FERTILE

Fertile-Beltrami teacher accused of sexual assault

WDAY News — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 04:17:07 GMT

FERTILE, Minn. — A teacher with the Fertile-Beltrami �� District has been charged with sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl.

Richard Schrom, 30, made his first court appearance on Monday, Aug. 21. He is listed as an elementary, junior and high school choir director and has been with the district for seven years.

Schrom is accused of sexually assaulting the teen at a cabin in Gray Eagle, Minnesota, in late July. According to court records, they were both staying there with other people.

Todd County sheriff's deputies said Schrom admitted to having sex with the teen when he was arrested.

WDAY News reached out to Fertile-Beltrami �� District Superintendent Brian Clarke for comment.

Check back for updates on this developing story.]]>

After CNN coverage, Minnesota teen's mug-designing business gets a whole latte love

Tammy Swift — Fri, 06 Jan 2023 16:37:00 GMT

FERTILE, Minn. — When Willow Larson decided her hometown of Fertile, Minnesota, could use its own commemorative mug, she designed one — even though she doubted it would sell.

Little did the then 14-year-old artist know what that simple project would unleash. People from surrounding communities spotted the mugs and asked for similar ones for their towns. Word of mouth, social media and media coverage helped build the audience for the teen’s whimsical cups.

Last summer, KARE 11 TV's Boyd Huppert featured Willow in his "Land of 10,000 Stories" series. The story was shown on the "NBC Nightly News" and a CNN morning show, helping to make it one of the station's most-viewed stories in 2022. In retrospect, Willow says, “I think I would have been a lot more nervous if I knew how many people would see it."

Suddenly, people from Alaska to Wisconsin to Stockholm, Sweden, were reaching out to order mugs from Willow’s Ivory and Sage “production facility” — actually a tiny corner of her parents’ Cloud Nine Photo Studios on Fertile’s Main Street.

Today, Willow says she has sold well over 10,000 mugs and created 150 designs which are available in more than 120 different communities and stores. Mom Caty Larson also helps her maintain a lengthy waiting list of future mug commissions.

Caty says Willow’s college is paid for, should she choose to go. The ninth-grader now has her own financial adviser to help her invest her windfall wisely. And although at age 15 she hasn't received her learner’s permit yet, she is shopping for a new SUV — preferably a black Chevy Trailblazer with sunroof — so she can make deliveries when she's road-legal.

“I was looking at a Mercedes but the insurance on that was terrible,” says Willow, who sometimes sounds like any teen and sometimes sounds like a 35-year-old business owner. “So I wound up going in a more reliable direction.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Willow (@willow_ivory_ann)

As Willow not only designs the mugs but manufactures them on a small heat-press machine, she’s had to amp up production by buying two more heat presses. And now parents, Caty and Terry Larson, along with her grandparents, routinely pitch in to help produce, pack and ship the mugs as the orders roll in.

“It’s about five orders a day and Christmas was really, really busy,” Willow says.

With schoolwork, extracurriculars and her mug-making, Willow doesn’t have a lot of free time. “I make sure I work enough every day for me to keep up with all the orders,” Willow says, adding that it’s the only option when you have your own small business.

To this day, Willow seems slightly awe-struck by the incredible popularity of her mug project. “I wondered about that … what makes people buy something from a 15-year-old in a small town? Why would people care about what I do?” she asks.

Her best guess is that people like the idea of supporting a small business, as well as the opportunity to celebrate art.

On the other hand, one could argue that it’s Willow—a blend of promising entrepreneur and charmingly unaffected teen—who has captured people's attention. So has Willow's seemingless effortless drawing style: Her community mugs are covered with stylized designs of town landmarks, breezy sketches of lakes, ZIP codes, town mascots and nicknames, which are free-handed by the artist in creative fonts.

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A post shared by Willow (@willow_ivory_ann)

So what does the future hold for this promising young talent? Like her namesake, one suspects she'll stand strong — regardless of which way the wind blows.

“I don’t know what I’ll do in college,” she says. “I don’t even know if I should go to college or if I should keep doing stuff like this. I would like to license my art, so I’ll see what happens.”

Learn more about Willow's art at www.ivoryandsage.net.

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Buckthorn removal event planned for Thursday, Nov. 3, at Fertile's Agassiz Environmental Learning Center

Herald Staff Report — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 21:55:21 GMT

FERTILE, Minn. – A session on controlling invasive buckthorn is planned for 2 to 5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3, at Agassiz Environmental Learning Center, 400 Summit Ave. SW, Fertile. The session will include information on both physical and chemical control methods.

Late fall is a good time to control buckthorn because the leaves stay green late into the fall, making the non-native invasive plant easier to identify.

For those who can stay around after the info session, event organizers will conduct a demonstration on buckthorn removal techniques. The demonstration will include cutting and pulling of buckthorn branches out in the woods, with a focus on removing berry-producing plants so the berries can’t sprout next spring.

The Learning Center and the city of Fertile will have loppers and pruners, as well as some gloves, available for volunteers. Fall weather can be unpredictable so participants should wear proper attire, dress in layers and bring snow or rain boots – just in case.

Common buckthorn is the most common type found in the Fertile Sand Hills around the learning center. Introduced to North America from Europe in the 1800s, buckthorn has long been used as hedges, ornamental shrubs and shelterbelts in homeowners’ yards. However, it quickly spreads from pruned, well-kept yards and invades parks, roadsides and forests.

Buckthorn needs to be removed because it:

Outcompetes native plants for light, moisture and nutrients. Reduces species diversity of plants, birds and other wildlife. Destroys wildlife habitat. Provides only one type of fruit for birds when other native foods have diminished. Lacks natural controls like insects and plant diseases that attack it. Hosts soybean aphids.

For more information on the upcoming buckthorn event, contact Wayne Goeken at (218) 280-0516 or by email at wgoekenmn@gmail.com.

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Fertile, Minn., still a 'nice place,' despite pandemic

Adam Kurtz — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 14:00:00 GMT

FERTILE, Minn. — For the people of Fertile, being nice is the norm. The town, after all, was named the Nicest Place in Minnesota by Reader’s Digest magazine, in 2019. Now in the age of COVID, residents are working to adapt to the pandemic while helping one another.

Jeannie Erickson owns Encore Family Consignment, in the northwest Minnesota town of about 850 people. She opted to close her store outright for two months, when Gov. Tim Walz’s mid-March executive order shuttered eating and drinking establishments to onsite customers and placed limits on other businesses. Erickson decided against doing curbside business; shopping in her store, she said, is like a treasure hunt.

“There's only one of everything in our store, and that's just too hard to do for us,” Erickson said.

Her shop is open once again, and her customers have returned. On a pleasant Tuesday in late July, people could be seen searching the racks and chatting, before heading to the register. All customers were wearing masks, as were the staff. Erickson said her shop has been very busy since reopening.

“Yep,” she said. “Stuff going in and stuff going out.”

Encore Family Consignment is on North Mill Street, the town’s main street. It’s a busy place. Shops and civic buildings line both sides of the street. Only one store front sits empty, a "for sale" sign hanging in the window. It’s a good look for a good-looking town of well-maintained houses, lawns and resurfaced streets.

But according to City Administrator Lisa Liden, the town has experienced the economic downturn the rest of the region and nation is suffering. Shops closed for a while, or operated in a limited capacity, until restrictions were loosened in June. The city itself is also operating in a somewhat limited fashion.

The community center is closed to the public, and room reservations for birthdays and graduations have been canceled. The city office, also located there, is closed to the public, though residents can still get services, such as building permits, by knocking on the door. The town has stopped renting kayaks for trips on the Sand Hill River, at its Agassiz Environmental Learning Center, after determining the sterilization protocols would be burdensome.

“We just felt it wasn't worthwhile to go through all those processes and procedures to do that so we haven't had those available to rent,” Liden said, and added her office has received a lot of disappointed phone calls from enthusiasts.

Neighbors helping neighbors

Those are problems on the face of the town, but what often goes unseen is when a person faces food or housing insecurity. The Food Shelf Cash Assistance Program was born when a couple of Fertile residents decided to use their economic stimulus checks, issued to most American workers in June, to help those who lost a job to the pandemic, or had to shut down a business. The fund provides housing and utility-related assistance.

“They said they didn't need it, they live simply, and they donated their stimulus checks, is how it got started,” Liden said.

A follow-up article in the Fertile Journal had more people donating to the fund, $100 here, $200 there, until it hit $4,000. Of that amount, about $1,200 has been given out.

While Fertile residents can access the cash assistance program for housing needs, East Grand Forks-based North Country Food Bank has been lending a hand with community food drops, which are part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farmers to Families program funded by the CARES Act. North Country set up on Fertile’s fairgrounds in June and distributed boxes of food — frozen meat, dairy and produce — to 75 people. Another drop in July moved 200 boxes of meat alone.

The drops provide some welcome use for the fairgrounds. Fertile is home to the Polk County Fair, which was canceled in May because of restrictions on large gatherings and fair board members’ concerns about spreading COVID-19. The fair brings thousands of people to Fertile and represents a tremendous boost to local shops, gas stations and restaurants.

Smokehouse stays busy

Not that all restaurants are exactly slow in Fertile. Mark Erickson has owned Erickson’s Smokehouse for 10 years, and he said he’s in it for the long haul. After about 10 weeks of being shut down to dine-in customers, he’s now open and busy to the point where he could hire a few more servers. He used that time, when the kitchen staff was busy making takeout meals, to put in new flooring on the smokehouse’s bar side and undertake other improvements he wouldn’t be able to do while fully open. Erickson credits his customers with wanting to make sure his restaurant, and others in smaller towns, stay open.

“These smaller towns, they don't want to lose that only cafe or restaurant,” he said. “I think people have been really trying to support them, and I know we're grateful for that.”

Erickson, when he isn’t running his smokehouse or the two food trucks he sends to other areas, supports fundraising for the school and the nursing home. He knows about the cash assistance program, but for him, food is his way to help.

“We've got this great ability to cook food, so I try to use that as what I do to help people,” he said.

From the cash assistance program, to people picking up groceries for elderly residents and customers showing their support, Liden summed up the situation in Fertile like this:

“The biggest positive thing is just people looking out for each other.”

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