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I hope you had a chance to come to the Chisago Lakes Home and Business Expo over the weekend.  I was a bit nervous because our booth numbers were down a bit from last year, but the numbers that showed up to visit the show eased my fears.  We had a really nice turnout and the weather was great. It was so great spending time with readers and advertisers in such a comfortable environment.  Everyone seemed to be in really good spirits.  Thank you for everyone who stopped by to say hi and talk, we had some great conversations about everything under the sun.  Thanks to Bob Meyer, Coreen Agre, Jenny Reed, Wendy Redland, Becky Carlson, Cory Lindgren and Laurie Doughty for all of their hard work on and at the show.  It couldn't take place if it weren't for them.

Speaking of the home show, we drew two winners for the free subscription contest. The winners are Shelly Brown and Mike Kaiser, both of Lindstrom.  We have already signed them up and they should be reading this in the comforts of their homes since their paper came in the mail. We had around 400 entries in the contest, so thank you to all who entered.

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I forgot to mention that Richard Hjort our weather and field notes creator has sadly retired after decades of providing the readers with so many wonderful tidbits about local nature.  I first met Richard when I took over here and for quite some time only knew him through his jovial voice on the other end of the phone every Tuesday afternoon.  We (and many of the employees at the Press) formed a wonderful relationship with Richard over the years.  I had the pleasure of meeting Richard face to face when my family took a bluebird house building class with Richard.  He was just as I imagined him, so sweet, so caring for everyone and so pleasant to talk to.  

I don't want to make this out to be a eulogy, Richard is very much alive, but I just wanted to express my heartfelt thanks to Richard for all he has done for me and my family over the years  We will miss you Richard!

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