Star Tribune
Penumbra leader Sarah Bellamy to temporarily step aside in wake of lawsuit over brother’s death
The Penumbra Center for Racial Healing announced Monday that president and CEO Sarah Bellamy is taking a leave of absence in the wake of her family’s lawsuit against Hennepin County Jail and Hennepin Healthcare for the wrongful death of her brother.
The development comes a week after the family announced the federal lawsuit and showed video footage of the last minutes of Lucas Bellamy’s life.
A scion of the prominent Twin Cities arts family and a former actor and company manager at Penumbra Theatre, Lucas Bellamy died July 21, 2022, at the Hennepin County Jail from a perforated bowel. He had long struggled with addiction and was taken into custody on July 18.
The family’s troubles would later be compounded six months later when actor and dramaturge Terry Bellamy, who was Lucas’ uncle and brother of Penumbra Theatre founder Lou Bellamy, died of complications from COVID-19 in January 2023.
“I feel like the work that I do at Penumbra is soul work, and my soul is very weary right now,” Sarah told the Star Tribune tearfully, adding that she needs time and space to restore her own spirit. “There is so much darkness running around right now, I feel like I need to lift myself out of it the best way I can.”
Although temporary, the step away from leadership marks the first time in 48 years — since the company’s 1976 founding — that a Bellamy will not be running day to day operations at the company. Lou built Penumbra into a national powerhouse that gave two-time Pulitzer winner August Wilson his first production and that minted talented theater artists who would go on to work on Broadway and across the country.
Since taking over solo leadership from her father in 2017, Sarah has expanded Penumbra’s mission beyond performing arts to include practices in racial healing and equity. Amy Thomas, the chief operating officer who has been Sarah’s partner and right hand for her entire tenure, will step in to hold the reins.
“I feel for the Bellamys for the whirlwind of loss they’ve had to endure in the last 18 months,” Thomas said. “It’s hard to watch them bear so much grief.”
Sarah said she first saw the video of her brother’s final hours on Jan. 15, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And it was a day before what would have been Lucas’ 43rd birthday.
“We watched the last hours of his life,” Sarah said. “He was treated like an animal, subhuman. Even in jail and even for addicts, people should be treated with dignity and as human beings.”
Sarah’s leave comes at a critical time for Penumbra, which is in the midst of a programmatic expansion and on the cusp of a structural one.
Since 2019, Penumbra’s company’s budget has nearly doubled to $5 million as it builds out its new vision. Penumbra is planning to modify its space in the Halle Q. Brown Community Center so that it can offer wellness services on site, Thomas said.
The company also plans to add a flexible black box theater that can also be used for community gatherings, group classes and other functions.
“Because of Sarah’s leadership, we’re in a good place on all our plans,” Thomas said.
The length of the leave has not been determined.
“The Bellamys have given so much to this organization and this community, the board and the organization are in full agreement that Sarah should take as long as she needs,” Thomas said.
The Bellamys are calling for a federal investigation into the conditions at Hennepin County Jail. That plea extends the healing activism that has been her life’s work, Sarah said.
“The name penumbra means partial shadow, and a lot of the work we do tries to illuminate things that are hard to look at,” she said. “For us to do that authentically, I have to be strong enough and well enough to do it. And I have to be able to translate all the darkness around my brother’s death into some sort of light and energy to make the world better.”
Star Tribune
Long Prairie, MN school board dismisses its superintendent, the latest controversy in this small town
LONG PRAIRIE, MINN. — The school district superintendent dressed up as the school mascot, Thor, on football nights. He read the graduation address in both English and Spanish. He even set up office hours in the cafeteria, granting easier approachability to students.
But now, two months into the school year, Daniel Ludvigson is gone. Or, rather, “on special assignment,” according to the terminology of the Long Prairie-Grey Eagle School Board, which voted 4-3 earlier this month to remove him as superintendent. The move came weeks after voting to not renew his contract, which expires at the end of the school year in June.
Four board members — two of whom voted to oust Ludvigson, including Board Chair Kelly Lemke — are up for re-election next week.
The dismissal is the latest blow in this central Minnesota community on the edge of the prairie. Over the last nine months, the town of 3,400 residents and seat of Todd County has lost its mayor, a city manager, two school board members, and now its superintendent.
Students walked out earlier this month in support of Ludvigson. Signs in support of Ludvigson can be seen across town on the lawns of apparent Democrats and Republicans alike. And last week, hundreds packed the American Legion off Hwy. 71 to eat beef sandwiches and sign support letters for Ludvigson, who only swung by to pick up his child for hockey practice.
In a time of great divide in America, this fight has nothing to do with politics.
“You’ve got Harris buttons and Trump hats side-by-side, arm-in-arm,” said Amanda Hinson, a former local newspaper reporter who is concerned the board is not being upfront about why they placed Ludvigson on special assignment. “We want transparency in our government.”
Lawn signs around Long Prairie, Minn., now include people weighing in on the dismissal of Superintendent Daniel Ludvigson by the school board. (Christopher Vondracek)
School board members say Ludvigson has repeatedly shown he is not ready for the prime time of a school district bigger than the one in central North Dakota he arrived from two years ago. They have twice disciplined Ludvigson, but did not state the reason for placing him on “special assignment,” beyond insinuating that staff are fearful to raise official complaints.
Rain and potentially heavy snow are on tap Thursday around the Twin Cities, just before families set out for Halloween trick-or-treating.
Temperatures were expected to drop throughout the day, creating conditions for flurries. A winter weather advisory is in effect from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. covering the Twin Cities metro area and parts of south-central Minnesota. Steady rain drenched the Twin Cities on Thursday, making for a soggy morning commute.
“As colder air begins to move in this morning, the rain will transition to heavy snow from west to east with snowfall rates of an inch per hour at times into early afternoon,” the National Weather Service in Chanhassen said in a weather advisory.
The Twin Cities and surrounding areas could get between 2 and 4 inches of snow, according to the weather service. The winter weather advisory is expected to affect Anoka, Chisago, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott, Washington and Le Sueur counties.
It’s unclear how much of the snow will actually stick, with warm surface temperatures likely leading to melting on contact in many areas.
“Exact totals will depend on snowfall rate, surface temperatures, and melting — which increases uncertainty with the snow forecast,” the weather service said in an early Thursday briefing.
“Thundersnow possible!” the weather service emphasized.
The good news for Halloween revelers is that the snow and rain are expected to wrap up in time for trick-or-treating, though temperatures will remain in the 30s with a sharp windchill.
An off-duty Washington County sheriff’s deputy caused a head-on crash while under the influence of alcohol and injured a couple in the other vehicle, officials said.
The crash occurred about 10:40 a.m. Sunday in Afton on Hwy. 95 at Scenic Lane, the Minnesota State Patrol said.
Campbell Johnston Blair, 58, of Hastings, was heading north in his Subaru Crosstrek, crossed into the opposite lane and collided with a southbound Ford Expedition, the patrol said.
Blair and the other vehicle’s occupants, 38-year-old Erik Robert Sward and 36-year-old Heather Lynn Sward, both of Lake Elmo, were taken to Regions Hospital with non-critical injuries, according to the patrol.
The patrol noted the alcohol use by Blair was involved in the crash.
Blair, who was driving a private vehicle at the time of the crash while off-duty, has been a deputy with the Sheriff’s Office since 2020 and is currently assigned to our Court Security Unit.
The Sheriff’s Office has been asked for reaction to the crash involving one of its deputies.