News

As the Swift County-Benson Hospital governing board moves forward with redesigning the facility to offer a broad range of healthcare services, including memory care, it has retained national leader in medical facility design and planning HGA of Minneapolis.

Last week, HGA staff were in Benson working with SCBH personnel to get their input on what they saw as the best way to design a facility to meet the needs of those coming through the door. That person might need to be hospitalized, need physical therapy, need radiology services, be visiting someone who is hospitalized, need counseling, chemotherapy, or another of the broad range of services SCBH offers....

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Benson set a record temperature Thursday when the low only fell to 36 degrees. The previous high low temperature was 29 degrees set Dec. 10, 1979. The average low for Dec. 10 is 10 degrees and the record low for the date is a minus 22 degrees set in 1955.

Thursday’s high was 48 degrees, but that was 3 degrees short of the record high temperature for Dec. 10 of 51 degrees set in 2001. The average high for the date is 26 degrees.

The day dawned with rain, mild winds gusting to 16 mph out of the northwest and the temperature at 39 degrees. But the skies cleared around noon and the temperatures began to warm. Friday's forecast was for a high of 36 degrees, which was hit shortly after midnight, and a low of 29 degrees.

The Legislature’s Prison Population Task Force toured the Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton Tuesday, Nov. 24, to see first-hand what it had to offer. The task force is studying options to address the state’s growing prison population problem. Leasing the prison in Appleton is one of the options being discussed. Above, Co-Chair Rep. Tony Cornish talks with Prairie Correcitonal Facility Warden Tom Kessler.

The Blue Stem Dental (formerly Benson Family Dental) annual Turkey Trot took off at 8 a.m. Thursday morning with runners,and walkers, donating funds and food for the Swift County Food Shelf.

Swift County and Federated Telephone Cooperative have received the highest award in this year’s latest round of funding for expansion of broadband services in Minnesota.

Friday the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) announced that Federated and Swift County had been awarded $4.95 million.

The project will deliver high-speed Internet service to 600 households, 425 businesses and 75 community institutions, DEED said.  The project affects 13 of the county’s 21 townships concentrated on area just east of the Benson city limits.

The area in Swift County included in the project is most of each of the following townships in the eastern half of the county: Kerkhoven, Hayes, Pillsbury, Dublin, Kildare, Camp Lake, Benson, Torning, Cashel, Swenoda, Six Mile Grove and Clontarf.

Benson’s City Council approved spending $34,770 to purchase a columbarium for the city cemetery. It will have to spend another $7,000 or more for sidewalks, a crane to unload the columbarium and other work around it when it is installed.

A columbarium, most of which are constructed of granite, is designed to hold the ashes of people who have been cremated.

Last year, the council set aside $40,000 in its 2015 budget for the purchase of a columbarium and associated work. It then tasked its cemetery committee to study columbariums and possible sites in the city cemetery where one could be located. Monday night the committee brought its recommendation to the council....

At approximately 3:28 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 17, the Swift County Sheriff's Office received a 911 call of a vehicle in the ditch south of DeGraff on 70th St SE. 

The driver of vehicle, identified as Robert Grussing, 59, of DeGraff, had apparently died at the scene. 

It appeared from the investigation that the pickup was traveling northbound on Swift County Road 31.  His vehicle then apparently went into the southbound lane and into the ditch hitting 70th St. SE coming to a rest in a drainage ditch on the north side the road.  The cause of death is still under investigation. 

There were no other vehicles involved or any other people in the vehicle. Grussing was transported to the Ramsey Medical Examiners for an autopsy.  Responding agencies were Swift County Sheriff's Office, Murdock Fire, Murdock First Responders, Kerkhoven Fire and Rescue and Kerkhoven Ambulance. 

As Benson-based Heartland Girls’ Ranch expands its operation focusing even more on helping young girls who have been sexually trafficked, it is making changes to its management team.

A significant step in that change took place Oct. 26 when it brought on Les Heitke to serve as the new executive officer and clinical director.

Heitke is a clinical psychologist with over 30 years of experience in private practice and has served with both Woodland Centers in Willmar and Project Turnabout in Granite Falls.  He was Willmar’s mayor for 16 years.      

The addition of Heitke as CEO and clinical director finalizes a restructuring period aimed at increasing the availability of mental health services on the HGR campus, Donita Ascheman, chair of the HGR board of directors, said.

“We are excited about the additional mental health services we can provide to our girls with Les heading up the leadership team,” she said....

A year ago today Benson was digging out from nearly 15 inches of snow that fell as a winter storm passed through western Minnesota Nov. 9 and 10. The high Nov. 11, 2014, set a record low reaching only 21 degrees.
November 2014 would enter the record books as the second snowiest with 17.2 inches of snow and the second coldest. Seven times during the month the temperature fell below zero including a minus 13 low Nov. 27.
What a sharp contrast in the November’s weather so far in 2015....
 

Benson High School is set to present “Bye Bye Birdie” this Friday through Sunday in the Junior High Auditorium.  Cast and crew went through a dress rehearsal, Sunday night.  Above, two of the main characters, Rose Alvarez (played by Elizabeth Langan), and Albert Peterson (played by Dylan McNeill), come up with a great idea to turn their fortunes around, but it will also turn the entire community of Sweet Apple, Ohio, around.