Minnesota to enforce organ donors' wishes
A bill passed by the Minnesota Legislature and signed by Gov. Ventura will ensure that your organ donation wishes be carried out.
In many cases, when a Minnesota resident had signed up to be a donor, their grieving families could overrule their wishes.
The law became effective April 25, 2002.
Donors will still be able to change their donor designation at any time.
Effective Dec. 1, 2002, an additional provision requires that people applying for a driver's license or state identification card be given information about organ donation.
The information includes a description of donation, the importance of letting family members know of one's wishes, and a telephone number of a certified Minnesota organ procurement organization one may contact for more information.
The bill is called the Darlene Luther Anatomical Gift Act, named after the Brooklyn Park representative who died Jan 30 of cancer and had received a liver transplant.
May is High School Voter Registration Month
When students turn 18, many are not taking advantage of their voting rights.
Even though Minnesota has a higher rate for young people voting than most states, our youth still lag far behind the older generations.
In 2000 Minnesota young people voted at a rate of 50%, while the overall state rate was at 70% participation.
In non-presidential years the gap is even wider.
In an attempt to drastically increase the number of youth voters, Minnesota's Secretary of State recently wrote to all of the high schools in the state to offer voter registration materials, including the brochure, "Elections 101," which is geared specifically toward first-time voters.
To receive one of the brochures phone 877-600-VOTE.
Work on I-90 to begin
If you're heading east on I-90 in the near future, you're going to run into road construction.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation announced motorists should expect lane restrictions, reduced speeds and brief delays between Worthington and Rushmore beginning Monday, May 20.
The I-90 project includes milling and overlaying the eastbound lanes.
Traffic will be reduced to one lane each way in the westbound lanes until the project is completed in July.
W. Hodgman & Sons Inc. of Fairmont was awarded the project with a bid of $2,418,291.
Get your sparklers ready
The bill that many fireworks enthusiasts had been hoping for turned out to be a bomb, or should I say a dud.
Although the House version would have allowed considerably more, making our law similar to those in surrounding states, the only version capable of passing in the Senate allows only the personal use of novelty items such as sparklers and other nonexplosive fireworks.
Do we have any quirkiness around here?
A reporter for KARE 11, the NBC affiliate out of the Cities, would like to know.
According to Eric Perkins, the management of KARE 11 has given him the green light to begin developing a new show.
The show is a road trip format, in which Perkins will go to an outstate town and immerse himself in all that it has to offer.
The local hangouts, the characters, personalities, history, and flavor of the community were specifically mentioned in his e-mail. Off the beaten path, fun stuff.
Publisher Roger Tollefson can be contacted by e-mail at
tolly@star-herald.com