Star Tribune
Distracted driving death has left Wright County family ‘forever incomplete’
Greg and Amy LaVallee are marking an anniversary this year, but there is no celebration.
Instead, the Wright County couple are remembering the fateful day in August 2013 when a distracted driver struck and killed their 19-year-old son, Phillip, who was out running.
And they are asking drivers to put down their phones.
“Our family is heartbroken and forever incomplete,” Amy LaVallee said during a recent Minnesota Department of Public Safety news conference. The event kicked off a distracted driving enforcement campaign coinciding with April’s National Distracted Driving Awareness month.
Phillip had been one of the state’s top high school distance runners and had dreams of making it to the Olympics. “We continue to imagine what his life would be like now,” his mother continued. “He was deprived of his dreams and his life because of a driver’s selfish choice to drive distracted.”
For the rest of April, law enforcement across the state are stepping up enforcement of the state’s hands-free law, which went into effect in 2019. The law allows drivers to interact with phones and electronic devices through voice activation or with a single touch, but bans them from holding them in their hand while at the wheel.
Last year, deaths (22) and serious injuries (126) attributed to distracted driving dropped to their lowest levels since the law took effect. Still, distracted driving was a contributing factor in more than 32,000 crashes — one in every 11 crashes on Minnesota roads — between 2018 and 2022, the Department of Public Safety said.
“It’s a critical challenge we continue to face,” said Mike Hanson, director of the agency’s Office of Traffic Safety.
Hanson challenged all drivers to put their phones away for the entire month of April.
“Thirty days is all it takes” to change a behavior, Hanson said at the news conference. “You will find your driving task will be much easier. It will be less stressful, and you will be a much safer driver.”
In the years following their son’s death, the LaVallees have been active in raising awareness about the dangers of distracted driving. They were among many families who successfully pushed for the state’s hands-free law.
The couple started Just Drive Day in 2015, with the mission to end distracted driving and create a stigma around it. This year’s event will include a walk and run from 9 a.m. to noon April 29 at Monticello Middle School.
“There is only one task we do every day that has the potential to kill somebody, and that is driving,” Greg LaVallee said. Driving while distracted “is the most selfish choice.”
And something bad can happen fast. An investigation found that the driver who hit Phillip had received a phone call and momentarily looked away from the road.
“If that driver had focused on driving, had been paying attention that day, Phillip would still be with us,” Greg said.
The Lynx are in the hot seat.
The team lost Game 3 of the WNBA Finals series against the New York Liberty on Wednesday night 77-80, setting the stage for a decisive match at Target Center on Friday night. Fans in the arena reacted with resounding disappointment after Sabrina Ionescu sunk a three-pointer to break away from the tie game and dashed the Lynx’s chance at forcing overtime.
Before we get to the reactions, first things first: The Lynx set an attendance record, filling Target Center with 19,521 spectators for the first time in franchise history. That’s nearly 500 more than when Caitlin Clark was in town with the Indiana Fever earlier this year.
Despite leading by double digits for much of the game, the Lynx began the fourth quarter with a one-point lead over the Liberty and struggled to stay more than two or three points ahead throughout.
The Liberty took the lead with minutes to go in the fourth quarter and folks were practically despondent.
Of course, there were people who were in it solely for the spectacle. Nothing more.
The Lynx took a commanding lead early in the first quarter and ended the first half in winning position, setting a particularly jovial mood among the fanbase to start the game.
Inside Target Center, arena announcers spent a few minutes before the game harassing Lynx fans — and Liberty fans — who had not yet donned the complementary T-shirts draped over every seat.
DULUTH – The Minnesota and Wisconsin transportation departments will make upgrades to the Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge in the summer of 2025, in preparation for the structure to become the premiere route between this city and Superior during reconstruction of the Blatnik Bridge.
Built in 1961, the Blatnik Bridge carries 33,000 vehicles per day along Interstate 535 and Hwy. 53. It will be entirely rebuilt, starting in 2027, with the help of $1 billion in federal funding announced earlier this year. MnDOT and WisDOT are splitting the remaining costs of the project, about $4 million each.
According to MnDOT, projects on the Bong Bridge will include spot painting, concrete surface repairs to the bridge abutments, concrete sealer on the deck, replacing rubber strip seal membranes on the main span’s joints and replacing light poles on the bridge and its points of entry. It’s expected to take two months, transportation officials said during a recent meeting at the Superior Public Library.
During this time there will be occasional lane closures, detours at the off-ramps, and for about three weeks the sidewalk path alongside the bridge will be closed.
The Bong Bridge, which crosses the St. Louis River, opened to traffic in 1985 and is the lesser-used of the two bridges. Officials said they want to keep maintenance to a minimum on the span during the Blatnik project, which is expected to take four years.
Red Wing will celebrate the grand opening of its first permanent set of pickleball courts next week with an “inaugural play” on the six courts at Colvill Park on the banks of the Mississippi, between a couple of marinas and next to the aquatic center.
Among the first to get to play on the new courts will be David Anderson, who brought pickleball to the local YMCA in 2008, before the nationwide pickleball craze took hold, and Denny Yecke, at 92 the oldest pickleball player in Red Wing.
The inaugural play begins at 11 a.m. Tuesday, with a rain date of the next day. Afterward will be food and celebration at the Colvill Park Courtyard building.
Tim Sletten, the city’s former police chief, discovered America’s fastest-growing sport a decade ago after he retired. With fellow members of the Red Wing Pickleball Group, he’d play indoors at the local YMCA or outdoors at a local school, on courts made for other sports. But they didn’t have a permanent place, so they approached the city about building one.
When a city feasibility study came up with a high cost, about $350,000, Sletten’s group got together to raise money.
The courts are even opening ahead of schedule, originally set for 2025.
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