Tracy Briggs

3 days ago | inforum.com | Tracy Briggs

Have you seen that question going around social media — asking who should be on the Mount Rushmore of your state? It’s a fun thought exercise. Minnesotans tossed out the names you’d expect. Bob Dylan and Prince led the pack. But a few names surprised me. I consider myself reasonably pop-culture savvy, but I didn’t know football great John Madden was born in Minnesota. Turns out he moved away from Austin as a child, so in my book, he’s more of a Minnesota cameo than a carving candidate.

1 week ago | inforum.com | Tracy Briggs

Have you ever been Wally Pipped? Not sure how to answer that? I wasn’t either — until about 30 years ago, when I worked at WDAY-TV alongside a delightful guy named Brian Walz. He was one of those people who made friends everywhere he went, including as he strolled through the newsroom on any given night to pick up scripts or just to say hi. It was Brian who introduced me to the name Wally Pipp — or more accurately, what it meant to be Wally Pipped.

2 weeks ago | inforum.com | Tracy Briggs

It’s been an emotional few months for the Catholic Church, most recently with the installation of a new pope, but the intensity began earlier this year as Pope Francis' health began to fail. As he declined, most of his devoted followers could only offer prayers from afar. But that wasn’t the case 62 years ago during the death of Pope John XXIII, when a Fargo priest was in the room during — or just after — the pontiff’s final moments.

2 weeks ago | inforum.com | Tracy Briggs

It’s funny how an image of someone from long ago can pop into your head in the blink of an eye. In this case, it was a little boy named Orvell Poulsen. He came to mind the other day when I heard the news that North Dakota had become the 11th state to experience a measles outbreak in 2025. An outbreak is defined as three or more related cases. According to the Centers for Disease Control, measles cases in the U.S. have surpassed 1,000 — something that’s happened only twice in the last 30 years.

3 weeks ago | inforum.com | Tracy Briggs

ROME — You could call it “Lucky 13.”Concordia College history professor Vince Arnold has led a study abroad trip to Italy and Germany for 12 years as part of a May seminar called “The Twin Faces of Fascism.” The course explores the continuity between Benito Mussolini's and Adolf Hitler's regimes. Students visit historic landmarks and present research papers on related topics. They will do the same this year — but this 13th trip also came with a well-timed, lucky and remarkable twist.