To Albert Lea’s Baby New Year.

Baby Chevelle Star Calderon-Watson was the first baby to be born in 2018 at Mayo Clinic Health System In Albert Lea.

The daughter of Sabitas Calderon and Dylan Watson, she was born on Tuesday via C-section and joins one brother and two sisters.

She weighed 7 pounds 15 ounces and was 20 inches long.

Welcome to our community, little one. We hope you will have a happy and healthy first year.

To renovations at Albert Lea’s Anytime Fitness.

It was great to see the celebration Wednesday at Anytime Fitness, which recently expanded at Northbridge Mall.

The gym grew into the next-door space formerly housed by a sports collectibles store and also has thousands of dollars of new functional training and strength training equipment.

With a growing health and fitness community, it is exciting to see this and other gyms in the community strengthen and expand.

To upgrades being made to the cooling system at Mayo Clinic Health System in Albert Lea.

Mayo Clinic Health System in Albert Lea announced this week that work is underway on a new $2.75 million cooling plant at the hospital. Installation began in November and is expected to be completed in May.

No matter what your stance on the hospital’s announcement last year to move most inpatient services to Austin, it is always good to see one of the community’s largest employers making improvements to its facilities.

The hospital system said additional improvements are slated for the Cancer Center, for observation beds adjacent to the emergency department and to accommodate the transition of the inpatient psychiatric unit from Austin to Albert Lea.

To a delay in the transfer of inpatient surgeries from Albert Lea to Austin.

Mayo Clinic Health System announced this week it is delaying the transition of inpatient surgeries from Albert Lea to Austin until the middle of this year.

These services had previously been slated to move to Austin at the beginning of this year.

The easier these services are available to accessed for residents, the better.