(light jingle) - [Scott] Every time I see a rooster fly across the road, I say, "I spent my whole life trying to make sure there's a place for you to be."

We provide them an opportunity for those veterans to get together.

And it's a lot easier, to tell another veteran your story or your struggle, than it is for them to tell it to anybody else.

- [Man] It is because they're lightweight and low cost, they can be installed in areas that normally you wouldn't be able to install them.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program was provided by SafeBasements of Minnesota, your basement waterproofing and foundation repair specialist since 1990.

Peace of mind is a safe basement.

Live Wide Open, the more people know about West Central Minnesota, the more reasons they have to live here.

More at livewideopen.com.

Western Minnesota Prairie Waters, where peace, relaxation, and opportunities await.

And the Members of Pioneer PBS.

(acoustic music) - [Scott] I tell people that prairies are much like an Amazon rainforest, if you take the time to slow down and look at all the cool things that live there.

And it's also the most endangered ecosystem type on the planet.

(soft music) Our postage stamp of Habitat in Nobles County looks pretty darn good, but the more people that you can get to love prairies, the more people that will protect them and try to build some more of them.

- [Narrator] Scott Rall is a dedicated volunteer, spending the majority of his time working in conservation.

- [Scott] The chapter started in 82.

I joined in like 86, 87, took over the president role in 05.

And we've since, since 05 to now, we have added 25 public hunting areas in Nobles County.

We're up to about 3500 acres.

And when they cost $5000 an acre, that's a lot of doing, to grow.

You know, every time I see a rooster fly across the road, I say, "I spent my whole life trying to make sure there's a place for you to be."

- [Narrator] It's that dedication that's led to all these awards, including Scott being named Volunteer of the Year.

- Those are humbling to me, because I really don't, I don't need to stand in any light of any kind, but our chapter won Chapter of the Year in the nation for habitat expenditures in 2010 and 2014.

My dad always says, "The harder you work, the luckier you get."

So, maybe if you work hard enough, you get a little lucky.

- [Narrator] One of the major projects that the Nobles County chapter worked on was right across the road from Scott's property.

- We're about to walk a piece that is about to be opened up to the public, right, Scott?

- Correct.

It's in the process of transitioning from Pheasants Forever's ownership over to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

- [Bret] This is 320 acres?

- [Scott] It's 320 the parcel is, and then there's two small acres just that the sellers' retained.

So it ended up being 296 acres total of the 320.

- I'm real excited because I wasn't even planning to hunt today, because it's kind of a special hunt, for some special people.

And I am not that special, but he said, "Will you get to shoot this sweet 16?"

I said, okay.

I guess I'll walk a little bit try to find some birds with it.

Tell me about this gun, Scott.

- That was actually Pheasants Forever's Gun of the Year.

And I ended up, I was the first one of those.

I got on the waiting list two years ahead of time.

And they called me first, and he said, "I got your gun!"

I said, how much is it?

He said, "If you have to ask, you don't want it."

(laughter) But it was the first one in Southwest Minnesota.

So it weighs five and three quarter pounds.

It's just a, it's just the sweetest pheasant gun ever.

- It's a beautiful gun.

I'm excited to try it.

I've always wanted to shoot one.

Let's see how she works.

- Let's go get them.

- [Scott] Our chapter was able to do some restoration work here.

We did 190 acres of prescribed fire out here.

We removed 560 invasive Cottonwood trees.

- [Bret] 560?

- [Scott] Biggest one was 13 and a half feet around on the bottom.

- [Bret] Woah!

- [Scott] 125 others hauled just about, I'm guessing eight tons worth of scrap iron and wire and posts and debris.

- [Narrator] Not only did they take trees and debris off the property, but lots and lots of tires.

- [Scott] Three semi-loads of tires.

So I say to the guy that owned this, if you haul your tire to the, to the shop, they charge you like a tractor tire cost, like a hundred dollars to get rid of it.

So he told all his neighbors, you bring your tires off to me and I'll, I'll charge you $50.

So we hauled three semi-loads of tires off of this property.

They were stacked up everywhere.

Those are the ones we pulled out of the water.

- [Narrator] Scott's passion for conservation is inspiring.

And when he worked on this project, he wasn't alone.

- [Scott] I tallied it just the other day.

We have 1046 hours of volunteer time that's been expended on this.

Our, we had a habitat cleanup day.

We had 41 people showed up just before COVID hit.

We had 41 volunteers showed up.

They all worked for 8 or 10 hours that day.

It was really quite impressive.

- [Narrator] It's leadership at events like this that's earned Scott enough respect to have a seat at an even more influential table.

- My work with Pheasants Forever got me appointed to the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council, which is responsible for, for recommending the spending of about a hundred million dollars a year for habitat, for game, fish, and wildlife.

That was a really important job.

I said, as a civilian, probably one of the most important jobs you could have.

- [Narrator] The Lessard-Sam's Outdoor Heritage Council provides annual funding recommendations that directly relate to the restoration, protection, and enhancement of wetlands, prairies, forests, and habitat for fish, game, and wildlife, and that prevent forest fragmentation, encourage forest consolidation, and expand restored native prairie.

And when it comes to the landscape of Nobles County, wildlife and agriculture aren't the only things that are considerations.

- But are you familiar with the Topeka shiner?

Topeka shiner's an endangered fish.

It only gets about this big.

- [Bret] Okay, sure.

- [Scott] And it's in the Missouri River Watershed, which this is.

From Worthington, Minnesota, seven miles from here, half the water in Worthington runs to the Mississippi Watershed, and half runs to the Missouri River Watershed.

The water comes up, the Topeka shiners get trapped in there.

The water goes down, they breed for a year.

Then the following spring, when the water levels come up, it re-releases those Topeka shiners back into the system.

This project here is slated for like six of those endangered Topeka shiner restoration projects.

So it isn't just about pheasants or can I kill a deer?

It comes down to all of the creatures that live here, you know, all right down to a Topeka Shiner, you know?

- [Narrator] This exemplifies the philosophy of many conservationists.

It's not just about having more animals to go out there and hunt.

It's about protecting the ecosystem and giving future generations opportunities to enjoy the land and the wildlife that lives there.

And it isn't about taking the entire landscape and converting it back to grass and other wildlife habitat but doing it in the places that make the most sense.

- [Scott] Of this entire farm of the 320 acres that existed, there was only 38 acres that were actually under active agriculture.

The rest of it was so steep, so wet, that it was all in farm programs like CRP and different things.

As far as most public land acquisitions done by most organizations, be that the DNR or U.S.

Fish or, or Pheasants Forever.

Most of those are marginal.

- [Narrator] Ground that once included a gnarled mess of tires and wires now features swaying grasses that stand tall.

The tangle of trees and brush that clogged up the corners are now transitional areas free of aerial predator purchase.

The hard work did not go unnoticed.

In 2020, Pheasants Forever named Nobles County their National Chapter of the Year, once again.

- I was a Green Beret, Army Special Forces.

I think 12 or 13 years in the Hostage Rescue Unit B23 as it's known.

- [Narrator] Furfural.

This organic compound is then used to create the plastics needed for printable solar cell production.

(light swing music) - [Announcer] Which mussel is native to Minnesota, and which is the invader?

The answer is coming up right after this.

(light swing music) - [Scott] I'm a Pheasants Forever volunteer down in Nobles County, Minnesota, which I've done for more than 30 years.

Spend my days working the job I really like.

And when that's done, I try to get people connected to the outdoors.

That's really what I'm about.

- [Narrator] Scott Rall is the president of the Nobles County chapter of Pheasants Forever.

His list of conservation awards and accomplishments is lengthy but they're not what he's most proud of.

(soft music) - I hooked up with Warriors Never Give Up and made the connection for this Veterans Appreciation hunt, which we're now in our third year.

- [Narrator] To prepare for the event, Scott has assembled a group of more than 30 volunteers.

- I have people that drive four hours or more to come here and volunteer for this event because it changes, it changes them.

I've heard stories where almost everybody in the room was teared up.

You know, tragic stories, many of them.

(soft music) - [Kenny] I like doing this, one, because I like the dog work, but two, giving back to the people who have served us and keep this country safe is a big deal for me.

Oh, rooster!

There!

Nice shootin'.

- And I have yet to have a volunteer that participated in this event in Year One or Two, that didn't come back for Year Three.

And I think that, that they will continue to do that because they all share the same love and respect for our country and the veterans that protect it.

(somber music) - Yes, I did 21 years in the United States Army Third Special Forces group.

I retired as a chief warrant officer too.

(somber music) - They're from here, from Utah and California.

We had them from Pennsylvania.

We had one from, a diving instructor from Key West Florida last year.

- I was in the Army, Army Aviation.

- They come from all over and what we do is we provide them an opportunity for those veterans to get together.

And it's a lot easier to tell another veteran your story or your struggle than it is for you, for them to tell it to anybody else.

- Yeah, I served in the Marine Corps from 1994 to 2001.

I did two enlistments.

Wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do after graduation.

So Marine Corps sounded like a good option.

Think it played a big part in just kind of who I am today.

Definitely changed my life.

To me, I just think it's really important for, for helping with the morale of the vets.

It's just, it's just nice getting like-minded individuals out.

A lot of our younger vets, especially, are coming back from deployments, really struggling with PTSD.

As one of the older gentlemen stated last night, you know, a lot of people aren't aware of it, 22 vets a day commit suicide.

It's just an issue I think that hits home with a lot of us veterans.

And if something like this can prevent just, you know, one of those deaths from happening, I think, to me it means everything, it's so important.

(somber music) (acoustic music) - I was a Green Beret Army Special Forces.

I think 12 or 13 years in the hostage rescue unit B23 as it's known, kind of an infamous unit, and then spent the, the, the other eight or nine years on a few different ODA, Operational Detachment Alphas, which is a Special Forces team.

And then my last two years, I commanded the third group, a third Special Forces group, Sniper School.

I had never taken part in any of these before, because I always said, you know, I, you know, I'm a fully disabled vet, whatever, but there's guys out there that are extremely disabled.

And every time they say that it's a veteran or wounded veteran hunter, whatever, I said, you know, there's young privates out there that came back with no arms.

Let those guys go do their business and let them go have fun.

You know, I'm, I'm still doing my, do guns every day.

What do I need to do that for, you know?

I don't want to take up another slot, but you know, I, I finally gave in.

I said, yeah, I'll go do it.

And I had just an amazing time hanging out with just some of the best people on the planet and getting to be around other veterans they got my buddy Josh is here.

And Dustin here, all these guys, the guys that I know that I talk to on the regular.

So it's, you know, you don't get to do that stuff all the time once you get out.

And when you're in the Service, you're, you're stuck with your buddies, whether you want to be or not.

But then when you get out, that vacuum that it creates is why you see a lot of guys, you know, unfortunately killing themselves or drinking themselves to death, doing other stuff, because they don't have that, that bond that you get when you live with your, it's a family.

So when you lose that family, you know, it sucks a little bit.

- It's a brotherhood.

It's just like being, being in the Military.

You never, never stops when you get out of the Military.

So it's just important to do things like these to be there for your fellow veterans.

- Coming to do things like this keeps guys motivated.

It's a, it's a great thing.

I'm super excited about it.

So, birds are not, I don't even care.

We can walk around all day and just watch the dogs.

I'd be happy, so.

- Come on, we might've pushed one in here, Todd.

So we'll just see if a really smart one ran through here.

(patriotic brass music) - Well, it is a comradery to be with other veterans.

You talk about things in the past and sometimes it brings up things that you don't want to think about.

But yet in the, in that process, I think that it's a good healing thing.

Cause that makes you, makes you think, why am I here?

And some of the other ones that didn't make it back.

So what's the difference between that.

And I, I really think that God wasn't through with me yet in my life.

When I got, I didn't think about it when I was in Vietnam.

But when I got back home, I go, you know what, no matter what happens in my life from here on out, the rest is gravy.

Because every day you get up and you go over in Nam, you thought, well, this is my last day.

You know, you're getting shot at all the time.

And we did get shot down twice.

I got wounded with some RPG, shrapnel.

Yeah.

And so when you go through that and you come back and you know, I've lived through, I've lived through hell.

And so every day after that is gravy, no matter what happens, it's gravy.

Cancer, whatever.

God has got a plan for me.

I don't know what it is yet, but I'm still living it.

- Ooh, it's getting tall again.

My son is a K9 officer.

I talk to him.

- Rooster!

Rooster!

Rooster!

(shots) - Oh, good.

I'm glad he got it.

Cause I was (shots, acoustic music) - It is my birthday today.

It's, it's a pretty meaningful day for me.

Yeah, cause my, my dad, he used to take me hunting on my birthday and we'd play hooky.

And you know, he passed away in January and he was pretty proud of me for being part of Pheasants Forever.

And so when Scott called me and said, "Hey do you want to come out and help guide the, the Veterans Hunt?"

I said, well, it's my birthday.

It seems like a pretty darn good thing to do.

And my dad was in the Navy and you know, the VA was pretty important during the, the last couple of years of his life, helping him and my mom out, so.

Made for this to be a pretty meaningful day for me.

- [Narrator] While the volunteers do this as a way of saying thank you, the appreciation goes both ways.

- Awesome.

These guys, to come out here and do this when they, they themselves should be hunting and out doing, you know, with their families and stuff.

To take that kind of time out, it's a big deal.

So, they really don't probably know what a big deal it is, but it's a big deal.

So, so quit asking me questions before I tear up.

(laughter) (acoustic music) - You know, you interviewed Todd here a little while ago, and he talks about tearing up.

You know, I said, when, when we first did this, I actually graduated in 1979, registered for the Draft and there, for that period of time that I was draftable, we had no soldiers serving in a foreign theater of war.

And so I never served, but my son served four years in the Marine Corps and he saw lots of things that were, that me and you wouldn't want to see.

And I said what can I do to replace the fact that I didn't serve.

- When it comes to conservation and habitat and giving back to youth and these vets, there is no one that I have met that's more passionate.

- I never served in the Armed Forces, but I can certainly respect and care about the guys that did.

And so that's why we do it.

And it truly is a life-changing experience.

(soft music) - [Announcer] Which mussel is native to Minnesota, and which is the invader?

The invader is: quagga muscle.

How do we tell the invasive from the native mussel?

Quaggas have a wide range of colors and striping.

Their shells form an S shape when closed.

Quagga mussels range from one eighth to two inches.

Native freshwater mussels grow significantly larger.

Why are quagga mussels a problem?

Quaggas can interrupt the natural food chain for native aquatic species, degrade fish habitat, and clog water intakes.

Where are they found?

The invasive mussels are often found attached to submerged objects like rocks, boats, and docks.

They may inhabit deeper water than zebra mussels.

(light swing music) We can stop these invaders from infesting more lakes and streams by cleaning up everything we pull out of the water.

It's a simple drill: clean in, clean out.

Before leaving a water access, clean your boat and water equipment, remove and dispose of all plants and aquatic species in the trash.

Remove drain plugs from your boat, drain bilge, live well and bake containers and keep them out when transporting your watercraft.

Dispose of unwanted bait in the trash.

If you've been in infested waters, also spray your boat with high pressure water.

Rinse with very hot water, dry for at least five days.

Stop the spread of AIS.

Funding for this segment was provided by the Aquatic Invasive Species Task Forces of Wright, Meeker, Yellow Medicine, Lac Qui Parle, and Big Stone Counties.

(light music) (piano music) - [Narrator] The center of our solar system is more than just a heat source.

The Sun is a powerful energy producer.

It's rays penetrate the Earth with a constant 173,000 terawatts of solar power, more than 10,000 times what the whole Earth consumes annually.

Naturally, humankind has been working to harness the Sun's power.

In 1839, French physicist Edmond Becquerel developed the first solar cell, known as a photovoltaic cell.

The next major milestone was a solar battery created by Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1954.

The company's solar cell update would lay the groundwork for today's solar panels.

Vastly improved, modern solar panel technologies used by both utility companies and everyday citizens.

So what's the next major innovation for solar technology?

It's printable solar cells.

(electronic music) At the University of Minnesota Morris, Professor Ted Pappenfus is working in partnership with fellow scientists at St. Catherine University to develop sustainable materials for solar cell production.

- The main issue with the field is the fact that we're not using sustainable materials to advance those products in the field.

Today's materials are coming from fossil fuels like petroleum.

So what we need to do is think about replacing fossil fuels with more sustainable approaches.

And one of the best sustainable approaches is to use biomass or plant-based materials that are readily abundant and sustainable.

- [Narrator] Agricultural biomass offers great potential, with as much as 144 million tons produced each year in the United States.

- We produce a lot of corn in the area.

So one potential by-product is simply use corn cobs.

Throughout the Midwest, we produce a lot of plant material.

The approach that we're taking is don't use the edible part of the plant, but rather the by-product.

So there's no sort of a food competition that we're trying to get into.

We're simply focusing on the inedible part of the plant.

- [Narrator] In a lab, Pappenfus and other researchers are able to break down molecules within the plant's byproducts into furfural.

This organic compound is then used to create the plastics needed for printable solar cell production.

- What is interesting about this technology is we would use those plastics as inks in traditional printing processes.

What's unique about these particular inks is they conduct electricity, which is a requirement for a material in a solar cell.

- [Narrator] While the UofM Morris and St. Catherine campuses have been working on creating plastics for the cells.

Their collaborators, more than 8000 miles away at the University of New Castle Australia have been using those plastics to engineer and print functioning solar cells for the last couple of years.

- As we speak right now, these solar cells are producing electricity on tops of buildings throughout Australia.

So the shiny part of the solar cell that you're seeing is actually aluminum.

So what you do in the final steps of the printing process is evaporate very thin film of aluminum and that forms the final electrode that's needed for the electric, electrical contacts in the solar device.

If you've ever seen the inner coating of a potato chip bag, what you're looking at, looking at there is a thin film of aluminum as well.

So the intended use for the printable solar cell would eventually get them distributed across the planet and because they're lightweight and low cost, they could be installed in areas that normally wouldn't be able to install.

So for example, on roofs, you wouldn't have to worry about the weight of the solar cell or they could go inside of buildings and so forth.

Another potential application for these would be in state parks.

So if you needed to charge your cell phone, for example, and you were in a state park, you could be in the middle of a forest and potentially could be utilizing this technology.

There's parts of the planet where people do not have access to any form of energy.

And as we know, there's a very strong correlation to available energy and economic prosperity.

So there's many disadvantaged populations across the planet where we could implement this technology in an efficient manner so that those populations can thrive.

(upbeat music) (light music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program was provided by SafeBasements of Minnesota, your basement waterproofing and foundation repair specialist since 1990.

Peace of mind is a safe basement.

Live Wide Open.

The more people know about West Central Minnesota, the more reasons they have to live here.

More at livewideopen.com.

Western Minnesota Prairie Waters, where peace, relaxation, and opportunities await.

And the members of Pioneer PBS.

- So how old is this wood duck box?

- I figured that it was probably at least 50 years old, and the roof had caved in.

And so my dad's an 87-year old industrial arts teacher and I took it home.

I said, Dad, save as much of the original material as you can.

And we rehabbed it with this faceplate and there's some other original wood on it.

And then we built a new one.

It really all is in his honor because this was his kind of his, his architecture.