Marie Johnson
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Marie Johnson joined the Perham Focus more than five years ago, and has since worn many hats as writer, editor and page designer. She lives in rural Frazee with her husband, Dan, their one-year-old son, Simon, and their yellow lab, Louisa.
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Over the course of Perham High School's 100-year history, scores of graduates have gone on to achieve great things. Now, in an effort to preserve some of those past successes and inspire future generations, one teacher has hatched an ambitious plan to collect and publish graduates’ stories.
Four people from around the region, including a Dent woman, were injured in a rear-end crash in Ogema Monday. The Minnesota State Patrol reported that a Chevrolet truck waiting to turn west onto Becker County Road 18 from Highway 59 was rear-ended by a Buick van.
An 87-year-old Minnesota man was killed in an accident involving a Freightliner tractor-truck northwest of Dilworth last week. The Minnesota State Patrol reported that Duane Lamarr Johnson, of Twin Valley, was driving a 1993 Acura Integra eastbound on 90th Avenue North when he failed to yield at Highway 75 and made contact with the Freightliner.
Forty years ago, Teresa Stoderl was at a fork in the road, and there was a good chance that there would be potatoes at the end of that fork. Stoderl had just applied for two very different jobs, and thus was facing one of two very different possible futures. She was hoping for a call back from the Perham nursing home, where she wanted to be a nursing assistant. But the odds were 50/50 that she would get a call from the local potato farm first, and would end up picking potatoes instead.
It was games and goodies galore at the St. Henry’s Fun Fair on Sunday. The gym at the Perham Area Community Center was packed with tables full of live and silent auction items, wall-to-wall kids’ games like Plinko and putting golf, food vendors and more for this year’s event. The annual fundraiser is a long-running tradition in Perham, supporting Catholic education for more than 40 years.
The Backyard pet supply store in Perham has a new in-house grooming salon to cater to those much-beloved four-legged family members. The full-service pet salon offers baths and blow-dries, hand-scissored haircuts, brush-outs, dental care, nail care, ear cleaning, dematting and more for dogs of all breeds and sizes, as well as cats. It officially opens today, Monday, March 20.
After more than a decade of repeatedly dashed hopes and millions of dollars in damages, frustrated property owners on high-water lakes west of Perham are making some headway on a new plan for flood relief. Home and resort owners along Little McDonald, Kerbs, Paul and Devils lakes have long sought a viable solution to their flooding problems, and now they're working together to put those problems behind them for good.
Perham High School's robotics team has just wrapped up another season, and its leaders say the young team is showing progress and promise as the kids continue to learn new skills. The team, named the Full Metal Jackets, spent six weeks building a robot capable of grabbing small objects and climbing up a rope — abilities it needed in order to score points in competition.
She awoke to the sound of her 3-year-old daughter screaming in the back seat of the car. Her head throbbing with pain, she had no idea how long she had been unconscious. The details of what had happened were a blur. There had been an accident, she knew that much. She could hear sirens in the distance. All she could do was wait and hope. The next thing Kellie Smith remembers, she and her daughter, Olive, were being loaded into an ambulance. Someone had witnessed the crash and called 9-1-1.
And now for an uncomfortable topic. Uncomfortable, but important: colorectal cancer. Talk of bowels and rectums is usually avoided at the dinner table, and for good reason, but a doctor's office is a completely different story. Since colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the U.S., but is also one of the most preventable types of cancer, it's crucial to talk about it with your doctor, however uncomfortable that might make you.
