The Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council announced last week the State Arts and Cultural Heritage grants of $83,000 were awarded to eight arts organizations in the region with funds from the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment.
The grants are for arts activities in all artistic disciplines. A variety of activities including virtual events and in-person instrumental music concerts, theater performances, art classes and exhibitions are being funded.

The New Prague girls’ tennis team split a pair of matches last week.
The Trojans defeated Waconia, 7-0, Thursday, Sept. 10, and were defeated two days earlier by Holy Family, 5-2.
In the match with Waconia it only went to three sets in one of the seven individual matches.
“This was Waconia’s first year having a tennis team,” head coach Toby Thietje said. “Even though this was our first sweep, the New Prague girls had to learn to adapt to the way the Waconia girls were playing. It took some real patience adjusting to finish each match.”

The New Prague girls’s swim and dive team competed in two home meets last week.
On Tuesday, Sept. 8, the Trojans defeated Litchfield, 98-84, at the New Prague Aquatic Center.
Ninth-grader Ella Lund won the 200 IM by a landslide with a final time of 2:25.98.
Bailey Newman (2nd) and Jillian Wiechert (3rd) finalized a 1-2-3 finish with Newman getting a time of 2:38.60 and Weichert at 2:40.59 respectively.

Virginia A. Lucier Hoyt, age 86, of New Prague, died peacefully surrounded by her family on Thursday, September 17, 2020 at The Lutheran Home in Belle Plaine.  Virginia was born on April 2, 1934 in Fargo, North Dakota to Charles E. and Cora A.

Roger Lee Carlson, age 67, of Webster, died peacefully surrounded by his family after a short but heroic battle with cancer on Wednesday, September 16, 2020 at Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, MN. Roger was born on January 10, 1953 in Minneapolis, to Allan and Shirley (Turner) Carlson. He attended and graduated from Chaska High School and went on to attend the University of Minnesota Duluth and Hennepin Vo-tech.

Lillian A. Havlicek, 91, of New Prague, died peacefully, on Wednesday, September 16, 2020 at Mala Strana.
Lillian was born on January 7, 1929 to John and Bessie (Trcka) Flicek. She grew up on a Montgomery rural farm located by Cody Lake in Wheatland Township.  Lillian married Joseph J. Havlicek on November 4, 1947 in Lonsdale. Lillian and Joe lived on a farm by Lonsdale where they raised their daughter Linda.

New Prague area residents gather at Prchal’s Originals the evening of Wednesday, Sept. 16, during Nozinky in Memorial Park. The gathering of food trucks and entertainment held its first night with the celebration continuing tonight (Thursday, Sept. 17) with food trucks in Memorial Park open from 4-9 p.m. and music from Troy Flemming and Timothy Price. There will be virtual events through the New Prague Chamber of Commerce’s website and Facebook page. For more on those events check out the Nozinky special section in the Thursday, Sept. 17, issue of The New Prague Times.

UPDATED to include information on Celebration of Life
A celebration of life will be held Sunday, September 27 for Carol Freid, who passed away February 28, 2020. A visitation will be held at the Montgomery American Legion from 2 p.m. until 3 p.m. A service will be held at 3 p.m. Lunch will follow.

April Granneman, back right, Angela Helgeson and Jack, Luke and Matthew enjoy the Fire Rescue Day Parade as it goes by on Windrose Curve in Elko New Market on Saturday, Sept. 12. The parade of emergency vehicles and vehicles carrying the Lonsdale American Legion and the Lakeville High School Band, made its way through many of the neighborhoods, delighting area residents. For more see an upcoming print issue of The New Prague Times. (Patrick Fisher Photo)

To observe the 19th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the New Prague Fire Department was flying a US flag from its ladder truck on Friday, Sept. 11. (Photo courtesy of Jordan Stocker)

As we all know this entire year has been one where we’ve had to make changes and see people get creative due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We’ve especially been seeing how the pandemic has been affecting sports. For the professional sports it’s meant stadiums of very few if any fans. High school sports has been vastly different.

New Prague Area Schools began its hybrid learning classes for the school year of 2020-21 on Thursday, Sept. 3, with half of their 4,103 students showing up as part of the program. The other half of the kindergarten through 12th grade students came to classes on Friday, Sept. 4. On both days the students who weren’t in school were participating in distance learning. NPAS’ program is due to changes brought from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The New Prague boys’ and girls’ soccer teams did not allow a goal in sweeping Tri City United Tusday, Sept. 1 in New Prague.
The Trojan boys defeated the Titans, 8-0.
The Trojan girls defeated the Titans, 7-0.
More on these wins in next week’s edition of The Times.
Both teams have a busy upcoming week. They will play at Delano Thursday, Sept. 10, play at....
To see more on this story pick up the September 10, 2020 print edition of The New Prague Times.

A public hearing was held Tuesday, Sept. 1 at the Le Sueur County Board Room to make a decision regarding the auditor/treasurer position.
The board notified the public of their intent to make this position an appointed position last month.
After publishing their intent in the legal county newspaper, a public hearing needed to be held.
There were neither written comments nor public comment during the meeting.
The board approved the resolution which will make the county auditor/ treasurer position an appointed position. This will take effect Oct. 2, 2020.

St. Patrick won three games this past weekend before dropping their final game of the Class C State Tournament Monday, Sept. 7.
The Irish had their best finish in team history, finishing second in the tournament, losing only one game to Fairmont, 12-0 in seven innings at Springfield.
Union Hill also advanced to the final weekend of play, but were defeated by Young America, 6-0 Saturday, Sept. 5.
Here is a look at the St. Patrick and Union Hill games, courtesy of mnbaseball.org.
Young America 6, Union Hill 0