Early renewal campaign now; mark your calendars for April 10

You will notice the coupon on top of page two (look left). It is that time once again for our early renewal campaign. For a limited time, you can receive your County Press delivered to your doorstep at a savings. If you are a subscriber, simply cut the coupon and send your payment in. We have your account number on the front page. If you are a non-subscriber and would like to subscribe we would love to offer you the same special. Simply fill out the form along with your payment and we will get the paper delivered to your home the very next week. Thank you so much for reading, I and our employees are very grateful.

As many of you already know, the Chisago Lakes girls basketball team didn't pull off a win at the state tournament. Were the girls disappointed? Of course. Should they have been? Not at all. They should hold their heads high. There are something like 500 high schools in Minnesota. Chisago Lakes was one of 32 teams to make it that far. That is unbelievable. What an accomplishment. Coach Walker has done a great job with the girls year in and year out. Every team he puts together has a chance to win any game. Congratulations to the Wildcat girls, you had an awesome year.

If you are like millions of others including my family, you have been watching March Madness basketball. Every person in our family is in at least one bracket if not more. So here sits a family who rarely watches basketball on television, glued to it and either elated with a score or throwing pillows around the house. They say that there is a ton of production lost during the first two days of the tournament, but I honestly disagree. I think it doesn't hinder the production, but it does dominate the discussion whether it be at break or over the cubicle wall.

If someone wants to argue about production loss, I would counter that those certain people you claim are wasting time looking at their brackets would find a different way to break up their day anyway. Responsible people will find a way to do their work and still look at their picks, and irresponsible people will find a way to slough off no matter what event is taking place. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe I am in a good mood because I am in first place in a couple of groups (don't worry it won't last). Or, maybe this winter has been so overwhelmingly long and cold that we deserve a small bit of happiness and fun.

I hate to re-run things that I have written in the past, but this warrants a re-run. A while back, "Future Walk" was a presentation given on how a community (New Richmond) was struggling to find its identity, much like the Chisago Lakes area. I wrote a couple of articles on the subject asking for input from the public on how to change our overall identity and transform ALL of Chisago Lakes into ONE cohesive, symbiotic, destination. I did hear from quite a few of you, but like everything, life got in the way. Well I am super excited to tell you that we have brought Bill Buell back to do another presentation. The last one was re-scheduled and not very well attended. I, having sat through the first one, am here to ask you, tell you, BEG YOU to please come to the presentation. I especially encourage all businesses in the Chisago Lakes area to attend. The presentation will be April 10 at the Chisago Lakes Library at lunch time. I will remind you right up to the event. As I wrote in the past, we have two ways we can go as a community, Choose to move forward.