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InspireMSP gets kids backstage at major Minneapolis arts venues
A 2018 Minneapolis jobs report revealed only 13 percent of those employed in creative industries are people of color. A new nonprofit is aiming to change that.
MINNEAPOLIS — A nonprofit that started as a campaign in 2020 to bring people back into museums and galleries hit hard by COVID-19 has now taken on a youth-centered focus. InspireMSP is leveraging the partnerships they formed to provide in-depth, hands-on field trips and backstage tours to students, starting in seventh and eighth grade, from six different public schools and community organizations.
“InspireMSP opens up creative opportunities for students who have historically been excluded from the creative industry,” said Dan Ryan, the executive director. “So we provide experiences that engage the students with passions and gives them exposure to potential career pathways.”
Ryan pointed to the fact that a 2018 Minneapolis jobs report revealed only 13% of people who are employed in creative industries in the city are people of color.
“If we look at the strengths of the creative community, and we look at the passions and talent that the students who haven’t had that opportunity want, we come together as a coalition to address an industry need.” Ryan said.
The nonprofit currently partners with six creative institutions: Hennepin Theatre Trust, Guthrie Theater, Northrop Auditorium, Bakken Museum, First Avenue, and Minnesota Opera. Each institution offers student-centered, hands-on tours to their six partners: Minneapolis Public Schools, St. Paul Public Schools, Big Brothers Big Sisters, One2One, and KIPP Minnesota Public Schools.
Kristen Lynch, principal at Creative Arts Secondary School in St. Paul, said her students loved their field trip to the State Theatre.
“After the bus ride home and the debriefing, it was like oh my gosh, that was so great! That was the best! That was so different than anything we did last year!” Lynch said.
Ari Koehnen Sweeny, director of creative art partnerships at Hennepin Theatre Trust, said the InspireMSP partnership is a great way to show new faces around the theater.
“We want our stages to reflect our community. We want our technicians…we want everyone working in this venue to reflect the community,” Koehnen Sweeny said.
She added that exposure to new talent will help fill employment gaps that continue to increase.
“We want this art form to carry on,” she said. “We want the new folks coming in. We know that stagehands are aging out at a pace that we are not replenishing the pool. In order for this to still exist, we need people, and we need energy, and we need new life in the space.”
Ryan said eventually, they’d like to continue adding creative institutions to their list of partners, from production and ad agencies, to news stations. For now, in their first year, they’re making sure everything goes smoothly with the organizations they have on board. So far, he says it’s been really rewarding.
“The [best] part is to stand in the back of a room full of students who are asking questions about jobs they had no idea existed, and you see lightbulbs going off and a spark in their eye,” he said. “That excitement, if we can deliver it on one experience, and deliver it again, and continue to build that, that’s where we create that change.”
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The U.S. Army says 19-year-old William E. Colby was reported missing in action on Dec. 2, 1950. His remains were identified just this year using DNA technology.
MINNEAPOLIS — Nearly 74 years to the day since he was officially deemed Missing in Action during the Korean war, a Minneapolis soldier finally reached his final resting place.
The burial at Fort Snelling National Cemetery, which came with full military honors, brought closure to the family of Army Corporal William Colby, but it couldn’t bring back the family – and memories – that have long since passed.
“I was little,” said Jinny Bouvette, Corporal Colby’s cousin, who is also among the few surviving family members who ever met him. “We were about nine years difference when he joined the service, I was ten.”
For years, Bouvette says her memories of her cousin Billy, were always clouded by sadness by what happened just months after he deployed to fight in the Korean War.
Colby was just 19 years old and serving in the Korean War when he was declared missing in action on Dec. 2, 1950, after his unit was attacked by the Chinese People’s Army as they attempted to withdraw from the Chosin Reservoir.
“They figure that’s where Billy was,” Bouvette said, pointing to a green circle on a printed map of the Chosin Reservoir. “That’s where he was the last time that he was reported (alive).”
The young soldier could not be recovered following the battle, and the U.S. Army issued a presumptive finding of death on Dec. 31, 1953.
“We never thought of him as being killed in action, we always thought of him as just missing,” Bouvette said. “My aunt, she always thought he was alive somewhere.”
His fate was finally confirmed for family members by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency on May 2, 2024, after Colby’s remains were identified from 55 boxes of remains returned to the U.S. by the North Korean government in 2018.
The process required a DNA analysis of his remains and a sample from a living relative before it could be matched and verified.
Bouvette says representatives initially tried to reach her, but it wasn’t until learning that her aunt and cousin had submitted those DNA samples that she realized what was happening.
“At first I thought they were just people trying to scam old people, and I wouldn’t answer them,” she said, with a laugh. “But eventually, that’s how I found out that he was really, really gone.”
Just a few months later, the Army’s Past Conflict Repatriations Branch helped return his remains, along with a jacket adorned with a full accounting of his honors.
“He didn’t get them when he was alive,” Bouvette said. “So I told them to put them in the casket with him, so he’s got them now.”
She did decide to hold on to one of his awards for herself, Colby’s Purple Heart.
“I just can’t tell you what it feels like,” she said, looking at the military medal in her hand. “It fills your heart right up. It just fills your heart right up.”
Yet it can’t quite compare to seeing his procession finally reach its end.
“My heart is so full… it is overflowing,” she said. “I just can’t… I have no words. I’m just glad that he’s here, and to know he’s home now. He’s home.”
JayCee Cooper filed a lawsuit against USA Powerlifting after the organization banned her from participating in women’s competitions.
SAINT PAUL, Minn. — The conversation inside the Minnesota State Capitol on Tuesday was focused on sports, but a different type of competition was taking place inside the court chambers. Two opposing sides are vying for the Minnesota Supreme Court to rule in their favor in the case of Cooper v. USA Powerlifting.
Transgender woman and athlete JayCee Cooper filed discrimination charges with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights in 2019 after USA Powerlifting banned her from participating in women’s competitions. In 2021, Cooper filed a lawsuit against USA Powerlifting.
The lawsuit claims USA Powerlifting’s ban on transgender women is “an outlier among international, national and local sports organizations,” pointing to the International Olympic Committee’s framework regarding inclusion of athletes and their gender identities.
The case made its way through the state’s courts over several years before landing in the hands of the Minnesota Supreme Court. Oral arguments took place Tuesday morning, in which Cooper was represented by Gender Justice attorney Christy Hall and USA Powerlifting was represented by attorney Ansis Viksnins.
Gender Justice is a legal nonprofit organization based in St. Paul. In a press conference Tuesday morning, the organization’s legal director Jess Braverman said USA Powerlifting is violating Cooper’s rights under the Minnesota Human Rights Act.
“Every Minnesotan deserves the freedom to pursue their dreams without fear of exclusion or discrimination,” Braverman said. “Ms. Cooper was denied that right, solely because she is transgender.”
Viksnins, the attorney representing USA Powerlifting, said Cooper was excluded from women’s competitions due to her biological sex, not gender identity. “It’s not discrimination based on gender identity. That’s the problem for Ms. Cooper’s case: that the differentiation here was because of her biological sex, not for gender identity.”
In 2021, USA Powerlifting launched its MX category, providing a separate division for athletes of all gender identities. “It doesn’t solve the problem of transgender women being barred from women’s competitions, which is the issue here,” Braverman said.
There is no clear timeline as to when the Supreme Court will makes its decision on the case.
The portion of the Kellogg-Third Street Bridge over I-94 is coming down.
ST PAUL, Minn. — The portion of the Kellogg-Third Street Bridge over I-94 is coming down this weekend.
Demolition started in August but they’ve been doing one section at a time. MnDOT says to expect jackhammering around the clock.
City engineers first noticed cracks in its supports in 2014 and limited its capacity. But it’s taken 10 years for the city to come up with the $91 million it will take to build a new one, and it won’t be finished until 2027.
I-94 will be closed this weekend between 35E and Highway 61 in St. Paul.
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