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KAREN BARTA: Good morning. I'm Karen Barta with news from Minnesota Public Radio. Governor Carlson appears today before a Senate committee to make a pitch for his school voucher plan. Carlson wants low and middle income families to get the vouchers, which they could redeem at private schools. Many lawmakers say, the plan has little chance for passage during the legislative session this year.

There will soon be fewer inspections at Minnesota nursing homes. The state health department says, rising costs and falling federal funding means up to 20% of the state's 100 nursing home inspectors will be laid off. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources says, it will begin feeding deer in Northwestern Minnesota to help them survive harsh winter conditions. Wildlife biologist Dave Schad says, the DNR wants to keep the deer population stable.

DAVE SCHAD: People like to see deer out in the country, out in the landscape. A lot of people like to hunt them. If they get too high, they cause agricultural damage. And so what we do is try to set a deer or a goal that kind of reflects all these different values and meets everybody's needs.

KAREN BARTA: Schad says, deer are easiest to feed in agricultural areas where there are plenty of roads and volunteers. DNR's emergency deer feed will add to efforts already underway by the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association. The state forecast today, there is a winter storm warning in effect for the Southeast corner of the state this afternoon and tonight. And a snow advisory for East Central Minnesota through South Central Minnesota this afternoon and tonight. That snow advisory does include the Twin Cities.

For the Twin Cities, cloudy with snow developing this afternoon, a high around 15. Around the region, in Duluth, it's partly cloudy and 11 below, flurries in Rochester and 3 degrees. And in the Twin cities, the wind chill is minus 18. It's cloudy and the temperature is 0. That's news from Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Karen Barta.

CATHERINE WINTER: And you're listening to a special Mainstreet Radio broadcast live from Bemidji. Minnesota Public Radio's Mainstreet Radio is supported by a major grant from the Blandin foundation, strengthening rural Minnesota's communities through grant making leadership training and conferences. Bemidji is set among three Indian reservations, the Red Earth, the White Earth, and the Leach Lake reservations.

A lot of Indian people come to Bemidji to shop or find housing or work. And through the years, native people have told stories of landlords refusing to rent to them, business people refusing to hire them, police following them. Racism is hard to measure, but it is clear that a disproportionate number of the people in the local jail are American Indians.

The Bemidji Area Race Relations Task Force works to combat some of those problems. Most recently, it's created a court advocate position. The court advocate will help people who are in jail navigate through the legal system. Two members of the Bemidji area race relations task force join us now. Karen Bedeau is President of the task force. And Vince Beyl sits on the task force and its judicial subcommittee. Vince Beyl is also the director of Indian Education for the Bemidji schools. Thanks to both of you for coming in this morning.

KAREN BEDEAU: Thank you.

VINCE BEYL: Thank you.

CATHERINE WINTER: Appreciate your making the trip over. It's been 35 degrees below 0 this morning in Bemidji. And both these people got their cars started and came on in. I wanted to start by asking you, Karen, if you could just tell us briefly some background on why the task force was formed in the first place. What is it meant to do?

KAREN BEDEAU: The task force was initially formed in early 1991. It came about through the Chamber of Commerce here in Bemidji in response to their-- they had identified race relations as being a community issue. And so they had put-- called together a meeting of various people throughout the community from education, from private business, from public organizations. I think there were about 22 people in all that attended and said, let's take a look at race relations in this area and what can we do to start making plans and change the image that we have here and how we treat each other and look at each other.

CATHERINE WINTER: You do have quite a wide variety of people, don't you, on the task force.

KAREN BEDEAU: Yes, we do.

CATHERINE WINTER: I mean, you come from all walks of life, from, as you say, from education, and there are some people who own large businesses here in town. And then there are some-- you consider yourself a citizen member, is that right?

KAREN BEDEAU: Yes, I do. I'm originally from Red Lake. I grew up in Red Lake. I've been away probably for about 20 years, up until six years ago, coming back into the area and wanting to be involved in making positive changes in this area, in race relations.

CATHERINE WINTER: What sort of problems were perceived that the task force was created to undo? I mean, what sorts of experiences were people having that led to people thinking that a task force like this was needed?

KAREN BEDEAU: Well, I think that in your introduction, you had mentioned quite a few things that were going on in this area here. It was not a good feeling. For me, as an Indian person, you know, to come into Bemidji and to just be treated terribly, you know, in the stores, and in the cafes, and in other areas.

And nobody likes being treated like that. And so, you know, we set about to working towards talking about our differences. And so those sort of led to, you know, some of the things that we're doing now. Our group-- actually, the task force mission is to promote mutual understanding and acceptance of cultural differences. And, you know, and that's what we're all about.

CATHERINE WINTER: You speak of the experiences that you had in cafes and in Bemidji in the past tense? Do you-- do both of you feel like things are beginning to change in Bemidji? Vince.

VINCE BEYL: Well, first of all, I'd like to comment on a couple of things that the former president of the BSU, Les Dooley, initiated this concept of a task force at that time to bring about the positive change that Karen spoke of leading into your introduction, and that there's many situations that occur in our community that happen in a number of any communities throughout Minnesota and across the country.

And I feel at this point that a number of community members that live and reside in a community that's made up of not only American Indians residing in Bemidji, but the private sector, the educational system, the hospital, BSU, a number of individuals that make up this committee come together to identify those issues and ask what can they do as a community to bring about a change or dropped the sensitivity and training to react to those situations.

In terms of personal experience on my behalf, or some of the things Karen spoke of, many things happen and occur in the community that happened to us as Indian people. And we are here to work with the community, to talk about how we can provide change awareness to whether that's an employee of a particular facility that looks at Indian people in a different perspective and the perception.

So the task force has made great strides in that area, even though we're here talking this morning about specifically a court advocate position, which obviously infects the law enforcement and the corrections system and so forth. But there's many things that happen in the community in terms of housing and renting, shopping and stores. A number of things that go on that only, only an Indian person that experiences that can offer that perspective.

And I think by us serving on this committee with the people made up of that, we as advocates for Indian people articulate that experience. And we've come a long ways in that sense, and we try to branch out from that to educate other people in the community about those situations that they're real. They do occur. And here's some training and education and sensitivity that can be provided to you by people from the community to overcome those kinds of changes and behaviors and attitudes.

CATHERINE WINTER: Our guests this morning are Vince Beyl and Karen Bedeau. They're both members of the Bemidji Area Race Relations Task Force. If you have questions for Vince or Karen, you can call us. If you're in the Twin cities, you can reach us at 227-6000. Or anywhere you can hear our voices, you can call 1-800-242-2828. And Karen, I just cut you off. What were you going to say?

KAREN BEDEAU: I was going to add that there was a study done by the BSU social research department about 10 years ago. It was an employment survey, and the summary of the employment survey showed that there was a high percentage of employers in this area that wouldn't hire an Indian person even if they were qualified for the job. And that study was looked at very closely by this group.

And because the chamber was initiating this effort to get this-- to address this negative image. Certainly, you know, the chamber looked at it from an economic point of view. You know, it-- a negative image has an adverse effect on tourism. You know, well--

CATHERINE WINTER: And you would have to guess that business is failing to hire qualified applicants would hurt the business, too.

KAREN BEDEAU: Well, I mean, you'd have to look around you in the stores and you see no Indians working in there. And you have to wonder, you know, why such a large segment, of people who live in this area are not represented on the other side of the counter. Also at the same time, two of the reservations were developing their casinos and their bingo halls, and also-- so the element of tourism there and the importance of that to their business brought these people together, too. And so tribal involvement and support for this effort was very much a part of this.

CATHERINE WINTER: What can a committee really do-- if what you're talking about is an issue, a problem based on people's attitudes, the way people were brought up, and what people grew up believing, how can even a group of people working together make any difference?

KAREN BEDEAU: Well, when the group first got together and the group just struggled for the first few years, it was so difficult for whites and Indians to sit down at the same table and talk about issues that were very difficult. And you're really questioning people's personal values, the way they were brought up here. And so it was very hard.

I can remember sitting in meetings, where we just sort of sat there and kind of stared at each other. And people were kind of afraid to say something that might offend somebody else, and we wouldn't be talking to each other. But we've come a long way since then. But like I said, just sitting at the table and talking about those very difficult issues. I think that if people want to move forward, they have to get over this.

CATHERINE WINTER: The numbers again to call, if you would like to join our program this morning, talking about race relations in Bemidji are 227-6000 If you're calling from the Twin Cities. Or anywhere, you can hear our voices, here in Bemidji, you can call 1-800-242-2828. Kelly is calling from a car phone. Good morning, Kelly.

AUDIENCE: Good morning. And Thank you for taking my call.

CATHERINE WINTER: Thanks for calling.

AUDIENCE: I'm interested in your issues there in Bemidji. I grew up in the Detroit Inner City area and graduated from high school from a public high school in the inner city of Detroit. And when I graduated from high school in the early '70s, it was a racial melting pot if you were. There were people from virtually every aspect of race and religion that you can think of.

And somehow we as a community always had the ability to figure out what our problems were and tried to work through our problems with, you know, working with the community and the different people of the city. But, you know, I don't understand about your situation is what is it-- from the task force perspective, the underlying dissension, what has caused this dissension? We're all essentially the same. And we all have, you know, a desire to have a better community for our kids and our families and our lives. So what's the real reason, from your perspective?

CATHERINE WINTER: Do you have any theories about where--

KAREN BEDEAU: Well--

CATHERINE WINTER: Karen.

KAREN BEDEAU: From my perspective, I think that-- I think that we're not just talking about Bemidji being unique in this area. You know, I mean, the whole attitude towards Indian people across this country, there has been such a negative ingraining in people's minds about Indian people that what we struggle with here is very difficult. And I know that the 1990 census showed that-- well, just in Beltrami County alone, we've got a population of close to 17% American Indian.

But at the same time, we're also seeing an increase of Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics into this area. And so that's something else that the Race Relations Task Force is looking at and recognizing that this is going to be something more in the future here in Bemidji. And it's not going to be just Indians and whites being the issue anymore. But certainly, for this area here, and at this time, and in the past, that's what this has been.

CATHERINE WINTER: Vince, do you have any theories on where the issue is rooted?

VINCE BEYL: Yeah, I'd like to respond to Kelly's question, and I thank him for calling. And I'm from the White Earth nation, and I'm quite familiar with the Detroit Lakes community in the area in a whole. In terms of the underlying issue that Kelly's asking about. As far as this task force, I believe that basically when he spoke of the melting pot theory, a lot of American Indians are very cautious of that.

Melting pot theory means that you come aboard or into that melting pot with a true understanding of who you are as a race of people, your identity, your language, and your culture, and your values and standards. And what happens a lot of times in any given community, and Bemidji's not the only one alone in Minnesota, there gets to be a breakdown of those cultural barriers and those values and standards, and that's sometimes how problems occur and the sensitivity that takes place. And so forth, because it's a lack of understanding.

And basically to put it in a finer line, it's called cultural incompetency. And so the way we address that is through communities such as us and organizations and through education, because that lacks a number of communities. And like I say, it's not just Bemidji here that is unique with that situation even though we're centrally located between three large Indian nations.

Detroit Lakes is well close to the White Earth nation, along with a number of other communities. But his question, I enjoy what he has asked, that if he comes from a background, when you're talking about melting pot theory, Indian people have a different perspective on the melting pot as a whole.

CATHERINE WINTER: It's one thing to say we should all live together and another thing to say native people should be assimilated, isn't it?

VINCE BEYL: Very true.

KAREN BEDEAU: That's true.

CATHERINE WINTER: I should mention that the state-- the National Weather Service has issued a winter storm Warning for the Southeast corner of Minnesota this afternoon and tonight. And there's a snow advisory for the East Central part of Minnesota through the South Central this afternoon and tonight. Expecting some snow down South this afternoon and evening, two to four inches. We're not going to get any, but the brutal cold is hanging on up here in Bemidji.

It's currently 30 degrees below 0. They only have 0 degrees down in the Twin Cities. We should have stayed there, huh? If you'd like to join our discussion this morning about race relations, you can call 227-6000 from the Twin Cities. Or anywhere you can hear our voices, you can reach us toll free at 1-800-242-2828. And Jeff from Bemidji has been waiting with his question. Go ahead, Jeff.

AUDIENCE: OK, well, I think it's good to look at the courts. A lot of the judges are most openly racist. But what are you doing on the police end of things. I mean, what is the Race Relations Task Force doing anyway. It seems like a token gesture to have a court advocate.

CATHERINE WINTER: Let's talk--

AUDIENCE: Well, like, I have a friend that got beat up by the police and kind of coerced into a guilty plea. What would she do? Is there any kind of civilian review mechanism? Are you doing-- I mean, the police chief is under indictment. Why aren't we bringing these issues into the community right now? Getting a police chief that's representative as well as a civilian review mechanism-- I mean, what concrete steps is the Race Relations Task Force doing? I mean, there's racism in the news media, in the schools. What's being done with the curriculum in the schools for another thing?

CATHERINE WINTER: I think those would be good questions to pitch to Vince Beyl, who is in addition to his seat on the judicial subcommittee of the race relations task force, also is the director of Indian Education for the Bemidji schools. So, Vince, the questions are what concrete steps are you taking and what are you doing, if anything, about working with the police?

VINCE BEYL: Well, first of all, he asked to his questions in terms of curriculum, and he talked about judges, police force, and so forth. Those questions that Jeff just aired on the station are asked by many members of the community and asked by the task force themselves.

First of all, I want to say that the task force in the last year and a half has spent many hours and lengthy conversations with the county attorney, the city attorney, the Ninth Judicial judges, that circuit, the Sheriff here in the county, the three judges here within Beltrami county, to talk about their-- asking for their support for such a conception of a position such as the court advocate position.

And a lot of the things that Jeff just asked that are being asked by a lot of community members and because of the makeup of us as a task force, we get lots of calls, meaning not me individually but community members when things happen in the community that they feel are of a racist-- racial nature, whether it's being harassed, maybe somebody being beat up and so forth.

Now, Jeff just talked about he had talked with someone that there was brutality. Now, there's a perfect example, and I'm not sure how Jeff responded to that situation, to whoever that person was. But myself or this court advocate, there's a process of brutality, whether it occurs in this county by a city police official, a county deputy, or by anybody. There's a process in the state through the Human Rights Department and so forth.

And a lot of people don't know what that process is in terms of who you call, who you report, what you write down, how you make that referral, how that's monitored and so forth. So that's a perfect example of many situations that occur in this particular community.

CATHERINE WINTER: Is that something that if you got a call, would you be able to refer that person?

VINCE BEYL: As far as myself personally, I know exactly how I would handle that situation in terms of whether it was the individual who makes the accusation that might be either residing in a jail or it happened in a community, or maybe there wasn't any paperwork where the arrest was made and so forth.

But I just want to talk a little bit about that further, is that the court advocate position is a person who's going to be in the system to provide adequate advocacy for individuals that come into the system, that aren't aware of, number one, the resources in the community through the tribes and so forth, to follow them through that court process and procedure.

And it's also to work with those people in the court system, meaning the jail, the Sheriff, the judges, the city, the county attorney, the public defenders, the private attorneys and so forth to provide sources or a go between as a liaison between the court system and those clients they represent to get them adequate services that are available in the community to help them through that process.

In regards to the curriculum question that he asked, meaning that as far as this school district and Bemidji education, I can't respond for the district's curriculum. But as far as us as a program, our curriculum that we utilize in our program focuses specifically on our culture, language, and history as far as Bemidji Indian Education. And I think Jeff's question, I don't know if he's still on the air, but his question about curriculum, I assume he's asking about the school district's curriculum.

CATHERINE WINTER: Do you run into this issue a lot where you may have some people feeling like the task force is pushing too hard or trying to do too much at once. And then on the other side, you have people saying all you do is meet and my life doesn't change.

KAREN BEDEAU: We certainly hear comments from people that we're not doing enough. And as I mentioned earlier, this is a difficult task that we're undertaking here. It's not easy to come to the table and talk about these sensitive issues. But one thing that I did want to add in regard to Jeff's question in terms of what concrete steps are we taking, one of the things that the task force did last spring was to hold a education seminar, judicial education seminar.

And we invited members of the police force, the sheriff's department, the judges, the department of corrections, individuals to come and hear a speaker on diversity issues and specifically focused towards Indians and non-Indians in this area. And we see this as a measure to introduce them to take-- to talk about those issues that are difficult and again, questioning their own systems so--

CATHERINE WINTER: We have lots of callers on the line waiting to put their questions to Karen Bedeau and to Vince Beyl who are both members of the Bemidji Area Race Relations Task Force. Let's go to Judith from Plymouth with her question. Good morning, Judith.

AUDIENCE: Well, first I have a few comments and then I do have a question. But--

CATHERINE WINTER: We have to make it-- we have to make it fairly quick because we need to go to a newscast in about three minutes, OK.

AUDIENCE: OK. Well, I'm just-- I just want to say that I really see a great deal of racism and stereotypes in our population toward American Indians. And I think it just is profound ignorance. And there are powerful contributions that the people Indigenous here can give to not only peaceful relations in communities, but we could learn just incredible lessons with this entire country. And the native folks are just-- I have my own stereotypes. Only they come out of artistic, intelligence, and all kinds of things like that. I happen to be a little bit Cree. I look like I'm white. I never have to deal with racism.

So anyway, what I think about a lot is I watch these complex racist problems in every-- not just for Native people, but the black Americans and so on. What do you think about, you know, as American people starting to try to think about an idea of uniting as diverse Americans, but United as Americans and bringing that into a focus for a lot of these. This is just something I toss around in my head. And I want to know if you have any comment on that.

CATHERINE WINTER: Well, Vince Beyl. We were just talking a minute ago about how to work together without assimilating? How to be one nation, without losing your cultural history? How do you do that? I guess that's the $64,000 question.

VINCE BEYL: Well, I'm not sure if that was Jeff's question, but in terms of curriculum and education, and it's not just solely provided by Indian education, because you assume educators have a full understanding of the complexity of the issue. But when you're talking about cultural diversity and you talk about people. Like, for instance, Bemidji has an international community at Bemidji State University, they have the significant American Indian population here.

And we sometimes wonder how much that they really understand Indian people as far as those values, I speak of the culture, the language, and the standards, and that there's a very unique difference. It doesn't make Indian people special or above anybody. But if you're going to be effective with people in terms of education or the community and so forth.

You have to have some kind of understanding about those people that you live with, you serve, and that you work with. And my response to her, meaning I agree with everything she's saying about the racism across-- gathers across the land. There's a difference between someone being racist and a person lacking cultural competencies and understanding of a people.

And I think there's a fine line between those two that differ, meaning that someone's just, just hates somebody because of their race versus lacking an understanding about what that person represents, because they're not the quote, the norm of the mainstream, that they represent something different, not only by the color of their skin, their attitudes, their dress, their attire, their values, and those standards. And we come into those situations many times within education, within the classroom, that there's different learning styles, there's different strategies that are applied and such and so forth.

So the only way I can respond to that is saying that people lack that systematically. And the answer is through education or through committees like this that are willing to come forth as a community and provide some of that type of training. And sometimes we get caught. I hate the word they say, well, right away, let's appease the community and provide sensitivity training. You have to go beyond that. That's just a Band-Aid.

CATHERINE WINTER: OK, our guests this morning are Vince Beyl and Karen Bedeau from the Bemidji Area Race Relations Task Force. We'll take more of your questions in just a few minutes after we take a quick look at the news with Karen Barta.

KAREN BARTA: Good morning. The Senate will vote today on a house passed measure to keep the government running. The White House says, President Clinton is willing to sign the bill to keep federal operations going through mid-March. 23 Whitewater grand jurors will hear today from the first lady. Hillary Clinton is scheduled to appear before the panel in Washington. She's expected to be asked about Whitewater related documents that were missing, then suddenly appeared at the White House.

The Minnesota House Transportation Committee meets to discuss plans to raise the speed limit to 65 miles per hour on urban interstates and 4 lane divided highways. Doug Swingley of Montana took first place in the 500 mile Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon. Mushers faced tough trail conditions in the race from Duluth to Grand Portage and back. And vandals changed trail signs, sending several mushers off in the wrong direction. Marketing Manager [? Beau ?] [? Ekmark ?] says, fresh, dry snow caused numerous dog injuries.

SPEAKER 1: If the dogs are tired or need the rest, they take it. And that's one of the reasons the race took longer, is because the mushers themselves took it upon them to take longer rests at the checkpoints.

KAREN BARTA: Swingley finished the 500 mile race in just under 108 hours. Larry Lemaster-- of Duluth and Mark Nordman of Grand Marais were the two runners up. The state forecast today does include a winter storm warning for the Southeast corner of the state this afternoon and tonight. And there's a snow advisory for East Central Minnesota through the South Central portion of the state this afternoon and tonight. That does include the Twin Cities.

Highs today from the single digits below 0 in the Northwest to the teens above 0 in the Southeast. For the Twin cities, cloudy with snow developing this afternoon, a high around 15. Around the region in Rochester with flurries and 3 degrees. It's partly cloudy and 11 below in Duluth. And in the Twin cities, the wind chill is minus 18. It's cloudy and 0. That's news from Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Karen Barta.

All right. Thank you, Karen. And we're coming now live from Bemidji with a special Mainstreet Radio Midmorning. We'll talk in just a few minutes with Will weaver, the author of Red Earth, White Earth. But right now, we'd like to continue for a few more minutes with our discussion on race relations in Bemidji. Our two guests are Karen Bedeau and Vince Beyl, both of whom are members of the Bemidji Area Race Relations Task Force. We have a caller who's been waiting for quite a while. So let's go right to Larry from Fargo and take his question. Hello, Larry.

AUDIENCE: Good morning. It seems to me one of the best ways to promote racial harmony is to provide a sound economic base-- you know, a lot of jobs. And I was wondering if your task force was in the future, was thinking of looking into something like that.

CATHERINE WINTER: Have we looked at the links between poverty and racism here in Bemidji? They're both smiling. So it sounds like you've hit a nerve, Larry.

KAREN BEDEAU: We have. We have. As I mentioned earlier, the employment survey that was done about 10 years ago. And we've also the chamber had sponsored an updated survey that was undertaken two years ago. And that was sponsored through funding with the Northwest Minnesota Initiative Fund. And the results of that survey did show an improvement in the area of employee attitude towards hiring Indian people.

The Race Relations Task Force has in the past sponsored several job fairs, which were designed to expose minority people with employment opportunities in the area. And the result of these were people getting jobs who previously had felt that they may-- would not have gotten a job in this area because of their race.

CATHERINE WINTER: And you're working on--

KAREN BEDEAU: So this is--

CATHERINE WINTER: You're working on a housing initiative, brand new thing, too, aren't you, on helping people to own their own homes.

KAREN BEDEAU: We have had-- we sponsored the first one last year in conjunction with the Minnesota Housing finance agency, the local banks, and realtors. And by cap here in this area, a number of other organizations. And we've got one coming up in February. Vince, did you want to add anything on that?

VINCE BEYL: I know that it's been aired on a couple of the radio stations with Paul [? Wehle, ?] who's one of our members of the task force. He's also on the judicial subcommittee with myself talking about trying to encourage, especially American Indian people to come to that particular seminar for first time homebuyers to talk about the criteria and how they go about that process and how they can help any of those individuals.

And I would encourage any people in the community here that would like to participate or if transportation is an issue that they call the number that's being aired across those stations and some of the stuff that'll be coming out in The Pioneer along with The Ojibwe Newspaper.

CATHERINE WINTER: Maybe you could leave that number with us and we could announce it at the end of the program, if people would like to write it down.

VINCE BEYL: OK.

CATHERINE WINTER: OK. Russ from Minneapolis is on the line with a question. Go ahead, Russ.

AUDIENCE: Hi. This kind of works right into my question. What I've heard about greater Minnesota is there's a real crisis in a lack of affordable housing. And in some parts of greater Minnesota, and I'm not sure if Bemidji is in this category. There are there's a high demand for jobs, but the wages they pay do not support a family to be able to live in much housing. So I guess my question is-- I understand I heard your last comments about what you're doing to help with home ownership. My question is, what are people doing out there to find housing for their families? And how are your efforts going to change that?

CATHERINE WINTER: So you're talking not just housing, but affordable housing.

AUDIENCE: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I had an experience in Wilmer. I worked with some mobile home park residents there. And it was a predominantly Hispanic park. And the reason for that was the only place where the people who were just arriving and people weren't making a high wage could live. So they were concentrated into that mobile home park. And I'm just wondering if you're experiencing similar things in Bemidji.

CATHERINE WINTER: Vince?

VINCE BEYL: I laugh a little bit, but this is not my expertise or my area, but housing. But I like his comment because if he came to Bemidji, he would probably find predominantly in the mobile trailer parks here and trailer houses American Indians also. His comment about the Hispanic people. That predominantly the homes that a lot of the Indians that are living on a fixed income and so forth, that the mobile houses here in this town and the apartments so forth, I mean, we could sit here and I could give you specifics of the demographics is all occupied by American Indians, our majority.

CATHERINE WINTER: It's a chronic problem around the state, isn't it? Now that where there are jobs, there isn't enough housing and the wages aren't enough for people to build housing on. And it I mean, it's not just Bemidji. It's everywhere, isn't it, in small towns.

KAREN BEDEAU: It is. We're seeing it in further North Western Minnesota, too, where there's expansion in industry. The housing market just isn't keeping up with the needs so--

CATHERINE WINTER: I think we have--

KAREN BEDEAU: It is a difficult issue.

CATHERINE WINTER: I think we have time to take one more question from Jerry from Saint Paul. Are you there, Jerry? Maybe not. Can you hear us, Jerry?

AUDIENCE: Hello.

CATHERINE WINTER: Hi, what's your question?

AUDIENCE: It really wasn't a question. This to Vince Beyl. I thought he'd just finished a Beargrease. This is just a comment to a friend of mine on the air. Did you run the Beargrease, Vince?

VINCE BEYL: [NON-ENGLISH]

AUDIENCE: [NON-ENGLISH]

CATHERINE WINTER: You didn't run the Beargrease, did you?

VINCE BEYL: Not this year.

CATHERINE WINTER: Do you run dogs, really?

VINCE BEYL: No, I don't. Jerry is a good friend of mine from Saint Paul, who's also in education.

CATHERINE WINTER: Ah, somebody is just giving you a hard time. Well, I'll take the opportunity then. I had promised you that we would take at least a minute to talk about the court advocate program while we had a chance. Now, my understanding is that this person is going to deal with the judges, with the lawyers, with the whole judicial system, with the Sheriff's office, and try and help people work their way through the legal system who maybe don't know how it works. Is this a program that's being done anywhere else, or can it be replicated in other small towns?

VINCE BEYL: I'd like to just run through this fairly fast. I know we're limited with time. I worked in a position in Hennepin County court services for four years from 1975 to '79 in the same capacity, which we envision this position here in Beltrami County. And basically, in terms of a court advocate, is a person that's available and accessible to the community, that's down in the court system to help individuals, primarily the municipal court system, for petty misdemeanor offenses and so forth, to be able to provide them and be a link between the court system as resources in the community.

Now, in terms of how much this individual is going to be used by probation, the judges, the Sheriff's department, the jail is basically up to those entities. Myself working down in the County, once you are established, you help work with pre-sentence investigations. You help get stability for the individuals. so they would not be incarcerated by being housed in the jail, that there was some stability in the community, that individual could go back in the community, got involved in education, chemical dependency programs and so forth.

And this is why we met with all these entities in Beltrami County to talk about and get their support from the Sheriff, the city attorney, the county attorney, the judges, if we could provide a position or this is something you would see feasible, or something workable within Beltrami court, which was a tremendous support.

Now the individual that works that particular position is going to be visible to the community. It's not supervised or governed by the court system. And the following funding that came forward for this position was comprised of the Leach Lake Nation, the Red Lake nation, the Department of Corrections, the City and the County. And so we want to Thank those individuals for coming forward to support this position.

It's new to the area and that I know there's been much controversy and editorials written about such a position and that we're limited for time. But if anybody in the community or private sector has specific questions, when we hire the person, we'll be doing a public release on this position through the newspaper and hopefully back on the radio station and so forth to talk more in depth about that position.

CATHERINE WINTER: Obviously, this entire subject needs a lot more than half an hour, so I hope that we can revisit this issue again on one of our future broadcasts. For now, I have to just thank you both so much for coming in. Vince Beyl and Karen Bedeau are members of the Bemidji Area Race Relations Task Force.

The National Weather Service has issued a snow advisory for the Twin Cities this afternoon and tonight. Two to four inches are expected by tomorrow morning. Today's high should be around 15 degrees in the Twin Cities and tonight's low will be about 0. Up here in the Bemidji area, it's quite a bit colder. It's 30 degrees below 0 today. Coming up in just a moment, we'll talk with Will Weaver, the author of Red Earth White Earth.

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The City of Bemidji turns 100 this year. A newcomer standing on the shore of Lake Bemidji in 1896 would have seen busy trading posts, houses being built, and a stream of homesteaders arriving from the West. Rosemary Given Amble is a longtime Bemidji city council member and a historian. She spoke with Leif Enger about the first white settlers in Bemidji, their Ojibwe hosts, and how a mysterious rock prompted the formation of a new city in Northern Minnesota.

ROSEMARY GIVEN AMBLE: Well, the first white people who came to Bemidji were the Carson brothers. There was George and Marion Carson. And their father and mother had a trading post that was about 17 miles West of Bemidji in a community called Moose. And so the young boys came over and decided they were going to set up a trading post over here. When they came, there was a band of Indians that were living here, and their leader was Shaynowishkung.

He allowed them to stay in his birchbark shelter, and he fed them and he took care of them until they were able to build their trading post on that same section of land. So they were neighbors. And they were good friends. And then the settlers started to come. And it's interesting. Bemidji was settled from the West to the East. We had no trains coming in here, and there were no roads coming from the East. But there were trails, Indian trails, that were coming from the West.

So the people, the Scandinavian people that had settled on the prairie could not tolerate the wind and the no trees. They had to find trees. So when they found out that there was a section of land that had plenty of trees and plenty of lakes, they migrated West.

LEIF ENGER: You never hear about the eastward migration.

ROSEMARY GIVEN AMBLE: No, but that's true with Bemidji. Freeman and Betsy Dowd came and they found a section of land that was on the West side of the lake that had a beautiful point on it. When they were clearing this land, they found a beautiful stone that looked like it might be valuable. A friend took that stone to the cities to see if there was value to it, couldn't get it determined there, and had to take it to New York City.

So there were some men down in the cities that decided that there might be diamonds in that area. So they had their friend take options on 93 acres in that same area that the Dowds were homesteading and the options were held and held until finally they ended up that they owned 93 acres because they had not yet heard from New York City. When word came back that the stone was a quartz crystal, it was not a diamond, they had to do something with that 93 acres. So they got a friend down in Saint Paul to plant it into a village. And that is how Bemidji was started.

CATHERINE WINTER: Rosemary Given Amble Is a Bemidji City Councilwoman and a historian. She spoke with Mainstreet Radio's Leif Enger. And you're listening to a live broadcast from Bemidji, a special Mainstreet Radio version of Midmorning. Right now, we're going to talk with author Will Weaver. Will Weaver often sets his stories in Northern Minnesota. His characters move through dairy farms, and used car lots, and resorts, and reservations. If you're from Northern Minnesota, the people in Weaver's books may remind you of someone you know.

Will Weaver's first novel, Red Earth, White Earth, was a great success and was made into a TV movie. But recently, Weaver has changed gears and begun writing books for adolescents. He's just completing a series of books about a boy named Billy Baggs, who's a gifted baseball player, but has to give up on playing on the team so that he can work on his family's farm. The second book in the series Farm Team was just released last year, and the third is due out soon. Will Weaver is here to talk with us about it. Thanks for coming in.

WILL WEAVER: Nice to be here.

CATHERINE WINTER: When is the third book due out, Will?

WILL WEAVER: Just finished the manuscript of it. It's in the editorial process right now, which means a lot of revision always. And I would say another 8 to 10 months.

CATHERINE WINTER: 8 to 10 months, boy, you must be a more patient person than I am to wait that long to put something out. Can you tell us a little bit about what led you to write? You had a lot of success writing for adults. What made you decide to switch, or is it a switch really?

WILL WEAVER: It's an evolution, you might call it. And a novel like Red Earth, White Earth, 400 and some pages takes a great deal of time and mental space. And I found that as my own children became a stronger and louder presence in my life, that I didn't have the time to devote to that 400 page novel. Yet I wanted to keep writing. And I'd seen so many fiction writers and artists in general struggle with that dilemma how to keep producing their art and yet be a father, a mother, et cetera.

CATHERINE WINTER: Have a life at all, yeah.

WILL WEAVER: Indeed. And so-- in fact, if you read literary biographies, you see that a lot of writers get too much distance from their families and lose them. And so I didn't want that to happen. And it seemed to me the logical way to go was to write something that I could use my children, their stories, their interests, their anecdotes. And that was novels for young adults.

CATHERINE WINTER: How old are your children now?

WILL WEAVER: 12 and 17.

CATHERINE WINTER: Oh, so they're right in the age range that would be reading these books.

WILL WEAVER: They're a great test audience. I write a chapter, I give it to them, and they say, yes, dad, this works or no, dad, this is lousy.

CATHERINE WINTER: Is that what you do? I was going to ask, whether-- especially the dialogue in Farm Team and in Striking Out rings so true. I mean, it sounds like what a 13-year-old would say. Do you run that past them and say, do kids say this anymore, that sort of thing.

WILL WEAVER: I'm not overly concerned with being completely up to date with slang and jargon. Rather, I just want a good story, but I do have fun testing the chapters on children or the friends of my kids. But my son said something one day that really made me smile. He read a chapter and then he turned to me and said, dad, this is so good. I forgot you wrote it.

CATHERINE WINTER: What a nice thing to say. That is a high compliment, isn't it? What-- do you have-- I know that you grew up on a dairy farm just as the character Billy Baggs is doing. Did you play baseball?

WILL WEAVER: I did. Although, in fiction, one can take one's own life and amplify it and have greater successes than you do in real life. And yes, farm background, baseball, small town, and that is the setting, as you mentioned in all my books.

CATHERINE WINTER: And in nearly all your stories, some of them moved to Northern California for a little while where you spent some time.

WILL WEAVER: Yes, I do have the movement of to the city and back and to the city again, which I think is a common thing from outstate Minnesota to go to the city and like it or not like it, return back and forth. Quite a bit of that in my writing. You're right.

CATHERINE WINTER: That does seem to be one of the sources of tension for people a decision about staying home or going to the city or going back home. Another theme that seems to run through a lot of your work is that of choosing between parents or feeling torn between parents. Is that-- it's a personal question, but is that something from your own life too?

WILL WEAVER: In a way. I have often a farm father and a mother who has gone off perhaps to work in town, and that is the case so much in farm country that it is the wife's job in town that oftentimes supports the household and has the insurance. So I often have strong mother figures as well as independent father types.

CATHERINE WINTER: How long-- now you-- you grew up on a dairy farm and then you went to the University of Minnesota.

WILL WEAVER: Yes, to the U. And then off to California for a few years where I studied at Stanford and worked with writers such as Wallace Stegner and Raymond Carver, but then got lonesome, ironically for Midwestern winters and changes of season.

CATHERINE WINTER: Can you still say that today?

WILL WEAVER: I can today, exactly.

CATHERINE WINTER: Well, I wanted to ask, what-- was it, honestly, the weather that brought you home?

WILL WEAVER: I missed greatly the change of seasons in California. I got desperately lonesome for autumn in particular and happy to come back and be here now. I feel-- I feel well-placed. I feel at home here in Bemidji.

CATHERINE WINTER: The Northwoods seems to be wrapped up in your writing and you in the Northwoods?

WILL WEAVER: Very much so. A reviewer in the Chicago Tribune once said that he will always expect to find cows in Will Weaver's writing. And I think that's true.

CATHERINE WINTER: It's true. You have people pressing their cheek against cows in a number of stories. Does that stereotype you? Do you feel like you're a certain kind of writer because of that?

WILL WEAVER: I don't think so. I like to present myself when I go around and talk about writing. I like to present myself as someone who can write regionally but publish nationally. I think that's the best of both worlds.

CATHERINE WINTER: And what is the secret to that? That's what everyone-- I told a number of people that I was going to interview Will Weaver and they all said, ask him how he did it and so--

WILL WEAVER: The secret, I think, is to have specific, precise detail and imagery that one can draw on when you know them, but to not settle for those rather to move to a higher universal plane of your characters' lives and their experiences. So again, particularity of detail, but really universal matters of the heart for your characters.

CATHERINE WINTER: The language and the characters in your book rings so familiar to me. There's one story Blood Pressure, it's called in, which-- well, in which someone behaves very strangely. And a woman, a Minnesota farm woman, is asked what these people are like. And she says, they're different. They're a different kind couple. And I just thought how many times have I heard that from, you know, small town folks, people on farms. Do you actively eavesdrop in order to write dialogue like that?

WILL WEAVER: It's a very bad habit of mine and I think all writers in restaurants or situations hearing, hearing key lines that might spark a story or create a character or just spotting interesting images, anything peculiar out of the ordinary, or that's all the stuff of fiction, it seems to me.

CATHERINE WINTER: I was curious, too, about the challenge of writing adolescent fiction, that is fiction for adolescents-- not That the fiction is adolescent-- whether you have to find a fine line between writing something true and writing something that can go in the school library. I mean, I notice, for instance, that there is no explicit sex, but there's all sorts of implied sex in the Billy Baggs novels, that sort of thing. Do you have to keep that in mind all the time?

WILL WEAVER: Yes, especially when you're making a transition from adult novels. Red Earth, White Earth was very adult in spots, one could say. And the young adult novel obviously cannot have that. There are standards, not explicit guidelines necessarily, but common sense standards. So as I have been writing my young adult novels, my editor occasionally jogs me and says, remember, Will, you are writing for young adults.

CATHERINE WINTER: Have you had to take things out that you wanted to put in?

WILL WEAVER: Once in a while, yes. And I agree that probably I should make the cut and stay focused clearly on that 12 to 16, 18-year-old reader.

CATHERINE WINTER: But at the same time, if that's who you're focused on, that's what they're thinking about, or at least one of the big things they're thinking about. So you can't just not address it, can you?

WILL WEAVER: That's right. The matter of the sexual lives of teenagers is clearly a part of things. Yet in fiction, we just don't deal with it quite as explicitly as maybe it is in real life, in fact. And that's an irony in a way.

CATHERINE WINTER: One of your short stories in the collection A gravestone Made of Wheat is, I think, it's called Undeclared Major. And this is about a young man who has gone off to school and left his dairy farm. Some of the themes we were talking about before and is coming home and trying to decide how to tell his family about this. Is that your story? Did that happen to you?

WILL WEAVER: Indeed, it did. And if I can just read a paragraph, I have the book here of that.

CATHERINE WINTER: Oh, great. OK.

WILL WEAVER: It's a story that I often share with my college students here at Bemidji State University as they think about majors and what to do with their lives. I tell them not to be in any hurry. It takes a while to find the right major. In the story, the Undeclared Major, a character not unlike myself, comes from the university back home to the farm. And he has a lot of anxiety because finally he has to tell his father what he has decided for a major.

And he meets his father in the field. And his father took off his hat and his forehead was white, his hair coppery. His father said, so how's the rat race, son? Well, not so bad, Walter, my character, says. His father paused a moment, any decisions yet. Walter swallowed. He looked off toward town. About a major, you mean? His father waited. Well, Walter said, but his mouth went dry.

He swallowed twice. Well, he said rapidly, I think I'm going to major in English. His father pursed his lips and he pulled off his work gloves one finger at a time. English, he said. English, Walter replied. His father squinted. Son, we already know English.

CATHERINE WINTER: Was that the response you got.

WILL WEAVER: Generally, I have fictionalized a bit, but I still remember being somewhat apprehensive coming home and explaining that I was going in a direction that probably no one in my family had imagined.

CATHERINE WINTER: Or ever gone, perhaps.

WILL WEAVER: Yes.

CATHERINE WINTER: Have you made peace with them about that?

WILL WEAVER: Absolutely, yes. Father has always been--

CATHERINE WINTER: Well, here you are succeeding at it now.

WILL WEAVER: --been very supportive. My mother as well, certainly.

CATHERINE WINTER: We have just a couple of minutes left, and I wanted to be sure to give our listeners a taste of some of your new work. Did you bring along either Striking Out or Farm Team or the manuscript?

WILL WEAVER: I did indeed. And how about a paragraph from Striking Out that sets up our plot fairly well, I think. In most young adult novels, there is the matter of the character being perhaps an outsider or thinking of himself or herself as an outsider. And early on in Striking Out, I have this scene.

"On a hot Saturday, the first in August, Billy Baggs stood knee deep in a wagon load of corn and oats. It was his job, while his father drank coffee with the men in the feed mill office, to unload the wagon. With a scoop shovel, he pushed the ears of corn and the pale oats and made the grain pour yellow and white down through a square hole in the floor.

A shiny iron grate covered the hole, and below were large humming grinders that crushed the corn and oats into a fine white meal for his father's dairy cows. Billy tried to keep a steady avalanche of grain going, for the sooner he was finished, the sooner he could sit outside on the loading dock for a cross from the feed mill was the field where the town kids played baseball."

CATHERINE WINTER: So you set up in the first paragraph this push me, pull you that Billy Baggs is facing of being forced to work but desperately wanting to and being very talented at playing baseball.

WILL WEAVER: He is a pitcher, a phenom, you might say. And that's my story. Does he have to stay home and work on the farm or can he play baseball? In the sports novels, yes. But I think I like to have a-- I hope I have a good, meaty backstory behind them. So they're more than just play by play baseball action.

CATHERINE WINTER: Will Weaver, this went by awfully quickly. I sure thank you for coming in to read to us and to tell us about your new books. Will Weaver is the author of Red Earth, White Earth and his new series is a series of books about the farmboy baseball player Billy Baggs. The first books out are Striking Out and Farm Team. And do you have a name for the third yet, Will?

WILL WEAVER: The third one will be called Hard Grounder. And again, we'll see that in a few months.

CATHERINE WINTER: All right, thanks again for coming in.

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Yeah, I'm ready.

Mainstreet Radio's coverage of rural issues is supported by the Blandin foundation, providing leadership training through the Blandin community leadership program. And you're listening to a special live broadcast of Midmorning from Bemidji. I'm Catherine Winter. Coming up, we'll talk about hotdish and the great outdoors.

You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio. It's 0 degrees at the FM news station KNOW FM 91.1 Minneapolis Saint Paul. In the Twin Cities, the National Weather Service has issued a snow advisory for the Twin Cities this afternoon and tonight. Two to four inches are expected by tomorrow morning. And today's high should be around 15 degrees.

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And you're listening to a special Mainstreet Radio broadcast live from Bemidji. I'm Catherine Winter. We're broadcasting today from the Minnesota Public Radio studios in downtown Bemidji. Coming up, we'll take your questions about how to stop hiding from the cold, how to get out and enjoy winter. Two guests from Bemidji State University's outdoor program will answer your questions about dog sledding, winter camping, and cross-country skiing.

Also coming up, we'll talk with chef and cookbook author [? Hallee ?] [? Herren. ?] She lives in the nearby town of Walker and has just finished revising several sections of the Joy of Cooking, including the section on noodle dishes. So we'll talk about hot dishes and we'll talk about how to cook exciting dishes, if you live in a small town and your grocery store doesn't carry prosciutto and sun dried tomatoes. And of course, no visit to Bemidji would be complete without a discussion of the enormous statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Ox. All that's coming up after the news.

SPEAKER 2: The Senate today is taking up a bill--