Welcome Cottage Grove Journal readers! The John McLoone energy and drive has been applied to your area. The Hastings people sure felt a renewed Hastings spirit and joy that someone cared enough to print local information rather than reprint the same old information we could see in about 10 other ways. I am sure the same is and will happen in your area. That local touch is so important to keep the people of a specific area informed and feel like they have roots in the place they picked to live.

Perhaps you are wondering about just who is that person that wears mismatched glasses and writes as “The Spelling Bee”.

If I tossed in a few fancy words I probably could write a small, pretty small, book about myself. I have been writing in the newspaper for over 10 years and started in the Hastings Star Gazette and wrote under the title, “The Bea in the Garden”. I started by submitting an article and never dreamed that I would write Number 2. The articles started off as mostly gardening information but soon grew and ended up covering a very wide range of topics. My one self-rule was No Religion, No Polities.

I heard some hot rumors in May of this year that someone was starting a new local paper and I emailed to an address someone gave me and sent in some of my back articles. That is how I came to contact Mr. Mc-Loone who said, “Our new paper needs you”. With that statement how could I even think of not continuing and decided a new paper needed a new name and “The Spelling Bee” was born.

I grew up in central Minnesota and my first paying job was working for the Department of Natural resources in Brainerd. MN. I also worked in Rochester and that is where I met my husband Larry. We just celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary. To fill in a few cracks, I became very interested in the arts and crafts world and many forms of stitching, rug hooking, knitting, weaving, spinning, concrete work and the list goes on. I have been a teacher for many classes in this area. When we moved to the “country” we took up gardening with a crazy passion and had about 2 acres in produce that we started to sell at the local farmers market. (Somehow my vow to never touch another garden plant after I left the childhood farm was overlooked). I became manager of the market for over 30 years (now retired) and made thousands of jars of jams and jellies, and baked hundreds of loaves of bread. I had the joy of helping many people of all ages take on these skills.

In my articles you will hear about “Husband Larry” and “Daughter Nissa”. Larry is a retired DNR Certified Forester and Nissa is Nissa Westerberg, PhD, bio-analytical chemist, who is losing her Minnesota cold blood in the Washington D.C. Area. She works for the US Patent and Trademark Office. Our family pet, Sitka Thor Bear in the Mist is a Siberian husky who is a bit spoiled at times.

I love my red Mustang to roar around in. Glasses are important for a very nearsighted me, so I have a lot of them to change out as the mood hits. I am not a shoe, handbag or shopping person. Well, except for wool and craft shopping if the truth be told. My long time loyal readers have heard all about the 6 year long story of turning a Hastings High school girls outhouse, then chicken coop, into my almost finished She Shed Studio B. I have Husband Larry to thank for that, along with friends Kevin, Tony and Rose who have also put many hours into “My Project”. Still plenty to report on all subjects!

It is maybe a good thing that I do not live in Cottage Grove because the HyVee dessert section probably would be sold out most of the time. Maybe I need to report on it? Yum Yum!!!