Month: August 2020

The Northwest Minnesota Arts Council is excited to announce the Northwest Minnesota Art Exhibit Winners. Student and adult artists residing in a seven-county region including Kittson, Marshall, Norman, Polk, Pennington, Roseau, and Red Lake recently entered into the Northwest Minnesota Art Exhibit and competed for $2,300.00 in cash awards. The winners were recognized at the Northwest Minnesota Artist Reception in Warren, Minnesota on August 26.

Exhibit cash award winners were chosen while the exhibit was on display at the Recreation Center in Warren from August 12 to 26 by qualified juror and Visual Artist Kim Wilson. According to Wilson, “Regional art shows are a celebration of its people, of their place, of current events, of historical times and past memories. All of those aspects are beautifully demonstrated in this show. In these times in this world of stress and strain; of worry and masks; of unexpected burdens; of unseen things, this show was a breath of fresh air! As I walked around I found myself joyfully overwhelmed with the variety of media and the high quality of work. It is obvious that artists in northwestern Minnesota approach their work with loving devotion and masterful commitment. Congratulations to all for a job well done!”

Exhibit Awards include:
Adult Winners
1st Place $500 Andrew Youngblom of Thief River Falls in painting “A Break from the Familiar”
2nd Place $300 Debbie Aune of Gatzke for painting “Lunch Break”
3rd Place $200 Candace Osborn of Ada in sculpture “Giraffe”
Merit $100 Dennis Kinkead of Hallock in sculpture “Landing Crow”
Merit $100 Rick Jensen of Crookston in sculpture “Treehouse”
Merit $100 Irene Bertils of Crookston in painting “Proverbs 3:5-6”
Merit $100 Alicia Spilde of Karlstad in mixed media “Spring Fever”
Merit $100 Dennis Lee of Red Lake Falls in painting “Bee with Flower”
People’s Choice $100 Joe Wavra of Red Lake Falls and Irene Bertils of Crookston (tied)

Student Winners
1st Place $300 Jordynn Johnsrud of Goodridge in painting “The Joker”
2nd Place $150 Madison Cullen of Grygla in drawing “Khalid”
3rd Place $100 Kansas Jensen of Goodridge for mixed media “Forgive Me”
Merit $50 Casse Alten of Grygla for mixed media “Dexter”
Merit $50 Elise Monson of Grygla in drawing “Billie”
Merit $50 Anissah Novacek of Greenbush for drawing “Anissah”
Merit $50 Raymond Tarale of Greenbush for mixed media “Kitten”
Merit $50 Lauren Kvien of Greenbush for mixed media “Torn But Beautiful”
People’s Choice $50 Elise Monson of Grygla

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Today, Governor Tim Walz announced that the State of Minnesota applied to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for the Lost Wages Assistance (LWA) program.

When implemented, LWA will provide a temporary additional $300 a week benefit to Minnesotans receiving unemployment benefits. To be eligible, an applicant must have a weekly unemployment benefit amount of at least $100 and must be unemployed due to COVID-19.

“When the additional federal $600 weekly benefit ended in late July, hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans who remain out of work were affected,” said Governor Walz. “Without additional federal benefits, families are struggling to pay for basic necessities. We must use every resource at our disposal to help Minnesotans through this pandemic.”

“The Lost Wages Assistance program provides much-needed emergency help, but it is not part of a comprehensive package to help workers and businesses struggling as the pandemic continues,” said Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan. “We hope that our federal partners will be able to come together to provide the well-planned and thorough relief Minnesotans and other Americans need.”

“DEED has already completed all the necessary work to ensure we can make payments as soon as we get funding transferred from the Federal Government,” said DEED Commissioner Steve Grove. “We know Minnesotans are anxious to receive these supplemental payments, and we are doing all we can to make that happen as quickly as possible.”

Once FEMA approves the state’s application, the U.S. Department of the Treasury will transfer funding to Minnesota. The Unemployment Insurance program will begin to pay benefits when the funding is received. LWA benefits are retroactive to the week ending August 1, 2020. 

The first three weeks for which the state will make LWA payments to eligible applicants are: 

• July 26 – August 1 
• August 2 – August 8 
• August 9 – August 15 

The date of initial LWA benefit payments is dependent on the transfer of funds from the U.S. Treasury. If the state receives approval quickly, it could start issuing the first payments to applicants at the end of the week of August 30 or the beginning of the week of September 6.

Those currently receiving unemployment benefits do not need to reapply or do anything other than complete their weekly benefits request to receive the additional $300 a week. DEED Unemployment Insurance will review all payment requests made for the week of July 26 going forward and automatically pay those applicants who are eligible for LWA.

FEMA is authorized to spend up to $44 billion from the Disaster Relief Fund (DRF) for the LWA program.  The program will end no later than December 27, 2020. However, the program may end earlier if any of the following occur: 

• FEMA expends the $44 billion from the Disaster Relief Fund (DRF) account.  
• The total balance of the DRF account decreases to $25 billion.  
• Legislation is enacted by Congress providing supplemental federal unemployment compensation or similar compensation.

DEED anticipates the program will last between five to eight weeks. Applicants can visit https://www.uimn.org/lwa for more information. Minnesota leaders carefully reviewed information from FEMA and the U.S. Department of Labor to help ensure that the state would not face unforeseen costs related to the program. The federal deadline to apply for LWA is September 10.

The University of Minnesota Crookston’s Office of Admissions announced it will not consider, nor review, a student’s ACT or SAT test scores, even if submitted, when making admission decisions for students who apply to enroll for spring and fall 2021.

This action builds on the analysis of data of the first year of making admission decisions with test data optional. The test-optional policy took effect in 2019 for fall 2020 applicants. 

“We believe that our holistic review process is very strong and helps us to discover potential talent that other colleges and universities miss,” said Mike Griffin, director of enrollment management.  

High school GPA, class rank, leadership, service involvement, co-curricular involvement, experiences overcoming obstacles to achieve goals, employment, and multicultural experiences and competencies are among many factors evaluated for admission, explained Janessa Quanrud, associate director of admissions at UMC.

“With this policy revision, UMC is once again at the forefront of post-secondary institutional change by ensuring that all applicants receive a fair and equitable review and evaluation for admission,” said Jessica Hanson, associate director of admissions at UMN Crookston.

The admissions counselors will conduct a thorough review of academic performance as well as commitments and engagement in and outside of high school. UMC will begin accepting 2021 applications on September 1.

The Minnesota Department of Health released it’s COVID-19 Weekly Report (here) on Thursday.  All information is updated through 4 p.m. on Wednesday, August 26.  Information on Polk County and the KROX listening area was pulled from the report and is below – 

SCHOOL LEARNING MODEL OPTIONS

CASE RATE PER COUNTY

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The Minnesota Department of Health is reporting 862 new cases of COVID-19 and 4 deaths. There were 16,319 completed tests yesterday for a positive rate of 5.3 percent. There were five new cases reported in Polk County for a total of 194, of which 37 are active.

Updated August 28, 2020
Updated daily at 11 a.m., with data current as of 4 p.m. the previous day.

Data is for cases that were tested and returned positive. All data is preliminary and may change as cases are investigated. Many data points are collected during case interviews. Data presented below is for all cases, regardless of interview status. Data for cases pending interview may be listed as “unknown/missing.”

Not all suspected cases of COVID-19 are tested, so this data is not representative of the total number of people in Minnesota who have or had COVID-19. Cumulative numbers are since Jan. 20, 2020.

Other Statistics

• Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome In Children (MIS-C) Statistics
• Minnesota COVID-19 Public Dashboard
• Minnesota’s COVID-19 Response and Preparation Capacity
• CDC: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Cases in the U.S.
• Minnesota COVID-19 Modeling

Data in the data tables is correct as of 11 a.m. daily. Dynamic images and maps for case demographics, likely exposure, residence, and residence type will update shortly after 11 a.m. daily and will not work if your browser is in compatibility mode.