The Northfield School of Arts & Technology (ARTech) held its graduation ceremony last night for seven seniors.

Click the photos to enlarge and see the ARTech graduation album for a dozen more photos.

ARTech is one of three Northfield-area public charter schools sponsored by the Northfield School Board. The others: Prairie Creek Community School and the Village School of Northfield.

Full disclosure:

Members of the Wolakota Youth Council have coordinated a Prayer Run for World Peace in conjunction with World Peace and Prayer Day that will convene in the Black Hills of South Dakota on June 21st. The relay run, which starts in the four directions, North, South, East, and West, will consist of youth and adults carrying sacred Native American prayer flags and staffs on their journey to the Black Hills.

The run from the East, organized by Northfield High School graduate, Grace Horn, will pass through Northfield to Winthrop in the afternoon of Thursday, June 9th.

Recent Northfield High School graduate, Nell Holden, is organizing an all-volunteer luncheon for the runners and participants as they pass through Northfield. If you would like to make a food donation, you may email Nell at whoanellywhoa@hotmail.com.

Plans are to host a "sandwich bar" lunch at Riverside Park, Thursday, approximately 1pm.

Click a poster to enlarge. See the Sonicate website for more.

Jane McWilliams sent me these photos from Monday's Memorial Day services. (Click to enlarge.)

Left: An Indian restaurant, Kurry Kabab, opened yesterday in Heritage Square on So. Hwy 3.

Right: Doug Child, Child Painting, gives the Champion Sports building on Division St. a fresh coat of paint.

Area phones are experiencing technical difficulties. I phoned the Northfield police at 11:20 and they confirmed it but don't yet know the cause.

Cell phones don't work at all, apparently. Local calls from 645 to other 645 and 663 numbers seem to be working.

I'll post an update as soon as I hear something.

11:28 Update: Sergeant Bill Olson said that 911 is working but running on backup.

Noon Update: no change. Twin Cities area phones don't seem to be having a problem, according to my relatives. (I used Instant Messaging to confirm.) Local 645 calls to local 650 numbers (Hickory Tech) do not seem to work.

1:35pm Update: St. Olaf email to all staff at 11:38 am:

Our Internet connection went down about 11:15 this morning. The outage is likely due to either a hardware problem in the Qwest Northfield Central Office or a fiber cut somewhere between Northfield of Owatonna. Qwest is working on resolving the problem.

2:40pm Update from Chief Gary Smith:

Apparently a phone line was cut, (maybe a fiber optic) line that feeds most of the cell phones, internet stuff, DSL, and all our T-1 communications for the public safety channels.

Our backup system to allow us to continue to talk to Dispatch is working. We are dispatching non-emergency calls received at our office in our emergency operations center. 911 lines still work but people should not overload those with questions, only life threatening emergencies.

It looks like the cable modems are working as I'm still getting stuff.

It was supposed to be fixed by 1pm and it's now 2:45 and no word from Quest. This is the second time in the past several years that constructions crews have cut this line.

2:55pm Update: Phone services seem to be restored.

In yesterday's Star Tribune: Reorganized priorities in Northfield

"We were having all kinds of problems, the usual things you see in youth sports," said Bill Szydlo, president of the Northfield Youth Baseball Association at the time. "We had problems with parents...

...

A vital part of the Northfield plan is a simple little card. If a fan gets out of hand, he or she is handed a card that reads in part: "If your behavior continues, we will stop the game until you leave the premises."

I missed Monday's Memorial Day ceremonies in Bridge Square and Riverside Park so I stole this one from Ray Cox's weblog post. If anyone has more photos of the event, please contact me.

June 1 update: Northfield News reporter Michelle Kubitz has a story in today's paper that incudes an online photo: 'Let us not forget'.

Full disclosure:

Maple Crossing. Fargaze Meadows. Southbridge. The Hills of Spring Creek. These are some of the names of the new housing developments in Northfield's southeast corner near Jefferson Parkway and Maple.

Construction of the Handicapped Accessible Park adjacent to the Northfield Soccer Association's Spring Creek Park Soccer Complex on Jefferson Parkway is nearly completed.

About a half hour ago, Northfield Police Chief Gary Smith posted this to his weblog: Arrest of Subject In Sunday Assault Incident

Some good police work and citizen involvement resulted in the arrest of an individual for one of the two assaults and attempted abductions that took place last Sunday evening. I rushed back from the cities yesterday evening to hold a press conference. Thanks to Sergeant Roger Schroeder and Officer Monte Nelson for their efforts that led to the identification and arrest of this person. And thanks to those of you who called, emailed and sent notes to us about information. It was critical to the identification and location of the person arrested. (continued)

Left photo: The Kitchen in the Archer House has opened a Tea Room in the room behind its dining area. It overlooks the Cannon River. The gazebo is visible in the right window and The Tavern's outdoor deck is visible in the left window.

Right photo: The Contented Cow has a new deck.

Full disclosure

What do these organizations have in common?

They're all related to one of the hot topics of discussion on the ISSUES list this week. See the web-based ISSUES list archives if you'd like to sample the discussion before joining.

There continues to be comments added to this blog post, too:
Council approves Froggy Bottoms request for River Walk seating

I ran into Dan Freeman, one of the co-chairs of the Northfield Sesquicentennial Executive Committee, at The Kitchen yesterday and he told me that the Northfield High School All School Reunion web site is up. Sue Odette is organizing the event which will coincide with Sesquicentennial Fourth of July celebration.