Jackson County News

The 10 or so Jackson County government employees whose salaries are farthest from equivalent jobs in the rest of the competitive marketplace will be getting an overdue raise, but the county's compensation system will not undergo the total overhaul recommended by last year's study of job duties and wages.

The Okabena and Heron Lake fire departments were dispatched to Minnesota Soybean Processors in Brewster Tuesday night to assist with a fire at the plant.

Jackson County Historical Society Museum Director Mike Kirchmeier and his trusty helpers Mary Chonko and H. Ed Carlson have been very busy at the museum lately, working up some nice new displays of donated items while updating others and generally fixing and sprucing up the facility.

In its fifth year of existence, Lee's Taekwondo in Jackson County has grown to become one of the larger taekwondo gyms in the area, according to instructor and third-degree black belt Tim Bicknase of Worthington.

Pregnant women and pre-school children in Jackson County have a chance to get the H1N1 flu vaccine for free Tuesday afternoon.

Though Thanksgiving is still two weeks away, Jackson merchants are already in the midst of a coordinated two-month-long shop-local holiday campaign designed to both benefit buyers and bolster business.

A local veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom is the keynote speaker at a special Veterans Day program at Bank Midwest in Jackson next Wednesday.

The ball is rolling on county government employeesa paychecks rising to better compete with comparable jobs in the wider marketplace.

The first doses of the injectable H1N1 flu vaccine were administered Thursday to local first responders and health care personnel after Cottonwood-Jackson Community Health Service received a shipment of 300 doses Wednesday.

What once held promise of being one of the best crops in recent memory has turned into nothing less than a soupy mess.

FCA Co-op head profiled in current Farm Market News Dennis Hunwardsen of Jackson, general manager of the 100-year-old FCA Co-op, is profiled in this week's Farm Market News, an 18,000-circulation regional ag publication covering 16 counties in the tri-state area.

Enforcement Roundup Last week Mike Gruhlke, Minnesota DNR conservation officer in Jackson, assisted the Jackson County Sheriff's Department with an investigation of a hunter getting hit by another person's shot.

A group of belly dancers with a member who hails from Jackson and the vocal and instrumental talents of Allen and Nancy Jensen from Heron Lake will be part of an evening of family entertainment coming Saturday to the auditorium of the Business, Arts and Recreation Center in Windom.

Flu activity at Jackson County Central schools has been normal so far this fall, according to a report from Superintendent Todd Meyer to the school board Monday.

Several people were injured in a two-car accident Monday afternoon southeast of Okabena.

A Heron Lake man was injured Saturday in Jackson County after being shot in the chest by a member of his own hunting party.

The Lakefield Kiwanis and Lakefield Lions clubs have joined hands in announcing a new bicycle recycling program that could eventually bring needed bicycles to kids all across Jackson County.

With more than 6,500 members, more than 110 employees and annual sales figures and infrastructure-improvement values reaching into the tens of millions of dollars, cooperatives are major players in the economy of Jackson County and the lifestyles of the people who call it home.

The Big Buddies program has blossomed over the past year or so adding many small-group activities and connecting Little Buddies with Big Buddy mentors.

Jackson County residents have used up all the seasonal flu vaccine that was ordered and emergency responders are set to start getting a limited number of doses of the H1N1 flua s vaccine mist very soon, according to Cottonwood-Jackson Community Health Services Director Pat Stewart.