Root River Current

As the 2025-26 academic year wrapped up, photojournalist Craig Johnson captured the excitement of high school spring sports across Southeast Minnesota. From flag football to high flying pole vaulting to ball games, these student athletes (and their fans) showed up with dedication and energy, even if the temperatures felt more like late winter at times. These girls flag football players leap to new heights in a game between the Houston Hurricanes and the Rushford-Peterson Trojans, in Rushford.

CHATFIELD — After growing up in south-central Minnesota, Taniya Bethke went to college in Wisconsin, traveled across the country researching and teaching about the outdoors, spent a year in South Korea, and served as the recruitment, retention and reactivation coordinator in South Dakota.

HOUSTON COUNTY – In rural spaces, you learn to notice the quiet things — the way light settles on a field, the way plants lean into one another for support, the way a tangle of stems can hold more life than a single bloom. It’s a landscape that rewards patience. Diane Crane’s paintings live inside that kind of seeing. They don’t begin with theory or art talk. They begin with the slow work of viewing. “My work is observation. Deep observation,” Crane shares.

FILLMORE COUNTY, MINN. — Libraries have become a place to lend experiences, tools, technology, outdoor access and educational resources. They are no longer just for borrowing books but have evolved into the Library of Things. From fishing poles to yard games to garden seeds, libraries are adapting to meet the needs of their communities. These nontraditional resources reflect how libraries are an important hub for every age.

LA CRESCENT, MINN – Garlic mustard, exuberance and Middle School students are not words which often end up in the same sentence. In La Crescent, though, they come together thanks to the La Crescent-Hokah Middle School Conservation Crew led by science teacher Travis Lehrke. These students gather most weeks to address invasive plant species, support wildlife and enjoy some outdoor adventures.

LA CRESCENT, MINN – The Driftless region offers picturesque, panoramic vistas of verdant greenery each spring with a lush tree canopy. The continuing existence of this canopy without any human intervention, however, is something that could easily be taken for granted. Everything from storms to pestilence to fires to urbanization and deforestation pose risks to its survival. In February, Minnesota published its 2026 Climate Action Framework.

ROOT RIVER VALLEY, FILLMORE COUNTY –  Spring wildflowers are in their prime along the Root River Trail but their time is fleeting. Now would be a good time to help your children or grandchildren locate and name common ones that grow here in Southeast Minnesota. When children recognize and name wildflowers, they develop a connection to nature that may engender curiosity and respect for all the wonders that surround us.

LANESBORO—Combine a classic book of children’s fantasy, enjoyed by all ages fifty years after it was published, with enthusiastic leadership from an experienced pair of community theater veterans. Add puppet-masters delivering creative whimsy, and a community happily engaged—including a public reading, elementary students embracing something new, and the encouragement of two area libraries, all happening months before the first curtain—and what do you have? Something very special in the works.

From the publisher There are a number of challenges facing local small town, community or neighborhood media organizations across the country—these include staffing, preparing the next generation of journalists, building trust and, chief among them, financial sustainability. Root River Current’s board and staff are as challenged by these issues as any community-centered newsroom—but we’re working hard to embrace these challenges as opportunities.

FILLMORE & HOUSTON COUNTIES—The first newspaper printed in Fillmore County was the Fillmore County Pioneer in Carimona, a six-column broadsheet issued on Thursday, June 5, 1856. This was two years before Minnesota became a state and joined the union. The Pioneer called itself: A Family Newspaper, Neutral in Politics, Devoted to the News of the Day, Mechanics, Agriculture, Education, Morals, etc., etc.