- [Narrator] Funding for "Off 90" is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(loon calling) (bright music) (upbeat music) - Cruising your way next, "Off 90."

A children's museum in Mankato, a rest area on Interstate 90, a young wrestler from Rochester, and a women's group in Winona.

It's all coming up on your next stop off 90.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) Hi, I'm Barbara Keith.

Thanks for joining me on this trip off 90.

The Children's Museum of Southern Minnesota in Mankato takes advantage of children's natural curiosity.

It provides an environment through play for children to explore, think, discover, and learn.

The museum features interactive exhibits to engage all ages, including adults.

(playful music) - Well, the mission of the Children's Museum of Southern Minnesota is to ignite the natural curiosity of every child through the power of play in an awe-inspiring environment.

My name is Kim Kleven.

I am the vice president of play and learning at the Children's Museum of Southern Minnesota in Mankato.

The idea for the Children's Museum of Southern Minnesota started with a group of early childhood and special ed teachers from the Mankato region.

Around 2005, that group started to organize as a nonprofit.

And between 2005 and 2015, we had three interim sites around Mankato that had different play experiences for them for families and children to enjoy.

And then in 2015, we acquired the space that we are currently in.

And just kind of having a conversation of it would be just a delight to have an experience in the region that children could come and play with caregivers and interact with a really playful environment.

We do that by having a lot of real, authentic experiences for children and their care caregivers to interact with.

Our focus in our museum is early childhood, so our focus group is really that two to nine-year-old, up to 12-year-old, can come to the museum.

We have what we call a lot of loose parts and a lot of interactive materials for children to explore with.

They can take fruits and vegetables from our Grow It Gallery in which they can take and haul around in wheelbarrows all around the museum.

They can plant them in the garden.

They can cook them in the cafe area.

They have a lot of pretend play experiences in which they can explore and interact with.

We have rotated exhibits and permanent exhibits in the museum.

They're all very intentionally developed and facilitated for children to be able to explore and play.

An infant/toddler porch.

So we really do encourage people, even with newborns and young children, to come into the museum.

We have a space for them to play, a little house in which they can pretend to like, put a baby to bed.

We've got a little gardening space in there.

There's a space that we have a wavy porch, where they can really work on their core muscles.

And if they're just learning how to be that toddling toddler, they can experience that and really explore in that space.

We have our story-and-a-half Mankato Clinic Tree of Forts climbing experience.

There are many different tree forts that are up there, that children can wayfind their way through the experience and then all of a sudden find this little tree fort.

And each one is different and has a unique experience inside of it.

And so one of my favorite things at the museum is to watch children grow up here.

We have a lot of members that are here many times during the week.

And you might see a toddler that first explores- - Are you ready?

- [Kim] by just going up a couple steps and down a tiny little slide.

- Three, two, one!

- And then you watch them get a little more courageous and excited to explore a little higher.

And then they're just super confident and running around in there all the time.

We have a quarry experience, our Coughlan Quarry, where children have an indoor sandbox.

We have different experiences that they can explore in that space.

And we have right now, just opening is our butterfly garden and our pollinator experience outside.

So we have many gardens that are growing, and then we have a butterfly garden that's open for our families and guests to enjoy.

So every time somebody comes, it might be a little different.

We have different interactive materials out on the table.

so it's always fun when guests have been here at one time, and they're wondering where an exhibit might be, and we're like, "Oh, well, that's rotating out, and now we have this."

And so it's really fun for them to explore new things all the time.

It's also really important for us to have our permanent exhibits so children have that expectation.

When they come, they know that Grow It Gallery is gonna be there for them to play with, and they keep expanding on that experience.

So there's something for everybody.

Have weekly/daily programming that we have.

So you might come on one day, and we have art explorers, we have STEM explorers.

We have right now this wonderful pollinator experience that we have during the summer.

We have lots of experience with the environment and letting children explore a play experience through different ways of programs in the museum.

Our years went from opening here at the museum in 2015 to 2019, we had over 100,000 visitors every year.

This year, we are looking to be on track of over 115,000 visitors every year, whether it's through a school group visit, or family that's only visiting us for a play experience 'cause they're here on vacation, or our members, who we have over 1,500 members that are part of their experience and come and visit us quite often during the week.

We're very excited about that.

Our membership numbers are climbing daily too.

So that seems very positive for us.

So we have a couple membership opportunities at the Children's Museum of Southern Minnesota.

You can be a family member, and that membership is a year long, in which you purchase that membership, and then you can come anytime during our open hours and use it as much as you want.

We have grandparent memberships that we have.

And then we also have our Gateway to Play memberships.

And those memberships are for any families that would be facing a barrier that wouldn't be able to come to the museum otherwise.

And we wanna make sure that we have opportunities available for those families also.

(upbeat music) We have lots of visitors that come from all over the region.

Typically, our school groups are from around the nine-county region, but we have some that stretch out a little further than even than that.

But our typical visitorship is from all over the state.

We have had visitors this year from every county.

We have had a visitor from every state except for Rhode Island.

So we are still looking for a visitor from Rhode Island.

And that's one of the unique things, is when we look at our data, is just seeing where people come from.

And it's just really fun for us to see how people have found that they really enjoy our space and the uniqueness of what our children's museum has to offer.

(upbeat music) - You're driving on the interstate, and you need a break.

You might not need a big truck stop.

Sometimes it's enough just to stop at a quiet, scenic rest area provided by the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

(gentle music) - I-90 is the main corridor between South Dakota and Wisconsin.

My name is Barry Hellman.

I work at the Hayward Rest Area, which is just outside of Albert Lea, Minnesota.

I've worked for MnDOT, Green View at this site here for 13 years.

Well, I knew some gentlemen that worked for Green View or worked for MnDOT at the rest areas, and it just looked like it would be a nice job.

You work by yourself and just do your job, and everything is fine.

When you come in, first thing in the morning is, of course, you check the restrooms.

Make sure that the supplies are in order.

Paper rolls are in.

They're clean.

No big messes.

Put the flags out.

That's how you start your day.

You start out as what they call an alternate.

And an alternate is a guy that is called in when one of the regular part-time workers go on vacation or sick or whatever.

And you don't necessarily work a lot, but sometimes they do.

Like, when I started, I had a couple of the regular workers that were here were getting knee replacements, hip replacements, so I pretty much worked full part-time.

Regular workers actually work six nights and six day shifts, where every fourth week, they have the complete week off.

So if a person wants to go travel someplace or go someplace, they can do it.

(upbeat music) My favorite part about doing this is you're not doing one thing daily.

You're outside, you're working.

You're using a leaf blower to clean up the sidewalks.

You're using a snow blower to clean up the sidewalks.

You're mowing the grass.

Main thing is you've gotta keep the facilities clean and safe.

We disinfect all the restrooms probably three times daily.

I am a crew leader, and I have four gentlemen that work under me.

Anybody that works here has pride in their work.

When we're here, when we arrive and do our shift, we are here for the shift.

I mean, we don't leave the place.

A lot of the facilities will have two ladies' and two men's restrooms.

Unfortunately, we do not, but we do have a family restroom, if we shut one of the restrooms down, that can be used.

(upbeat music) Usually, the truckers are pretty courteous.

There's a lot of times that there's truckers that make this part of their regular route.

They'll stop in, and we get to know them.

You see them every day.

They'll come in and use the facilities and just take their breaks and rest.

Every year, of course, we get a bunch of bikers coming through from Sturgis.

They'll be coming home.

And there'll simply be times when you come in in the morning, they're laying all over the benches, but they don't bother anybody.

But they're resting.

At this rest area, we have a lot of people that are heading for Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

They'll be coming out of Iowa, they'll be coming out of the Dakotas, and this is about the place they hit.

So usually Mondays are pretty busy because everybody's heading to Rochester.

But it's surprising the amount of people that come down through from Canada.

And the reason they do that is because the fuel prices are so much cheaper in the United States than it is up there.

But I've had people going coast to coast from Canada.

They'll start in Vancouver and end up at the other end.

Most of the public enjoy and respect this area.

People enjoy coming out here for a picnic, even.

even if they're not traveling through, they'll come from Albert Lea and picnic out here.

In this area, we have turkey, we have deer, we have coyotes, we have swans, we have geese, we have ducks, we have beavers.

And stuff we see about every day.

People come around, and they'll come out and sit on a bench and watch the pond.

We've got a playground out here that we maintain.

It's got half sand, and it's half safety rubber.

And that we take care of.

We rake it every night.

Make sure there's no glass or debris of any type in it.

Just want a safe environment for the traveling public.

We try and keep our standards high and keep our rest area up to standards that if we were traveling, how we would like it.

(gentle music) (upbeat music) - Bennett Berge has a rich family history when it comes to wrestling talent.

The young man from Kasson-Mantorville High School has carried on the legacy of his family, on the way to becoming one of Minnesota's best-ever wrestlers.

(energetic music) - My close friends call me Ben, but Bennett is normally what I go by.

My record during my senior year was 49 and 0.

(energetic music) - The results speak for themselves.

Five-time state champion.

There's only been a few in the history of Minnesota that have accomplished that.

That alone tells you that he's one of the best ever.

- I was introduced to wrestling at a very young age.

- Know that the Berge family is known nationwide.

You know, his brothers were both great wrestlers.

- Both my brothers wrestled.

And I was probably three running around, down in the same room.

And I started wrestling, like, competing, when I was about five or six.

I had the resources to become a great wrestler, so it was kind of just my decision to go and do it.

(crowd cheers) (whistle blaring) - Obviously, he's talented.

He's a very, very talented wrestler.

Hard worker.

I mean, you have to be a hard worker to achieve that level of success.

I think the thing that separates Ben from everybody is he's very coachable.

He's willing to learn from everybody.

He's open-minded.

He'll do things that he doesn't like, but he knows that he has to do them to get better, and that's the difference.

- I feel like I sacrificed a little bit.

There's sacrifices in anything you do if you want to do it at the highest levels.

Sometimes you've gotta make some tough decisions to accomplish some of my goals.

My typical day would be I wake up.

I don't set an alarm, so I wake up about 8:30.

Make five eggs for breakfast.

I go in, I work out at 10 o'clock with my brother.

It's something pretty light.

I come home, I make lunch, I probably take a nap, and then I go in for practice at four o'clock.

I have practice, come home, eat supper, and then do something with some buddies or something.

So it's not too hard of a lifestyle out there right now, but the training's pretty tough, so it's good.

- He's super competitive.

Last summer, we would go out and run like, on the track, and he'd very, very rarely get beat.

You know, he's very competitive when it comes to just about anything.

I think that's another reason why Ben is so successful.

He's very competitive.

- The way I view the sport is to go out and compete as hard as I can.

I look at every opportunity as a chance to get better.

- He would've been successful if he wasn't a hard worker.

The fact that he is such a hard worker takes him to that next level.

- I wrestled 195 this year.

I'll wrestle 184 in college.

My favorite part of wrestling is probably how creative you can be in the sport.

When I go out on the mat, I could hit a move a million different ways.

There's so many different moves and techniques in the sport of wrestling that it, I mean, it's impossible to master.

So it's a very fun sport.

For my hardest match, my senior year was I won 6-5 in The Christmas Tournament finals.

Clayton Whiting, he was a kid from Wisconsin.

I think he was ranked number two or three in the country.

He is a great wrestler.

I had to push the pace a little bit and get a couple takedowns at the end.

I think that was my only match this year that wasn't a bonus point win.

(gentle piano music) I mean, it's four hours away.

I like being at home, I like being at the lake, and those are close.

Penn State's 15-hour drive away or a plane flight away.

So I like how close it is to home.

Another reason is my brother's out there.

He's on the coaching staff.

He's helped me all throughout my high school career.

And I'm excited for him to help me throughout my college career.

So it's gonna be fun out there.

The ultimate goal is to be a Division 1 national champion.

I mean, if you're going to wrestle Division 1, that should be your goal, in my opinion.

(gentle piano music) (upbeat music) - The Winona chapter of the American Association of University Women recently celebrated its 100th anniversary.

The AAUW promotes education and equity for women and girls.

We take a look at the history of the Winona chapter.

(upbeat piano music) - I am Marge Wallerich.

I am the president of the Winona branch of AAUW.

We celebrated our 100th anniversary and annual meeting on April 22nd of this year at Signatures Restaurant in Winona.

We had invited current members, past members, past presidents, other branches also in the area to come and celebrate with us.

We had a lot of local history and also national history throughout the full 100 years.

We also had proclamation from the city of Winona.

(upbeat piano music) - Well, I think that AAUW started, of course, with its mission, right after, in 1920, when women got the right to vote.

They really felt it was important for women to get education.

The college women, mostly professors or married to professors, at Winona State University gathered to be social.

And then they decided that the Association of University Women is a national organization that they could join up with to accomplish their goals.

They called a meeting.

And the first meeting they held at Winona National Bank, in the boardroom, they invited in a lady named Ms. Louise Flich from Washington, DC, who represented national, and brought along items to form a charter, bylaws, all that important things to become a nonprofit organization.

They held a special meeting following that in April 23rd of 1923, and they actually formally voted at that meeting to adopt the national Constitution and commit to it for education of women, social justice, and of course an occasional party, (laughs) you know, and getting together.

The first officers of the organization often went by their husband's names.

However, the first president was Mrs. Laura Shepherd.

The first treasurer secretary was Dorothy Prentiss, and their counselor was Mrs. GE Maxwell.

All three of those family names are now some of the foundation buildings at Winona State University, where the branch was meeting frequently.

In 1946, international studies started post World War II, which was probably an outcome, and AAUW became an international society.

That is when they began to do the child study to help work towards better nutrition for children.

In 1947, they unanimously supported the removal of the 30 mil tax limit for educational purposes in Winona and went on record supporting state aid tax bill.

And we are still living in an era in 2023 where state aid is a major component of our local school economy.

(gentle music) Then in the '50s, early '50s, technology started to change the world.

In 1951, the local AAUW chapter went on record favoring contacting government authorities to set aside a channel for public TV.

We mostly all call that Public Broadcasting System, or PBS.

The broadcasting system in the era of my child in the '60s and the '70s went into "Sesame Street," and we began to learn all kinds of things about the larger world.

AAUW Winona continued to really grow up through the 1990s, and at one point, was close to 200 members.

Then that started to decline as more women started to work full-time.

We are still very active in doing scholarships for education.

And we have two at the national level that are endowments, and we're working on a third one.

And locally, we've instituted an endowed scholarship at Winona State University that we annually provide at least a thousand dollars plus to a non-traditional student, where if someone has started their education towards their college degree, that if they've had a hiatus of over five years, we'll help them get started again.

And anyone who's in that situation can apply.

Oh, it was in 1923 that the AAUW chapter endorsed the formation of the local League of Women Voters chapter.

We have both celebrated our 100th anniversary, and there has been a close relationship between both clubs and getting out voter education.

And in fact, in our most recent history, in the 2020 elections, we held several meetings together for all the local candidates.

Voters' rights was the first reason that AAUW became involved and became organized, which then has gone on for the other social justice issues for women of our times, such as the Equal Rights Amendment so that equal pay, equal justice under the law should prevail for women, as well as the rest of our citizens.

- City of Winona proclamation: Whereas the American Association of University Women, Winona celebrating their 100th anniversary promotes equity for all women and girls, lifelong education, and societal change.

And whereas AAUW provides forums for community, regional, national, and global issues.

And whereas by virtue of participation in activities at local, state, national, and international levels provides opportunities for leadership, mentoring, and personal growth.

And whereas AAUW established a national foundation, which provides post-graduate scholarships for women in all fields.

And whereas the Winona branch contributes to the National Legal Advocacy Fund, which provides assistance to women involved in harassment or discrimination lawsuits in colleges and universities.

And whereas the AAUW continues to fulfill its mission through study groups, programs, and interest areas, open to all women having a four-year bachelorette degree from an accredited college or university.

Now, therefore, I, Scott Sherman, mayor of the city of Winona, Minnesota, do hereby proclaim the week of April 22nd, 2023 as American Association of University of Women Week in the city of Winona, Minnesota.

So thank you all.

(audience applauds) (gentle music) - We've reached the end of this trip.

Thanks for riding along.

See you next time off 90.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (bright music) - [Narrator] Funding for "Off 90" is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(bird calling)