Tri-City United schools will be closed on Thursday, Feb. 7. According to Superindent Teri Preisler, the day will be a blended learning day and teachers will have assignments posted by 10 a.m. Preisler closed school due to weather.

Shopko announced Wednesday, Feb. 6, that it was closing 174 additional stores following its recent bankruptcy filing, and that includes the Shopko Hometown store in New Prague.
When all is finished, the company will have just 109 stores, compared to the current total of 360.
A list published Wednesday includes stores closing in six phases, some as early as March 2. This includes stores that were announced to close last month. Fifteen stores in Minnesota are on the list. The New Prague store is in the sixth phase, and its estimated last day of operation is May 12.

The first baby in Montgomery for 2019 is Klaira Marie O’Neill. She was born to Cora O’Neill of Montgomery and Daniel Corral of Le Center. Klaira was born on January 29, 2019, at Mayo Clinic Health System Hospital in New Prague.
Because Klaira’s family was the first family to contact the Messenger office with the news, she is the New Year’s Baby. Little Klaira and her parents will receive all of the prizes donated by area businesses, which can be found on page 2 of this week’s printed edition.

Tri-City United junior Brandon Balma was named a recipient of the 2019 Minnesota State High School League ExCEL Award.
ExCEL - Excellence in Community, Education and Leadership - is a recognition program designed exclusively for Minnesota high school juniors who are active in school activities, who show leadership qualities, and who work voluntarily in their community.
Balma is the third Tri-City United recipient of the award. Lizzie Christian won it last year, and Erin Budin won in 2015.

Kucera, Robert C. , age 93 of Bloomington, MN, passed away peacefully January 30, 2019. Robert was born April 7, 1925 in Montgomery, Minnesota. He attended the Immaculate Conception High School in Lonsdale and then pursued undergraduate studies at the College of St. Thomas where he received degrees in business administration and economics in 1948.  Bob continued his education at the St. Paul College of Law graduating in 1952. He served three years in the U.S. Air Force during World War II including service in Guam and the Philippines.

Police Chief Lou Sager has submitted his resignation as Police Chief for the City of Montgomery effective February 16, 2019, after serving in the position for just over a year.
The announcement came from City Administrator Brian Heck in an email to the Messenger.
According to Heck, Sager’s resignation and the change in department leadership will not affect the current delivery of service provided by the department.

Harry Dietz, age 96, of New Prague, died peacefully on Sunday, February 3, 2019 at Mala Strana Rehabilitation Center. Harry was born on January 30, 1923 in Lanesburgh Township, Le Sueur County, Minnesota to Frank J. and Rose (Panek) Dietz. He graduated from New Prague High School. In his early years he worked at the mill in Montgomery and as a mechanic for Jimmy Rutt’s garage. He married Leota Busta on October 15, 1945. He spent his life as a farmer, who valued conservation of both the soil in his farming practices and wildlife.

Tri-City United High School crowned its SnoBall King and Queen at its dance on Saturday. Crowned King was Thomas Budin. Crowned Queen was Destiny Dunagan. Due to the extreme temperatures and school closings this week, the high school's SnoWeek activities were moved to next week. (Wade Young photo)

Celeste T. Preble, 87, of Lonsdale, passed away on Friday, February 1, 2019 at the Villages of Lonsdale. Visitation will be Friday, February 8 from 10am to 11am at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Montgomery with Mass of Christian Burial following at 11am with Father Victor Valencia officiating. Interment will be held in Calvary Cemetery in Montgomery. In lieu of flowers, memorials preferred to Moments Hospice.

The TCU boys’ basketball team dropped a conference game to the Belle Plaine Tigers with a score of 49-56 on Tuesday in Belle Plaine.
Titan Coach Austin Pinke said his team got down early, going into the half with a 19-33 deficit. However, after the break, the Titans rebounded scoring 30 points to the Tigers’ 23 points. But it wasn’t enough to make up for the first half’s loss.
“We did not hang our heads,” Pinke stated. “We climbed back in the second half to take a three-point lead but couldn’t hang on. It was great effort from the boys!”

After a week off from shutting out Fairmont, the Minnesota River Bulldog Hockey Team was back on the ice Tuesday, Jan. 22. Their hustle from the gate helped propel them to a 6-4 victory over the New Ulm Eagles and a 9-1 win over Austin on Saturday, Jan. 26.
“We did a great job of coming out of the gate fast. We had some great hustle plays that turned into goals early,” said Bulldog Coach Shea Roehrkasse of the game against New Ulm.

Five wrestlers from the TCU team went undefeated at the Minnesota River Conference Tournament last weekend in Arlington.
Nick Johnson (120 pounds), Caleb Whipps (126), Tyler Schroer (182) Sam Miller (195) and Jose Reyes (220) defeated their opponents.
In Johnson’s matches, the grappler defeated two opponents with pins in the first and third matches in 4:49 and 1:07. In his second match against a wrestler from Norwood Young America (NYA), Johnson won with a 16-1 technical fall.

Tri-City United High School’s One Act advanced to Section Competition after placing second in last week’s Subsections in Jordan. Belle Plaine placed first.
Section competition will be held on Saturday in St. Peter High School and will see Belle Plaine again, as well as Maple River, NRHEG, St. Peter, Mankato Loyola, Mountain Lake and Martin County West schools who also placed in their subsections. TCU competes at 2 p.m. It is open to the public.
Only the first place show gets advanced to the state tournament Thursday and Friday, February 8 and 9 at St. Catherine University.

Staff writer and columnist Lisa Ingebrand, who works for the Lake Region Life, Elysian Enterprise, and the Montgomery Messenger, was honored for her writing during the 2019 Minnesota Newspaper Association’s (MNA) Annual Convention on January 24 in Bloomington. Ingebrand earned third place honors for her work as a writer in the Arts and Entertainment category among weeklies with up to 1,500 in circulation. This was her tenth MNA Award in 15 years with the local newspapers.

The Tri-City United Titans hosted two dual meets last week at TCU High School and dominated in all of them.
Coach Brian Mikel said the wins were against some good schools and that it put the Titans’ record at 16-3.

Tri-City United schools will be closed tomorrow, Thursday, Jan 31st due to cold weather & bus transportation concerns. Our bus company has been closely monitoring our fleet and reports that the cold weather is causing concerns about reliable bus transportation.
Preschool will be closed.
TCU noted the following: This is a highly unusual situations and so we will provide Kidzone on Thursday, January 31st from 8:30 a.m.—4:30 p.m. for all registered families.
Varsity/Bsquad Activities will still take place, but no Jr. High.