The Eagle Band will hold a preview night at 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 2. The event is open to the public and will be held at Aerie Stadium. The event is sponsored by the Band Parent Organization (BPO).

The job offer is in place — the next question is if Eden Prairie will soon have to begin its own search for a new city manager. Tuesday, the Edina City Council unanimously picked Eden Prairie City Manager Scott Neal to be hired as Edina’s new city manager.
The next step, as Edina City Council member Scot Housh remarked, will be to “close the deal.”

A negotiating team that includes Mayor Jim Hovland and Council member Ann Swenson will be contacting Neal to negotiate the terms of his contract.

The corner service station at Singletree Lane and Flying Cloud Drive is in the midst of a massive makeover. By the start of next year, Bobby and Steve’s Autoworld will have expanded to a two-story, 22,400-square-foot service station. Owner Randy Neis said it’s all based on a vision he had for the location when he purchased it four years ago.

Architect Brian Cluts, who also designed Windsor Plaza, said the idea is for the new service station to be a landmark.

“That’s the No. 1 reason why I bought that location,” said Neis.

This year, Eden Prairie plans to replace canned vegetables with fresh vegetables. The bakery will be trans-fat free.

By Karla Wennerstrom

It’s two weeks before the start of school, and the Eden Prairie School District kitchens are steaming, stirring, whipping and chopping hubs of activity.

In one kitchen, Production Manager Don Colbrun is working on spaghetti sauce, which will be frozen and ready for the school year to begin on Tuesday, Sept. 7. Spaghetti sauce is one of a variety of soups and sauces the district makes from scratch.

By John Molene

With a pickle-on-a-stick in one hand, and a Pronto Pup in the other, Joel Fuller of Eden Prairie was well on his way toward achieving his state fair dreams.

“My goal is to eat at least one of everything that’s on a stick,” said Fuller, 17.

A noble goal, and Fuller wasn’t alone. Each year thousands of Minnesotans head for the annual food-on-a-stick festival, also known as the Minnesota State Fair.

Proposed boundary maps for the 2011-2012 school year may not be available to the public until October, according to an update the Eden Prairie School Board received Tuesday.

According to a district communication plan, feedback will be accepted in a variety of ways through October, with a final decision in early November.

The Boundary Committee again asked the School Board its opinion on non-contiguous boundaries.

In 1981 Tracy Luke was finishing up her officer training program at Normandale Community College and needed to find an internship. The head of her program recommended Eden Prairie. It turned out to be some life-changing advice.

“They expected a lot more from an officer here, and I wanted that. I wanted to be at some place that had really high expectations of all its workers,” said Luke.

Luke, now Lt. Luke, was hired full-time in Eden Prairie 1985, and hasn’t looked back. She’s retired this month after 25 years of work in Eden Prairie.

Wes Dunsmore has probably earned a break. Dunsmore, Eden Prairie’s retiring park operations supervisor, has been working in parks since he was 16, and, following a stint in the Marines, he’s been working in the Eden Prairie parks since 1972. That’s 37 years and eight months on the job in Eden Prairie.

And he’s never taken a sick day.

You do what you’ve always done and “time takes care of itself,” said Dunsmore, 60, who had his last day of work in Eden Prairie Tuesday.

One recent article caught our attention and has led to a 1000-word response from SouthWest Transit CEO Len Simich. The Star Tribune

recently looked at the issue of the differences of both subsidies and perception of quality between suburban bus services (specifically EP-based SouthWest Transit) and Metro Transit, which serves more city-dwellers.

By Lauren Carlson-Vohs