Thate’s staff attends workshops

FAIRMONT — John Thate, owner, and associates Mike Anderson, Tyler Byers, Jeremy Gilb and Jeff Mennen of Thate’s Tree Service in Fairmont recently attended the Rochester Arborist Workshop in Rochester. The seminar focused on promoting innovative arboriculture and working in compromised trees.

They also attended the emerald ash borer outdoor field workshop on March 3 in St. Paul.

Grube named top county engineer

MINNEAPOLIS — Hennepin County Engineer Jim Grube has been named the 2016 Outstanding County Engineer of the Year by the Minnesota County Engineers Association.

The association noted that Grube is managing a five-year, $300 million capital improvement program. He oversees more than 2,200 lane miles of highway, as well as a fleet of 70 snowplows.

Grube is a former resident of Fairmont and graduated in 1972 from Fairmont High School. He began working for Hennepin County in May 2004.

Amanda Hair elected to bank board

WINNEBAGO — Amanda (Krause) Hair has been elected to the First Financial Bank in Winnebago board of directors. She is a graduate of Blue Earth Area High School and the University of Sioux Falls.

Hair is the daughter of Lyndon and Lana Krause of Winnebago, and is the fourth generation of the Krause family to serve on the bank’s board.

Goodyear deflates its blimps

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Goodyear has let the helium out of the last of its fabled fleet of blimps, but the company’s flight program will continue.

About two dozen employees were on hand early Tuesday to witness the deflation of California-based Spirit of Innovation.

But shed no tears, blimp fans, you’ll still see a familiar blue-and-gold form floating over your favorite sports event or awards show.

Although the blimp’s replacement, Wingfoot Two, will look about the same when it arrives at Goodyear’s airship base in Carson later this year, it will be a semi-rigid dirigible.

Such aircraft, one of which has already replaced Goodyear’s Florida blimp, have a frame, which means they maintain their shape when the helium is drained. Blimps, on the other hand, go flat. Wingfoot Two, currently operating in Ohio, will be replaced by yet another dirigible when it leaves there for Southern California.

Far more important to Goodyear is that the new airships are faster, quieter, larger, easier to fly and more maneuverable than the blimps it introduced more than 90 years ago. Still, the company plans to keep calling the new models blimps.

“Because a Goodyear Semi-rigid Dirigible doesn’t roll off the tongue,” laughed company airship historian Eddie Ogden.