Duluth, Minnesota - May 19, 2005

Minnesota’s Iron Country: Rich Ore, Rich Lives won top honors in the 17th Annual Northeastern Minnesota Book Awards (NEMBA) on the same day that it earned a silver medal honor in the Midwest Independent Publishers Association (MIPA) awards.

Iron Range historian Marvin G. Lamppa’s comprehensive and lively history of the region won in the non-fiction, art and scholarship category of NEMBA and was honored during a Wednesday, May 18, ceremony at the University of Minnesota-Duluth library. That same evening in Minneapolis, it was announced that the book took the Merit Award honor in the biography, memoir and history category of MIPA.

The culmination of a lifetime of research on his home region, Lamppa’s book traces the history of Minnesota’s three iron ranges from prehistoric times to the present, examining a range of topics ranging from the lives of individual settlers to the affairs of the giant corporations that controlled many aspects of those lives and of the region. The book combines historic photos, regional maps and Lamppa’s storytelling talents into a page-turning and meaningful recording to regional history.

“I’m both thrilled and honored,” Lamppa said of his two recent awards. Since the book was released, he has received numerous contacts. “All the way from California to the East Coast to Alaska, people have picked up the book and commented positively on it.”

The book even got mentioned in a New York Times article on the area, he added.

The Northeastern Minnesota Book Awards were established in 1988 to recognize books that represent the history, culture, heritage, or lifestyle of in the Minnesota counties of Aitkin, Carlton, Cook, Itasca, Kanabec, Koochiching, Lake, Pine, and St. Louis. Since 2002, NEMBA has presented prizes in a fiction and a non-fiction category.

MIPA, based in Minneapolis, is a non-profit organization representing publishers in the upper Midwest.

Published by Lake Superior Port Cities Inc. of Duluth, publishers of Lake Superior Magazine, Minnesota’s Iron Country: Rich Ore, Rich Lives was vying with 29 other nominees for top honors for the NEMBA. It is available in bookstores and better gift outlets throughout the Midwest or directly from the publisher at 325 Lake Avenue South, #600, Duluth, Minnesota 55802. For more information, call 888-BIG LAKE (888-244-5253) or go Online to www.lakesuperior.com.