People

New Face
New Name
Public Servant in the Wake of Disaster
Public Spectacle
Hometown Football Team
Visiting Dignitary
Talking Heads in a Fifteen-Hour PBS Documentary
Dearest Departed
Lifetime Achievers

New Face:
Olga Viso, Kathy Halbreich’s successor at the Walker.

New Name:
Olga Viso

Public Servant in the Wake of Disaster:
Minneapolis mayor R. T. Rybak, because he both looked and sounded like a man of the people on August 1 and, speaking from the heart, effectively articulated what his stunned constituents were feeling. [top]

Public Spectacle:
Sixth District congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, for her State of the Union pawing of the President. Thanks to network TV and YouTube, the world now knows what makes so many locals cringe. [top]

Hometown Football Team:
Eden Prairie High School. If only the Vikes and Gophs could play with the Eagles’ high-altitude consistency. Probably not coincidentally, there’s a Grant (Bud’s son Mike) at the EP helm—and, so far as we know, not a felon on the squad. [top]

Visiting Dignitary:
Larry Craig, hands down. [top]

Talking Heads in a Fifteen-Hour PBS Documentary:
Minnesota–bred WWII flyers Quentin Aanenson and Samuel Hynes on Ken Burns’s The War. Talk about bringing it all home, these guys make us proud to be Minnesotans. [top]

Dearest Departed:

Kevin Garnett
The Ticket goes to Boston. A good move for the greatest athlete ever to wear a local jersey and not win a world championship, but a kick in the shorts for the rest of us, who can only hope Al Jefferson will be able to fill some incredibly large shoes.

Kathy Halbreich
For sixteen years she directed the Walker Art Center, overseeing its $100 million expansion and increasing our acquaintance with the edgiest avant-garde. Now she’s returning to her native New York, as associate director of the Museum of Modern Art. Thanks for the meme-ories.

Glen Mason
To long-suffering Gopher football fans, he’s looking better with each dispiriting week of the Brewster Era. [top]

Lifetime Achievers:

Mary Abbe
The longtime art critic and writer—she of the unfailingly
elegant and incisive prose—is one of the few good reasons to keep reading the Strib.

Faith Sullivan
Book by lively, lovely book, the author of The Cape Ann, Gardenias, and The Empress of One has become one of our best-loved novelists and a tireless champion of local literary lights.

Mark Seeley
The mediagenic University of Minnesota professor of soil, water, and climate has been helping explain our preposterous weather for thirty years. It’s not his fault it still doesn’t make much sense.

Don Shelby
WCCO–TV’s silver-haired anchor is still passionate and persuasive after all these years. It took some getting used to, but we even like his standup.

Jim Ramstad
The unbeatable Republican congressman is not seeking reelection after eighteen years of thoughtful, productive service to the Third District, state, and nation. And we believe him when he says he’s not going to join the lobbyist pack. [top]