Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories. [Ed. note: But today, instead, our award-winning journalists are telling you about their stories! Click here to see the full list of 2026 MN SPJ Page One Awards winners.]
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Jay Boller
First place in Profile Reporting for “Meet Minnesota’s Rocketman: Inside the Incomparable Life of Ky Michaelson”
Strong reporting requires some combination of hard work and talent, though we shouldn't overlook an important third element: towniness. I've lived in south Minneapolis my entire life, save for four years spent on or near the University of Minnesota campus. As such, my townie instincts are honed to frightening levels of provinciality, an asset (yes, asset!) that allows for stories like this Ky Michaelson profile to bubble in the back of my mind for literal decades. I grew up noticing the Rocketman's outrageous Bloomington compound while zipping up or down Penn Avenue, always wondering: What the hell's going on with that place?
A lot, it turns out. Ky is a true eccentric who has lived more lives than just about anybody—drag racer, stuntman, inventor, businessman, and rocketeer. His jaw-dropping home is his self-styled shrine to himself, and he was generous enough to spend an afternoon showing me around while spinning endless yarns, many of which sounded like tall tales but, to Ky's credit, he reliably flashed receipts. Shoutout to our photographer, Lucy Hawthorne, for bringing those essential visuals to life via beautiful photography. And shoutout to me for that grabby lede! Good stuff, I gotta say. (I'm happy to report Ky is still alive and well.)
Judge's comments:
The profile immediately drew the reader into Ky Michaelson’s life through a firsthand account of his home. The story had relevant and interesting detail and the timeline of Michaelson’s life was organized. It was well-written, well-researched and every question was answered. An impressive blend of fact and imagery. This story will stick with people long after they’ve read it.
Em Cassel
Second place in Health/Medical News Reporting for “Meet the Volunteer Pilots Flying Patients From Red States to Reproductive Care”
I hadn't heard of Elevated Access, a nonprofit network of volunteer pilots who fly folks seeking reproductive or gender-affirming care across the country, until Racket's preeminent glass block ranker and old camera tester Kyle Nelson tipped me off to the org. His friend Andy, who started flying for Elevated Access around the time Roe v. Wade was overturned, met me at a small municipal airport in the suburbs and answered my questions during an early morning flight.
Pilots are a pretty politically conservative bunch, as I'd learn, but there are those like Andy and E., another MN-based pilot who spoke with me, who fly in part because of the unrivaled sense of freedom it provides. They want everyone to have that kind of freedom, in all areas of life, and they're willing to donate their time and resources to ensure that's the case. This was a story that made me very frustrated about our dumb country (ideally, no one would have to do this) and grateful (because some people are willing to do this).
Also, Andy let me briefly fly his Cessna. I'm not good at it!
Third place in Arts & Entertainment Reporting for “Fork Over A Few Quarters and Take Home a Mini Masterpiece From These Art Vending Machines”
Nothing thrills me like when I see a trend developing and realize no other local journalist has seized on it yet. Such was the case last summer when I started to notice mini art vending machines popping up all over the Twin Cities: Bench Pressed in Seward, France 44 in Linden Hills, The Spare Change Gallery on Lake Street, and even Duluth (Northern Waters Smokehaus) and St. Joseph (Bruno Press).
The story gave me a chance to talk with people like Caitlin Warner, who distributed art via vending machine all the way back in 2012, and Nancy Ariza of Amilado Press, who was just getting ready to debut a new mini-print vending machine featuring work by Latinx artists. I'm a sucker for vintage shit and all things analog, which made this a super fun-to-report piece for me. But I think it also touched on really important issues of art, accessibility, and affordability. What's cooler than getting an original print, made by a local artist, for just a few quarters?
Jay Boller & Em Cassel
First place in Local Politics/Government Reporting for “‘Call It the Clown Car’: An Oral History of Minneapolis’s 35-Candidate 2013 Mayoral Election”
A sprawling, over-sourced oral history on a hyper-local bit of lore? Sounds like a Racket story. This one would've been fine with just the sources we interviewed late last summer, but it's the archive digging—33 quotes from old news clips!—that really transports readers back to 2013, which, as you learn, turned out to be a historic hinge point in Minneapolis politics. If nothing else, it's nice to check in on Captain Jack Sparrow.
Judge's comments:
An unconventional approach to recapping an unconventional election, complete with a colorful cast of characters.
Keith Harris
Second place in A&E/Culture Criticism/Reviews for “Racket Music Criticism” (click each word for links to three reviews)
Third place in Feature Reporting for “How the Eagles #34 Mixes Punk, Pulltabs, and Social Club Tradition”
[Ed. note: Keith is out of the office this week and unavailable for quippy commentary on his wins.]
Lily Osler
Second place in Arts & Entertainment Reporting for “A Chronic Hater Attempts to Enjoy the Minnesota Renaissance Festival”
I first went to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival in 2024 as a favor to my little sister, who's always been more elf-positive than me. I wound up finding it not just unpleasant but somewhat baffling: I could only murkily understand why someone would find it fun, even as I knew that my low tolerance for smelly, crowded environments was probably coloring my judgment. Was this an empathy gap I could overcome through careful preparation and, say, the constraints of stunt journalism? Or was I doomed to forever find the Ren Fest kind of awful? A year later, out of grad school and trying to hack it as a freelancer, I figured I'd find out.
As a newbie culture journalist, I'm sort of flabbergasted to have won this award, and I know I absolutely could not have done it alone. In reporting (well, "reporting") this piece, I was very lucky to have my sister, my wife, and a close friend on hand to help me get through what turned out to be a trying day at the faire. They kept my spirits up, reminded me to stay hydrated, and—in the case of my sister—offered a helpful counterpoint to my grouchiness. I'm also immensely grateful to my editors at Racket for being willing to give this silly piece a home and editorial guidance that made it much stronger than the baggy draft I initially turned in! Thank you guys!
Ian Ringgenberg
First place in Feature Reporting for “What’s the Deal With Paul Bunyan?”
I had originally hoped to write this story as a travel piece—I thought driving around Minnesota checking out Paul Bunyan stuff would make for a fun weekend trip. I even toyed with trying my hand at a listicle, reviewing or ranking the Paul Bunyan statues in Minnesota with wry commentary. Ultimately, there are only so many funny ways you can critique a fiberglass roadside sculpture and the history and scholarship around Paul Bunyan folklore turned out to be far more interesting than I would have guessed. The final piece turned out to be much more of a spiritual successor to my previous Racket features—"What's the Deal with Winnipeg?" and "What's the Deal With St. Paul?"—than I had originally intended, hence the title. Both of those prior pieces received a big response upon publication, and both made the Racket list of most-read stories for their years. Though I was perhaps proudest of my work on the Paul Bunyan piece, I'm not sure it found an immediate audience in the same way.
In the 14 months since publication, I've now had two unexpected experiences as a result of "What's the Deal with Paul Bunyan?" First, last fall I was the keynote speaker at the Paul Bunyan Scenic Byway Association's annual meeting in Pequot Lakes, Minnesota. I had never keynote-spoken before, and it was a real honor to talk about the story in front of an audience who grew up in the shadow of Bunyan statues. I spoke to one elderly gentleman who had worked at Paul Bunyan Land as a teen, long before I was born. Then last night, I was honored to receive this award from the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists—surprising, both because I am not a professional journalist and Racket didn't tell me they were nominating me until I received an email alerting me that I was a finalist! In all earnestness, I'm very grateful to my buds at Racket for taking a swing on a third-rate Twitter poster, and how their editing and encouragement has helped me grow as a writer over these past five years.
Judge's comments:
The story pulls people in, especially if they are from the Midwest and are familiar with the folklore of Paul Bunyan. Even if they are not, the story gives a thoughtful history of Bunyan’s origins and the article is formatted into organized topics with subheads. The road trip stops to Paul Bunyan sites were interesting and humorous, putting the reader in the world with the reporter. It was well-researched. The ending brought the idea of a folklore figure into a broader context in today’s world where these ties to a time period or place are not nearly as popular.
Seth Richardson
Second place in Business Feature Reporting for “Goodbye to Palmer’s: A Requiem for Minneapolis’s Weirdest and Wonderfullest Bar”
I would like to pretend there was some kind of magic that went into telling this story, but the truth is it was a case of right place, right time. Or, more accurately, the wrong time since it hinged on Palmer’s closing. I set out to show the bar I and so many others called their own for the living, breathing character it was. Hopefully, the staff and regulars are doing well and Palmer’s closure can serve as a warning to everyone about what we lose when we take places like it for granted.
