Author: Andy Steiner

It’s a beautiful spring afternoon and there’s a costume contest going on at Eagles Aerie Number 33 on St. Paul’s East Side. The contestants—an Indian, a bride, a hillbilly, and a witch—are decked out in gorgeous homemade finery. Their handlers hover nervously, while judges with clipboards move in for a closer look.

My personal favorite is the hillbilly, with his patched denim overalls, straw hat, and curly wig, but, predictably, the judges go for the showier Indian, with his regal feather-decked headpiece à la early Village People. After the ribbons are passed out, the witch squirms out of her peaked hat, and the white-veiled bride slumps dejectedly, like a skinny, beady-eyed Miss Havisham.

“Isn’t this the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?” asks Barbara “Grandma” Martin, leaning in to pat the winning contestant, a furry, pointy-nosed ferret named Kinsey. I’m at Ferret Funfest 2003. It is a gathering of ferret enthusiasts and a fundraiser for Minnesota’s only no-kill ferret shelter, a place called In the Company of Ferrets. Hardcore ferret enthusiasts call themselves ferreteers, and this crowd is definitely hardcore. The games now finished, dozens of ferrets snooze in specially designed hammocks, rest on shoulders, or scamper around the hall on leashes, making skritch-skritch noises on the polished wooden floor.

This annual event is the brainchild of Laura Palmer—not the cheerleader from that creepy TV show Twin Peaks, but the founder of both the shelter and a nonprofit ferret club called FROLIC (Ferrets Require Our Love, Involvement and Companionship). She is arguably Minnesota’s leading ferreteer.

“Old-style ferret people tend to be alternative types,” says the husky-voiced Palmer, on a cigarette break near the back door. On second thought, she does seem jaded in a David Lynch kind of way. “Now there’s a whole new generation of ferret owners—yuppies and soccer moms who don’t understand that having a ferret is like having a two-year-old child.” Palmer’s shelter is actually more of a network of foster-ferreteers willing to care for abandoned animals in their homes. She started it seven years ago, after Petco began selling the animals in their 18 Minnesota stores and the state’s ferret population began to skyrocket.

As the local ferret count rose, so did the number of animals abandoned at the humane societies, in parks, and even on the side of the road. “Ferrets are not a good pet for someone who’s anal-retentive or germ-phobic,” Palmer says. “They’re little hellions. They will trash your house. People who tell you that ferrets are easy to care for, like cats, are all wrong. They’re practically a full-time job.”

In the United States, ferrets are domesticated animals, and on average they live to be about 7 years old. (They are prone to certain cancers, often escape from houses, and can even be killed by hairballs.) Ferrets are also notoriously difficult to housetrain. Each year, a few of the shelter’s ferrets are adopted, but many are too old, frail, or unstable to move. “Our vet bills run around $10,000 a year,” says Palmer, who keeps the oldest and sickest animals in her Stillwater home.

Vicki Collins, a slim, soft-voiced woman with short, spiky hair, loaded her family and her four favorite ferrets, Cami, Kinsey (the Indian), Romeo, and Naughty Tawney, in the car and drove all the way up from Osceola, Wisconsin, for the Fun Fest. “There’s no pet better than a ferret,” Collins says, her eyes glittering enthusiastically. “But they are a lot of work. They’re not something just to be pretty and looked at. They’re like little children. They train you.”

Deb Carlson, a tall, flushed woman also known by her fellow ferreteers as “Big Deb,” takes a break from her duties as master of ceremonies. “I got a new man in my life,” she says, her voice hoarse from yelling over the din. “He came over to my house and I gave him a ferret to hold. He’s like this,” and she pantomimes a man holding a ferret gingerly at arm’s length. “I said to him, ‘I suggest you bring that ferret close to you because if you want to be with me, you better get used to having that little fucker around.’”—Andy Steiner

Though the letters “MBA” normally conjure visions of accountants and middle managers, you may start seeing them on letter jackets and sweatshirts around town. MBA also stands for Minnesota Business Academy, a two-year-old charter high school that occupies the old Science Museum building in downtown St. Paul. Though charter schools have existed in Minnesota for more than a decade, many are just now getting around to forming sports teams. There is nothing keeping charter schools from competing against conventional public schools with established sports programs, but few have had the moxie—or the money—needed to pull together a winning squad.

Then last fall, MBA partnered with the Agriculture & Food Academy in Rosemount to form a combined athletic department. The athletes call themselves the “Charter Stars,” and so far they’ve signed on enough players for boys and girls basketball teams, cross-country and downhill ski teams, a danceline, and a cheerleading squad. The Stars’ first-ever game, a boys’ basketball match against the Burnsville Blaze, took place the other day at Burnsville Senior High School.

Charter Stars cheerleaders don’t have a home gym. They don’t have perky ponytails, and until recently, they didn’t even have uniforms. But they do have spirit—in a cool, offhand way. A few weeks ago, the squad gathered in a makeshift practice space, one of the former Science Museum’s exhibit halls. It was a random sample of girls of all sizes and skill levels. They ran through the shortlist of cheers they’d memorized, while Rosalind Bakion, MBA’s activities coordinator and de facto coach, looked on.

“Dynamite!” began one cheer, and a sly girl with purple-edged hair, the anticheerleader’s cheerleader, ran through the moves. The cheer declared, “Our stars are dynamite! Our stars are,”—here a quick swish of the hips—“tick, tick, tick, tick—BOOM! Dynamite!”

“There were no tryouts,” said Bakion, a sporty, earnest-looking woman dressed in a shiny zip-front track suit. “From the start, we said that if you show up for practice you can be on the squad. You don’t have to look like a Barbie doll to be on this team.”

A couple days later, MBA hosted the Charter Stars’ first-ever pepfest, a disorganized, low-key, and cautiously enthusiastic affair. About 50 kids and a handful of teachers and parents milled around in what used to be the Science Museum’s main lobby. Oddly, “TC,” the Minnesota Twins mascot, made an appearance. Team members were introduced, the danceline performed a short number, and the cheerleaders, decked out in their newly acquired uniforms—bright blue skirts with matching Charter Stars T-shirts—ran smoothly through “Dynamite!” It has apparently become their signature cheer.

The executive director of MBA is Paul Durand, an animated man who is determined to raise the visibility of Twin Cities charter schools. He stepped up to the mike and spoke excitedly. “Our first game is happening tonight!”—here a pause and building sense of foreboding—“It’s not the size of your school that counts. It’s the size of the heart of the athlete.”

The game itself was a humbling experience, with a final score of 25-103. Off court, the tone was tense, with noisy, countercheers from the Burnsville bleachers, and a pre-game face-off of sorts. “We saw the other cheerleaders in the locker room,” said one Charter Star cheerleader. “They looked us up and down and said,”—here she adopts a sarcastic tone—“‘Are those your real uniforms?’”—Andy Steiner