Minnesota briefs: Rochester gets airport grant for nonstop Dallas service

ROCHESTER

City gets $850K aviation grant

The city of Rochester is set to receive $850,000 in federal funding to build out nonstop service to Dallas/Ft. Worth International Airport.

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced Wednesday that Rochester is one of 25 cities in 20 states to receive part of $16.9 million designed to help smaller community airports build and maintain services.

Rochester is the only city in Minnesota to receive funding. The city's application notes it recently lost service to Atlanta through Delta Air Lines, and Chicago and Denver through United Airlines. Connecting to Dallas/Ft. Worth would help offset those losses.

Rochester is in the midst of an $80 million project in airport upgrades. The project started last year and is expected to be completed in 2027.

TREY MEWES

Parts of former high school likely to be razed

St. Cloud City Council on Monday is expected to approve a resolution authorizing a professional services contract for the demolition of the unused sections of the former Technical High School.

The project, estimated between $3 million and $5 million, would raze the 1955 and 1975 additions to the school, which were used as the cafeteria, shop area and gymnasium before the school district vacated the building in 2019 and built a new school on the south side of town. The professional services agreement is $250,000.

Last year, St. Cloud City Council approved moving city offices to the historic 1917 and 1938 sections of Tech, as well as razing the former City Hall along Minnesota Highway 23 downtown. Demolition on the former City Hall began the last week of July; developers plan to build a Bremer Bank there.

The demolition of the northern sections of the former Tech would create green space, as well as more parking for City Hall and the neighboring park by Lake George.

MONTEVIDEO

Officers honored for lifesaving actions

The city of Montevideo last week honored three police officers with lifesaving awards for their efforts to assist citizens in danger. At a City Council meeting, Police Chief Ken Schule read the citations honoring Sgt. Aaron Wrobleski, Officer Cody Odegard and Officer Glenn Dirksen.

Dirksen was honored for an incident June 5 in which a man became tangled in the awning of a trailer as he was working on it. A pin broke, activating the tension-release mechanism, which caught the man's shirt and wrapped it around his neck. Dirksen was able to cut the man loose.

On June 6, Wrobleski and Odegard responded to a call about an unresponsive man with a possible opioid overdose. The two officers administered Narcan and performed CPR for more than 8 minutes, eventually reviving the man.