Tom Warth once visited a school library in Jinja, Uganda, that had nearly everything a library needs — except books.

There was a librarian, a card catalog, tables, bookcases and students, but the shelves were nearly bare. What few books there were, he said, were “tattered and worn.”

Matilda Arhin, a Books For Africa board member, on Wednesday, April 3, 2024, held a copy of the 60 millionth book shipped by the nonprofit organization in Marietta, Ga. Arhin served as container captain for the shipment. (Courtesy of Books For Africa)

Warth took it upon himself to fill the library with books — and then did the same for hundreds of other libraries across the continent.

On Wednesday, the nonprofit organization that Warth founded, Books For Africa, shipped its 60 millionth book to Africa. A truckload of books left the Books For Africa warehouse in Marietta, Ga., bound for the harbor in Savannah, Ga., where they will be placed on a container ship bound for Ghana.

Books For Africa, based in St. Paul, is the largest shipper of donated text and library books to the African continent, having shipped books to all 55 countries in Africa since 1988.

Warth, a native of England, founded the organization after he sold his publishing company, Motorbooks International. “I wanted to invest the money where it would make a difference,” he said. “Education is essential to Africa’s development and to the future of its students.”

Warth, 88, of Marine on St. Croix, celebrated his 70th birthday by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania as a fundraiser for Books For Africa. He trained for the climb to the mountain’s peak, 19,340 feet above sea level, by climbing the Main Street Stairs in downtown Stillwater 110 times, the equivalent of ascending the mountain.

When he turned 80, he decided to walk across the island of Zanzibar for yet another fundraiser. He also has walked across Gambia in West Africa; from Lake Michigan to South Dakota; from Canada to Iowa; and from Menomonie, Wis., to St. Paul and from Taylors Falls to the Capitol in St. Paul – all to raise both visibility and funds for Books For Africa.

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“Without Tom, none of this would have happened,” said Patrick Plonski, the organization’s executive director. “Sixty million books have been shipped — and every single one of the African countries on the continent served — and it’s all been run out of this base here in Minnesota. All of this would have been unthinkable 36 years ago. It just shows the value of vision, and the ‘art of the possible.’”

To put that number into perspective, there are approximately 150,000 books at George Latimer Central Library in downtown St. Paul.

Last year, Books For Africa shipped 4,029,000 books, valued at more than $32.6 million, to 32 African countries — the most books ever shipped in a single year. About 800,000 digital books also were shipped on 116 computers and 150 tablets. More than $2.6 million was raised to ship the books to partners across Africa, Plonski said.

Warth, the owner of T. E. Warth Esq. Automotive Books, works out of an office above the Marine General Store in downtown Marine on St. Croix. He sells rare books to car enthusiasts.

Warth has two children and two grandchildren. He is married to Zantha LaFon Warth.

In an interview with the Pioneer Press over lunch at the Brookside Bar & Grill in Marine, Warth talked about Books For Africa’s recent milestone, a new children’s book called “The Book King: The Story of Tom Warth and Books For Africa,” and his love of hitchhiking. The transcript is edited for clarity and conciseness.

Tom Warth Q&A

Q: Congratulations on reaching 60 million. To what do you attribute Books For Africa’s success?

A: There are three reasons. Number one, books. Nobody likes to throw away a book, so we get given books. Number two, we started it in a philanthropic center of the country. Minnesota is known for philanthropy. I don’t think if we’d started in Baltimore or Washington, it would have worked. And third, we’ve had two great executive directors. You know, the first one, Bob Kowalczyk, didn’t mind packing the books and doing grunt work. And (Plonski) loves to network. You know, that’s the secret. I mean he has really made it fly.

Q: Talk about the importance of books, particularly printed books.

A: You know, we were talking about newspapers, and the tactile feel and the sniff of a newspaper and holding it out and how looking at it is so much nicer than looking at something online, and then I think of the children in Africa, we can’t abandon printed books. You know, half the population of Africa lives in rural areas. There are 400 million children. They live in huts with no printed material. Surely they need one printed book that they can touch and feel.

Q: Tell me about your childhood. Where did you go to school?

Tom Warth, a native of England, with his portrait of British prime minister Winston Churchill. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

A: I grew up near Cambridge (England). I went to boarding school, and then I went to Cambridgeshire Technical College for a year. That’s like an American vo-tech. I learned basic things like typing, law, statistics, accounting, you know, a little about a lot, and that served me well the rest of my life. In fact, I got irritated at Motorbooks when they said in their advertisements for employees that they need to have a college degree. I said, “Well, I’m running the show, and I don’t have a college degree.”

Q: What brought you to the U.S.?

A: I lived in Eau Claire when I emigrated in 1960. I came to Eau Claire because that’s where my sponsor, an Eighth Air Force pilot who had befriended my dad (during World War II) lived. He came to visit my dad in 1959, and we met, and he said to me, “Tom, if you want to see America, I’ll sponsor you.” You know, no one was immigrating in those days. I just thought, “Well, I’d like to see America.” I came over and worked in a drugstore and on road construction. I stayed for about a year. Then I went back and got married, and then we decided to come to America, so we both came. America was the land of opportunity.

Q: Tell me about your interest in cars. How did that come about?

A: My dad (Ewart) liked fine cars. He had a Bentley, and he would reverse it into the parking space, so people would know what he had. My brother, John, and I were infected by that. John was two years younger. He ended up being a major dealer in cars. He would go to India and spend a year there trying to get into the good graces of the maharajas and so on, who had garages full of Rolls-Royces. Sadly, he died in 1986. He was 48.

Q: How did you get into car book publishing?

Tom Warth’s business sign at his office above the Marine General Store. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

A: We lived in Minneapolis, and I worked for Prudential Insurance for five years, but my ambition was always to work for myself, not have a boss. I didn’t intend to have a big company or anything, but, with cars being my hobby, I started to think about getting material for (car) enthusiasts. I knew the car magazines, and so I put little ads in magazines like Road & Track, and gradually it got bigger and bigger. I was the first, and the hobby was small. Back then in the 60s, people didn’t have enough money to buy a lot of old cars. I threaded the needle in terms of timing. If I’d started it earlier, there wouldn’t have been enough business. If I’d started it later, other people would have been in it. We were publishing 100 books a year when I sold out in 1988.

Q: Have you always liked driving?

A: Yes. Oh, I love driving. I like seeing the scenery and stuff. We just drove to Savannah and stayed for 10 days in an Airbnb and that was 3,000 miles I put on. I’m still lucky enough to have my wits about me. I can still drive, you know? My eyesight is good, and my reaction times are good. I like walking better than driving, though. I walk three to four miles a day.

Q: How many cars do you have?

A: I have a 1960 gray Citroën 2-CV — or Deux Chevaux. I had a 1965 289-AC Cobra, which I had for many years and sold, and I’ve got a 2003 Jaguar. The everyday car is a Fiat 500.

Q: When did you move to Marine?

Tom Warth stands among books, boxes of books and assorted memorabilia at his office in Marine on St. Croix. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

A: We were living in South Minneapolis, and a friend showed me a house on Judd Street that had English characteristics, and so we bought that in 1975. I’ve been here ever since. I’m in my third house here now. … We looked around within a 20-mile radius for the business. It was a banker in Osceola (Wis.) who convinced me that an industrial park in Osceola would be a good spot for Motorworks.

Author Rosemond Sarpong Owens in 2023 wrote a children’s book about Books For Africa Founder Tom Warth called “The Book King: The Story of Tom Warth and Books For Africa.” (Courtesy of Books For Africa)

Q: I understand a children’s book called “The Book King” has just been published about you.

A: People have said, “Tom, you’ve had such an interesting life. You should write your autobiography.” Well, now it’s been done. Rosemond Sarpong Owens wrote it, and she did a fabulous job. It’s a nice outline of my life.

Q: Let’s talk about your love of hitchhiking.

A: People say it’s dangerous, but I think it’s less dangerous now than it was in the ’50s and ’60s, because there’s supposed to be less crime. I think the problem is, there’s so much publicity about crime now that people are frightened. Is the driver going to attack the hitchhiker, or is the hitchhiker going to attack the driver? I just don’t think this happens.

In the 1950s, I hitchhiked around Europe. In 1961, I hitchhiked from Eau Claire to New Orleans for the Mardi Gras. Just south of Chicago, a lady picked me up, and she said, “What part of the South are you from?” I said, “I’m not from the South. I’m from England.” She’d mistaken the Union Jack on my backpack for a Confederate flag. I also hitchhiked from Eau Claire to Winnipeg to buy a car. In Cuba, when I was last there, they fine drivers who passed a hitchhiker and had an empty seat and didn’t pick them up.

I just think environmentally, we have to think about all these cars, four-seat cars with one person in them. I’ve picked up hitchhikers a lot, and I like it, you know, if you’re on a long drive.

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Minnesota lawmakers are weighing a variety of gun-control proposals this year, but only a handful have a good chance of passing.

Bills calling for a safe storage requirement, a requirement to report lost and stolen guns in a timely manner, and setting stronger penalties for straw purchases appear to have the most support this session. Gov. Tim Walz called for their passage in his State of the State address last month.

Increasing penalties for those who buy guns for others not eligible to purchase guns — known as straw purchasing — has support from both Democratic-Farmer-Labor and Republican lawmakers. But depending on whether that bill retains additional gun-control provisions, Democrats may have to move forward on their own. That also looks to be the case for a universal safe storage requirement and a reporting requirement for stolen firearms without GOP support.

DFLers have controlled the Senate, House and governor’s office since the beginning of 2023, and while they have passed a broad slate of legislation typically favored by liberals and progressives, their movement on gun control has not been as sweeping.

Gun measures

Last year, lawmakers passed two significant gun-control measures: a “red flag” bill creating extreme risk protection orders, and universal background checks. Both got through the Legislature after questions about whether they’d make it through the Senate, where it wasn’t clear if they’d find support from a handful of DFLers in rural and suburban districts.

They passed, but gun-control advocates at the Capitol, like Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Chairman Ron Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park, acknowledged those were their best shot at getting something through to the governor.

Other proposals that DFLers have backed, such as a ban on semiautomatic rifles sometimes known as assault weapons, have not seen serious legislative action this year. Walz last year pitched magazine capacity limits and banning people younger than 21 from buying semiautomatic rifles, though neither proposal gained steam.

An assault weapons ban bill sponsored by Rep. Leigh Finke, DFL-St. Paul, which lists more than a dozen weapons such as those patterned after the AR-15,  didn’t get a hearing by the first legislative deadline on March 22, more or less ruling out any further action before the session ends in May.

Straw purchases

DFLers and Republicans support stiffening penalties for straw purchasers — people who buy guns legally and give them to ineligible people such as those with felony convictions. But it may not really matter if it ends up getting approved as part of a broader public safety bill with other provisions Republicans won’t support.

Straw purchase penalties became the third top gun-control priority this session after the February shooting of Burnsville police officers Matthew Ruge and Paul Elmstrand, and firefighter/paramedic Adam Finseth. The shooter, Shannon Gooden, was prohibited from owning a gun after pleading guilty to assault with a dangerous weapon in 2008 but was still able to obtain one.

Ashley Anne Dyrdahl, Gooden’s girlfriend, was federally indicted in March for straw purchasing two AR-15-style firearms. Dyrdahl has pleaded not guilty.

“While straw purchases are already illegal under Minnesota law, our law contains loopholes that need to be closed in order to hold offenders accountable,” said Rep. Kaela Berg, DFL-Burnsville, as she presented a straw purchase bill to the House Public Safety Committee in March.

Berg’s bill would elevate the penalty for straw purchases from a gross misdemeanor to a felony in Minnesota. It also would ban binary triggers, which give firearms a rapid rate of fire by allowing them to fire both when the trigger is depressed and released. Republicans raised concerns about straw purchase penalties and another restriction being bound together.

Republicans, who advocated stronger straw purchase penalties last year, say they welcome the harsher penalties, though they questioned why their DFL colleagues did not include the stronger penalties in last year’s public safety bill. They have their own version of the straw purchase bill which does not include the binary trigger ban.

In general, GOP lawmakers have opposed new gun-control legislation, and have instead advocated for stronger enforcement of existing laws in order to keep guns out of the wrong hands.

Safe storage

A bill backers are calling the “safe storage” requirement bill would mandate firearms stored in the home to either be unloaded and locked or stored in a gun safe. Anyone found in violation could potentially face felony penalties if the firearm is used in a crime.

Proponents say requiring guns to be locked up will curb thefts and prevent children from gaining access to weapons.

Testifying in favor of the safe storage bill at a Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee hearing in March was Hilary Brasel, whose husband Michael was shot and killed last May in St. Paul’s St. Anthony Park neighborhood when he confronted a group looking for valuables in a family car.

The gun used in the killing of Michael Brasel, a youth hockey coach and father of two, was stolen from an unsecured closet. Two teenagers pleaded guilty in his death, with one sentenced to 25 years in prison for aiding and abetting second-degree intentional murder.

“I believe the proper storage of guns could have prevented Michael’s murder and can prevent this type of tragedy from destroying other lives in Minnesota in the future,” Hilary Brasel told the committee.

Also testifying in favor of the bill was Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges, who said he does not generally support gun-control legislation but supports safe storage requirements and stiffer penalties for straw purchases.

Gun rights supporters noted the state already has storage rules to protect children. Further, it applies a “one-size-fits-all” standard to people who have very different needs, said Rob Doar, senior vice president with the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus.

“This treats a farmer who lives by himself in Roseau who keeps a firearm available to defend his livestock from predators the same as a day care operator in Edina,” he told the committee. “That one-size-fits-all solution doesn’t recognize the realities of how different people live their lives in this state.”

Reporting stolen guns

The third gun-control bill that’s a priority for DFLers this session would create a reporting requirement for lost and stolen firearms.

A person who owns or possesses a firearm would have to report the loss to a law enforcement agency within 48 hours of the time the person knew or reasonably should have known of the loss or theft.

The first violation would be a petty misdemeanor. Second offenses would be a misdemeanor and third violations would be a gross misdemeanor.

If a person does report a lost or stolen firearm, they would be immune to criminal prosecution “for an offense pursuant to state law related to the storage of firearms.”

The bill also requires law enforcement agencies to report lost or stolen firearms to Minnesota’s Commissioner of Public Safety within seven days.

Supporters say a reporting requirement will aid law enforcement efforts to track stolen weapons, which are often used in crimes.

Gun rights groups, including the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus and the National Rifle Association, oppose the bill, with the NRA requesting the efficacy of a reporting requirement in preventing crimes.

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Alexandra Pennig loved and trusted Matthew Ecker — but he “ultimately scared her,” Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Ambrosia Mosby-Velasco said Wednesday in a downtown St. Paul courtroom.

While Pennig knew to run from Ecker in the early morning hours of Dec. 16, 2022, she “just didn’t know that running into that bathroom would ultimately end her life,” Mosby-Velasco said.

Alexandra Pennig (Courtesy of Pennig’s family)

In February, jurors found Ecker guilty of the sole count of second-degree intentional murder, not premeditated, for fatally shooting the 32-year-old Pennig in the head at her downtown St. Paul apartment — and that her death was not a suicide as he had claimed all along.

Ecker, of Fergus Falls, Minn., learned his own fate on Wednesday, when Judge DeAnne Hilgers gave the former emergency room nurse practitioner 30 years in prison — a term that was nearly five years longer than the presumptive sentence under state guidelines.

“Mr. Ecker, the letters from your family and friends speak of a side of you that was not presented at trial,” Hilgers told the 45-year-old before handing down the sentence. She said they described a loving father of four young children and of a man who gave “compassionate health care to his patients and his loved ones.”

But the side of Ecker that came out at trial, she said, was of a “man who willingly brought a handgun into Alex’s home. The man who concealed the handgun after the shooting. The man who then coldly calculated to pose Alex after her death to appear to be the person who had been holding the gun.”

Matthew Phillip Ecker (Courtesy of Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Ecker was married at the time of the killing. He told investigators he had been seeing Pennig for about two years after meeting her at a Fergus Falls medical clinic where they both had worked. He said that Pennig knew about his wife and his children, and that Pennig was OK with it. It came out at trial that the relationship was concealed from his wife, who has since divorced him.

Ecker’s attorney, Bruce Rivers, asked Hilgers to give him a sentence of just under 22 years in prison. Rivers reminded the judge that Ecker is a father with “zero criminal history, not even a parking ticket.”

Up until being found guilty, Ecker had been out of jail on a half-million-dollar bond since late 2022.

If the large number of Pennig’s family and friends were looking for remorse from Ecker on Wednesday, they didn’t get it. He did not address the court.

Meanwhile, Rivers reminded the court that Ecker maintained his innocence from the beginning “and he does so to this day.”

The shooting

Ecker called 911 at 2:50 a.m. from the Lofts at Farmers Market apartment at 260 E. Fifth St. and reported that Pennig had shot herself in the head with his handgun. He told dispatch that he called four minutes after she pulled the trigger. He said that he had a permit to carry a firearm.

Officers found Pennig lying on her back in the bathroom with a gunshot wound to the left side of her head. She was not breathing and soon was pronounced dead. Her left hand was on top of a handgun, which was lying on her chest.

In the hallway outside the Lowertown apartment, Ecker told police that Pennig had taken his gun from his backpack, then ran and locked herself in the bathroom, where she shot herself. Ecker said he was on the apartment couch, ran to the bathroom and broke the door down with his shoulder to get inside, according to the criminal complaint.

At trial, the prosecution relied heavily on Ecker’s inconsistent statements he made to police immediately at the scene and later during interviews. Several investigators “started noticing inconsistencies that turned this from a suicide response to a homicide investigation,” Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Gordon Knobloch said.

Ecker initially told officers he performed CPR. He later admitted to investigators that he did not perform CPR, the complaint says.

Ecker told investigators he took the gun and put it in his suitcase because he got scared of getting in trouble because it was his gun. He said that after going back to the bathroom and looking at Pennig, he grabbed the gun and put it on her chest. Officers found the pistol “remarkably clean,” Knobloch said.

Under questioning at police headquarters, Ecker told investigators that Pennig called him Dec. 15 on his way to work in an emergency room in Roseau, Minn., and asked him to come see her, saying that she was being physically abused by her other boyfriend.

Ecker said he called his work and said he wasn’t making it and then drove to St. Paul, arriving at Pennig’s apartment around 2 p.m. They went to three bars. At the second bar, Pennig learned that her other boyfriend was at the Camp Bar on Robert Street.

Ecker said they decided to go to the bar, where the other boyfriend, who was with a woman, eventually approached them and punched him in the face. They stayed for another 45 minutes or so before returning to her apartment.

Meanwhile, Ecker’s attorney said at trial that Pennig fought mental health and addiction issues. He said that Ecker cared for Pennig and even loved her.

An analysis of Ecker’s phone showed that he had been refilling Pennig’s prescription drugs, including Adderall and diazepam, and helping her pay her rent.

‘She had a heart of gold’

Several of Pennig’s family members and friends gave statements in court Wednesday, describing her as a woman who would do anything for anyone and who had worked hard to become a registered nurse.

“She had a heart of gold, an adventurous spirit, a deep, deep love for her family and friends and all living creatures,” childhood friend Sara Hanson said.

As they became adults, Hanson said, she and Pennig bonded through their journey in recovery and sobriety.

“There’s no greater joy than being witness to a close friend, gaining her strength and power back and changing her life,” she said.

Pennig was full of life, which she approached with a “determined and observant lens,” said her older sister Brady Pennig. “Alex often cared more about others than she did for herself.”

She said Ecker “inappropriately and recklessly” prescribed her sister controlled substances and provided her alcohol and money, “and in doing so manipulated and controlled her. He held an invisible noose around her neck, and on December 16th, 2022, he ended her life.”

Five pictures of Alexandra Pennig were displayed on a large screen as her parents, Jim and Mary Jo Pennig, stood beside each other and addressed the court.

“Needless to say, the last 15 months have been the hardest months of our lives,” Jim Pennig said. “Our hearts have been broken beyond repair, and the future trajectory of our lives has been changed forever. We have a hole in our hearts, and as we look into each other’s eyes, we see sadness where once a zeal for life was.”

Her personality and “contagious smile and laugh will never be heard again,” he said.

“This is the person that was taken from us by Matthew Ecker, who made an oath, by the way, to provide care and protect the sanctuary of life,” he said. “He took her life violently with no regard for humanity. He robbed us of our daughter, our baby, and our future with Alex.”

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In a throwback to some of Minnesota’s victories from two years ago, Wednesday’s blowout of Toronto quickly turned into a funfest for Timberwolves fans at Target Center.

Numerous laps of the wave were completed in the second half of Minnesota’s 133-85 victory over the Raptors.

Toronto (23-53) — which notched its 15th consecutive loss in its quest to keep its top-six protected pick in the upcoming NBA draft — dressed just eight healthy players, many of whom aren’t traditional rotational pieces.

Minnesota jumped all over its depleted opponent from the beginning. The Wolves moved the ball brilliantly out of the gate, tallying assists on 14 of their first 16 makes. The ball movement led to more scorching shooting. The Wolves — who’ve been one of the NBA’s top shooting teams over their past 11 games — buried 20 3-pointers Wednesday on 47%  shooting.

Naz Reid got that party started by hitting six of his first eight looks from deep on a night where he scored 23 points. Anthony Edwards hit five 3-pointers of his own, while Nickeil Alexander-Walker hit four and Monte Morris had three.

The scintillating shooting is a product of the offense, which has been particularly good over the past few weeks. That’s evidenced by Minnesota’s volume of open looks. Entering tonight, 57% of the Wolves’ field-goal attempts over their previous 10 bouts were either “open” or “wide open” per NBA.com’s tracking data. That’s up from 50% in all games up until Karl-Anthony Towns was injured.

Edwards finished with 28 points as he utilized the contest as an opportunity to break out of his shooting funk. The 22-year-old all-star shot 10 for 23 from the field but was 5 for 12 from deep. He buried his first triple try of the night, snapping a streak of 22 straight missed 3-point attempts.

The Wolves (53-23) shot 51% from the field. The back half of the final frame was reserved for the deep end of Minnesota’s bench. Luka Garza excited the crowd with 16 points in 10 minutes, while Leonard Miller went 2 for 2 from the field for five points.

Josh Minott put an exclamation point on the victory with a ferocious transition slam with 15 seconds to play.

The win, while predictable, was still pivotal for Minnesota, which pulled into a tie with Denver for the top spot in the West, and the Wolves own the tiebreak. Oklahoma City punted on its game in Boston on Wednesday, sitting its two best players in a 135-100 defeat that left the Thunder (52-24) a full game behind Minnesota with six games to play.

The Timberwolves clinched a top-four seed in the West playoffs, guaranteeing they’ll have home-court advantage in the first round of postseason play.

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