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In 2019, Carlos A. Rodriguez, founder of The Happy Givers Non-Profit Organization tweeted, “Dear Church, Jesus believed women. Protected women. Empowered women. Honored women publicly. Released the voice of women. Confided in women. Was funded by women. Celebrated women by name. Learned from women. Respected women. And spoke of women as examples to follow. Your turn.”

Iowa State University announced its fall 2021 Dean’s List. Students named to the Dean's List must have earned a grade point average of at least 3.50 on a 4.00 scale. This student from the St. James area was named to the list.

I come from a line of pretty good singers. My grandmother was in a band that played in various bars and venues along Green Bay Rd./Hwy. 31 in southeast Wisconsin. My mom “inherited” the talent and is quite good to this day. When I was in high school I took AP Government and Law in my senior year and barely passed with a not so solid “D” grade as senioritis really kicked in. My mom was such a good singer that my teacher on the last day of class told me, “Dave, all you needed was to have your mom come in and sing to this class and I would have given you an ‘A’. It would have been an ‘A+’ if the song was ‘Via Dolorosa’.” (You can YouTube that if you’d like.) My mom had dreams at one time of going professional, but that came to a sudden halt around the time she got pregnant with me. When my biological father Mike heard the news, his mom came to my mom and said, “If you don’t abort or put this baby up for adoption, Mike’s gone.” You’ve probably already guessed the choice my mom made, but I’m still going to say it anyways, I’ve never met my biological father. A few years later, my mom met the guy I would call “dad” at one of those bars my grandmother sang in. A few things happened since then, and now here I am typing an article in St. James, MN. My mom had a big, life altering decision to make late ‘77/early ’78 at the age of 19, a decision a multitude of women for a multitude of reasons have had to make over the last 49 years.

After being closed for testing since the start of the pandemic the St. James DMV is opening again for testing.