Editorial: Thumbs

To race car driver Kurt Busch and NASCAR.

It will be great to see the name of local son and fallen hero Corey Goodnature on the side of Busch’s No. 78 Furniture Row Chevy during the Sprint Cup competition at the Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan. The loss of the Clarks Grove native to the War in Afghanistan has been hard on his family and the entire community. It will be heartwarming to see his name on a NASCAR race car on April 21, as the stock car racing association honors men and woman who died in recent wars. The race will be shown on Fox and starts at noon.

 

To the weather forecast.

Indeed, spring is a volatile season, and it can offer calm, summery weather one day and windy, wintry weather the next. So after a long winter, Minnesotans are ready for a break. Albert Lea has had snow cover since Dec. 20. We are approaching the four-month mark. We keep hoping each snowstorm is the last, and that’s it. However — and here is why the thumbs down is deserved — the long-term forecast says more snow could be coming. There is a 50 percent chance of snow for Wednesday night and for Thursday, according to Weather Underground and the National Weather Service. Sigh.

 

To the House Capital Investments Committee.

By placing $2 million in the bonding bill for the Blazing Star Trail, it means legislators are planning ahead for the next segment. That’s good. Locals and tourists alike have been frustrated at the slow pace the trail has taken just to begin construction on the present phase, which is scheduled for next winter or spring. The existing paved trail from Albert Lea to Myre-Big Island State Park was completed 10 years ago, and the initial funding for the Myre-Big Island State Park-to-Hayward phase was appropriated eight years ago. That’s a lot of tourism revenue that Hayward missed out on. Let’s hope that the funds for the next phase — heading eastward from Hayward — remains in the finished bonding bill so that the next segment doesn’t take another decade to complete.