Star Tribune
Minnesota native Dakotah Lindwurm makes U.S. Olympic team in marathon
St. Francis native Dakotah Lindwurm became the first Minnesotan to make the U.S. team for this summer’s Paris Olympics, finishing third in the women’s marathon Saturday at the Olympic trials in Orlando, Fla.
Lindwurm, 28, prevailed in a gritty battle for third place and the final Olympic spot. Fiona O’Keeffe won the race in a Trials-record time of two hours, 22 minutes, 10 seconds, with American record holder Emily Sisson second in 2:22:42. Lindwurm pulled away from Caroline Rotich with about two miles left to finish in 2:25:31, wrapping up the last of the three available Olympic berths.
Conner Mantz won the men’s division in 2:09:05, with training partner and former Brigham Young teammate Clayton Young second in 2:09:06. Leonard Korir was third in 2:09:57.
Mantz and Young were named to the Olympic team, but Korir’s time did not achieve the standard he needed to make the team Saturday. He still could qualify for the Paris Games if the U.S. is awarded a third Olympic berth in the men’s marathon via the world rankings on May 5.
A two-time winner of Grandma’s Marathon, Lindwurm entered the race with a personal-best time of 2:24:40, earned with a 12th-place finish at last fall’s Chicago Marathon. She trains with the Minnesota Distance Elite club in the Twin Cities. After Saturday’s race, she could barely hold back tears as she was wrapped in an American flag.
“I was just calling on the Lord those last four miles,” Lindwurm said in a post-race interview with NBC. “I knew I had a little bit of a gap on (the fourth-place runner), and I was just praying to God that he could help me through.
“I just had this undeniable belief in myself. I knew I could carry this flag on my shoulders and represent this country. And here we are.”
Lindwurm was the goalie for her high school girls’ hockey team, a combined program with St. Francis and North Branch. She walked on to the track team at Northern State University in Aberdeen, S.D., and became a Division II all-America in the 10,000 meters and in cross-country. She finished her college career in 2017 and has been a professional runner since then, balancing that with a career as a paralegal.
Along with other members of Minnesota Distance Elite, Lindwurm had been living and training in Orlando for the past several weeks to acclimate to the weather, which was 61 degrees with 65% humidity at the start of the race. Saturday, she maintained position in a lead pack of 12 early in the race.
At the 12-mile mark, Lindwurm surged to the front of a 12-runner lead pack, with Minnesota Distance Elite teammate Annie Frisbie of Edina also in the group. O’Keeffe made her move near the halfway mark and began to pull away from the field in mile 20. Lindwurm settled back into the middle of the lead group, and her duel with Rotich began around mile 21.
As O’Keeffe and then Sisson separated from the pack, Lindwurm and Rotich ran neck and neck until mile 24. Lindwurm held an 11-second advantage on Rotich at mile 25 and maintained position through the final stretch.
O’Keeffe praised Lindwurm for running a “brave” race. NBC analyst Kara Goucher, a two-time Olympian who grew up in Duluth, was emotional as she watched Lindwurm cross the line in third.
“My little Minnesotan,” Goucher said. “Believing in herself, and willing herself onto that Olympic team.”
Frisbie finished 10th in 2:27:56,and Gabi Rooker of New Brighton was 19th in 2:31:25. The top Minnesotan in the men’s field was Reed Fischer, a Minnetonka native who finished ninth in 2:11:34.
Anti-police brutality activists interrupted a Minneapolis City Council meeting Thursday to call for Police Chief Brian O’Hara’s firing, saying his department failed a Black man who begged police for help for months, to no avail, before he was finally shot in the neck by his white neighbor.
John Sawchak, 54, is charged with shooting Davis Moturi, 34, even though three warrants had been issued for his arrest in connection with threats to Moturi and other neighbors.
Activists showed up at the council meeting and asked for time to talk about the case. Instead, the council recessed and activists took the podium and castigated the city for failing Black people, even as state and federal officials are forcing the police department into court-sanctioned monitoring because of past civil rights violations.
Nekima Levy Armstrong, founder of the Racial Justice Network, said O’Hara needs to be held accountable.
“This is not the first time instance where the community has raised concerns about his poor judgment, poor leadership, blaming the community and excuses. It’s completely unacceptable for him to get away with it,” she said. “How many Black people’s doors have they kicked in for less?”
On Thursday the council voted to request the city auditor review the city’s involvement in and response to the matters between Moturi and Sawchak.
Mayor Jacob Frey released a statement in response saying he supports the council’s call for an independent review of the case, but O’Hara “will continue to be the Minneapolis police chief.”
Protesters also questioned why the public hadn’t heard from Community Safety Commissioner Toddrick Barnette, who called a news conference within hours to say he’s not going to fire O’Hara and the city leadership supports him.
A Girl Scout from Troop 58068 told the Woodbury City Council recently that they should allow backyard chickens in the city: They cheer people up, she said.
It turned out that chickens were on an upcoming agenda and, perhaps pushed a bit by the scout’s lobbying, the Woodbury City Council at their next meeting passed a new ordinance allowing for backyard hens.
The new ordinance went into effect on Oct. 23, the night of the council meeting, and will allow people who live on property zoned R-2, a “rural estate” district, to have backyard chickens. A typical city lot is zoned R-4 and those areas still cannot have chickens, the council said.
The city has received requests “here and there” for the last several years about backyard chickens, City Council Member Andrea Date said.
Backyard chickens come have home to roost — and never leave — in a host of other Minnesota cities that allow them, from Hopkins to Thief River Falls. It’s long been allowed in both St. Paul and Minneapolis, and new cities started approving backyard coops during the pandemic, when interest spiked.
In Woodbury, it wasn’t until the question was included on the city’s biannual survey that city staff knew how people felt. The survey found less support for chickens on a typical city lot — just 13% of respondents said they strongly approve of the idea while 43% percent strongly disapproved — but a majority approved of backyard chickens on lots of 1 acre or more.
The city’s rules until recently only allowed chickens on “rural estate” properties of five or more acres.
The new ordinance allows up to six hens, but no roosters, on property less than four acres that meets the zoning requirements. Larger properties can have an additional two chickens per acre above four acres. The ordinance also sets a height limit for chicken coops of 7 feet. No license or permit is required in Woodbury for backyard chickens.
Star Tribune
Anonymous donor pays overdue bill for Fergus Falls home where town’s first Black resident lived
A $10,000 overdue special assessment bill threatening tax forfeiture of a historic Fergus Falls home was paid off this week thanks to an anonymous donor.
Prince Albert Honeycutt lived at 612 Summit Avenue East, renamed Honeycutt Memorial Drive in 2021. Not only was Honeycutt the town’s first Black resident — settling there in 1872 from Tennessee — he was the state’s first Black professional baseball player, first Black firefighter and first Black mayoral candidate.
He was an early pioneer and prominent businessman who owned a barbershop in town. Missy Hermes, with the Otter Tail County Historical Society, said Honeycutt and his wife were likely the first Black people in Minnesota to testify in a capital murder trial of a man who was convicted and hanged in Fergus Falls.
“In other places, you would never have a Black person testifying against a white person, especially a woman, too, before women could vote even,” Hermes said. “Obviously he was respected enough.”
Nancy Ann and Prince Albert Honeycutt with their children inside the now-historic Honeycutt house in 1914. Photo from the collections of the Otter Tail County Historical Society.
When dozens of people from Kentucky moved to Fergus Falls in April 1898, known as “the first 85,” Honeycutt helped integrate them into the community.
He died in 1924 at age 71 and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Fergus Falls.
Up until 2016, several owners lived in the Honeycutt home. But the city bought and sold the house to nonprofit Flowingbrook Ministry for $1 to take over the tax-exempt property and operate the ministry.
Ministry founder Lynette Higgins-Orr, who previously lived in Fergus Falls, moved to Florida several years ago and little activity has been going on in the historic home since. But she said there are plans to make it into a museum.
