Nose for News, By Sarah Stultz

We are finishing up work this week on our next issue of Albert Lea Magazine. It’s hard to believe it is already fall, and before we know it Christmas will be here.

This issue of the magazine is always a fun one, as we typically look at writing features about the holiday season, whether Thanksgiving or Christmas. This year is no different. One of our feature stories will be about Thanksgiving food traditions, highlighting Albert Lea’s own Gerry Vogt, founder of Mrs. Gerry’s Kitchen.

Another feature I’ve looked forward to showcasing for a long time is Cam and Tarrah Sather’s transformation of a former school bus into a tiny home on wheels.

The Sathers essentially gutted the bus and renovated it to include all of the amenities of modern-day living: a shower, toilet, washing machine, kitchen sink and an oven. The Sathers lived in the bus about two years, getting their electricity from solar panels. It was quite impressive to say the least for this HGTV-loving gal.

The Sathers recently purchased a home in Glenville and are using the same skills they used to renovate the school bus in their new home.

In this issue, you can also look forward to some changes in the appearance of the magazine. We are proud to say that we are updating the look of it, with new fonts and things like that, and we’re excited to see what you think. All of our regular departments in the magazine will be the same — we are still traveling to events and taking photos for our Seen pages and there are Things You Didn’t Know You Wanted, book reviews and beverage and recipe reviews, to name a few. The changes come in how those articles are presented.

The magazine will be out later this month around town and here at the Tribune office.

Aside from our magazine, we our gearing up for another great Progress edition, which we will kick off buildingwide later this month.

To give you a little tease of our theme this year, we are looking for people who are investing in the community — whether that’s through time, money or other means.

We have a lot of great people in this community who do many things without any hope of ever receiving recognition for their efforts.

I’d love to hear any suggestions for people you think might fit this theme who might be willing to be featured.

Sarah Stultz is the managing editor of the Albert Lea Tribune. Her column appears every Tuesday.