Meet the Blanket Lady, a Gophers Basketball Superfan Who Blazed Trails for Women’s Hoops

Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.

We Love You, Blanket Lady

Your Minnesota Golden Gophers women's basketball team is grabbing headlines for their thrilling performance in the NCAA Tournament, including Sunday night's buzzer-beater 65-63 finish over Mississippi; the Gophs are headed to the Sweet 16 for the first time in 21 years.

A certain superfan known as "Blanket Lady" is also getting props. The Athletic's Eden Laase has the story of 81-year-old Elvera “Peps” Neuman, a blanket-hoisting presence inside The Barn since 2006. She's blowing up online today because of her irrepressible fandom, but Laase lets readers know she's also a women’s basketball pioneer.

Growing up in Stearns county, Neuman didn't have an outlet for her hoops passion—Eden Valley hadn't created a team yet. “Not to brag,” she tells The Athletic, “but I was better than most of the boys anyway.” So in the 1960s Neuman joined the Texas Cowgirls barnstorming team, and would later form her own, the Arkansas Gems. She hooped rigorously until she was 44, often 140 games per season, and hasn't missed a Gophers home game since 2004.

“I get more attention from being the Blanket Lady than I ever did from playing basketball,” Neuman says. “That might upset some people, to not get the attention, or the money, but I’m just the opposite. I’m pulling for these girls at 200 percent.”

You can bet your blanket she'll be rooting hard when the Gophs take on either UCLA or Oklahoma State this Friday in Sacramento, California.

St. Louis County Seeks $1.7M to Handle FREAKING BONES APPEARING IN LAKE SUPERIOR

Emphasis ours, but man, what a freaky story! Scandia Cemetery, a Duluth graveyard with headstones dating back to the 1880s, is dealing with erosion caused by Lake Superior. So much so that in 2024, a family visiting nearby Glensheen Mansion encountered human bones that had washed away from the cemetery. Stribber Christa Lawler reports that bones are even popping up, zombie-like (simile choice ours), from the dirt.

The bone-containment fix won't be cheap. County officials are requesting $1.7 million from the state to protect 300 feet of Scandia shoreline; an additional $600,000 will be required on top of that. “We recognized that the private cemetery doesn’t have the financial means and somebody’s got to do something,” says Rachel Gregg, an engineer with County Public Works. “We view it as an ethical and environmental dilemma.”

Local Radio Legend Tom Barnard Diagnosed With Alzheimer’s Disease

Friday's episode of Tom Barnard Podcast included a bombshell: Its Radio Hall of Fame host—a ratings powerhouse and controversy magnet for 37 years at KQRS—has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

“I was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, which is not generally good news,” Barnard told listeners, according to Dustin Nelson of Bring Me the News. “But mine is getting better little by little.”

Barnard got bounced from KQ in 2022. Post-terrestrial radio life was choppy even before his health began failing. “Tom got fired, he got into a bit of a depression, and a lot of things were happening with investments that we made,” Kathryn Brandt, Barnard's wife/podcast cohost said during Friday's pod episode, with her husband clarifying that friends had been stealing money from them.

Barnard, 74, says he's “self-sufficient for the most part." His Alzheimer's treatments have gone so well, he says, that he's been invited to President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate to talk about 'em. And that's a natural segue to satisfy antsy Racket readers and point out that, yes, Barnard has said countless vile, hateful things on air over the years.

Zillow Gone Wild Does Duluth

Well, the Zillow Gone Wild account proper didn't showcase 5781 S. Pike Lake Rd. in Duluth, but someone posting to the subreddit unearthed a locally angled doozy: The massive $2.7 million lakeside compound that once belonged to Luigino "Jeno" Francesco Paulucci. (We checked county records and confirmed the 6-acre property belongs his estate.)

Aggressively Italian-American name doesn't jump out to you? Paulucci was the Iron Range biz tycoon who founded Bellisio Foods (frozen Italian) and Chun King (canned Chinese). Elements of his time-capsule homes—main, guest, boathouse apartment—will absolutely jump out, like the "pool wing," indoor tennis facility ("adaptable for pickleball"), and some of the greenest carpet ever dreamt up by mid-century carpet scientists.

After Paulucci's 2011 death, a legal battle erupted over his $100 million estate. We're guessing the sale of this house has something to do with that.