Star Tribune
What’s a design expert’s verdict on Minnesota’s new state flag?
The dust has settled, and Minnesota has its new flag, a blue-and-white, star-and-shapes configuration that’s much simpler than its soon-to-be predecessor.
So how does the new banner rank in the pantheon of beloved state and country flags, and in the minds of flag experts and scholars?
Ted Kaye, who wrote the 2006 guidebook “‘Good’ Flag, ‘Bad’ Flag,” gave Minnesota’s new design an “A” and called it excellent.
“You can’t make everybody happy, but Minnesota will come to be extremely proud of this flag,” said Kaye, secretary of the North American Vexillological Association (NAVA). “The state has seized a wonderful opportunity to improve its symbolism.”
He said he believes it would rank in the top 10 among the states and provinces of the United States and Canada were NAVA members and the public to be surveyed.
Kaye, in an interview with the Star Tribune last month, had suggested changes to the original draft of “Polaris Tricolor” by Andrew Prekker of Luverne that the state’s flag commission ended up incorporating.
The original included a white, green and light blue stripe representing the snow, the land and the state’s waters. But a majority of the commission members favored eliminating the stripes for a solid light blue color to make it simpler, as Kaye proposed.
Social media posts proliferated from people who said they missed the stripes. But Kaye said the green didn’t work because it was too dark and didn’t contrast enough with the dark blue on the left.
He also thought the green of forests and rural areas it was celebrating wasn’t unique to Minnesota.
“Although Minnesotans love their verdant nature, it is not distinctive for Minnesota; nearly every state has green nature,” said Kaye, who lives in Oregon.
The four weaker “points” of the North Star were replaced with eight stronger ones, another of Kaye’s suggestions.
Kaye said he divined five separate meanings for the star on Minnesota’s new flag, which he praised for its simplicity.
That includes the star looking like a compass rose that points to the north, while maintaining a rotated Dakota Star symbol, honoring the Native American community. This star also adds the M shape on all sides.
Prekker said that he is “very happy” with the final product but acknowledged he is still getting used to the changes.
“It might take a bit to get used to, but I love the new flag,” Prekker said. “It keeps all my core concepts, but improves upon it.”
While a lot of posters on social media sites like X and Facebook have been critical of the new flag, some are warming to it.
Bill Lindeke, who has written books about Twin Cities history and sells St. Paul’s and other city flags online, initially favored the “L’etoile du Nord” design, which had a white star or snowflake overlapping a yellow four-point star.Lindeke also wanted to keep the tri-color stripes at first.
But Lindeke said he’s reconsidering. “Honestly, I think I might be changing my mind. We’ll see, it’s growing on me,” Lindeke said Wednesday. “I think it will for a lot of people.”
Lindeke said he ordered a 3-by-5-foot version of the flag to hang in his house, along with stickers of it. And he thinks it will translate well digitally. If you send the new flag as an emoji symbol in a text, for example, Lindeke said he thinks the design will hold up and look good.
The final selection could also be customized easily for some situations, Lindeke said, such as adding rainbow stripes over the right side to make it into a Pride flag.
Kaye echoed that he thinks the flag is customizable, and he thinks it won’t be long before someone gets a tattoo of the new flag, as many have with the Chicago and Washington, D.C., flags.
“It’s going to become iconic in Minnesota, and the design elements will become remixable,” Kaye said. “You’ll see all kinds of things using that star.”
Star Tribune
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, on the campaign trial, gives a pep talk to the Mankato West High School Scarlets, a team he once coached.
MANKATO – The football players in their pads jogged out to face their rivals Friday night as Gov. Tim Walz, back home briefly as he campaigns across the country as vice presidential nominee, cheered them on.
“Don’t forget to have fun, enjoy,” Walz told players on the football team at Mankato West High School, where he worked as a geography teacher and assistant football coach before launching a political career that carried him to the Democratic Party’s national ticket.
Since choosing Walz as her running mate, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has touted his background as a football coach, hunter and gun owner, as Democrats reach out to Midwestern voters and look for inroads with men.
Walz’s stop in Mankato is one of a series of media stops in the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where the governor is talking high school football and hunting.
“This is the best of America,” Walz told reporters after greeting the players of Mankato West ahead of their rivalry game with Mankato East. He said he would visit his old classroom, before heading to watch the game.
A quarter center ago, Walz was the assistant defensive football coach for the 1999 Mankato West football team that won the state championship. That year’s crosstown rivalry game was a spark for Mankato West as it headed toward its state championship, said John Considine, a Mankato West alum and right tackle on that 1999 Class 4A championship team.
“It’s good to have him back,” Considine said Friday.
Local Republicans called Walz’s appearance a stunt. “They’re getting desperate to get the word out,” said Yvonne Simon, chair of the Blue Earth County GOP, adding she’s doesn’t think the governor’s “coach” branding is catching on.
“There’s a fair amount of stuff we’ve digested over the years,” Kerfoot told the Star Tribune at the time of the sale. “It’ll take a while to pick all of it out of me.”
In recent years, he and Sue have spent summers in Minnesota and then traveled back to Missouri to be close to family for the rest of the year.
Visitors love to drop in and talk about Justine Kerfoot or Bruce Kerfoot or the years they spent working at the lodge, Fredrikson said. He’s found that Bruce’s energy seemingly matched that of his mother, who died in 2001 when she was 94.
“He was one of those people that was able to get stuff done more easily or better than other people,” Fredrikson said. “Maybe because of who he was, or maybe because the stars align for this kind of person.”
In a social media post, Kerfoot’s family said they had peace knowing he and his mother “were paddling together to their shore lunch spot.”
Mark Hennessy knew Kerfoot for 40 years, but has had a closer view for the past three years. He said without Kerfoot, the Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center, located near the end of the Gunflint Trail, wouldn’t exist. Whenever there was a work project, the executive director said, Kerfoot would show up.
A teenage motorcyclist was killed in a collision with an SUV at a Burnsville intersection, officials said Friday.
The crash occurred shortly after 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Burnsville Parkway and Interstate 35W, police said.
The motorcyclist was identified by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office as Peter Vsevolod Genis, 17, of Burnsville.
An SUV driver was turning left from westbound Burnsville Parkway to northbound 35W when Genis went through a red light while heading east and struck the SUV.
The SUV driver and a woman with him, both from Burnsville, were not hurt.
The other vehicle was a Mercedes SUV. The driver was a 30-year-old male from Burnsville, with a 29-year-old female passenger from Burnsville. Neither of them was injured.
