Britt Johnsen

Just a little more than a year ago, relationships between the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District and the Native American community were tense.
“In my eyes I didn’t feel like the district... had our best interests in their thoughts,” said Jeana Stout, Savage resident and secretary of the American Indian Parent Committee.
Relationships were tense because the Native American population felt they had virtually no representation in the school district. There was little information about Nativ...

A group of students recently confronted school leaders about racial inequity that they say is common in the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District.
The students, in a presentation labeled “Reimagine Minnesota Student Reflection,” told the board about the problems students of color routinely face in the district. They said that non-white students are unfairly put in lower-level classes, that they don’t get equal access to student groups and they get in trouble easier because they’re held acco...

As I write this column, light pours out of a large green light box designed to ease the symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder, otherwise known as the winter blues.
If you feel down during the winter, like I do, you’re not alone. An estimated 10 million Americans suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, according to a report in Psychology Today.
Symptoms for the disorder can look a lot like depression. They can include thoughts of hopelessness or sadness, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, i...

Just after his 10th birthday, one young boy lost his father to suicide.
Now a young man, he shared his story with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. By sharing his devastating story of loss at such a young age, he brought information to people who need it most.
Unfortunately there are a lot of people who need help coping with suicidal thoughts or with surviving the loss of a loved one because of suicide. This is a significant issue across the country and even in our own backyard....

Eagan resident Marilyn Remer said the state has already wasted dollars, and isn't appreciating its government workers.
The way Marilyn Remer sees it, a budget should be the first thing legislators should work on.
Then maybe she wouldn't be without a job. "They should lose their jobs," said Remer, a utilities engineer at the Minnesota Department of Transportation who lives in Eagan.
"Why can't they start early and finish it at least on time?" she said. "It's so frustrating."
She's one of thous...

At just 11 years old, Dotty Robe witnessed the death of her 14-year-old sister.
It was the early 1930s. She died of complications from an appendectomy. Fever and pneumonia took her life.
“That was a terrible tragedy in our family,” said Robe, now 93 and living in Savage.
Less than a decade later, tragedy struck her family again when her father, who was an Army lieutenant in World War I, took his final breath in a hospital operating room. He was having surgery for an ulcer. He did not survive....

Dan Amundson had no idea what he was in for when he decided to tackle the Appalachian Trail.
The Savage resident lost his information technology project management job in November 2016 to a mass layoff of 2,000 people. After it happened, Amundson’s financial adviser told him and his wife, Karen, they had done a good job saving. So this would be a good opportunity for Dan to do something for himself, the adviser explained.
A 20-year veteran backpacker, Amundson knew exactly what he wanted to d...

Justin Jasperse was only 11 years old when the bank foreclosed on his parents’ home.
It was 2011. Jasperse’s parents had long lived under strained financial conditions. His dad, Jean Paul, now retired, worked as a factory worker at PepsiCo in Burnsville for 30 years, riding the waves of layoffs and callbacks and strikes. His mom, Rose, works as a chef. As the oldest of five kids, she has always sent money to her siblings and other family members in the Philippines, where she was born. With al...

Julia Anne Kreider was just a matter of minutes away from arriving home to her two sons when tragedy struck.
She had just hung up the phone with her mother, Carole Blackhawk. They exchanged I love yous. They both had lived in Savage at the time.
Blackhawk was playing and singing with her 3-year-old great grandson when she heard about the Interstate 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis. She was confused and filled with fear.
She tried calling Julia back. No answer. Blackhawk called nearly 100 ti...

Paula Coulter just wanted a normal life. She thought her days in suburban Minnesota would be rote — with her morning coffee, accounting work and dinner conversations with her husband and two daughters.
But on Aug. 1, 2007, that would all change.
On the way to dinner in Roseville, her family of four escaped death. The Interstate 35W bridge collapsed in Minneapolis, killing 13 and injuring 145. The Coulters’ van fell 65 feet and crashed upside-down; they were just a matter of seconds from arriv...

Before the bullet cracked her skin, before the police searched with terror and desperation for her body, before a grand jury found a young man guilty of her murder, Katherine Ann Olson was an exuberant 24-year-old with a love for theater and a promising future.
Ten years ago, on Oct. 25, Michael John Anderson, a 19-year-old who lived with his parents in Savage, drew a .357 Magnum Blackhawk Revolver and shot Olson in the back. She had shown up to the house in response to a Craigslist ad he pos...