NOT MANY ARE AWARE OF THIS--EVEN IN MINNESOTA--but 2008 is the sesquicentenary (150-year) anniversary of Minnesota's becoming the 32nd state of the United States.

No doubt a time for much rejoicing and historical reflection, even if Governor Pawlenty has called for the observance to be conducted @ cut prices for the sake of "taxpayer value," howbeit warped.

In any case, for the sake of a Sesquicentenary Project, I would like to name a few people from Minnesota history who, in my personal opine, I would be willing to invite to dinner if given the opportunity. Not to mention providing a challenge to bloggers across Minnesota to think along the same lines in the name of the Minnesota Sesquicentenary.

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Understand, this will be an occasional series on my part, with pieces in this vein on an irregular basis--in other words, as whim and fancy permit.

So, might I start this little series of historical observation and whimsey by suggesting where one I would like to have dinner with from Minnesota history would probably be Dr. William Watts Fowell, longtime President of the University of Minnesota and, in his retirement, compiling and writing a four-volume History of Minnesota regarded by many as perhaps the most authoritative on the subject.

Staying with the University for a moment, I could also think of having over Maria L. Sanford, longtime professor of rhetoric @ the U as later became quite a popular lecturer in her own right.

The fact of Minnesota being the first state to offer troops to the Union cause in the Civil War would be enough to have me extend the invitations to Alexander Ramsey, then-Governor of Minnesota who had the foresight to be in Washington when Fort Sumter was attacked upon and made the offer to President Lincoln ... and Colonel William Colvill, himself distinguised in the battlefront after a stint as newspaper editor and certainly one to swap Civil War anecdotes with.

This round of dinner companions from Minnesota history could well include James M. Goodhue, who brought the Fourth Estate to Minnesota when he launched the Minnesota Pioneer in 1851, and brought a journalistic style which was as flamboyant as the times he was chronicler to--bombastic, yet tending @ times to be sentimental (as in promoting Minnesota for settlement). Plenty of stories and anecdotes worth swapping, even some as tended to out-and-out brawls with rival publishers.

Let's leave some room for Gideon Wealthy, an Eastern fruit planter who saw Minnesota's potential as a fruit-growing centre, devoting space in his orchards on Lake Minnetonka to developing such varieties of apples as could take Minnesota's harsh winters (including his namesake apple, the Wealthy) ... and Wendelin Grimm, the German farmer as developed a hardy variety of alfalfa that could take on Minnesota winters and @ once produce some decent hay which would make its way into making Minnesota a dairy leader.

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That's it for now ... so watch for the next selection of such from Minnesota history as would be worth having dinner with during the Minnesota Sesquicentennial Year.