Amid the cacophony and chaos of the pregame preparation before a recent Minnetonka High School football game, an exceptional group of six girls is gathered together among the school’s deep and talented cheerleading and dance teams.

The cheerleaders, a national championship-winning program of 40 girls, dot the track around the football field. As the clock ticks down to kickoff and their night of choreographed routines begins, the six girls, proudly wearing Minnetonka blue T-shirts emblazoned with “Skippers Nation” and shaking shiny pom-poms, swirl around the track, bristling with excited energy.

Their circumstances are no different from any of the other cheerleaders with one notable exception: The girls on this team have special needs.

They’re members of the Minnetonka Sparklers, a squad of cheerleaders made up solely of girls with special needs.

A football game at Minnetonka High School is an elaborate production. The Skippers’ recent homecoming victory over Shakopee brought an announced crowd of 8,145. And that is just paying attendees; it doesn’t include school staffers, coaches, dance team, marching band, concession workers, media members and others going about their business attached to the game.

The Sparklers program, now in its 12th season, was the brainchild of Marcy Adams, a former Minnetonka cheerleader who initiated the program in her senior year of high school. Adams has been coach of the team since its inception, staying on through her tenure as a cheerleader at the University of Minnesota.

She started the program after experiencing the Unified Sports program at Minnetonka. The unified sports movement at high schools brings together student-athletes with cognitive or physical disabilities and athletes with no disabilities to foster relationships, understanding and compassion through athletics. Many Minnesota schools offer unified sports.

“I grew up in a household that valued students with special needs and valued inclusion,” Adams said. “I saw a need to give to those students. At Minnetonka, we have a strong Unified program, and this was a great opportunity to build relationships and offer mentorship opportunities.”

The school said in its lawsuit that both Hugo and May Township consider the land rural residential zoning, and that the codes identify a school as a conditional use. Hugo officials have generally supported the LCA plan, granting a building permit in 2022 that allowed LCA to invest $2.1 million into the former Withrow school for renovations.

The school said in its lawsuit that the existing septic system is failing and needs to be replaced, regardless of expansion plans.

The school said it notified neighbors of the property in 2022 and again in 2023 about its land purchase. About 50 residents in total attended those meetings, and just two expressed concerns over the issues of traffic and lights, according to the suit. The school met with the May Township board in May of 2023, and minutes from that meeting show that the board had no concerns beyond lighting at the time, according to the suit. The board asked if the school could use “down lighting” for its athletic fields and the school said it would.

In June, Hugo City Council approved a conditional use permit for the school, but the May Township board voted to extend the decision deadline to early August.

The suit says it was at a subsequent meeting in July that May Town Board Chairman John Pazlar objected to the plan for the first time, saying “the main concern, based on public comment, is to keep Town of May rural.”

The school said its plans for the May Township portion of its property had been submitted eight months prior to the July meeting, and that its plans met requirements of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

DFL Rep. Angie Craig rode the 2018 blue wave to victory and has fended off close challenges for the last three terms by appealing to a broad swath of swing voters in the Second Congressional District.

All of her races have been close, but her tightest race so far was during the 2020 presidential election when she beat GOP Tyler Kistner by just over two points. Running in a presidential election year once again will put Craig’s mainstream appeal to the test and could determine whether the Second Congressional District remains one of the last swing seats in the state.

A majority of district voters have picked the winning presidential candidate each cycle since 2000. Some people describe them as independents, but Joe Atkins, a Dakota County commissioner from Inver Grove Heights, prefers “zig zaggers.”

“They work their way down the ballot and vote for people depending on whether they show up on bread and butter issues” like public safety, transportation and the economy, said Atkins, a former House DFLer. “It’s more about the candidate than the partisan leaning. It’s trended more blue, in recent years, but a Republican can definitely win in CD2.”

Craig will face off against GOP political newcomer Joe Teirab in November. He’s a former assistant federal prosecutor and Marine who hopes to turn out Republicans and convince those “zig zaggers” to give the Republican candidate a fresh look. Both candidates have considerable campaign war chests and backing from national groups.

But would a fourth-term win for Craig indicate the district is trending blue? The answer is not straightforward. Political observers think the district will remain a swing seat for the foreseeable future.

“I think we could see that over the past few elections it’s trending blue. It’s just still so close to 50/50,” said State Sen. Erin Maye Quade, DFL-Apple Valley. “It’s not that long ago that we had a Republican member of Congress and some really hard-fought elections.”

Craig became only the second Democrat to hold the seat since the 1940s when she beat former Rep. Jason Lewis in 2018 by over five points in a rematch. And the race between Craig and Kistner was decided by 9,580 votes and by a little over 17,000 votes in their 2022 rematch.