HOT PURSUIT

Folks love their communities and places they can call home. There’s nothing more exciting than being able to show your hometown pride.
With the holiday season right around the corner, we’ve come up with something that we’re confident people will enjoy as a way to display their hometown pride.
For a limited time, we are making canvas prints available with beautiful photographs of the water towers in each of the communities throughout the county: Blooming Prairie, Ellendale, Medford and Owatonna. They have been taken in the air by a drone.
We have examples of what the prints will look like on page 2B in this edition. We decided to offer the prints for sale as a perfect gift idea just in time for the holidays. We think they would be ideal for decorating your home, office, business or anywhere else that you want to showcase the pride you have in your community.
Why water towers?
Well, they are considered iconic landmarks in our communities. That’s true for most of the cities across America.  
As I look at the photographs, it is interesting to see how each of our cities offers unique water towers.
For decades, they have been a symbol of prosperity and growth of communities. In the early days of settling an area, the water tower meant the township had attracted enough people and commerce to demand a water supply system to distribute enough for the needs and even emergency fire protection of a growing population.
Towers have often been looked at as a Midwestern thing. Some have long speculated that Minnesota has more water towers than anywhere else. Not sure if that’s true, but you get how important they are to us.
We just thought it would be kind of fun for people to have access to some quality photographs identifying their communities.
In case you haven’t noticed, we have a strong desire to showcase hometown news in our newspaper each and every week. So, offering an option of hometown pride through canvas prints seems like a logical extension of what we’ve been all about for many years.
Our slogan, “Always local. All the time,” clearly identifies what we are all about. Whether it’s news coverage or other means, we have a vested interest in promoting the great communities residents call home here in Steele County.
By the way, we’re also offering a heck of a holiday subscription deal for both new readers as well as our loyal subscribers. This offer is outlined on page 12B. If you can’t think of what to buy that somebody special in your life, how about a subscription to the area’s fastest-growing newspaper? The Times is something that keeps giving every week throughout the year.
We know people will be heading out to do their holiday shopping over the next few weeks. Just by reading this column, I’ve given you two great ideas to reduce the stress of holiday shopping.
I hope you’ll go in hot pursuit of displaying your hometown pride this holiday season, whether it’s with a canvas print or a subscription to one of the best newspapers in the state.