This is the week that I have looked forward to each and every year for like 40 years or more.

It is the week of the Minnesota Newspaper Association’s Annual Convention. This convention has been going on annually for more than 150 years. That is a pretty impressive record.

Nearly every newspaper in the state of Minnesota is a member of the MNA – and maybe now every newspaper is a member. Not every state can boast that kind of participation.

Minnesota also gets more participation at its annual convention than pretty much any other state does. Even California and Texas don’t have as large a convention as Minnesota.

It might be the number of learning sessions and the quality of the presenters. Maybe it is the top notch speakers at the lunches.

But I think it is the Minnesota style of comraderie that is the main attraction. At least it is for me.

Oh, there have been some high-powered speakers at the convention over the years.

The first one I ever went to, back in the early 1970s, had vice president Spiro Agnew as a speaker. In case you don’t remember him, he is the one who had this to say about the media – “In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism.”

Granted he was referring to nightly newscasters and not newspapers, but you get the idea he didn’t care for the press much.

Several other vice presidents including Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale, U.S. senators such as Amy Klobuchar and Paul Wellstone, and famous Minnesotans like Garrison Keillor and P.J. Fleck, have all been speakers at the convention over the years.

And there are so many others I could not begin to list them all.

This year it is Minnesota Twins president and CEO Dave St. Peter and former Twin Dan Gladden, as well as KARE-11 storyteller Boyd Huppert.

Of course, the best thing about the convention for me, personally, is just visiting with people I have met over the years – my fellow newspaper friends I don’t see very often.

This year I am more excited than usual to head to the convention. Why? Because I have missed the last couple of ones.

The one in 2021 was cancelled for everyone because of COVID, and the one last year, in January of 2022, was cancelled for me, personally, because I had the COVID.

I was not the only one who missed the convention last year. Due both to the fear of getting COVID, and because a lot of people like me actually had COVID, attendance was way down.

Even some of the MNA board members were not there.

Missing the convention last year was a disappointment for me, but there was an event at the convention (in fact it happens a few hours after the convention is officially over and has closed down) that I really hated to miss.

It is called the Past Presidents Dinner. It is for all the past presidents of the newspaper association, their spouses, current association board members and some staff.

It is one of two times each year that the members of the Past Presidents Club get together. The only membership requirement into this club is that you must have served as a president of the Minnesota Newspaper Association.

Since I served as the president of the MNA in 1998 and became a past president of the organization at the convention in 1999, that means I have been a member of this rather exclusive group for 24 years. And that it has been 24 years since I served on the MNA board. Yikes!

It seems like only yesterday that I was president and emceeing the 1999 convention and introducing our guest speaker, newly elected Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura.

All of the young folks out there are probably saying “Who?”

I have told the story of me and Jesse the Guv quite a few times in the past, so I will skip it here.

Another highlight of each and every newspaper convention is the annual MNA Better Newspaper Contest Awards Banquet.

The Faribault County Register staff has been notified that we have won seven awards again this year.

They give us a general idea of what the awards are for, but we won’t know specifically what exactly each award is for, and whether it is a first, second or honorable mention.

For a sneak preview, we won for Use of Photography as a Whole (second year in a row), Best Magazine (maybe for Our Heroes, another repeat), two advertising awards for Pam True (Best Ad and Best Institutional Ad) and one for Kristin Woodwick (Best Use of Color in an Ad).

And yours truly won for a Human Interest Story and an Arts and Entertainment Story. But, which ones?

We will let you know the exact details of the awards next week, in case you are interested.

I know we are.

The whole staff deserves a big salute for all of their hard work and dedicated effort to put out a newspaper that is good enough to win some awards each and every year.

It might take a community to raise a child, but it takes a pretty good, hard working team to get an award winning newspaper out to all of you each and every week.

And right now we have a mighty good team.

Thanks for reading us.