Star Tribune
Edison High School commemorates Medal of Honor recipient at Veterans Day ceremony
At the entrance of Edison High School in northeast Minneapolis, a plaque hangs on the wall with the names of alumni who died serving in World War II.
While perusing the 116 names one day, social studies teacher David Salzer and alum Al Zdon noticed one in particular: Richard Kraus.
“I started going through them, and all of a sudden — ‘Medal of Honor,'” said Zdon, a Vietnam veteran. “There were only 10 medals of honor awarded to Minnesotans in World War II, that’s how rare that is.”
Salzer and Zdon decided earlier this year to propose a separate plaque in honor of Kraus. On Friday, it was revealed at Edison’s first-ever Veterans Day ceremony, where students and staff gathered to observe the federal holiday and learn the stories of local veterans. Alumni, both veterans and active duty military, gathered afterward to answer students’ questions.
Before students viewed the plaque honoring Kraus on display in the alumni room — where it will stay until it is hung on the wall later this year — the school put together a presentation so students could learn more about him.
Kraus was killed at age 18 after throwing himself on a grenade to save his fellow Marines during action against Japanese forces in Peleliu, Palau Islands, on Oct. 5, 1944. He was on a volunteer mission to evacuate a wounded colleague when it happened. The presentation included a video of Kraus’ only living sister reading a note he had sent the family from the island in the Pacific shortly before his death.
“Mom, if anything happens to me, don’t blame it on the war,” Kraus wrote.
In addition to Kraus’ story, some of Salzer’s students took an interest in another name on the list of 116 alumni veterans: Rose F. Puchalla, the only woman on the list, deserved individual commemoration too, they said.
Edison Senior Mianna Sledge said students wrote a bill to create a plaque for Puchalla, who along with other women died in a plane crash in Africa in 1945. The bill, which is currently passing through student leadership, would give Puchalla a similar plaque to the one honoring Kraus.
As the only woman on the list at a time when women did not commonly serve in military roles, Puchalla deserves recognition, Sledge said. She and her classmates said they’re confident that their next step of securing funding for the plaque will be a success, and they hope to see Puchalla’s photograph and story on display alongside Kraus’.
“We don’t get a lot of representation, being a public school,” said Octavios Torres, a student who helped Sledge draft the bill. “To show that someone from our community volunteered to help our country, that shows a lot of courageousness.”
DULUTH – The Minnesota and Wisconsin transportation departments will make upgrades to the Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge in the summer of 2025, in preparation for the structure to become the premiere route between this city and Superior during reconstruction of the Blatnik Bridge.
Built in 1961, the Blatnik Bridge carries 33,000 vehicles per day along Interstate 535 and Hwy. 53. It will be entirely rebuilt, starting in 2027, with the help of $1 billion in federal funding announced earlier this year. MnDOT and WisDOT are splitting the remaining costs of the project, about $4 million each.
According to MnDOT, projects on the Bong Bridge will include spot painting, concrete surface repairs to the bridge abutments, concrete sealer on the deck, replacing rubber strip seal membranes on the main span’s joints and replacing light poles on the bridge and its points of entry. It’s expected to take two months, transportation officials said during a recent meeting at the Superior Public Library.
During this time there will be occasional lane closures, detours at the off-ramps, and for about three weeks the sidewalk path alongside the bridge will be closed.
The Bong Bridge, which crosses the St. Louis River, opened to traffic in 1985 and is the lesser-used of the two bridges. Officials said they want to keep maintenance to a minimum on the span during the Blatnik project, which is expected to take four years.
Red Wing will celebrate the grand opening of its first permanent set of pickleball courts next week with an “inaugural play” on the six courts at Colvill Park on the banks of the Mississippi, between a couple of marinas and next to the aquatic center.
Among the first to get to play on the new courts will be David Anderson, who brought pickleball to the local YMCA in 2008, before the nationwide pickleball craze took hold, and Denny Yecke, at 92 the oldest pickleball player in Red Wing.
The inaugural play begins at 11 a.m. Tuesday, with a rain date of the next day. Afterward will be food and celebration at the Colvill Park Courtyard building.
Tim Sletten, the city’s former police chief, discovered America’s fastest-growing sport a decade ago after he retired. With fellow members of the Red Wing Pickleball Group, he’d play indoors at the local YMCA or outdoors at a local school, on courts made for other sports. But they didn’t have a permanent place, so they approached the city about building one.
When a city feasibility study came up with a high cost, about $350,000, Sletten’s group got together to raise money.
The courts are even opening ahead of schedule, originally set for 2025.
REDWOOD FALLS, MINN. – A truck crashing into a school bus left nine with minor injuries Wednesday morning in rural Redwood County, a statement from the Redwood County Sheriff’s office said.
The bus driver, serving the Wabasso Public School District, failed to yield when entering the intersection of County Road 7 and 280th Street, the statement said.
Deputies received word of the crash around 8:15 a.m. and identified the bus driver as Edward Aslesen, 72, of Milroy.
The nine injured passengers on the bus were transported to local hospitals, the statement said.
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