Deb Jenkins has lived in the Fargo-Moorhead area for more than 50 years. Through that time, Jenkins has witnessed all the changes this place has gone through. She’s also changed it in more ways than one — as a nurse, chef, and community member. But many may have known her first as a musician.

We talked to Deb about what’s kept her in the Fargo-Moorhead area after all these years and how she’s found new ways to make it a more vibrant place.

She also performed an original song called “Leaves” and a cover of “The Hunter” with her husband Mike on the keyboard for our live Minnesota Now show at the Moorhead Public Library.

In the heat of late spring in western Minnesota, insects buzz around and green sprouts push up from rich, dark soil. This means it’s go-time for farmers like Noreen Thomas.

Thomas and her family produce vegetables, flowers, grains, eggs and seeds on Doubting Thomas farms near Moorhead. They sell to regional grocers, bakeries, and breweries as well as award-winning restaurants around the country.

The farm also makes space for other producers raising honeybees, grazing cattle and harvesting herbs and Thomas mentors other women in agriculture. She joined MPR News host Nina Moini in front of a live audience at the Moorhead Public Library to talk about her journey into farming and her community-centered approach to agriculture.

Fowzia Adde is the founder and executive director of the Immigrant Development Center in Moorhead. It’s an organization that helps immigrants and refugees navigate everything from higher education to entrepreneurship and small business loans.

Adde is also leading an ambitious effort to create a cultural mall in downtown Moorhead, a project she hopes will become a hub for immigrant-owned businesses and community gathering.

She talked to MPR News host Nina Moini in front of an audience at the Moorhead Public Library about her own experience coming to the United States more than 20 years ago. At that time, she learned that her nursing credentials did not transfer to the professional world in the Red River Valley. That experience sparked her passion to help others settle in the region.

Minnesota Now with Nina Moini recently recorded a program at the brand new Moorhead Public Library. The building is a cornerstone of a downtown that is currently being built up.

Moorhead Mayor Shelly Carlson joined the program in front of a live audience to talk about how the city is looking to distinguish itself and to become a destination.

Minnesota Now went to Moorhead’s new public library for a special edition of the show. It was recorded in front of a live audience.

MPR News host Nina Moini talked with community leaders from the Fargo-Moorhead area:

Shelly Carlson, Mayor of Moorhead.

Fowzia Adde, an immigrant advocate who is helping newcomers navigate life in the area.

Noreen Thomas, a farmer who’s planting seeds on the land and in her community.

Deb Jenkins, a musician who has witnessed the region evolve and contributed to its vibrancy over the last five decades.

Plus, Tadeo Ruiz-Sandoval and Harshawn Ratanpal shared reporting from Fargo-Moorhead and asked audience members for their takes on life in the region.

Minnesota's hospitality and leisure businesses lost more than 4,000 jobs and more than $70 million in wages during this winter's surge of federal immigration agents. We learn about the latest the ongoing impacts of Operation Metro Surge.

Millions of people in Somalia are facing hunger as the country faces what experts have called its worst drought year on record. A Minnesota-based organization is working to provide relief.

And a St. Paul theater where renowned playwright August Wilson began his career is putting on one of his earliest works.

Plus, Minnesota was once covered by tall grass, but few such prairies remain. Minnesota Now took a visit to the Bluestem Prairie in the Fargo-Moorhead area to learn what it takes to preserve this landscape.

August Wilson is one of America's most-produced playwrights. He's best known for his 10-play series, the “Century Cycle,” which includes “Fences” and “Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.”

While many of his plays are set in Pittsburgh, Wilson began his career as a playwright at Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul. One of his earlier plays in the cycle, "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," is running at Penumbra through June 21.

MPR News arts reporter Jacob Aloi spoke with director of the production and Penumbra founder Lou Bellamy about the play and Wilson's legacy in Minnesota.

To get to a recent live show in Moorhead, the Minnesota Now team took scenic Highway 10 from St. Paul to learn more about the state from the road.

We made a series of audio postcards from notable roadside attractions, including a piece of one of Minnesota's oldest and most recognizable landscapes: tallgrass prairie.

The Nature Conservancy recently acquired nearly 2,000 acres of prairieland to protect in Clay County. Their goal is to conserve the plants and create habitat for prairie chickens and pollinators. The site is one of just a few slivers of prairie in a state that used to be covered in tallgrass.

Nearby is another of those slivers: the Bluestem Prairie Scientific and Natural Area, which is also protected by the Nature Conservancy. Liz Beery, the group’s associate director of grasslands, joined MPR News host Nina Moini for a walk there.

A severe drought in Somalia has displaced an estimated 200,000 people this year and put millions at risk of hunger, according to the United Nations. The U.N.’s World Food Program Director for Somalia told the Associated Press last month the drought is the country’s worst on record.

It’s a result of several rainy seasons that did not yield much water and it follows years of drought and flooding extremes in the region.

These climate events reverberate in Minnesota, which is home to the largest Somali population in the U.S. as well as several groups that provide aid to east Africa.

Asiya Mohamed, deputy director of American Relief Agency for the Horn of Africa, joined MPR News host Nina Moini to talk about conditions in Somalia and efforts to provide relief.

A Twin Cities research and progressive policy group released new numbers estimating the cost of the federal government’s “Operation Metro Surge” earlier this year. An analysis by North Star Policy Action showed the state's leisure and hospitality sector lost more than 4,000 jobs and a loss of more than $70 million in wages during the first three months of the year.

For more about how the analysis reached those numbers, MPR News host Nina Moini talked with the organization’s research director Aaron Rosenthal.

Trung Pham of Pham’s Deli at the Midtown Global Market in South Minneapolis shared his experience as a business owner with Minnesota Now.