George Latimer, the longest serving mayor of St. Paul, was scheduled to be laid to rest Monday following a Catholic mass at the Church of the Assumption in downtown St. Paul.

Latimer, a labor lawyer who served as the capital city’s mayor from 1976 to 1990, was remembered as a gregarious, kind-hearted leader whose accomplishments in the legal realm never overshadowed his quip-laden, day-to-day interactions with everyday residents.

That said, “he was not unimpressed with himself,” joked former St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, now the chief executive officer of Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity, who delivered Latimer’s eulogy.

Coleman remembered Latimer’s penchant for family road-trips with multiple grandchildren in tow, and family dinners at the Latimer house marked by polite debate and heavy servings of red meat.

“Every opinion was respected,” Coleman said. “He assumed you had a brain and he wanted you to use it … a man who loved his children’s spouses so deeply he felt they were his own children.”

“When I had a tough decision to make in City Hall, George was the first call that I’d make,” Coleman said. “When he called me, he’d say ‘Tall mayor, this is the short mayor.’”

Period of change

Latimer served in elected office during a period of deep demographic change in St. Paul and across the nation. Middle class white families began leaving urban areas for the suburbs in the 1970s, taking jobs and other opportunities with them. After the Vietnam era, Hmong refugees relocated to St. Paul in three large waves.

Latimer took pains to protect the Landmark Center by Rice Park and other aged buildings in danger of demolition during a period of declining population, Coleman said, and his dedication to downtown urban renewal led to construction of some of the city’s most recognizable office buildings.

Not all of his decisions were well received. When residents along Snelling Avenue objected to the proposed Hubert Humphrey Job Corps Center — a residential work training program for troubled teens — Latimer waved away threats they’d vote against him, Coleman said.

”People were just vicious,” recalled Joe Nathan, a youth training advocate who managed two of Latimer’s political campaigns, in a brief interview.

Latimer, known during his elected term for enjoying social drinking in downtown bars, once fell asleep in his car outside City Hall, prompting a concerned St. Paul Police officer — Melvin Carter II, father of the current mayor — to drive him home.

When the media got wind of the story, Coleman said, Latimer quickly confessed to having taken a public nap, and heaped praise on the officer. He smartly avoided the type of scandal that could have unfolded “over months,” Coleman said.

Coleman noted that Latimer had delivered the eulogy at his own father’s funeral mass — former Minnesota Senate majority leader Nick Coleman, Sr. — and had requested that Coleman do the same for him.

Also in attendance in the crowded church hall were U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and former Mayor Jim Scheibel.

Among Latimer’s titles over the decades, he served as a regent at the University of Minnesota, dean of Hamline University School of Law, an Under Secretary for Housing and Urban Development during the Clinton administration, chair of the National Equity Fund, president of the National League of Cities and a member of the St. Paul Public School board.

He was also named a distinguished professor at Macalester College, a labor arbitrator and a member of any number of volunteer boards and committees.

Grew up in working-class Schenectady, N.Y.

The youngest of three boys, Latimer grew up in working-class Schenectady, N.Y. His family ran a neighborhood grocery store and deli named “Latimer’s,” which would would later draw fond memories of his mother creating large batches of potato salad in the store’s back room, according to his paid obituary.

He go on to graduate from Columbia Law School and and find employment with a Minnesota law firm before running for St. Paul School Board.

Latimer, who entered hospice in 2022 only to “graduate” after several months, died on Aug. 18 at the Episcopal Homes senior campus on University Avenue in St. Paul, where he had taken up residence in 2014, the same year the Green Line light rail launched outside its doors. He was 89.

Latimer was preceded in death by his brothers, William and Philip, and his wife of 47 years, Nancy Moore Latimer. He is survived by five children and 11 grandchildren. His paid obituary said he is also survived by his longtime friend, Dusty Mairs, who for years would visit with him daily and bring him multiple printed newspapers, one of his favored pastimes.

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Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck says new quarterback Max Brosmer has a “football aura about him.”

Brosmer also can carry a tune.

The transfer from the University of New Hampshire and Roswell, Ga., native has written and recorded a pop country song titled “Old Jack Daniels.” It’s available on streaming platforms and on YouTube.

“I’ve been sitting behind bars for the past two weeks and all I think about is that amber sweet, old Jack Daniels, you make me complete,” Brosmer sings. And the chorus: “Old No. 7 comin’ straight from the heaven.”

Was Brosmer onto something? His tune is reminiscent of Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song,” but Brosmer’s song dropped about a year earlier, in March 2023.

Brosmer has been paying guitar for a dozen years, and music runs in his family, though not from his father. “I wish I could play guitar,” Colin Brosmer lamented.

Max’s grandparents are musically inclined, and Max’s younger brother, Fish, is a trumpet performance major at Georgia State. He, too, can be found on YouTube.

Brosmer doesn’t consider himself to be a full-on musician, but during the pandemic, he decided to write a song based off a poster hanging up in his college house at New Hampshire.

“Shoot, I just got bored and wrote a song, and I’m like, ‘This is kind of good,’ ” Brosmer told 247Sports. “… I held onto it for a couple of years and I finally had a couple of weeks where I could do something with it, and I went to a recording studio at UNH. I’m gonna put it on platforms because it’s kind of cool to have your own song on Apple Music or Spotify.”

Once he got to Minnesota, Brosmer happened to tell a couple pf teammates about the single. He then heard it playing in the locker room; some teammates were even singing along.

Brosmer, who has an undergraduate degree in biomedical science and is working on masters in kinesiology, has a main focus this fall on making a big jump from the FCS-level to major college football with the Gophers. The sixth-year player will attempt to land the leap in the Gophers’ season opener against North Carolina on Thursday at Huntington Bank Stadium.

While his August was consumed by getting up to speed on the field in preseason camp, he now has a little bit more time to sit back, pop in some of his favorite candy (gummy bears) and strum his guitar.

“I haven’t been able to play a ton, but now, since fall camp is over, I might have a free 30 minutes or an hour when I go home now,” Brosmer said last week. “… It’s a way to kind of get away from football and try to focus my energy somewhere else, just for a second. I think that’s really healthy for anybody.”

And who knows, maybe when Brosmer throws touchdown passes this fall, fans might toast him with some Old Jack Daniels.

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The process of paring down the roster is underway for the Vikings.

After wrapping up the exhibition slate over the weekend, the Vikings cut a total of 14 players on Monday morning. Some notable names were veteran quarterback Matt Corral, former Gophers star running back Mo Ibrahim, and veteran cornerback A.J. Green III.

The rest of list included running DeWayne McBride, receive Justin Hall, tight end Neal Johnson, tight end Sammis Reyes, offensive lineman Chuck Filiaga, offensive lineman Doug Nester, offensive lineman Matt Cindric, offensive lineman Spencer Rolland, defensive lineman Tyler Manoa, edge rusher Owen Porter, and cornerback Jaylin Williams

There’s a chance the Vikings could offer a handful of those players a spot on the practice squad later this week.

This is only the beginning for the Vikings. They still need to cut more than 20 players ahead of the deadline on Tuesday afternoon.

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