Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of what local media outlets and Twitter-ers are gabbing about.
Large Buck Skull to Set Record
As Jesse Schroeder hunted his brother’s 32-acre Goodhue County farm this past April for fallen antlers, he knew he spotted something special laying on the chilly dirt. “I’ve picked up some nice sheds there over the years, but nothing that came anywhere close to this,” he told Field & Stream. “I spotted the tines and walked toward then, and then I saw stuff sticking everywhere and my walk turned into a quick little sprint, followed by a high-school-girl scream when I kneeled by the buck. My shed hunting was definitely done for that day!”
The find, a 277-⅜-inch “deadhead” deer skull, will almost certainly shatter the 268-⅝-inch state record set 49 years ago, F&S reports. In fact, once the measurement professionals at the Boone & Crockett Club finalize their findings, the rack is expected to become the 25th largest all-time in the nontypical whitetails category, which includes deer domes that were acquired via hunting or scavenging. The buck was skeletal when Schroeder found it, offering few clues to its death, but neighbors were apparently quite familiar with it in life. “A friend of mine was hunting the property one afternoon and told me he saw a buck that looked like it had a tree on its head,” Schroeder says. The soon-to-be record acquirer hopes his bony trophy will remind folks “what an amazing buck he was.”
Weed Like That $$$
Despite the recent legalization of marijuana in Minnesota, retail sales of that funky little plant aren't likely to start until January of 2025. But when they do? Hoo boy, that's gonna be a lot of dough. The Star Tribune's Brooks Johnson and Ryan Faircloth report today that sales are likely to hit $550 million that first year, soaring to $1.54 billion by 2029. That's according to data from cannabis law firm Vicente LLP, which says those figures follow the patterns they've seen in other states. Vincente's study also found that roughly 650,000 Minnesotans, or 15% of the population, will use cannabis in a given month; another 40,000 border-county residents are expected to visit MN dispensaries for their own weed needs, along with thousands of tourists. Hm, as lucrative as boutique journalism has been, perhaps Racket gets into the weed biz...
Police Report: Hundreds of Kids Are Roaming Around Parks, Hanging Out
Over in Brooklyn Park, kids have been taking loitering to epic levels. Police in the area say they keep having to break up roaming crowds of 150-200 kids, and when they do, the herds of youngsters often just pop up somewhere else a few hours later. The latest incident: After receiving a tip on Monday, cops learned that hordes of children were hanging out at Elk Creek Reserve in Maple Grove, but word on the street was that they planning to make their way to Noble Sports Park and a Kwik Trip in Brooklyn Park next. When police closed the park, the herd made their way to the nearby Central Park. This is the third time police have been called to break up large groups of children in the area. So, what are these crowds of kids doing? It sounds like they were mostly hanging, though cops have stated that fights have broken out in these situations.
Northrop Rolls Out 2023-24 Lineup
With its roof fortified, Northrop at the University of Minnesota is ready for a new, collapse-free year of onstage programming. The 2023-'24 lineup dropped earlier today, and it features an impressively curated Dance Series featuring standouts like Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Alonzo King LINES Ballet, and Shamel Pitts | TRIBE. Elsewhere, the Music Series will bring celebrated jazz/gospel organist Alcée Chriss III and the Film Series has Manual Cinema's inventive Ada/Ava. Special events include the U's marching band taking the show indoors as well as the Spring Cocktail Party with 10,000 Dreams: A Celebration of Asian Choreography. Click here for the full, expansive itinerary of events plus ticket info.
