Farm Store purchases former Jubilee building for hardware/pet store
The Luverne Farm Store has signed a purchase agreement with Tony Bosch for the former Jubilee building in Luverne.
The building has been empty since Jubilee moved into its new facility in August 2000.
According to Nate Golla, the Luverne Farm Store has the intention of using the facility to operate a hardware store and a Purina Mills pet and companion animal store.
A hardware supplier has not yet been determined, according to Golla.
Possession is expected to take place on or before June 1.
The opening of the new retail facility will likely be in the fall.
Mag update
Work at the Magnolia Steak House is making progress.
Before rebuilding can take place, the demolition phase has to be completed.
A great amount of saturated Sheetrock and ceilings have been removed, along with the insulation behind it.
According to Mag owner Amy Dispanet Ver Steeg, most of the interior walls have been removed.
Even though the ceilings in the kitchen, bar and dining room will stay, all the insulation behind them will have to be removed and replaced to prevent any chance of mold forming because of the moisture that was trapped there after the fire.
One place that wasn't affected by the fire was the meat market, which is still open on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
Amy hopes the removal process is completed by the end of this week and the rebuilding phase starts next week.
Besides all new carpet and wallpaper, an expanded bar will be added to the bar as well as a new entrance.
Also in the plans is an outdoor patio on the southeast corner of the bar.
A portable bar will be used on the patio to serve the volleyball teams this summer.
The fire hasn't dampened the spirits of the volleyball players. According to Amy more teams have signed up this year than last.
Although no one is making any promises, Amy hopes to have the business up and running by early July.
Clean-up results
Luverne residents once again took advantage of Luverne's clean-up week.
Last week, residents put 100.98 tons of junk out on the curb for pick-up, and that doesn't include all the stuff that was put out and picked up by the roving hoards of scavengers.
Along with the junk, 35 tons of scrap metal and more than 100 appliances were picked up.
Those putting their appliances on the curb had to pay a $15-per-unit charge.
In all, the city had 11 people working 12 hours the first day, 12 hours the second day and 9 1/2 hours the third day.
The clean-up event cost the city $30,000, according to Public Works Director Darrell Huiskes.
Of that amount, $4,843 went toward landfill charges, and the rest was incurred in the form of labor and equipment charges.
Donate your computer to science when you're not using it
Would you consider letting scientists use your home or business computers to help search for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence, explore the data from the Human Genome Project, study the processes that govern the way proteins fold or help the world find a cure for AIDS?
According to a recent editorial in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the small computer in your home or office could be a little piece of a giant computer, capable of doing amazing things.
The concept is called distributed computing.
The world's largest computer is currently in Yokohama, Japan. It takes up the space of four basketball courts and can do 35.6 trillion calculations a second.
Through a project called SETI, the PCs on seven continents that are linked in distributed computing can compute just as fast as the world's fastest computer with very little cost to the project or the PC owners who volunteer their computer's processing capabilities.
If you are interested, go to www.aspenleaf.com/distributed.
From there you can check out which projects you might want your computer to help with.
Once you choose a project, you download a small piece of software that runs in the background.
A screensaver will help keep you informed about the work your computer is doing on the project you have selected.
Although is not practical for someone with a dial-up modem to participate, more and more people in Luverne are connecting to the Internet with high speed cable modems, T-1 or DSL lines.
If you have a high-speed connection, check out the Web site and see if there is a project you might want to help solve.
Publisher Roger Tollefson can be contacted by e-mail at
tolly@star-herald.com