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Aaron Brown

Contributing Columnist | Opinion

Aaron Brown is a columnist for the Minnesota Star Tribune Editorial Board. He’s based on the Iron Range but focuses on the affairs of the entire state.


Aaron Brown is a columnist for the Minnesota Star Tribune Editorial Board. He's based on the Iron Range but focuses on the affairs of the entire state. He was raised in a trailer house on a local junkyard and is the first in five generations of his family to never work in an iron mine. He lives down a dirt road on the western Mesabi. His past writing can be found at MinnesotaBrown.com.
Recent content from Aaron Brown
"I’m no hockey coach, but if I was, I’d be yelling to my fellow Rangers to keep our gloves on and put the puck in the net," Aaron Brown writes. Ab

Brown: Iron Rangers drop gloves over U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, but region needs a win, not just a fight

Places like Eveleth need to win, not just skate for the status quo.
"As dissimilar as country and city might seem, I see connecting paths," writes Aaron Brown, the Minnesota Star Tribune Editorial Board's newest member

Brown: An Iron Range writer, new to the Editorial Board, reflects on how Minnesota connects

As dissimilar as country and city might seem, I see their paths as joined.
"According to Child Care Aware of Minnesota, families pay anywhere from $152 per week to $388 per week, depending on the age of the child and type of

Brown: Child care is expensive, but no one is getting rich from it

There are no easy answers for how to ease the financial burden on families. But government and employers can be part of the solution.
Steel rods produced at the Gerdau Ameristeel mill in St. Paul await shipment in 2019.

Brown: The wheeling and dealing of American steel

For better or worse, Trump's tariffs will impact Minnesota workers and the state's Iron Range.
"Experts regard the 300-square-mile Sax-Zim Bog in northern Minnesota as one of the world’s most interesting natural places," Aaron Brown writes.

Brown: I grew up in a Minnesota bog the size of New York City; I didn't know it was special.

The Sax-Zim Bog in northern Minnesota is considered to be one of the world's most interesting natural places where you can easily see the inner workings of a boreal forest. It also becomes a mecca for bird watchers in the winter.
"U.S. Steel needs investment badly," Aaron Brown writes.

Brown: Blocked Nippon deal leaves fate of U.S. Steel in question

The company still needs investment badly, and it isn't clear what game of opportunity and survival is being played at the top.
Bob Dylan in his New York apartment in 1963.

Brown: In Hibbing, Dylan biopic taps the unknowable

Creative genius can come from anywhere and everywhere. This version came from the Range.
An aerial view of the under-construction Mesabi Metallics plant including its secondary crusher, bottom, concentrator, top right, and ore storage, top

Brown: Reforming broken rural economies in greater Minnesota

Here are three projects in northeastern Minnesota that could pave the way to a brighter future. And they don't have anything to do with copper-nickel mining.
Christopher David Hanson plays four or five shows a week in venues across rural Minnesota.

Brown: The music scene is alive and well in rural Minnesota

Underrated and undeterred: Traveling musicians keep rural Minnesota scene swinging. So go see the show.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz gets his hunting license ceremoniously inspected before heading out for the annual Minnesota Governor's Pheasant Hunting Opene

Brown: Hunting licenses in Minnesota will soon go digital. I get it. And I hate it.

Getting my license from the small store by my house has become an enjoyable ritual. Now there will be one less reason for people to gather in public.
What’s really changed in small towns across Minnesota, Aaron Brown writes, is that "all politics is online."

Brown: On the eve of the election, both campaign offices in this Minnesota town were dark

That's because most of the action has moved online.
"Iron in its purest form is a deep, dark gray — almost midnight blue. In certain light it shines like a raven’s wing. When iron in the dirt is exp

Brown: When a blue district turns red, the dirt stays the same

Republicans have a good chance of sweeping all state House seats on the Iron Range for the first time since World War I. The question is what's changed.
"Looking out for my mom and kids puts me in what is sometimes called the 'sandwich generation,' adults providing care for minor children and an aging

Aaron Brown: In the quick of time — a dispatch from the 'sandwich generation' years

Research shows that people who care for an aging parent while still raising children struggle with increased financial and emotional strains. But the time investment is worth it.
A 100-ton truck hauls finished taconite pellets as part of post-production screening process in Keewatin, Minn., on Oct. 4, 2022.

Aaron Brown: With merger on the ropes, the fate of U.S. Steel will shape the future of the Iron Range

We need more investment in iron ore plants across the region, and we must reject single-company rule of the Mesabi.
"An acute shortage of bus drivers, which was exacerbated by the pandemic and the overall worker shortage that ensued, threatens one of the most fundam

Without more drivers, wheels on rural Minnesota school buses can't go 'round

The stakes are especially high in rural areas where some bus rides may be almost 90 minutes one way due to school consolidations.
The miner on the left in the background is Aaron Brown's grandfather, the son of the man in the foreground, Brown's great-grandfather.

Old family photo reveals how much has changed on Iron Range

Today, health care workers outnumber miners and there are more open jobs than people.