NEWSLETTER

I stopped by the Prairie Ecology Bus Center in Lakefield while on the way to visit family in Iowa. I wanted to let them know that we were committed to having them stay for a Saturday with the general public when they are here in October. I also told them that I had not yet seen the proposal, and that we would almost certainly be providing financial support as needed for the St. Peter Intermediate School to also be able join in the programs at the Prairie that week. This was welcome news to them and they are looking forward to a full week at the Prairie through Oct. 7th.

I took a little extra time to hike around their prairie restoration plot in an abandoned alfalfa field next to the center. They warned me to watch out for thistles and, since I was in sandals, I had no opportunity to explore beyond the closely mowed path that separates their prairie and wetland areas. There were a lot of thistles all over the area. It made me appreciate what a treasure we have in the remnants of native prairie that survived and have become the solid anchors for restoring the over-grazed areas around them. At Lakefield they are attempting to restore a field that was tilled and planted to non-native crops, as well as being extensively grazed. They were able to bring back some native grasses, and perhaps some of the hardier forbs are able to thrive, but it's a rough road to go still. Since that visit I have been able to review and discuss other restorations. Some are almost effortless to hear people tell it. Like one woman who claimed to have gotten a good start simply by spreading hay from a prairie over tilled ground and letting the seeds take as they. would. At the Community College near Mason City they spread dirt that had been scraped up from a railroad prairie that was being destroyed by an expanding roadbed, and they had nearly a hundred species successfully established in a few seasons. Contrast these tales with our own experience and that at Lakefield and the woman I talked to who had a plot of her own "rounded up" and planted to prairie mix that completely failed after three years so that the entire plot had to once more be "rounded up" to bare dirt and re-planted. After five years and a lot of expense she was waiting to see if there was anything to show for her efforts.

The Seventeenth Annual North American Prairie Conference was held July 16-20 at Mason City, Iowa. There were nearly a thousand "prairie-huggers" in attendance, but the tone of the conference was professional and businesslike -- in all the varying positive and negative shadings of meaning that those terms can have. The DNR's of both Iowa and Minnesota were well represented among the Conference attendees along with county and municipal conservation and/or planning and zoning staff members. There were a good number of teachers ranging from those, who at the elementary school level, were involving their students in butterfly gardens and prairie restorations on or near school property, to University-level development of multidisciplinary programs in Prairie Studies.

Many of the presentations were highly academic. There were technical presentations on botany and zoology, and the ecologies of grasslands and the ecologies of prairies (and who would have guessed that these would require distinct tracks?). There were continuous presentations dealing with Management and Restoration issues, such as seed gathering, seed planting, timing and frequency of burns, rationales of this practice or that, and dozens of project updates that ranged from Ontario to Louisiana, and from Oregon to Pennsylvania. Most of the prairie sites featured were in Iowa, of course, and Minnesota got some honorable mentions for Blue Mounds, Jeffers Petroglyphs, and the Red River preservation and restoration efforts.

Well and good. I hadn't really expected that anyone besides my sister would have any knowledge of our Kasota Prairie (as opposed to the other Kasota Prairie down the road which is still a feature in the Nature Conservancy guidebook). But I was somewhat surprised that Myre-Big Island was ignored. I realize that the Iowa hosts emphasized Iowa sites, but Myre-Big Island is quite nice and closer to the conference than many sites chosen for field trips.

There were a goodly number of teachers in attendance, and I spent a lot of time in prairie education and heritage workshops. These were more accessible but understandably, focused on classroom issues. Much of the hands-on work involved the establishment of restored prairie gardens, like that near St. Peter North, or butterfly gardens, like that we sponsored in Mankato. From the slides and descriptions these are like the low areas at the Prairie that run riot with blooming black-eyed susans, coneflowers, and wild bergamot. The restorations seem also to do well with establishing prairie clover and blazing stars, especially the showy "gayfeather" variety. I walked in a tiny half-acre that had dozens of species, including things like compass plants and cup plants that we don't have at Kasota (although I don't know that we've ever tried to establish these-or rattlesnake masters or wild indigo or others that are conspicuously absent but maybe just not native to the Kasota site).

I have stacks of handouts and brochures and pages of notes from different presentations and there is no way I can make sense of them and get them into this column. I'll try to touch more on what I learned in coming months as I am able to sort everything out.

Have you been out to the Prairie lately? There are a lot of garden-like areas this time of year, but what we have that hardly any demonstration gardens have is the thick, lush tufts of prairie grasses that still are keeping the ways so open and inviting that I think we will not need to mow at all this year.

The water in the primary overflow pond is quite high again, drowning the vegetation that had been colonizing the exposed mud flats earlier in the summer. The level is almost, but not quite to the old banks, but it is not yet high enough to follow the spillway to the secondary pond which is still dry and overgrown.

The white sweet clover got in a pretty vigorous bloom in the hottest weeks of the first part of the month. Prairie Rest. had a crew cutting yellow and early-blooming white about the first, but when I was next out for a hike on the 12th, there were a lot more whites and I was in no position to do anything. It was too bad that the cool weather that would have allowed me to make a serious effort, at least in Zone Five, occurred when I was gone to the Conference. Oh, well, maybe the Prairie Rest. gang was able to get back out there.

Marilynn successfully completed the Gambling Managers' course and passed the required test. We will move her license application forward with all due haste. I'm pleased to join the Board but not sure about the Office I have taken. I knew that I could not be Secretary, both because I would make myself miserable, and because it would ruin the newsletter to have both major regular contributions come from the same person. I think that the functions of Chief Executive Officer between meetings might be to take part in discussions and negotiations I am already involved with, oversee but not manage the gambling operations, for which I am quite uniquely qualified, and perhaps reporting to the membership through these pages. The hard part is going to be chairing the meetings. I proposed Mark for the office because I thought that as the chair he would not be able to make or debate motions, or vote on them except in the case of a tie. This, I believed, would limit his natural scope for parliamentary mischief. It was John Goranson who first suggested that it might be equally desirable to place those particular shackles on me. Well, all right. We'll try this for awhile, until we all begin to refer to Idso as the "once and future president."

BOARD MINUTES

At approximately 8:20 p.m.President Bob Idso called the meeting to order. Those of the above list who are paid-up members approved an agenda, and, although no one had remembered to refer back to them, the minutes of the last Annual Meeting held Tuesday, July 13, 1999, at the Kasota Municipal Building, had substantially less attendance.

PRESIDENT'S REPORT
Bob reported that we were able to look back on a good year. Our negotiations with Unimin are continuing. We hope to agree on a reclamation plan covering their Vetter mining site to the north of the original O'Brien site. Unimin agrees in principle that some of the land on the southwest margin should be added to the Conservation Zone established under our Agreement. We hope that this addition will eventually add about 70 acres to the Conservation Zone, and that this will be reclaimed as Prairie with the same kind of partnership between citizens and business that has accomplished so much already.

We have begun talks with officials at Gustavus Adolphus to see if that institution might become the eventual stewards of the Prairie. We had never intended that SKP continue as the guardians of the Prairie indefinitely, and if GAC turns out to be unsuitable or unwilling to take on this responsibility, then there is still the possibility of the State DNR, or LeSueur County receiving title if we could arrive at covenants for preservation, management, public use and public participation following the terms of the Agreement.

Our gambling revenues have recovered from the crisis levels of a year ago. Bob credits the sound and careful management (and maybe a little good luck) for pulling us through the hard times. We have made provisions for an orderly transfer of responsibility to our Gambling Manager Designate, Marilynn Chatleain, who had an excused absence from the meeting to attend the Gambling Manager Training conducted by the Gambling Control Staff up at their Roseville headquarters. Our newsletter has also passed to the responsibility of Kris Higginbotham. She brings a lot of skills to the job, but she needs material, so please contribute articles, letters to the editor, clippings of interest and relevance, poetry, art and photos to her c/o 1211 S. 5th, St. Peter, MN 56082, or e-mail: khigginbotham@thinkenvision.com (and try to get your submissions to her by the 20th of the month, so that they can be considered for the next newsletter to be mailed on or about the first).

Finally, congratulations to members John and Jeana Rogers, recently married to each other (she used to be called something else but nobody remembers that anymore -- if you saw her you'd know who we're talking about).

Treasurer's Report:
Treasurer Mark Halverson reported that overall, the organization funds that have been placed into investments have done well. Of course our Excelsior-Henderson stock has become essentially worthless, but our U.S.West stock did survive some fluctuations connected to their merger with Qwest and come out pretty good, and our biggest portion in the Parnassus Fund has gone up something like 76%. We currently have $20,500 in our checking and Mark intends to move some of that into an interest-earning short-term investment; our old savings account, which seven years ago represented the entire tangible assets of SKP, has accumulated over ten dollars interest, and stands today at $119.

Gambling Manager's Report:
Manager Eric Steinmetz reported that in summary our gambling operations over the last seven years have sold pulltabs worth $4,343,050, and paid out prizes worth $3,415,935. Net receipts, or the gross profits from gambling are thus $927,115. Seventy percent of this went for taxes and expenses: $179,060 [19.3%] to taxes and government assessments; $191,350 [20.6%] to Sites in rents and wages paid; $165,110 [17.8%] for administration, including accounting and management; $90,085 [9.7%] for games and other equipment and supplies; $23,770 [2.6%] shortages prior to mandated reimbursements.

Net profit for SKP has totaled $277,840. Just under half of this [$136,955] has gone to others, including some expenditures on behalf of and for the primary purpose of SKP, and just over half [$140,885] has been retained by SKP. The latter, to be candid, includes more than $20,000 retained in gambling accts, and so only about $120,000 or 43.2% actually represents net corporate expenditures. Of the former, $26,500 has been given to the KMSU Blues Performance Series and another $9,460 to KMSU Programming. The Athletic Scholarship Fund has received $17,500 and all MSU programs total over $55,000 or 20% of our net profit. Other beneficiaries are Rock Bend, $15,800 [5.7%], St. Peter High Scholarships, $9,000 [3.2%], Kasota City projects (not payments to the City-Administered Fund, which is under government assessments and fees), $9,090 [3.3%], Project G.E.M. St. Peter Programs, $3,500 [1.3%], Ecology Bus Programs, $2,310 [0.8%], History Center Prairie Plantings $2,200 [0.8%], and all other donations, with less than $2,000 to any one, $41,595 [15.0%].

The report detailing June's gambling expenditures was presented and discussed. Profits and expenditures pretty much balanced out for the month mostly due to decreased sales during the summer and large tax bills due the State. We received our tax refund for unsold pulltabs in 1999, and the treasury reimbursed gambling for the money lost in a burglary at Pluto's in Dec., 1998. Discussion touched on these additions, the seasonal fluctuations of the business, the excess shortages at the Blue Moon and how we are going to correct this, the addition of Patrick Mulligan as a paid employee of ours at the Caledonia, and the necessity of new equipment to cope with the new MN drivers' licenses.

Estimated expenditures for the coming month were presented for pre-approval and discussed.

The Report was moved by Eric and seconded by Jim Tracy, and adopted without opposition.

Election of Board of Directors for the 2000-01 term.
Eric Steinmetz declared that with his resignation as Gambling Manager, he'd like to be considered for a seat on the Board. Jeana Rogers, having served as Vice President under another name, declared that she did not wish to be considered for the new Board. All other Board members expressed their willingness to serve another term and there were no other applications or nominations. Karen Larson moved and Mark Halverson seconded to submit a white ballot of Bob Idso, Mark Halverson, Joyce Eaton, Jim Tracy, Judy Cooper, Karen Larson and Eric Steinmetz to be the 2000-01 Board of Directors of SKP. This was unanimously adopted.

The Annual Membership Meeting of SKP was adjourned at 9:10 p.m.

Board Meeting:
The meeting of the SKP Board of Directors was called to order at approximately 9:12 p.m., Tuesday, July 11, 2000. With incumbent Secretary and Vice President stepping down Eric suggested Mark for President, Bob, who has stated emphatically that he does not wish to be President-for-Life, for Secretary, Eric would be willing to take on Treasurer job. After a certain amount of discussion it became apparent that a majority wished to retain Mark as Treasurer, instead. Director Judy agreed to be Vice President. Director Karen insisted that she could not be Secretary as those duties would interfere with her responsibilities as liaison to the GAC Faculty. Directors Joyce and Jim placed themselves out of the running. Director Eric was asked to serve as Secretary with Bob continuing as President. Eric refused to accept as Secretary for the reason that he doesn't take good notes and then makes everything up after the fact, and it takes hours to do and never comes out anyway. As long has he was writing one column of semi-fictional maunderings for the newsletter it was unwise to have him write another and pretend those are the official minutes of the organization. Besides, he would hate it and he refused to do it. With darkness and rain coming down and swarms of mosquitoes attacking, Bob asked Eric if he would consent to be President if Bob would be Secretary. Accepted and unanimously adopted. No other business pending before the Board the Meeting was adjourned at 9:35 p.m.