Youth art scholarships available

WASECA — Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council is offering $300 scholarships for students in grades 7-12 and $200 for students in grades 3-6

The scholarships provide students with the opportunity to study their chosen art with a practicing professional artist by taking lessons over a period of months. Artistic areas include dance, literature, media arts, music, theater and visual arts.

The application for grades 7-12 is due Oct. 1 and for grades 3-6 by Nov. 1. Students must live in the nine-county region that Prairie Lakes serves: Blue Earth, Brown, Faribault, Le Sueur, Martin, Nicollet, Sibley, Waseca and Watonwan counties.

Students in grades 7-12 must be participating with an instructor, an organization or arts discipline for at least two years to be eligible. Students in grades 3-6 must be participating for at least one year to be eligible. Both age groups require an online letter of recommendation from a teacher as part of their application.

The scholarship can be used to take lessons and pay a private instructor or pay fees to a non-profit arts organization serving youth, other youth dance or music organizations, or art centers and groups that offer art classes to youth, etc.

Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council has an online grant process. Visit www.plrac.org and click on the applicant login button. Then follow the instructions to register and complete the application. For more information, contact Brenda Byron, executive director at the PLRAC office in Waseca by calling (800) 298-1254 or email: plrac@hickorytech.net

Hy-Vee warns of security problem

WEST DES MOINES (AP) — An Iowa-based grocery store chain is warning customers about what it says is a security incident involving payment card systems.

Hy-Vee said in a news release Wednesday that it launched an investigation after it detected unauthorized activity on some of its payment processing systems — activity that the company thinks has stopped.

The investigation focused on card payments at Hy-vee restaurants, fuel pumps and drive-thru coffee shops. Hy-vee intends to notify customers when it can share specific timeframes and locations. Company officials think the problem doesn’t involve payments systems used inside its grocery stores, drugstores and convenience stores. They use encryption technology for processing card transactions.

The company operates more than 240 retail stores in eight Midwestern states: Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wisconsin.