Home Care In Rosemount, MN

For more than a century, New Year’s Day has been marked by the iconic Rose Parade in Pasadena, Calif., that draws millions of viewers from around the world. This year, four Minnesota high schoolers will be marching in it.

Clover Mitchell of Eastview High School in Apple Valley; Everett Geller and Olivia Gramaglia of Rosemount High School; and Mickensy Monsen of Marshall Senior High School were selected to perform with the Bands of America Rose Parade Honor Band — a band made up of 236 high school performers drawing from 34 states across the U.S.

Mitchell, a high school junior, said he’s especially excited to represent Minnesota in a leadership capacity. He’s earned the role of drum major and will help conduct his bandmates in the Pasadena parade.

“I'm the first Minnesotan drum major,” Mitchell explained after a preview performance for families on Monday. “This is blowing me away. I can't believe I get the opportunity to do this.”

This week is the first time the high school senior is meeting his bandmates. Once students are selected for the band, they receive the music so they can practice independently, sending video updates to the honor band director throughout the fall. When they congregate in California, they only have a couple days to rehearse together before the big performance.

Mitchell said one of his favorite parts of this week was meeting new friends from across the country.

“I love getting to know everyone,” Mitchell said. “It warms my heart when I get to see people enthused and passionate about the same exact things that I'm passionate about, which is music.”

The Rose Parade is the opportunity of a lifetime for many students. The live performance — featuring marching bands, equestrian units and the infamous floral-covered parade floats — attracts hundreds of thousands of live spectators each year. Millions more tune into the television broadcast.

This year, the honor band will be performing “Reflections of Earth” from the soundtrack for the Disney World nighttime spectacular IllumniNations at EPCOT.

James Weaver is the CEO of Music for All, which oversees the Rose Parade honor band. He said he’s excited for the world to see his ensemble's hard work and dedication on display. And he hopes that it will showcase the importance of music education.

"What's special about this is it allows us to go and have an experience, go back to our home communities and talk about the importance of music education and why these students are getting a life-changing experience for the better," Weaver said.

The television broadcast of the Rose Parade starts at 10 a.m. CT on Jan. 1.

(FOX 9) - A Rosemount woman from Mexico faces deportation after she was detained at her green card interview in Minneapolis on Wednesday, her attorney said.

Rosemount woman likely to be deported to Mexico: attorney

The backstory:

Macias-Pulido crossed the border in 1998 with her then-2-year-old daughter. She told authorities that she was a U.S. citizen, when she was not.

That lie led to a deportation order, but Macias-Pulido eventually received a work permit, a Social Security number and applied for a green card to stay here permanently.

However, when she went to an interview for her green card in Minneapolis on Wednesday, immigration authorities detained her, according to her attorney.

Why she was detained:

Even though Macias-Pulido had documentation, the fact that she lied to border officials when she crossed nearly three decades ago made her ineligible for a green card. In essence, since she was ineligible to apply for permanent residency, she was not in the country legally, her attorney said.

Detained woman’s son explains why she lied at border

What they're saying:

"She said she was a citizen, but she wasn’t. And the reason why she did that at that time was because my sister was 2 years old," said Angel Silva, her son. "They were by themselves – them two – and they were crossing the border and only my sister went through, and my mom didn’t know where my sister was. She couldn’t cross the border. So, my mom, out of desperation to find her daughter, hired some coyotes that were able to help her cross the border."

Her attorney, Evangeline Dhawan-Maloney, said it is unclear whether Macias-Pulido forgot what she told authorities in 1998.

"It’s very possible that she may not have remembered exactly what she said," she explained. "It’s possible that it’s been 30 years – she thought, ‘Okay, maybe I gave them a name.’" She said Macias-Pulido also gave authorities an alias.

Dhawan-Maloney said that although her client is not eligible for a green card, her situation would likely have played out differently in the past.

"Would she have been detained at the interview on Wednesday under a previous administration? No, probably not," Dhawan-Maloney said.

The other side:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

St. Paul-based North Wind has closed on the land it needs to develop a $1 billion aerospace research and testing facility at UMore Park in Rosemount, a project that’s expected to begin next year after environmental cleanup.

North Wind paid $8.1 million for the long-unused, 60-acre polluted site, which is at the corner of the future 151st Street and Blaine Avenue, just south of where Meta’s new data center will be. The University of Minnesota is the seller.

UMore Park is about 3 miles east of downtown Rosemount in the southwest quadrant of 145th Street and Biscayne Avenue West.

Scheduled to be fully operational in 2030, the new Minnesota Aerospace Complex will be the most advanced ground testing center in the U.S., according to North Wind, an independent supplier of aerospace test infrastructure, systems and services.

North Wind said the complex will feature nearly 250,000 square feet of space for wind tunnels, engineering facilities, offices, heating and cooling, maintenance, and storage. In addition, the University of Minnesota will partner with North Wind to operate a 60,000-square-foot advanced engineering facility on the Minnesota Aerospace Complex site.

Everything from aircraft to space access vehicles will be tested at the new facility, said North Wind CEO Artie Mabbett, who added that the project is “very broadly for the aerospace and defense market.”

“The country itself has not made investments in our wind tunnel facilities and testing facilities in about 50 years, so when you look at the facilities across the country, they’re aged,” said Mabbett, whose company currently does aerospace testing and wind tunnel work in Plymouth.

Among other capabilities, the Minnesota Aerospace Complex will help “accelerate the development of hypersonic vehicles critical to modernizing the military,” according to North Wind. Hypersonic is five times or more the speed of sound, Mabbett said.

Mabbett said the $1 billion investment will cover everything to build out the site, including physical construction, the land, the facilities and the wind tunnels. A “majority of that $1 billion-plus is focused on getting the facility up and running,” he added.

North Wind said the land purchase and site development were made possible with funds appropriated in 2023 by the Minnesota Legislature and awarded by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development‘s Minnesota Forward Fund.

Crews could begin pushing dirt in May or June, once the remediation work is completed, Mabbett said, adding that North Wind has collected contractor bids for the remediation work.

“We were hopeful to get kicked off before the winter truly set in. But unfortunately, it doesn’t look like we’ll be able to do that. So we’ll get everything in place with the subcontract to have the remediation start as soon as we can in the spring,” he said.

Though the new facility won’t be fully operational until 2030, Mabbett said some capabilities will come online as soon as 2027.

Mabbett said the project will create hundreds of construction jobs, with work opportunities for heavy machinery operators, skilled laborers, electricians, pipefitters and other trades. In addition, when the wind tunnels are up and running, dozens of jobs will be created onsite.

“When you think about the infrastructure to build a wind tunnel, a lot of the skilled laborers will be involved over the over the coming years,” he said.

UMore Park was home to a World War II era smokeless gunpower plant before the U of M acquired the site from the federal government in 1947 and 1948. The U of M used the property for “agricultural research, university projects, and tenant agricultural, industrial, and commercial activities,” according to the city of Rosemount.

Jeff Weisensel, mayor of Rosemount, said in a statement that he’s “pleased to see this project advancing.”

“For decades, UMore Park land has sat vacant, limited by the need for environmental clean-up. With North Wind’s plans to remediate the site and develop the MAC here, we will address a long-standing environmental challenge, put the land back to productive use, generate new tax revenue for our community, and bring innovation back to Rosemount.”

Finance & Commerce first reported on plans for the Minnesota Aerospace Complex in January, when the Rosemount Planning Commission recommended approval of a rezoning request and preliminary and final plat for the project.

In addition to its testing facilities in Plymouth, North Wind has designed and built facilities across the country, including a project for Boeing in Seattle.