The Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation will begin its 75th anniversary celebration Friday with a gala at The Armory in Minneapolis as part of a weekend featuring special guests and speakers, musical performances and workshops.

Emceed by actor Rob Lowe, Friday’s featured guests at the invite-only event include Famous Dave’s founder Dave Anderson and honorary event chair Susan Ford Bales, daughter of former President Gerald Ford and former First Lady Betty Ford.

The event, called the “Still Breaking Through” gala, will include a reception and dinner, as well as speakers’ stories of recovery and support to others, said Moira McGinley, Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation vice president and chief transformation officer.

The event will celebrate the legacy of the organization and those who came before, McGinley said.

Groundbreaking, Dan Anderson, Pat Butler, 1964, Center City, Used in Together Magazine Spring 2019. (Courtesy of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation.)

“But even more than that, it’s about the future and it’s about those individuals who are still in communities, still suffering in isolation, who have the opportunity to still get help. And we have a lot of plans as we move forward to help individuals,” McGinley said.

Weekend events include an anniversary lunch, additional musical performances, an alumni panel and a book signing.

Founded in 1949 in Center City as the Hazelden Foundation, the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation provides addiction recovery services to approximately 25,000 patients and family members annually, according to McGinley.

First Lady Betty Ford visited Hazelden before starting the Betty Ford Center, which opened in 1982 in California and in 2014 merged with the Hazelden Foundation.

RELATED: Hazelden merger helps Betty Ford Center with its recovery

The Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation has an outpatient drug and mental health treatment center at 680 Stewart Avenue in St. Paul. The center provides services such as recovery coaching, a sober living community and parallel support for family members of patients. The Hazelden Betty Ford Graduate School also holds some classes and internship opportunities at the St. Paul campus.

Many end up staying in St. Paul and Minnesota after receiving recovery services here, in part because of the strong community and fellowship in the area, such as other Hazelden Betty Ford alumni, McGinley said.

“With the disease of addiction, it’s really about isolation, and the healing comes with community and connectedness. So building these really strong communities is essential for someone to have lifelong, long-term recovery,” McGinley said.

The foundation has been an innovator and leader in recovery and continues to be, McGinley said. It’s working to enhance its individualized mental health services and build services for family members and children of patients, as well as its post-treatment support options and alumni network, McGinley said.

While the event celebrates the past 75 years, the foundation also is looking forward.

“This celebration is really about 75 years of recovery, 75 years of innovation and really helping people find hope,” McGinley said.

To learn more about the celebration, visit hazeldenbettyford.org/75th-anniversary.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — California firefighters had to douse a flaming battery in a Tesla Semi with about 50,000 gallons (190,000 liters) of water to extinguish flames after a crash, the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday.

In addition to the huge amount of water, firefighters used an aircraft to drop fire retardant on the “immediate area” of the electric truck as a precautionary measure, the agency said in a preliminary report.

Firefighters said previously that the battery reached temperatures of 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (540 Celsius) while it was in flames.

The NTSB sent investigators to the Aug. 19 crash along Interstate 80 near Emigrant Gap, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) northeast of Sacramento. The agency said it would look into fire risks posed by the truck’s large lithium-ion battery.

The agency also found that the truck was not operating on one of Tesla’s partially automated driving systems at the time of the crash, the report said. The systems weren’t operational and “could not be engaged,” according to the agency.

The crash happened about 3:13 a.m. as the tractor-trailer was being driven by a Tesla employee from Livermore, California, to a Tesla facility in Sparks, Nevada. The Semi left the road while going around a curve to the right and hit a tree, the report said. It went down a slope and came to rest against several trees. The driver was not hurt.

After the crash, the Semi’s lithium-ion battery ignited. Firefighters used water to put out flames and keep the batteries cool. The freeway was closed for about 15 hours as firefighters made sure the batteries were cool enough to recover the truck.

Authorities took the truck to an open-air facility and monitored it for 24 hours. The battery did not reignite.

The NTSB said all aspects of the crash are under investigation as it determines the cause. The agency said it intends to issue safety recommendations to prevent similar incidents.

A message was left Thursday seeking comment from Tesla, which is based in Austin, Texas.

After an investigation that ended in 2021, the NTSB determined that high-voltage electric vehicle battery fires pose risks to first responders and that guidelines from manufacturers about how to deal with them were inadequate.

The agency, which has no enforcement powers and can only make recommendations, called for manufacturers to write vehicle-specific response guides for fighting battery fires and limiting chemical thermal runaway and reignition. The guidelines also should include information on how to safely store vehicles with damaged lithium-ion batteries, the agency said.

Tesla began delivering the electric Semis in December of 2022, more than three years after CEO Elon Musk said his company would start making the trucks. Musk has said the Semi has a range per charge of 500 miles (800 kilometers) when pulling an 82,000-pound (37,000-kilo) load.