DID YOU KNOW

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At 100, Mildred Heath may be the nation's oldest working journalist. She's on the job full time gathering news for The Beacon-Observer in Overton,Nebraska and began her newspaper career in 1923 on a Linotype machine.

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Mountain,North Dakota a community with a rich Icelandic heritage, is getting some foreign aid to build its community center. A gift of $75,000 has been pledged from the Icelandic government after Prime Minister Geir Haarde learned about the project while visiting the town last year during the August the Deuce Icelandic Celebration.

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Billed as the world's longest snake in captivity, Fluffy is a 24-foot-long python at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Powell, Ohio. The python was on loan from her Oklahoma breeder last year and proved so popular that the zoo bought her for $35.000.

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The official state animal is the coyote, which hunts the open prairies and fields across the entire state, but is found in its greatest numbers along the Missouri River and its tributaries, and in the Balck Hills--South Dakota

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For 55 years, Laverne and Beverly Maves of Edgerton, Wisconsin delievered the Wisconsin State Journal. Both in their 80s, the couple, who worked seven days a week, 365 days a year, retired in Febuary.

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Springfield savors its spicy title as "Chilli Capital of the World," bestowed by the state Legislature in 1993. The city has a history of chilli parlors, canneries and Chowhounds. Community leaders prefer spelling out their title with a double close of "Ls."

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Patoka Lake, near Birdseye. Indiana supports a healthy population of harmless freshwater jellyfish, each about the size of a quarter. They are an indicator of a pure and clean ecosystem in the 8,800-acre reservoir.

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Plenty of monkey business takes place at Fox River Mills in Osage, Iowa, where the company manufactures the classic Rockford Red Heel work socks. Buyers have stitched the socks into red-lipped monkey dolls since the early 1900s. The socks originally were made in Rockford, Ill, by Nelson Knitting Mills.

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When his wife, Sarah died in 1930, John Davis of Hiawartha, Kansas commissioned an eleborate tomb at Mount Hope Cemetery with 11 detailed, life-size marble and granite statues both of them at varoius stages of marriage. Listed on the national Register of Historic Places, the gravesite is a top tourist attraction for the town.

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Preston Tucker, who in the 1940s took on the Big Three automakers by launching the Tucker automoble, was born in 1903 in Capac, Michigan. The innovation boasted disc brakes, a pop-out safety windshield and padded dashboard.

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Since the late 1800s, guest and their fishing poles have arrived at the state's oldest resort, Lutsen Resort and Sea Villas on Lake Superior in Lutsen, Minnisota. The showplace of the resort is a Swedish-style main lodge.

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Laura Hawkins Frazer, the inspiration for Becky Thatcher in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, is buried in Big Creek Cemetery in Rensselaer,Missouri. She and Samuel Clemens (Twain's real name) were childhood sweethearts in Hannibal, Missouri.

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Author Mari Sandoz captured the lives of rugged pioneers, their speech and culture in her nonfiction works, including Old Jules, a biography of her father; Crazy Horse and The Buffalo Hunters. Sandoz was born in 1896 near Hay Springs, Nebraska

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Much of the wildly rugged and picturesque Badlands scenry of the nearly 6,000-acre Little Missouri State Park near Killdeer, North Dakota is accessible only on horseback or foot. More than 25 miles of trails crisscross the park.

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Martha Finley, creator of the Elsie Dinsmore series of children's books, was born in 1828 in Chillicothe,Ohio. Finley's tales of the pious Elsie struck a chord with young readers and were popular through 27 sequels.

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James Naismith, a teacher at a YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts, is credited with inventing basketball in 1891

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Since 1939, the religious drama Black Hills Passion Play has been presented under the stars at the Spearfish Amphitheater, among the world's largest outdoor stages with seating for 6,000, in Spearfish, South Dakota.

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The location of a popular spy-themed Milwaukee restaurant, the Safe House, is hush-hush, of course. Still, hungry James Bond types show up at an alley door marked "International Exports,Ltd." Food and fun await diners who know the password.

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The location of a popular spy-themed Milwaukee restaurant, the Safe House, is hush-hush, of course. Still, hungry James Bond types show up at an alley door marked "International Exports,Ltd." Food and fun await diners who know the password.