(gentle music) - [Narrator] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

- "R-Town," the show about Rochester finds out how to get ready for a 5k.

We also learn about a new local offer company and check out a shop with vintage finds and handmade goods.

Then we wander through the unique treasures at Junkin' Market days.

All that coming up next on "R-Town," the show about Rochester.

(upbeat music) Coming to you from 125 Live in Rochester, Minnesota, "R-Town."

(upbeat music continues) It may seem like a funny time of year to talk about running, but today we're joined by TerraLoco, owner and manager, Tiffany, here to get us up to speed on how TerraLoco supports runners and aspiring runners all year round.

Welcome to "R-Town," Tiffany.

- Thank you for having me.

- So let's start by just telling us a little bit about what TerraLoco is.

- Sure, so we are Rochester's only locally owned run specialty and active lifestyle store.

We mostly focus on footwear, but we have apparel and some lifestyle stuff as well too, and gear and accessories for anyone who needs to be active.

- As runner knows, the shoes are the most important part of it.

- Absolutely, yes.

- How do you support avid runners and those that are just starting out?

- Sure, so we have a lot of different events and things that we do in the store to support runners that are new and people that have been in it for a really long time and we also do a gait analysis in the store for new runners.

So that's really important, like you said, to make sure you have the right kinda shoe, so anytime somebody comes in, we evaluate their feet, watch them walk or watch them run and make sure we're getting the right shoe for that person, for that foot and the activity that they're doing.

- Can you tell us a little bit about your upcoming half marathon training?

- Yeah, we're really excited about it.

This is the first time we're offering this program and Med City is going to be the goal race.

So that happens in May.

So it's a 13 week training program.

It starts in about a week, so we need six people to run it and we have four right now, so we need a couple more people to sign up, but we're really excited 'cause we have two awesome coaches, certified coaches, lots of swag, all sorts of fun things.

Two supported group runs every week for people that are new to the marathon distance, it's hard to do all that training on your own and so this just gives you a way to have a good group atmosphere and the support that you need along in the way so that you can cross the finish line.

- Yeah, that's excellent.

It's much better than having to wake up early by yourself, try to figure it out and muddle through and having that sense of community.

Where can people sign up for that training?

- So they can sign up on our website, which is runterraloco.com.

- What are the other events and programs that you have year round?

I did mention that it's a strange time because there's snow and ice outside to talk about running,, but people are running all year round, so what kinds of things are you offering?

- Yeah, so we actually have a 5k coming up in February, a Valentine's themed 5k and starting in April, we have our $5 5ks that we have been doing for years and years.

Every week we support a different charity, so each week the $5 that people pay for the run goes to a different charity.

Each week we donate a hundred percent of that $5 to the charity, so it's a really good way for the nonprofit to get in front of new people and maybe get new volunteers or donors and we give them a donation at the end and then if people can come together and go for a run, it's very casual and easy.

We have snacks and things afterwards, so just very simple, straightforward.

Easy thing to do for both runners, walkers, bikers, kids, all ages and abilities.

- Great.

Last week you were going to have an event to talk about exercising in the wintertime outdoors.

Can you tell us a little bit about what we should be thinking about when thinking about exercising in the outdoors during winter?

- Yeah, so we actually were able to reschedule that, so it's happening on February 9th and so we're having a couple of local resources and some of our vendors come to talk about how you can safely exercise outdoors during the winter.

One of our partners, Active PT, is going to be at that event.

They just posted a blog with some really good tips on how you might need to change your running form and things like that.

Obviously gear is super important, so that's something that we can help you with at TerraLoco.

- Excellent.

How can community members continue to stay connected and up to date on all that's going on at TerraLoco?

- The best way to stay connected with us is probably on our social media.

That's where we're the most active.

So our social media is TerraLocoMN, like the state.

We're on Facebook and on Instagram.

Of course we have a website as well too, which is runterraloco.com and all of our events and things will be added onto the event calendar on there as well too, so.

- Awesome, remind us where you're located.

- We are at 1190 16th Street Southwest in Rochester, so over by Trader Joe's.

- Awesome, well, thank you so much for joining us, Tiffany, and good luck with all these amazing things.

You might see me in there getting some new shoes.

- I would love that.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Be sure to stick around.

We have much more coming your way on "R-Town."

We explore the vintage finds and handmade goods at Clover and Rose.

We also hear about a new local opera company and find out what's popping at Popus Gourmet Popcorn.

But up first we wander through the treasures at Junkin' Market Days in this week's art culture segment.

(gentle music) - So Junkin' Market Days is a two day event that's held indoors.

We feature a number of vendors from the Six State area.

So vendors are selling items such as boutique clothing, candles, gourmet food, home decor, furniture.

They set up their booths like boutiques.

I've attended several events in Omaha, in Minneapolis, and larger cities and I thought why don't we have these types of events in Sioux Falls?

So I started Junkin' Market Days in 2021 during COVID and the whole goal was to connect makers with customers and so the first event I held in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and I held it in the spring and thousands of customers came and I had 130 vendors that signed up, so I thought this is something that both the vendors want as well as the public.

So what's really important with this event is you have to have enough makers in the area that can support a show, so that's something I look for as well.

- I would say this is the largest market that I've ever done and there is a much wider variety at this market compared to some of the other ones that I've done in the past.

Well, I'm definitely going to be doing plenty of shopping myself as well as selling.

I really like some of the merchandise that's actually right next to me.

There's some really cute dresses with a fun vintage vibe and that's definitely up my alley.

- Well, as a vendor, you're always looking for an event that features the types of products that you want to sell and so when I'm choosing to become a vendor, I'm always looking for something that has like-minded people that will also be coming because those are the customers that are gonna be coming to buy.

- The Junkin' Market Days event is an event where I hand select the vendors.

So what I do is I go to numerous events around the different states and then I hand select vendors and invite them to come and have a booth at my event.

The vendors that are at my events are vendors that put a lot of time into the quality of their work as well as their display.

So these are items that either they're hand making themselves or they're buying wholesale and reselling them.

So they put a lot of time and energy into their booth.

- I've always had a very creative right brain and the way that I nurture that brain is by doing ahead and working on projects that interest me, so I'm able to take things and really look at 'em in a different way.

For instance, I have a light in my booth that's made out of an old meat grinder.

Now, not everybody would look at a meat grinder that way, but people who are creative or repurposers, they tend to look at things a little bit differently.

My grandmother was what I would call a repurposer, but she always just called it makin' do, but really it's just a way to try and reuse our resources a little better and maybe not always buying new.

The woodworking, I think in particular catches my eye because I am a woodworker.

When somebody can take different types of wood, put them together perhaps as a cutting board or maybe as a decorative sign maybe for a wall, that always interests me.

I'd love to see how people can take old farm implements and turn them into decor that might go outside.

So those are the types of things that really get me excited and one of the reasons why I like to come.

- Well, I really enjoy supporting other small businesses, local artisans, and I love getting to be able to talk to other creatives, people who are passionate about what they do and what they make.

I think it's really grown for a couple reasons.

The first reason is the vendors are sharing it on their different pages, so they have people that are following them, which then they come to the different events.

The other thing is I also partner with the different communities and there's a lot of community support, so they help sponsor the event.

They also help me with marketing the event.

So finding those community partners have been really important to make this event successful.

- [Narrator] For more information about this story and other "R-Town" features, connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, @KSMQ #RTown or ksmq.org/rtown.

(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Danielle Teal with "R-Town" Spotlight and I have a fabulous guest today because it's all about popcorn.

Welcome, D'Angelo Tines.

- Yes, thank you.

- From Popus Gourmet Popcorn.

- Yes, yes ma'am.

- Full disclosure, I've had a few bites and they're delicious.

- [D'Angelo] Appreciate it.

- You're a new business downtown Rochester.

Share a little bit about the journey to get to downtown and start this business.

- Yeah, for sure.

We definitely looked at a lot of locations.

We searched for probably seven months and we landed on that spot because of the walking traffic for Mayo.

They bring a lot of the patients in and obviously the glass space.

There's a lot of glass space people can look in, but it was mainly in the walking traffic that attracted us down there.

We ran the numbers and we pay a little bit more to be downtown, but we ultimately think it's gonna be worth it in the long run.

- And this is a family locally owned business.

- [D'Angelo] Yes.

- Share a little bit about your parents' involvement, your involvement.

- For sure.

So yeah, I'm actually from Rochester.

I was born and raised here.

I graduated from John Marshall in 2016.

Yeah, once a Rocket, always a Rocket, right?

- That's right.

- And then my parents, they've both been in town for 30 years, so my mom, she's been a social worker for the county for 28 years.

She's now retired and at the store full-time and then my daddy still works for Mayo.

He's been there for 25 years as well.

- And I see him with you and Maddie, your girlfriend.

We met actually at the downtown grant distribution.

You were a judge on that and I got to try some of the popcorn.

Share a little bit about the flavors.

- Yeah, so we have 70 flavors that we could do all together.

So every day we have about 30 to 35 flavors in store.

We don't do all 70 every day.

- 35?

- Yeah, about 30 to 35, just depending on the day.

So we have someone come in every day at 6:00 AM and get us started popping for the day and then we make it all throughout the day as well and then we rotate our flavor board every one to two weeks.

- Right and so right now we have, what is this flavor here, Oreo?

- Yeah, that one's Oreo.

So that one's made with real Oreos, so we crushed down the Oreos by hand.

Everything's made in small batches and using real ingredients.

- Real ingredients.

You can't go wrong with that.

What's the fan favorite?

What is the favorite in Rochester?

- That one right here is the Midwest Mix, so that's just the cheese and caramel mix together 50 50.

It's kind of like a sweet and savory.

It's called the Chicago Mix technically, but we changed the name in the Midwest Mix just to include everyone, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Chicago.

- All-inclusive and that's the one I had and it's delicious.

Awesome.

Where can folks find out more about where to find Popus Gourmet Popcorn?

- Yeah, so we're on social media @PopusRochester and our website's at popasrochester.com and then we're located at 25 Second Street Southwest, right next to Eagle Drug.

- I'm always impressed when people remember their address on the spot like that and it's easy to find the big canopy.

- Yes, it's a big black banner that says Popus Gourmet Popcorn.

It has a popcorn bucket in the corner so you can't miss it.

- Perfect, you're amazing.

Thank you so much, D'Angelo.

- Thank you, appreciate you having me on.

- Awesome, thank you so much.

This is Danielle Teal with "R-Town" Spotlight.

(upbeat music) - Hello again.

This is Michael Wojcik with your "R-Town" Legislative Rundown.

We truly have a historic state surplus right now and it's giving opportunities for the state budget that we haven't seen in at least a generation.

The fact that the current surplus represents about 30% of the last biennium budget really does create unique opportunities and this week we saw Governor Tim Walls propose a budget.

Now the governor's budget typically never becomes law because there's a lot of compromise that has to happen, but it does highlight some of the key priorities and if I were to look at the surplus that we had coming into this year and break it up, I would say roughly one third of that surplus is going back to the taxpayers in various tax credits and cuts.

Another one third is going towards inflationary or slightly greater than inflationary increases in different budget items and one third is going to other things.

You're always covered when you say other things.

Now, some of the key priorities that we see coming outta this budget is substantial increase in education funding for K-12 education, but also the creation of a workforce sick leave policy that would basically allow employers to pay into a pot, similar to what happens with unemployment insurance, and all employees in the state of Minnesota would have the opportunity for sick leave and family need when it's needed.

Included in the hundreds of pages of budget material where a number of non budgetary items that were put out for consideration by Governor Walls, this included some framework on how the issue of dealing with people's past criminal records might be resolved should cannabis become legal in the state of Minnesota?

An important part of a bill becoming law is that it has to meet certain thresholds and actions by each legislative body.

Certain dates have to be met and those dates came out this week.

By March 10th, a bill originating in the House or Senate must have the support of that particular chamber by March 24th.

The opposite chamber must also show support.

And finally, by April 4th, anything that affects the bottom line budget has to have consensus between the House and Senate.

That's how these bills will become law.

Transitioning to bills that have seen action in this last week, local legislator, Tina Lek, introduced a bill that would require crisis pregnancy centers who receive state funding to pass along medically accurate advice.

This has been brought up in previous sessions, but has yet to see action.

Additionally, something that speaks near and dear to my heart, there is a bill that would require the sale of a catalytic converter to a scrap dealer to be accompanied by documentation that proves it was associated with a vehicle and not stolen and finally moving in both the House and the Senate is a clean energy bill that would require all energy in the state of Minnesota to come from carbon resources by 2040.

This not only affects energy in Minnesota, but also energy is coming from other states.

That point source in those other states must also be carbon-free.

This is Michael Wojcik and I look forward to catching you for our next legislative rundown.

(upbeat music) - This is Danielle Teal with Our Town Walkabout.

I'm here at Clover and Rose, right next to Forge a Brewery with Cassandra Buck.

She's the owner.

Tell us a little bit more about this fabulous store.

- So Clover and Rose kinda came about when I started to do other things besides painting, like jewelry, embroidery, things like that.

So then I was like, ah, what could I do and I decided I was gonna open my own little shop and it started out in my house and then it moved to a little space next to a record store and then I just moved here to this spot.

- And you're super creative, Cassandra.

I love that you have a lot of options.

Show us a little bit of what you've got offered over here.

- So, growing up, I always have loved vintage antiques and things like that.

Clothing, vintage clothing is a big love of mine.

I send stuff over to Brooke Birch with Vintage Rack and she sends stuff to me, so we like cool work together on that, so I get a lot of really awesome designs and prints from Brooke Birch.

Everything in this store was either a vintage find or it was created in southeastern Minnesota.

So there's pottery here, a lot of visual artists, painters, photography.

I even got some stitch embroidery.

- This is stunning and so this is felt.

It looks like a plant that's coming with multiple colors.

- Needle felted.

- Yeah.

- [Cassandra] And then I've got a lot of prints, things like that.

- Plants are the thing and I love that you have a lot of starter plants and also ones that are perfectly matched.

Look at this little teacup and this little BB, little plant.

Why do you think a store like this is really important for Rochester?

- I preach it, I say it all the time.

Local, local, local.

We gotta support local.

- Thank you so much.

- Yeah.

- This is Danielle Teal with R Town Walkabout.

(upbeat music) - We're joined today by members of a new local opera company called Hometown Opera Company.

Welcome to "R-Town," Kate and Steph.

- Thank you.

- So this is super exciting.

We're excited to have you.

Can you tell us a little bit about how the Hometown Opera Company got started?

- Yeah, absolutely.

So it was basically just a set of connections that I had around Rochester and the surrounding areas.

Kind of singer friends that I knew of that were like, we love opera and we wanna do more of it.

So we had always kind of talked about.

We should put together this project and just collaborate and make something happen and so after talking about it for so long, we just decided to start putting together a project.

We put something on the calendar, picked songs, found accompanist, and yonce the ball got rolling, things started coming together and so that's kind of how we started.

- Awesome, Steph, can you tell us a little bit about how you got started with opera and what your musical training has been like?

- So I started studying classical piano and voice in middle school and carried on with that, did some classical voice at Michigan State University and then went into teaching for 10 years and in 2020, did a big career change and decided to get my masters in music at a conservatory of music in Trieste, Italy.

I just finished that in July and while I was there, I tried to be a part of as many operatic things as possible.

I was able to do some coral conducting, some arranging with classical, some stuff from "La Traviata," and I just finished that masters and this is my first experience outside of the conservatory with opera here in Rochester.

- Well, congratulations.

That's amazing.

I'm sure that experience in Italy was life changing.

That's awesome that you could bring that to the opera.

Can you tell us a little bit about the upcoming event that you've got going on?

- Yeah, absolutely.

So it's gonna be on February 3rd, which is a week from tomorrow.

It is going to be at the historic Chateau Theater downtown Rochester in the Peace Plaza.

So doors open at seven o'clock and the showcase starts at 7:30 PM.

Tickets can be purchased online at thresholdartist.org and some other places as well.

- That's exciting.

- Thank you.

- Opera is something that I love.

I also know that it's something that not everybody has access to all the time.

Can you talk a little bit about how you're hoping to make opera more accessible and bringing new audiences to the art form?

- Yeah, yeah, that's kind of the hope that's really what we're aiming for by putting together this organization.

It's one of those things that a lot of people love, but we don't have an opera company here in Rochester.

We don't have an opera house here in Rochester, so we're just trying to make it available for people and our hope is thatby doing this event and future events, we can just kind of get a community going and people can see our name and come to our events and watch for us and get the ball rolling that way.

- So much of this is about sharing this thing that you're passionate about with the community.

Can you tell us each a little bit about what you love about opera?

- So I especially love opera from the romantic period.

I think it's just so beautiful.

The music itself, there's always a message, a storyline, and I always am brought to tears to every opera that I go to.

I think just the combination of the passion that comes with the opera and the music it's just so dramatic and it brings me to tears.

I just love the emotion behind it for me personally.

- Yeah, yeah, the emotion and I think opera originated as this art form that was meant to be sort of a collaboration of all these different artistic elements.

You have the big music, you have the storylines, the costumes, the lights, the big orchestra, just this really big production and obviously that's a little bit intimidating as a small company just getting started, but we wanna start somewhere and it's just a really fabulous art form and we feel like the art form is not a lot of people know a lot about opera, but I just feel like people today would love it.

It's so emotional and just this big dramatic presentation.

So it's just a really fun art form.

- I love that.

I love that idea that opera could live sort of in this big opera house, but it could also like live in small theaters and-- - Exactly, absolutely.

- A small community.

That's right.

- So you're currently fundraising for your performance.

Can you tell us a little bit about what the funds will be used for and how people can support you?

- Yeah, sure.

So the main thing with classical music and opera is that we need musicians and accompanists, accompanist to accompany us through this showcase.

So that is part of it as well as the event space employees for the night of the event, some marketing costs for the community, things like our website and some of those different fees, too.

- Great, you're brand spanking new, but it's exciting and so people are gonna wanna know how to stay with you as you grow.

Can you tell us how people can stay connected and in touch?

- So we have just made our Instagram account, so they can follow us on Instagram hometown.opera.company.

That's right and then we have our website as well and Kate, what is the exact URL for that?

- That is also hometownoperacompany.com.

- So following us there, going onto our GoFundMe and supporting us so any extra funds that we have from this event will go to future events.

Yeah, that's probably the big two.

The big two things.

- Yep.

- Awesome, awesome.

Can people still get tickets for next week's show?

- Yes, yep.

They can get tickets.

There's plenty of space, plenty of tickets still available.

- Great.

Thank you so much for joining us and I'm super excited about catching the performance next week and seeing how you grow.

- [Kate And Steph] Thank you much so much for having us.

- And thank you all for joining us today.

I'm excited to check out the Hometown Opera Company's upcoming show and so many other things that are happening in our community.

For more wonderful content produced right here in Rochester, please be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter at hashtag R-Town.

I'm Nicole Nfonoyim-Hara for "R-Town," the show about Rochester.

Be well and stay safe.

We will see you next week.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (gentle music) - [Narrator] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.