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The Kids Are All Right...

Sunday, 28 November 2010 04:00

(Photo L: Four-time JOY winner Beth Zirbes, who is always prepared.)

MMA History - Great sons and daughters. Great citizens. Great people. And, oh yeah, great athletes, too.

These descriptions certainly apply to each and every Minnesota Junior of the Year. Any parent would be proud to claim any one of these kids, though most of them are not kids anymore. All have gone on to college, where they have excelled, or in the case of 2009 JOY Nick Madrinich and three-time award winner Michael Williams, are currently excelling.

Minnesota's most successful Junior was Beth Zirbes, who won the award an unprecedented four times. Beth was and is an amazing individual. An effervescent fast-talker, she is genius-bright, gregarious and energetic. And wise, too. Note ... that she takes a roll of toilet paper (photo above) with her when she's out doing rustic outdoorsy stuff.

Now 25, Beth's travels have taken her from bucolic Silver Lake to St. Peter, where she rocked her academic socks off at Gustavus. From there she traveled to Europe, where she studied in Sweden. (She speaks fluent Swedenish.) Additional graduate work was done at the University of Alaska (Fairbanks).

Beth is now married to a cool Russian guy (photo below), who is probably named Boris or Ivan, and the deliriously happy couple do lots of fun, intrepid, Alaska-y wilderness stuff. When Boris (or Ivan) gets homesick, the couple goes over to Sarah Palin's house, where they can see Russia from her deck.