March 2022

My name is Rhonda Miller and I am the Regional Accounting Manager for the Minnesota newspapers, and a few others, owned by CherryRoad Media. My office is located in our St. James site. I have been with the newspaper for almost 30 years and have dabbled in quite a few different rolls along the way.

When I was growing up in the early 1980s, we had a weekly newspaper in our town. There was a woman assigned to cover our little neighborhood. I remember her calling each week to ask my mother what was new in our family. Did Jeremy make the honor roll this quarter? Had we gone on vacation recently? Did we get a new pet? She would take this information from anyone in the neighborhood who was willing to share it and would write a column each week. When the paper came out on Wednesdays, my mother was always excited to read what was going on in the neighborhood. Everyone on our street knew each other. We played outside with the kids every day until dusk. My parents were in a bowling league with our neighbors. We had a block party in the street in the summer. When a new family moved in everyone welcomed them and introduced themselves. I guess you could say it was a great community.

If you were to go down to one of Albion’s Church former church school class rooms the you would find the ladies quilting group working on one of their many quilts. Janice Brekke, Sharon Lee, and Jean Knudson, hand make 10 to 12 quilts a year.

It is finally the week of the new Plaindealer design and layout. Last week in my column I gave you all a little preview of what this week’s paper will be like from here on out. Hopefully everyone enjoys it, finds it easier to read and find things in it too.