Star Tribune
Trisha Yearwood, Garth Brooks launch St. Paul Habitat for Humanity project
Fans of country music superstars Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks may want to take note: The former Hillcrest golf course now known as The Heights not only was the site of their latest volunteer turn for Habitat for Humanity. It may also prove to be the start of marital, um, friction.
“I think 17 years of [volunteering for] Habitat has been a lot easier than 19 years of being married,” Brooks said, chuckling as he looked sideways at his wife.
Lucky for Brooks, Yearwood appeared not to take offense. The work they’re doing, she said, is vital.
“We’ve known since day one, it’s a great organization because it really is about the right thing — infrastructure in our country,” she said. “Should we help our homebuilding? That is such a priority in our minds. It’s a crisis.”
Monday, at St. Paul’s far northeast corner, the Grammy-winning power couple joined the kickoff of Habitat’s weeklong Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project. The project will attract 4,000 volunteers to build 30 Habitat homes at the 112-acre mixed-use development. Habitat will build a total of 147 owner-occupied affordable homes and The Heights will eventually include 1,000 units of housing and 1,000 new jobs.
Volunteers build houses during Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity’s 2024 Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project at the site of the former Hillcrest Golf Course. (Leila Navidi)
Jonathan Reckford, CEO of Habitat for Humanity International, said Brooks and Yearwood’s involvement in Habitat projects from Colorado to Florida, Canada to Haiti, provides an unmistakable boost to its efforts worldwide.
“It’s tremendously important,” he said. “In the same way that the world found out about Habitat because President and Mrs. Carter got involved as volunteers, starting their 40-year run with us, I think when people with huge social capital lend their celebrity, what happens is we get more media attention and we get awareness, and that allows more people to get involved.”
The Carter Work Project runs through Friday. Officials said more than 1,000 people will volunteer each day, 4,000 total. Yearwood and Brooks will be working right alongside them. On Monday, the site was abuzz with workers climbing scaffolding, framing walls and driving heavy equipment.
Q: What’s the most satisfying part of the show?
A: Frankly, it’s to run into people in the community that listen to the show. Because when you start anything new, you don’t have a name. I had to beg people to come on the show when I first started, just because it wasn’t a known commodity. Now, with people listening, my guests come back and tell me that they ran into somebody who heard them on the show. I got about 200,000 listeners a week.
Q: What is the most interesting issue you’re following now?
A: The presidential election, because we could be having the first Native American governor [Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, if Harris and Walz win].
Q: And you’re looking at starting an ad agency?
A: Yeah. We’re going to be opening up an ad agency, to be able to produce stuff and expand slowly. Because there is a need out there. Some of my advertising comes from BIPOC ad agencies. And there is no Native ad agency out there that people can go directly to. And my wife and I have started this [pop-up] store at Dayton’s [Native Roots Trading Post].
A 14-year-old boy fatally shot a 13-year-old boy on accident early Tuesday in a Minneapolis home occupied by several other people, officials said.
The “apparent accidental” gunfire occurred about 1:30 a.m. near the intersection of N. 24th and Sheridan avenues in the 2400 block of N. Ferrant Place, a statement from police read.
Officers arrived, saw that the 13-year-old had been shot once and provided immediate aid to the teen before he died at the scene, according to police.
“Preliminary information indicates that a 14-year-old boy was handling a gun when the 13-year-old boy was shot,” the police statement continued. Police did not disclose the teens’ identities.
The 14-year-old remained at the scene, and was arrested and booked into the Hennepin County Juvenile Detention Center.
There were two adult women and other juveniles in the home at the time of the shooting, police said.
“The death of a child is always incredibly troubling and tragic,” said Police Chief Brian O’Hara. “Our investigators will work diligently to answer the many questions we have. In addition to supporting the families that are impacted by this tragedy, everyone must make every effort to ensure that every gun is securely stored.”
The shooting comes about two weeks after a 3-year-old boy accidentally shot himself to death in northeast Minneapolis. Jajuan Robinson was critically wounded at the Hook and Ladder Apartments in the 2300 block of Jefferson Street NE. on Oct, 21, said his aunt, Meshia Woods. The toddler died at HCMC a short time later.
A man has received a prison term topping 33 years for a killing outside a Wright County business where the shooter, his wife and the victim worked.
Kevin Uriel Zelaya Asencio, 24, of Glencoe, Minn., was sentenced Monday after pleading guilty to second-degree intentional murder and second-degree assault in connection with the March 2023 shooting of Adrian Montano Medina in the parking lot of the Dura Supreme cabinet manufacturing company in Howard Lake.
With credit for time in jail since his arrest, Zelaya Asencio is expected to serve the first 21 years of his 33-year term in prison and the balance on supervised release.
The County Attorney’s Office said it based its criminal complaint on interviews with witnesses and Zelaya Asencio, along with physical evidence and surveillance video.
Numerous calls to 911 reported the shooting, including one from a woman screaming. One caller gave law enforcement the license plate of a pickup truck that Zelaya Asencio drove from the parking lot.
Police arrived and found Medina in the driver’s seat of a pickup truck with a fatal gunshot wound to his head.
Minutes later, a sheriff’s deputy spotted Zelaya Asencio’s pickup traveling on Hwy. 12 in Waverly. Zelaya Asencio was arrested, and the deputy found an AR-15 assault-style rifle in the pickup.
