Minnesota Night at the United States Air Force Academy

Minnesota Night at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) was hosted on January 30th by the Minnesota Parent’s Club. This year we invited cadets from the neighboring states of North and South Dakota as their parent clubs are smaller and don’t have their own state nights. A cadet from Maryland (Baltimore) also attended as a guest. Which tied in well as my current employer, Confidio (a Maryland based company) along with Minnesota-based companies, assisted to support the event.

Minnesota Night was initiated in 2018, as way to give Minnesota cadets the chance to eat home-cooked meals and spend time in a relaxed atmosphere. Cadets at USAFA have a very rigorous schedule with military and physical training in addition to their class loads.

This was the 3rd Annual Minnesota night with a total of 180 cadets, 62 from Minnesota and 118 guests. To help this year there were 30 volunteers made up of parents and other family members and friends. My wife and I attended the event and oversaw distribution of over $12,000 in gift bags and prizes to the cadets. Another volunteer was Dave Ryan who hosts ‘Dave Ryan in the Morning Show’ in Minnesota. Dave was born while his father was in the Air Force and stationed at USAFA. Dave was the MC for the evening.  You can see a "live" video Dave posted here. 

All the food was inspired by Minnesota traditions; tater-tot hotdish, wild rice soup, Minnesota State Fair favorites of cheese curds, corn dogs, Sweet Martha’s Cookies, and a Scandinavian tradition of homemade lefse (made from potato that is like a tortilla and is then heated on a skillet). Cadets then had a choice of putting butter, cinnamon, or sugar on it and then rolling it up to eat. There were Honeycrisp Apples which the University of Minnesota invented.

The USAFA Minnesota Parents Club wishes to thank all the sponsors and donors, especially Confidio, who helped put this wonderful event together and for the many prizes that were given away throughout the night.

This fall, Jackie read about Sue Kakuk, a Plymouth woman who started her own healthy cookie company called Kakookies. Sue’s daughter was a competitive cyclist and Sue felt the health bars available at that time weren’t the best sources of quick energy and nutrition.

Sue, a two-time finalist of the Pillsbury Bake-Off, decided she could do better. She created a cookie that was vegan, gluten-free and delicious, with five different flavors.

Jackie reached out to Sue, asking her to donate 250 cookies for Minnesota Night to help fill gift bags for the event. She explained that there were four cadets from the Plymouth area, hoping to appeal to Sue’s hometown pride and her desire to provide wholesome snacks to active young men and women.

Sue quickly responded by offering 250 BOXES of Kakookies, each containing a dozen cookies for a total donation of 3,000 cookies.

Jackie picked up the cookies a few weeks before Minnesota Night. She drove around with $6,000 worth of cookies in her minivan until she could deliver them to Matt Norman, another ’22 parent who would take them out to Colorado Springs. When each cadet left the event, he or she took a box of 12 cookies back to the dorm.

So many local companies and individuals supported Minnesota Night. After talking with the wife of one of the owners of the Up North TradingCompany at their popup clothing store at a Twins game last summer, Jackie asked for a mixture of 10 of their hats and t-shirts to give away as door prizes. Up North responded by donating 100 t-shirts so each Minnesota cadet could receive one.

You can help us show our gratitude to these companies by checking out their merchandise at  www.kakookies.com and www.upnorthtco.com. All our photos from the event can be seen here. Video highlight summary of the event can be seen below.

After the event, Jackie and I were able to spend the weekend with Graham and experienced some wildlife and truly wonderful sunsets. Not to mention near 70-degree weather!

Cadet Maas is doing well, and is almost halfway through his USAFA experience. Last semester, he made the Dean's List for the third consecutive semester.