Couple says ‘I do’ over family graves
Austin Daily Herald | May 2012
Wedding bells rang out this weekend over the least likely place imaginable.
Diane Waller and Randy Kjarland gave their vows during a 3 p.m. wedding ceremony Saturday set beside their parents’ graves in Oakwood Cemetery. The idea sparked from the couple’s desire to include their parents, who had always approved of their relationship.
“How cool is that?” Waller, the bride, said. “To honor our parents and family, to have them with us in a weird sort of way.”
NxThera takes aim at men’s health
Med-tech startup bets that thermal vapor can help treat a common prostate condition
Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal | May 2011
Back in the early 2000s, NxThera Inc. co-founder Michael Hoey left the University of Minnesota with an idea.
Motivated by his father, who died of prostate cancer, he began developing a treatment for the disease that would have fewer complications and side effects than traditional therapies such as radiation. Hoey, a former physiology professor and an educator at the university’s medical school, is an expert on using heat to remove body tissue. That knowledge led him to develop a thermal vapor technology that can destroy precise pieces of tissue.
Hoey had hoped the technology could be used to target cancerous tissue in the prostate. However, he faced a major hurdle. Venture-capital investors were conservative about investing in cancer therapies because of the long path to U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval. The firm’s chances of gathering enough funding to go to market looked grim, said Bob Paulson, who joined NxThera as CEO and president in 2009.
Playhouse hooky
Kevin Coss on how theater can get student butts in seats.
Minnesota Playlist | April 6, 2011
Unsettling rumors circulating throughout the theater community are starting to make theater employees and arts devotees alike wring their hands. Theater in Minnesota is rich, diverse and vibrant, yet college students aren’t filling their share of seats. Why isn’t the violence, political relevance and romance they usually crave luring them in? Thankfully, this conundrum has a simple explanation: College students don’t like theater.
Hold on! What rational reason could college students possibly have for not liking theater? The answer is none; rationality plays no role. Their distaste stems from a harsh cocktail of prejudice and misperception, a cocktail that students are all too adept at mixing. But their hasty judgments are understandable.
Dayton signs bill spurred by chainers
Austin Daily Herald | April 2012
The child abuse bill sat Wednesday on a desk at the front of the small, ornate room, freshly signed by Gov. Mark Dayton. Mower County officials, supporting Austin area legislators, had accomplished what they set out to do. But one had a special request.
Gail Loverink, of Mower County Human Services, asked Dayton for not one but two signing pens. Their recipients would be the two young Dexter boys whose child restraint case had brought the bill to life. Loverink said it was a form of closure for the children.
“They deserve to be able to move on,” Loverink said.
The public signing ceremony, which took place at the capitol Wednesday morning, was a scene of upbeat enthusiasm. Rep. Jeanne Poppe, DFL-Austin, who authored the child abuse bill in the House and Sen. Dan Sparks, DFL-Austin, who fought for it in the Senate, were present. Along with them were Mower County’s Sheriff Terese Amazi, Detective Steve Sandvik and Loverink.