Minnesota loses another border battle

Minnesota is the state of hockey. ‘Hockey hair’ — the mullet — is our state haircut. When Kim Jong Un banned mullets in North Korea, it felt like a declaration of war on our state. So the results from the recent USA Mullet Championships were a grievous blow to our state’s pride.

CBS News reports:

It’s all about business in the front, party in the back. And apparently, if you want to find the best mullets in the country, head to Wisconsin. 

Emmitt Bailey, of Menomonie, won the kids’ division at the USA Mullet Championships. The 8-year-old said he’s been waiting a long time to show off his locks.

He won a cash prize of $2,500. He said he wants to purchase a go-kart.

The teen division was also won by a Wisconsinite. Cayden Kershaw, of Wausau, says he’s been growing his golden locks for about three years. He was thrilled to find out he won and says his mullet is definitely an attention-grabber.

“There’s definitely different settings where people are more, like, more open — like a fair,” he said. “People are like, ‘Oh, can I get a picture? Can I touch it?'”

Kershaw’s prize was $1,000. He’s planning on donating it all to Peyton’s Promise, a Wausau nonprofit that provides food to local pantries.

There was a Minnesota contestant in the running for the kids’ division prize — Callen Steinbrink, of Austin. Max Weihbrecht, of De Pere, Wisconsin, was also a finalist in the teen division.

I wrote a report in 2020, ‘Minnesota’s Border Battles: How state policy affects economies at the margin‘, which looked at how, on a range of economic measures, Minnesota under-performed its neighbors, but the result out of the USA Mullet Championships might be the hardest of all to bear.