Gary was followed by Torrey C. Carlblom who is project manager for Heartland Gateways which is a partnership between Brainerd, St. Cloud, and the Initiative Foundation to expand airport services to our area. In this central Minnesota corridor there are 440,000 people who need services. Working with the chambers and economic committees, the Heartland Gateways group applied for and received over a million and a half in grant dollars to work on this project. They are presently working on a Flight Bank. They are contacting businesses and getting them to commit their already budgeted flight dollars to the bank which then intends to arrange for 6-7 flights to Minneapolis daily as well as direct flights to Chicago. This will originally only involve the St. Cloud Airport with land transportation from Brainerd but is expected to eventually include us also. Visit them online at www.heartlandgateways.com for more information. If your company is interested in participating in the Flight Bank, it will entitle you to 12 1/2 % rebates on money you would already be spending for airfare.

All the fisherpeople in the audience perked up at the topic of our next guest's presentation, the Minnesota Walleye program for the Department of Natural Resources. Tim Brastrup took time from his vacation week to come and give us some interesting facts about stocking our local lakes with walleyes. Since 1923, the DNR locally has been harvesting walleye eggs from the Pine River. Basically the process hasn't changed much. Fish are caught as they head upriver to spawn. They are kept until the females are ready to lay their eggs. The big females can produce up to a quart and 1/2 of eggs which average around 125,000 each. That is only about 80% of the eggs, the rest are released naturally when the fish are released to continue upriver. In one year alone, the DNR collects 104 million eggs and about 87 million of them mature. They are distributed to area lakes either in the fry stage (very small) or kept for five months and released as fingerlings. Forty percent of the DNR time in Brainerd is spent on this project, but it is necessary since many of the local lakes are not walleye lakes and it is the most popular fish. Tim then took off his official hat and told us about Fishing has No Boundaries. The local chapter is planning its first big event at Camp Confidence on August 1-3. They are looking for volunteers to help with this huge event which will allow people with disabilities to experience the joy of fishing. It will follow a Governor's Opener format complete with evening banquets, fishing and are lakes and prizes for everyone participating. If you would like to help with this event or donate part of the $5,000 they need to cover expenses, call Bob Slaybaugh at 218-828-2344 or check the website at www.BrainerdLakesFHNB.org

• Who is the handsome debonair senator who is pictured with his big buddy John Raboin. He has been gone from Sertoma for such a long time we had difficulty recognizing him. John wanted a picture with a bullseye on it for his office, but instead if you look closely, you will see the three Sertomans who are members of the El Nino Big Band right where the bullseye should have been. Great music guys.
• Paul Gropper has a new truck and Jinny Haugen has a new job. Pam is very flattered that Paul went out and bought her truck. Edie Hindman was complaining that Jinny is doing too good a job and showing her up at Fifth Avenue Furniture North.
• Edie was very pleased to find out that she was right all along about Reed Campbell not working at Bremer Bank. Reed announced that he was a bartender today in honor of the Mariucci Fiesta. This week's fas winners are Peggy Leas and Mike McFarland who need to call Pam before Tuesday to collect their money.