitzgerald.
A 1959 photo shows the Great Lakes freighter Edmund Fitzgerald.
The Fitzgerald met its fate on the windy night of Nov. 10, 1975. It was carrying 26,216 tons of taconite pellets from Superior, Wis., to Detroit. It began to take on water and the captain reported that they had turned on the 17-year-old vessel’s pumps. Another freighter, the Arthur M. Anderson, trailed the troubled ship.
Minnesota’s counties are more polarized with fewer politically moderate areas.
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FARIBAULT, MINN. – Jon Frasz could always be counted on to wave his cowbell at anti-gun-violence rallies at the State Capitol in St. Paul.
Frasz didn’t have children of his own, but he felt strongly about preventing gun violence in schools, friends said. After a gunman shot and killed 20 6- and 7-year-olds and six adults inside Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012, Frasz made buttons commemorating the Sandy Hook victims. He could always be counted on to passionately argue in favor of gun-control laws to whomever would listen; he was the kind of person who could make friends with folks even if they didn’t agree with his politics, they said.
And he’s remembered for his catchphrase that gun laws are pro-life.
“You never ran into Jon if you were one of the people that shared his views without getting into a really thoughtful conversation,” said Mary Lewis Grow.
Grow is among several of Frasz’s friends and fellow activists who miss the 76-year-old Northfield man, who died earlier this year from a sudden illness. To honor him, they used his slogan to put on an election billboard in Faribault near Interstate 35, as close to his hometown as they could get.
The billboard campaign was part of a statewide DFL election push in rural areas, but the money collected for the Faribault sign came from Frasz’s fellow advocates who miss his compassion and zeal. And now that the election is over, activists are finding new ways to honor Frasz.
Frasz was born in Saskatchewan but his family moved to Minnesota when he was 2 years old. He moved around the country throughout his life before settling back home as a truck driver for a number of years. But he found his passion later in life through political advocacy.
He would often volunteer to go to St. Paul whenever gun-safety groups like Moms Demand Action held rallies, cowbell in tow. He’d stand at booths and spread literature. He’d even go to Carleton College to reprint the Sandy Hook victim buttons and pass them out, all at his own expense.
