In 1967, our family of six moved from North Dakota to northern Minnesota where my dad took a job as Dean of Instruction at “Hibbing State Junior College” (now branded “Hibbing Community College [HCC]”). The college began in North Hibbing in 1916 when eleven students attended the first and only course offered at “Hibbing Junior College”. At the beginning of my dad’s tenure, the college occupied the west wing of Hibbing High School. This position was the core of Dad’s professional career which, among other things, resulted in his four sons graduating from Hibbing High School. (Ok. Hibbing. Bob Dylan [Zimmerman]. A few things don’t perhaps make it into the copious literature concerning the Bard of 25th Street. Here’s a few. My dad told me that one morning at coffee, Principal Peterson qualified his unceremonious curtailing of Bob’s performance rocking the piano in the glamorous HHS auditorium.“I’d just gotten it tuned”, Peterson stated, which was apparently in conflict with what I gather was some Little Richard-inspired verve at said piano. Another fun fact is that my dad was friends with B.J. Rolfzen, an English instructor at HCC, before that at Hibbing High, where history records that he enhanced Mr. Zimmerman’s education in the world of literature. Dad said that on at least one occasion Dylan’s Lear jet landed at Hibbing airport whereby Rolfzen was invited by the seemingly grateful Dylan to come spend some available time together. Me, I could tell much less functional tales, such as once sauntering into Charlie Miller’s homeroom to retrieve my 0.67 gpa report card. Look for my album ‘Academic Douchebag’ on … well … it’s currently unavailable. But the Dylan bit is coming to a close. I got off the tracks.)
What this started out to say is that, having just returned from an impactful one week sojourn across the Mesabi Iron Range, I tuned in to the Grand Rapids community radio station KAXE whereupon I listened to an episode of “Power in the Wilderness,” a public radio podcast serial that asks: “Corporations or people? Who has the power?” The program is very good; especially, if like me, you wonder what in the world makes up the often gritty, sort of exceptional milieu that is Hibbing Minnesota:
https://www.powerinthewilderness.com/
Island Notes 