Maple Grove Gazette - August 29, 2026
Maple Grove's Only Newspaper of Record—Vol. 1 No. 20—Edited by Mr. Ellison, Town Archivist & Historian
FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK
The district opened Tuesday, and the town discovered what it discovers every year, which is that a child who has spent eleven weeks going to bed when he felt like it does not become a scholar overnight, or by Thursday. This editor took his morning walk past three separate bus stops and can report the following. At the first, four children stood in a line as straight as a fence and did not speak. At the second, a boy of perhaps nine sat down on the curb with his backpack still on and closed his eyes, and his sister let him, and neither of them said a word about it. At the third, a young man had come out in one shoe. He was aware of it. He had made a decision.
The parents divide, as they always divide, into two nations. The first is at war and losing. This editor has heard the same sentence from four mothers in six days, in four different aisles of the same grocery, delivered each time in the tone of a woman reporting from a front: he was up until eleven all summer and I let him. They are not asking for sympathy. They are entering it into the record.
The second nation was seated at Brewed Awakenings by five past eight on Tuesday morning, dressed, and had been for some minutes. The café reports that the long table by the window was full at 8:05 and did not turn over until nearly ten, and that the conversation at it was conducted at a volume the crew had not heard since the second week of June. Jenna made no remark about the volume. She did put a second pot on at ten minutes to eight, which she does not ordinarily do on a Tuesday, and which this editor takes as a form of comment.
The first home football game of the season was played Friday evening against Cooper's Creek, under a sky that had finally consented to be cool, and it will be talked about in this town for thirty years. It began exactly as these things begin. The band took the field for the pre-game under Mr. Robinson and played it clean. The teams came out. The anthem was sung. The ball was kicked. For one half of football the evening was an ordinary evening, and this editor records that plainly, because nothing after it was ordinary and the contrast is the whole of the story.
At halftime the band took the field again with the cheer squad, and somewhere in the sixth or seventh minute of the performance there was a string of reports from behind the visitors' bleachers, close together and loud, that stopped the trumpets mid-phrase.
The stands emptied. They emptied the way stands empty when nobody yet knows what a sound was, which is quickly and without much dignity and with a good many people carrying somebody else's coat. It was firecrackers. It was firecrackers within about ninety seconds, once the Chief had gone behind the bleachers and come back out and said so, and the crowd came back the way a crowd comes back, sheepish and loud and telling each other where they had been standing.
Winston III did not know it was firecrackers. He took advantage of his handler's flinch, took off with his leash trailing behind him—and he went into the band.
He was not moving fast. This editor wishes that understood, because every account since Friday has him streaking, and he has never streaked in his life. He was moving low and he was moving with purpose and he did not go around anything. He took the tuba out at the back of the knees. What followed has been described to this editor by nine separate residents as dominoes, which is the correct word and this editor will not improve on it. The low brass went down in order. Nobody was hurt. One sousaphone bell requires Mr. Robinson's personal attention, which it has already received, and which he describes as "not the first time."
Winston III was then at large on the field for eleven minutes, and the Gazette wishes to correct the record on that as well. He was not being chased so much as approached. The stands were empty by then; the only people available were the band and the cheer squad, who had been standing in the middle of it and had nowhere to go. Fifty-odd young people in uniform closed on a fifty-five-pound dog at walking speed for a quarter of an hour and could not lay a hand on him. He was never once out of reach. He was simply never where the reaching was. He was stopped near the north end zone by a woman in her sixties who did not chase him at all. She stood where he was going to be, put a foot on the trailing leash, and bent down and picked it up. She handed it to his handler, said something to the young man that this editor was too far off to hear and that the young man has since declined to repeat, and left before anybody thought to thank her. This editor did not recognize her and has not been able to identify her since.
Chief Carter and Officer Markle were on the grounds, as they are for every home game, and had the matter behind the bleachers settled before the dog was. They found two young men and the remains of what the department's report calls, with restraint, a quantity. The young men were Wesley and Merritt Ellison, aged fifteen and thirteen. Readers who have followed the department's acquaintance with those two will not be surprised, and this editor notes only that the acquaintance is not new and that the park was, on the previous occasion, at least empty.
The Gazette discloses, because the record requires it and because there is not a person in this town who does not already know it, that the young men's father is this editor's nephew. Their names are both on the 1887 plat, several times over, which this editor has always regarded as an honor and regarded on Friday evening as something else.
They were taken to the station. Their father, Thomas Ellison, arrived within four minutes, which suggests to this editor either an unusual turn of speed or a certain readiness. Asked by the Chief what he wanted done, Thomas said he wanted them kept overnight. The Chief, who has known the family a long while and who has also met a thirteen-year-old, proposed forty hours of community service instead. Thomas considered this and said it was not enough. The Chief said it would do. The boys begin Monday after school under Officer Sanchez, who has a list, and who has had the list for some time.
The game resumed. It stayed level through the third quarter and most of the fourth—twenty-one apiece, under a minute on the clock, and Maple Grove ninety yards from anywhere it needed to be. What happened next is already being told wrong in four places, so the Gazette will set it down once, correctly, from the press box.
Tyler Baker threw it. He is a junior. He threw it from his own thirty-two with the clock inside forty seconds and he threw it as far as he could throw it, which is the only honest way to describe the play. Sam Hemlock came down with it in a crowd at the goal line, and this editor, who has watched this field since before either boy's father was born, does not know how. The extra point was good. Cooper's Creek fumbled the kickoff return, Maple Grove fell on it, and that was the evening.
The older men at the diner spent Saturday morning observing that Baker's father played, and played that same position, and was not as accurate. Old Man Hemlock observed nothing. He sat at the counter and let other people bring it up, which they did, eleven times, and he received each one as though it were news. Shirley reports that he stayed past ten and did not once look at his watch.
📜 POLICE BLOTTER
MAPLE GROVE POLICE DEPARTMENT—INCIDENT REPORT
Reporting Officer: Officer Markle Week of: August 22–28
Tuesday, 7:40 a.m., the streets nearest the elementary building. The department received four complaints in eighteen minutes regarding vehicles stopped in the roadway. In every case the vehicle was a parent's, the roadway was the drop-off lane, and the delay was occasioned by a child who would not get out. Two officers attended. No enforcement action was taken or contemplated. Final Disposition: The department reminds residents that the drop-off lane is a lane. It further notes that this is the twelfth consecutive year it has reminded them.
Friday, approximately 8:38 p.m., behind the visitors' bleachers, the high school field. The department responded to a report of an explosion. The responding officers determined within two minutes that the source was commercial firecrackers, discharged in quantity, and the Chief communicated that determination to the crowd from the track. Two juveniles were located at the scene and transported to the station, where both were released to a parent the same evening. In consultation with the father, the Chief imposed forty hours of community service in lieu of further action, to commence Monday, September 1, under the supervision of Officer Sanchez. Final Disposition: No charges filed. The department notes that both young men were cooperative, that both were forthcoming as to method, and that one of them was, in the reporting officer's assessment, somewhat proud of the method.
Friday, approximately 8:39 p.m., the high school field. An animal at large. The animal was Winston III. He was at large approximately eleven minutes and was recovered without injury to himself or any person. Contact was made with one member of the band program at the level of the lower leg. The department records that the animal did not leave the field at any point, was at no time in danger from traffic, and was at no time in excess of a walk. Final Disposition: Animal returned to the custody of the school. The department has no recommendation as to leashes, grip, or the reflexes of a fifteen-year-old, and has now been asked for one six times.
County Road. For a third consecutive week, nothing. The mailbox at the McGregor farm stands. Cheryl reports it is the only box on that road she can serve without slowing below fifteen, the height and the setback being, in her professional judgment, exactly correct, and she wishes the rest of County Road to understand that this was not an accident and that she notices.
Chief Carter was asked Saturday morning whether Friday's matter behind the bleachers bore on the matter on County Road. The Chief said it did not. Asked whether he was certain, he said that he had been doing this a long time, that one of the young men in question was thirteen years old, and that whoever is out on County Road at two in the morning is not thirteen and is not practicing. He then said the department had nothing further on it. This editor prints the exchange as given.
📋 COMMUNITY NOTICES
Schools—first week. The district opened Tuesday. The office reports attendance at ninety-six percent Tuesday, ninety-four Wednesday, and asks that the town read nothing into Wednesday.
Bus stops. The transportation office asks that children be at the stop five minutes early. Arriving as the bus is pulling away from the stop is not ‘on time’, and notes the distinction is not rhetorical. Drivers report they are holding for no one after the second week. They have reported this every year. They have held every year.
Brewed Awakenings—extended hours. The café is open until ten Tuesday through Saturday for the term, the college having returned and the studying with it. The fall board is up: the Autumn Alignment stays, still at two per customer per day, joined by a maple cream cold brew and a spiced apple scone this editor is not in a position to evaluate at this hour of the morning but intends to be. Megan notes that the late hours are staffed entirely by students, that the students in question are the reason the late hours exist, and that she considers the arrangement fair.
Maple Grove College—welcome week. Welcome week concluded Sunday and was, by the college's account and the town's, well attended. The Provost wants to remind the community that they are welcome to use the library on campus any time between 9 and 5 Monday through Friday and 11 to 6 on Saturday.
Community service—work available. Officer Sanchez advises that he has forty hours of labor to place beginning Monday and welcomes suggestions. The Ladies' Auxiliary submitted three before he finished the sentence. The Gazette understands that the cemetery association has also written, that Gordon has a gutter, and that the department will be prioritizing.
Winston III. The athletic department reports Winston III uninjured, unbothered, and eating. It wishes it understood that the collar held, that the collar has never been the difficulty, and that a bulldog's head does not permit the collar to be the difficulty. The difficulty was six feet of leather in the hand of a boy who had just heard the same noise everybody else in the stadium had heard. The department has been asked to recommend a different arrangement and has declined, on the grounds that it can think of nothing to recommend except that nobody set off firecrackers behind the bleachers, which it had assumed went without saying. He is on loan to the school Friday nights and lives the rest of the week on Third Street, where he is reported to have slept through Saturday.
Band. Mr. Robinson thanks the low brass for its composure and asks the town not to make more of Friday than Friday deserves. He would like it known that the sousaphone is repairable, that it is not that instrument's first difficulty, and that the young man carrying it was back at practice Monday and is fine.
🏛️ HISTORICAL NOTE
The archive holds a folder labeled Mascot, and it is a thin folder for a subject this town has strong feelings about.
The school's position is that Winston III is the third Winston. The school states this in the program, has stated it for years, and has never been asked to defend it.
The Gazette's photographic record shows that this school has kept a bulldog since 1951, that eleven distinct animals appear in the pictures, and that eight of them were called Winston.
This editor spent a portion of Sunday satisfied that the school was wrong and the remainder of it discovering that it is not. The school is not counting the dogs. It is counting the ones that have come from the Harper place, and it began counting in 1994, when the first of them did. Nobody at the school was able to explain this to the Gazette. Everybody at the school does it correctly.
Two generations of that family have kept Winston now. He is not a school animal and never has been; he lives at the Harpers', eats at the Harpers', and sleeps, this editor is given to understand, wherever he has decided to. On Friday evenings the family walks him down to the gate and hands him off, and afterward they take him home again, and that is the whole of the arrangement. There is no contract. There has never been a contract.
What the folder does establish is the office of the Keeper, which is a student position, unpaid, appointed by the athletic department, and older than any faculty member now living. The Keeper leads Winston onto the field, holds him through the anthem, and secures him for the half. It goes to a Harper when there is a Harper of the right age, and the file shows several. There is not one at present—the eldest of that household is six—so it has gone this year, as it has gone in other lean stretches, to an appointed student, who took it seriously, and who had it for two games.
Fifty-odd names are in the file. Not one belonged to a young person who was also on the football roster that year. The archive gives no reason for this. The archive does not have to.
The archive is also able to state, from the attendance photographs and from nothing else, that in all the years it has been keeping them, there is no home football game at which that family is not somewhere in the frame.
The folder also holds a short list, kept by somebody, of occasions on which a school bulldog has been at large during a home game. Friday was the fourth. The dates are 1958, 1971, 1994, and 2026, and the entries grow shorter as they go, which this editor reads as the record of a town that has stopped being surprised.
One detail appears in all four, in three different hands. The animal was caught by a woman.
The 1958 entry names her. The 1971 entry does not. The 1994 entry says only a lady up in the north bleachers, gone before anyone got her name.
This editor offers the historical record without further comment.
🔍 Fellow Sleuths Worth Following
A Taste for Deadly Secrets by Tessa Crumb. Maisie Brooks comes back to Meadow Creek to take over her late grandmother's café, braced for gossip and a steep learning curve, and instead gets a blind date who never shows—because he's already dead, in what everyone official is very comfortable calling an accident. Maisie is not comfortable with it. What she has going for her is a good eye, a loyal dog, and an old friend willing to be dragged into it. What she's up against is a defensive girlfriend, a sheriff who wants this closed a little too much, and a town whose picture-perfect surface starts showing cracks the moment somebody looks straight at it. If you like a café sleuth who notices the thing everyone else has quietly agreed not to notice, this one's for you.
FREE READS—AUGUST TITLES
Last call on Willow's August free books—the page turns over Tuesday, and a few of these are only free through the weekend. Grab what looks good while the porch is still warm enough to read on.
Help yourself: Browse August’s Free Books →
🍽️ THE MAIN COURSE
If you read this week's Blotter and thought wait, the department knows those boys—you're right, and there's a book about it.
Parade of Peril is the Maple Grove book where the town throws its fall festival and the fall festival throws something back. It opens with a childhood bully posed in a field like a scarecrow, which would be shocking anywhere and is worse here, because Jenna knew him. Then there's a second body on a parade float parked behind her own café. And running along the edges of all of it, in the park after dark, are a couple of kids with considerably more access to fireworks than sense—the kind of detail that reads like background right up until it doesn't.
This is the book where Maple Grove's past stops being a nice thing the town tells itself. Everybody Jenna went to school with turns out to be a person with a version of events, and the versions don't match, and Joe would very much like her to stop collecting them. She does not stop collecting them.
It's the fall book. It's the one for the stretch where the evenings get shorter and the festival tents go up.
New to Maple Grove? Start at the beginning—Book 1, Scones, Secrets & Sabotage, is free →
✍️ Behind the Scenes
School starts Monday here, so we spent the last of the week doing the things you do when you can feel a season closing—day trips, no particular agenda, everybody in one vehicle. My oldest granddaughter starts fifth grade, and with it, band. She has chosen the clarinet. I would like it on the record that her mother, both her aunts, and her uncle came through this house with a trumpet, a saxophone, and a full drum set between them, and that I have therefore earned the clarinet and intend to enjoy every minute of it. The garden's winding down too, so I've been pulling what's finished and hauling it out to the compost heap, which is the least glamorous job of the year and somehow one of my favorites—October goes a great deal easier when September did the work. And Luca started daycare this week. His dad had braced himself for tears and got a backwards wave instead, and has not entirely recovered.
See you next Saturday, fellow sleuths—same town, new trouble.
— Willow 🌿
Meet Willow
Author, School Board member, and gluten-free baker. I write the Jenna McGregor mysteries from my home in Michigan, fueled by coffee and Peloton PRs.
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