AM.MN: A DFL straw poll for governor, with real straw

If you’re looking for Minnesota’s two biggest-city mayors on Saturday, try Farmer John’s Pumpkin Patch, somewhere north of Austin. A nearly full field of DFL candidates or could-be candidates for governor convenes in a real farm field for the first-ever “Politics in the Pumpkin Patch,” where pumpkins won’t be the only things not quite ripe. The event, sponsored by the Senate District 27 DFL, includes a straw poll.

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning…

INTERNATIONAL FALLS: Tight budgets make crowded classrooms. In sparsely populated Koochiching County, it will be 33 students to a room because the district can’t afford another sixth-grade teacher.  [International Falls Daily Journal]

ZIMMERMAN: Federal stimulus will get rid of dead wood. Not the political kind, but fallen trees in the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge that create a fire danger for 2,600 nearby homes. [St. Cloud Times]

BECKER COUNTY: They’re sniffing drugs along the highway. Dogs are, that is. As many as 10 State Patrol K-9 units have been checking cars arriving for the 10,000 Lakes music festival. [Detroit Lakes Tribune]

DULUTH: Skyline losing landmark chimney. The school district is spending $300,000 to take down a distinctive brick chimney at Denfeld High School made obsolete by new gas boilers. [Duluth News Tribune]

BLOOMINGTON: Turtles crossing. Authorities advised motorists to watch for endangered Blanding’s turtles (which have yellow necks and chins under tall-domed shells that look like mini VWs) as they cross roads to hunt for new homes in a slumping metro housing market. [Bloomington Sun Current; Alexandria Echo Press]