State Senator Sharon Erickson Ropes fielded questions and discussed the state’s current financial issues with interested persons Saturday during a town hall meeting she held at the Caledonia Area Middle School/High School auditorium Saturday afternoon.
                          Photo by Greg Schieber 

“We will get through this. We’ve been through worse times in the history of the country,” stated State Senator Sharon Erickson Ropes, optimistically speaking about Minnesota’s budget woes during a town hall meeting Saturday afternoon at the Caledonia High School Auditorium to a crowd of 31 people. Those in attendance mainly represented various levels of local government, the school district, private businesses, A.B.L.E, and a few other community members.

Clients and staff at Woodland Industries of Caledonia are record setters when it comes to safety. The 60-some clients and staff celebrated the fact they have not had a single OSHA-recordable injury for 1,039 days and counting. When Woodland reached the 1,000-day mark, the parent company Ability Building Center of Rochester decided to honor the Caledonia facility. A party was held Feb. 20, where the clients and staff received colorful windbreakers, and were personally thanked by ABC’s Quality Safety Director Jeff Amaris. 
“This is an incredible record Woodland Industries has achieved,” Amaris said. “We have unique challenges here, and Woodland does a variety of different types of work here. In the 20 years I have worked for ABC, there has never been any facility that has come close to this record. Woodland has been leading the way as far as safety for many years.”
The last OSHA-recordable injury at Woodland happened in October of 2005. ABC has 900 clients and 200 staff in southeastern Minnesota.                       Photo by Charlie Warner 

The Caledonia Fire and Rescue, Ambulance Service, Police Department, and the Houston County Sheriff’s Department were all called to a two-vehicle accident at the intersection of Highways 44 and 76 on the north edge of town about 4:15 p.m. Monday. A Ford Taurus, driven by a 16-year-old youth from Caledonia was struck on the driver’s side by a pick up driven byAllen Betz, also from Caledonia. The teen  was taken by ambulance to St. Franscis Hosptial in La Crocss for observation. According to officials, the only injury she sustained was a cut to her chin.                     Photo by Charlie Warner  

Dayne and his father Doug Heintz are pictured in front of the A3 robotic milking system that has become the subject of much interest in Houston County.              Photo by Greg Schieber 

“If only the cows would milk themselves…,” could read the quote from any number of local dairy farmers, especially on those cold January mornings and muggy July evenings. For many farmers beholden to the twice daily, year round routine of milking cows, self milking cows are a pie-in-the-sky dream frequently muttered under their breath or used as a passing joke with the neighbors. For Doug Heintz and his family, it’s no longer a dream or a joke, it’s reality. One might go so far as to even call it a revolution.