North Oaks’ Frankie Capan III in contention heading into final round of Sanderson Farms

posted in: All news | 0

Frankie Capan III is in contention for win No. 1 this weekend in Jackson, Miss.

The North Oaks native fired an 8-under round of 64 on Friday and followed it up with a 4-under, 68 in the third round Saturday at the Sanderson Farms Championship to leave the PGA Tour rookie in a tie for fifth heading into Sunday, four shots back of 54-hole leader, Garrick Higgo.

Capan entered the week in 157th in the FedEx Cup Fall standings. This is the second of seven fall events, and Capan isn’t in next week’s limited-field event in Japan. Which means opportunities to improve standing are precious.

Because the top 100 in the standings after the RSM Classic on late November secure their PGA Tour cards for next season, while the golfers in positions No. 1101-125 achieve conditional status for the 2026 campaign.

As of Saturday night, Capan is projected to move up to 136th in points with his currently spot on the leaderboard. Jumping additional spots would continue to catapult him up toward the top 125.

A victory would automatically secure his spot on Tour for each of the next two seasons.

Capan’s best result on Tour this season was a third-place finish in the Zurich Classic, a partner event. His top individual result was a 12th place finish way back in January. Those are his only top-40 finishes this season.

Capan had made just one cut since June prior to this week. But, with his back pressed against the wall, the Minnesotan is playing his best golf of the season at a time when he needs it most.

And now he’s

College football: Butler knocks off St. Thomas in overtime

posted in: All news | 0

A homecoming crowd of 5,274 at St. Thomas’ O’Shaughnessy Stadium on Saturday afternoon found itself in unexpected celebration mode early in overtime against the Butler Bulldogs.

Butler, lined up at the Tommies’ 1-yard line, appeared poised to take a touchdown lead, but a fumble on a quarterback sneak was scooped up by St. Thomas linebacker Jordan Pendelton and carried 96 yards into the end zone.

Jubilation soon turned to stunned disbelief, however, when it was determined that the Tommies lined up offside on the play, giving the Bulldogs the ball back inside the 1-yard line. This time the quarterback sneak was a success, and Butler escaped with a 21-14 victory.

“In the moment I thought it was pretty cool,” said Tommies linebacker Caden Nelson of the fumble return. “Apparently we had a guy offsides; we’ll have to check out the film.

“We can control what we can control. Go back and look at it and fix what needs to be fixed. But we had multiple opportunities to win that game, it doesn’t just come down to one play.”

Indeed, the Tommies (2-3, 0-2 Pioneer Football League) were done in by the same inconsistent play that led to them blowing a 17-point lead in the second half in last week’s loss at San Diego.

“Crushed in terms of how we played and how we didn’t play,” Tommies head coach Glenn Caruso said. “We did not play well, in my opinion, for way too long. And that led to a loss. No matter how tight the game — whether it was overtime — it leads to a loss that we could have averted.”

The Tommies, who entered the fourth quarter trailing 14-7, had a good chance to win the game in regulation. After tying it on a rushing touchdown by quarterback Andy Peters on their first drive of the fourth quarter, the Tommies got the ball back at their 20-yard line with one minute, 51 seconds to play after Butler missed a 28-yard field goal.

The Tommies’ offense then went to work, moving the ball 49 yards in seven plays to set up a potential game-winning 38-yard field goal by Ben Hoiland with two seconds remaining. A false start penalty on the Tommies pushed the ball back five yards.

Hoiland’s 43-yard kick was blocked.

“They came with an all-out block,” Caruso said. “Unfortunately, one of our guys on the left side, instead of staying down in his gap, popped back out. They came through the gap.”

The loss was a major blow to the Tommies’ hopes of winning the league title and earning a bid to the FCS playoffs in their first year of eligibility.

“There were high hopes coming in,” Nelson said. “Starting off 0-2 in conference is not what we planned on and not what we wanted. The most important thing is sticking together moving forward; keeping the glue in that locker room.

“We’re going to have other opportunities. You never know what’s going to happen in the Pioneer League.”

The Tommies scored on their first possession of the game when Peters connected with wide receiver Quentin Cobb-Butler on a 29-yard touchdown pass. But the offense stalled for most of the remainder of the first half.

Said Cobb-Butler, who had six catches for 69 yards, “We just couldn’t get stuff clicking, really, until later in the game.”

The Tommies did reach the red zone in the closing seconds of the first half, but Peters threw an interception in the end zone, and the Tommies went to the locker room trailing 14-7.

“We simply cannot — and this is now three of the past five weeks I’ve said this — we cannot continue to operate in the red zone the way we have been, because it’s simply not good enough,” Caruso said.

“Whether it’s the interception, whether it’s not finishing in a short-yardage situation, those types of things lead to days like today and the feelings that we have right now.”

Caruso was pleased with how the defense responded in the second half. His unhappiness with the offense, along with the red zone problems, also focused on what he felt was a bad ratio of running to passing plays.

Peters completed 16 of 27 passes for 193 yards. The running backs combined for 122 yards on 30 carries.

“That first drive was about everything that you would want,” Caruso said. “But there were still things we needed to do. We were heavy on the pass side, and certainly at the end of the day that’s what got us.”

Related Articles


St. Thomas football: Linebacker Ryan Sever leads with motivation, performance


St. Thomas football: Tommies show growth with success against high-end foes


St. Thomas football: Tommies QB Andy Peters heads into anticipated homecoming vs. ranked Idaho


College football: St. Thomas opens by beating Lindenwood


Andy Peters tries to take hold of St. Thomas starting quarterback job

High school football: Washburn shuts down Highland Park

posted in: All news | 0

Highland Park had a gentleman in Scottish garb playing the bagpipes during warmups for its football homecoming game Saturday. Once competition commenced, however, it was the hosts who were blown away by Washburn, 49-0.

Henry Eichten ran 17 times for 181 yards and three touchdowns, and backfield mate Kevin Hayes III ran 13 times for 73 yards and two touchdowns while the beleaguered Scots didn’t produce a first down until late in the fourth quarter.

“We came off our best game of the season, and we had a good week of practice,” said Dave Zeitchick, Highland Park’s 22nd-year head coach, whose team beat Como Park-Washington Tech last week, 42-6.

“We thought we were progressively getting better, but they just outmuscled us and knocked us down a peg. We’re devastated after falling off a cliff.”

Washburn quarterback Andrew Backhaus ran seven times for 23 yards and a touchdown, and he completed 6 of 15 passes for 49 yards and another score. He had a pass intercepted.

Highland Park was led by quarterback Eric Reed, who ran 18 times for 47 yards, often while escaping a collapsing pocket or downfield congestion caused by a lack of blocking. Reed completed 1 of 5 passes for 1 yard.

Zeitchick said Reed is truly a running back filling in under center for junior Leo Clifford, who has been out since suffering a knee injury late last season.

“We’re trying to use his skills, and he has done a great job. But he’s not a traditional quarterback,” said Zeitchick, noting that Clifford chose to sit out the current football campaign in hopes of being able to play basketball this winter.

“We had to reconfigure our offensive plan and we love (Reed), but we just have to help him more.”

Washburn pounded away on the ground, although coach Ryan Galindo wanted more precise execution from his troops, who improved to 4-2 while dropping the Scots to 2-4.

“The point is to chase greatness, and the process for that is what we want to focus on,” Galindo said. “It’s all about doing the little things to make the bigger things come out the way you want.

“We have some blocking scheme things we need to clean up, and some of our playmakers didn’t make plays like they normally do.”

Eichten, 6 feet and 184 pounds, and Hayes, 5-10 and 225 pounds, wore down a Scots defense that spent most of the game on the field.

“They’re tough runners,” said Galindo, in his 11th year at the Millers’ helm. “They’re seniors who want the ball in their hands, downhill runners who don’t mind contact. They’re going to make their one cut like they’re taught and then go as fast as they can.”

Highland Park’s highlight was a Ronald Thompson interception inside his team’s 20-yard line that ended the visitors’ first drive after halftime.

The Scots host St. Paul City Conference rival Central next week, while Washburn, winner of three of its last four games, clashes with Minneapolis Southwest.

“All we did was lose one football game today,” Zeitchick said. “It was a horrible loss, and we’re super disappointed. But we just have to wake up and get ready for Central.”

Related Articles


Prep football: Mahtomedi runs roughshod over Tartan


Prep football: Forest Lake rolls East Ridge


Prep football: Apple Valley tops Burnsville


High School Football: Predictions for Forest Lake-East Ridge, Woodbury-Mounds View and more


High school football: Mounds View goes on road to beat East Ridge

Helicopters, globe-trotting and a mafia run-in: Local mapmaker celebrates 50 years

posted in: All news | 0

Bitten by the travel bug at an early age, Stuart Sellars has spent most of his life helping others with the same affliction get to where they want to go.

Born in England and trained as an engineer, Sellars is the founder and art director of St. Paul-area map-making company Travel Graphics International, which marked 50 years in business this week.

An impressive milestone in any industry, TGI weathered the Internet boom and the rise of GPS mapping with a custom illustrated, 3D map style that emphasizes major thoroughfares and prominent geographic and architectural landmarks.

Popular in the travel and hospitality industries, clients of TGI have ranged from visitors bureaus and chambers of commerce to the Four Seasons Hawaii and United Airlines. With more than 10 million maps distributed, if you’ve ever grabbed a map from a brochure rack, there’s a chance it’s one of theirs.

Founded in 1975 in Minneapolis with about $10,000, TGI wouldn’t reach its height until the mid-1990s when it did nearly $1.5 million in sales and relocated to Roseville as a home-based business. Nearly 30 years later, the business today is still finding ways to remain relevant and keep its maps in travelers’ hands.

Mapping a map: 1970s

A map of larger Minnesota cities that Stuart Sellars, founder of Travel Graphics International, has in his Roseville office on Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025. The company is celebrating its 50th year in business. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

When the company launched in 1975, it was the first of its kind in many ways, Sellars said.

Without Google Earth or satellite imaging, researching a city in order to document it was a monstrous task.

“I would charter a helicopter and fly over the downtown areas, strapped in and leaning out to take 200 to 300 photographs,” Sellars said. “Then I’d have to drive every street to match the aerial photographs with the buildings.”

Thousands of pieces of reference materials were needed to draw the maps in 1970s and 1980s, including aerial images from the newspaper, blueprints from the planning office, travel books and postcards, Sellars said.

At the time, an average hand-drawn map would cost $70,000 to $80,000 to create, Sellars said, with the lion’s share going to production and roughly $15,000 earmarked for research, including flights, room and board and onsite photographs.

“I tried every other way of doing it less expensively, but I found that you could not get the view that you needed,” he said.

Compiling the research usually took a few weeks, Sellars said, and the artist would then take two to three months to draw the map.

“That research was the key part,” Sellars said. “I think one of the reasons we really didn’t have competition for 20 years was because it was so expensive to produce.”

The little competition TGI did have, “We’d usually end up suing because they would trace our maps,” Sellars said.

Mapping a map: 2020s

Instead of hanging out of the side of a helicopter to snap a reference photo, TGI’s Illustrator Arkady Roytman consults Google Maps, Google Earth, social media and company websites.

Using Adobe InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop, Roytman painstakingly crafts entire cities, one digital building at a time.

“I make an isometric grid, then I try to capture the essence of the building I am trying to illustrate,” Roytman said. “Using the photos and the reference material, I try to find a good face of the building, something distinct that somebody looking at the map could recognize.”

While the maps are accurate, they are not drawn to scale and certain liberties must be taken, Roytman explained. For example, a building might be rotated so its most recognizable features are apparent to a visitor.

Related Articles


Manmade island rising in Mississippi River near Hastings


Working Strategies: Making the most of college internships


Forecast: Home equity rates, the Fed and what’s next for home equity borrowing


Sources: 3M looking to sell off billions in industrial assets


State regulators approve sale of Minnesota Power’s parent company

Roytman, the company’s sole artist, earned a degree in sequential art, worked at several art galleries and illustrated coloring books before joining the mapping business in 2018.

“Their main concern was the unique style of the map,” Roytman said of his hiring. “They wanted someone who could mimic that style and that is one of my skills.”

Roytman likens the colorful, whimsical nature of the maps to Martin Handford’s “Where’s Waldo” and Spanish-Mexican-American cartoonist Sergio Aragones, known for creating the comic book “Groo the Wanderer.”

As opposed to the months it would take to draw a map in the 70s, Roytman said he can create a map from scratch in just weeks with certain projects taking only hours.

Most maps of the continental U.S. are printed at the John Roberts Co. in Coon Rapids and the company’s Hawaii maps are printed at Edward Enterprises in Honolulu, Sellars said.

Staying relevant

Throughout its 50 years in business, TGI needed to evolve in order to stay afloat.

What began as promotional poster maps of Hawaii, Mexico and the Caribbean would soon expand to maps of major U.S. cities and eventually grow to offer the now-ubiquitous map-brochure.

In 1979, TGI entered its first deal with United Airlines to supply maps of its major destinations. During the 1980s, the company researched and published maps of Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New Orleans, Phoenix, Orlando, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Antonio and Washington, D.C.

“What’s really cool about the business model is that he created these maps ages ago and he is still able to use them and customize them to each client,” Roytman said.

In the 1990s, the company created online versions of its illustrated maps and developed proprietary software that allowed businesses to customize its products for their customers. In the late 90s, TGI entered a deal with Hawaiian Airlines and its second deal with United Airlines to supply in-flight maps.

In more recent years, TGI created a map for Visit Inver Grove Heights, the city’s convention and visitors bureau.

A custom map made for Visit Inver Grove Heights, circa 2021, by St. Paul-based Travel Graphics International. The map was placed at hotels to connect visitors with local businesses. (Courtesy of Travel Graphics International)

“I was looking for a custom map to help promote hotels, sports facilities, restaurants and shopping to visitors,” said Eric Satre, former executive director for Visit Inver Grove Heights, in an email.

TGI was able to create a map that fit the bill and they were placed at hotels in the city as a way to connect visitors to local businesses, said Satre, who now works as the destination marketing manager for Destination: Woodbury.

Today, TGI’s maps include QR-linked digital versions that update in real time and a virtual concierge service, ConciergeMaps.com, that recommends activities and helps with reservations.

Jennifer Wedel, Sellars’ daughter, is currently working part-time for the company, helping to rebuild its Hawaii business. The company hopes to reopen its Honolulu office next year, which closed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks put a damper on travel.

“The maps and the way they’re enjoyed so much still by tourists, that’s always been an especially successful model and product in big tourist destinations like Hawaii,” said Wedel, who has worked full- and part-time for the company over the last decade. “It’s a natural place for us to work on rebuilding.”

TGI also has plans to offer territory-based equity distributorships so local entrepreneurs can own territory rights, sell ad space and share in map revenue.

False starts, mafia run-in

While it is the most successful of Sellars’ map companies, TGI was not the first nor the second.

Prior to TGI, Sellars worked for Vancouver-based Trans Continental Cartographers where he sold ad space for the vibrant, cartoon-style map maker.

When Trans Continental Cartographers went out of business, Sellars and three friends picked up where it left off with their new business, Inter Continental Cartographers. What seemed like a good idea at the time, it would unfold in ways Sellars never saw coming.

Sellars recounted a particular business trip in 1971 where, upon returning home to Vancouver, he discovered that members of the Canadian mafia had commandeered Inter Continental Cartographers due to unpaid debts by one of the co-owners.

As Sellars describes it: The organized crime cell planned to transport drugs into the U.S. by storing them in the rolled up maps inside of polyethylene tubes. The thinking at the time was that K9 units wouldn’t be able to detect the substances due to the tubing and the ink on the map, he said.

During this time, Sellars said he and his family were threatened and followed by a black limousine. Out of fear, he decided to send his family back to England, he said.

After alerting the Canadian authorities to their situation, Sellars and his business partners safely relocated to Toronto.

With Vancouver, and the mafia, behind him, Sellars would go on to have an ownership stake in map-making businesses Archar Inc., Archar Western Inc. and finally as the sole owner of Archar International Inc., which now does business as Travel Graphics International.

Looking for buyer

At 85 years old, Sellars is hoping to retire soon and pass the business on to a fellow traveler.

Sellars, who is the sole investor with 90% ownership of the company, said he has invested around $4 million into TGI since its founding. The other 10% of the company belongs to Paula Hylle, a longtime employee of TGI.

“I’ve never become wealthy in the business, but I’ve felt wealthy and I got to do things,” said Sellars, who has visited nearly 100 countries.

His home office in Roseville is proof of a life lived on the road: brochure maps strewn about, a floor globe in the corner, cartography-themed wallpaper and a bookshelf where each title lists a different country.

Related Articles


‘Coolest Thing Made in MN’ announces four finalists


Business People: Stearns County ag inspector Bob Dunning wins lifetime achievement award


Gym chain to celebrate first Rosemount location


‘Coolest Thing Made in MN’ among these 8 remaining products


Community backs Borchert’s Meat Market in Maplewood as it struggles with tax payments

Of all the places he’s traveled, he said a safari in East Africa remains his favorite. Sites still on his list include Iceland, Greenland and parts of Central America.

When asked if he’d take the reins, Roytman said with a chuckle, “I’m happy to continue my role as the artist, but I don’t have the business acumen.”

Wedel isn’t interested in taking on the business either, she said. “I am in a part of my life where taking major business risks doesn’t align with my other responsibilities,” said the mother of a 13-year-old.

“It’s been a significant joy in my life that I’ve been able to work so closely with my dad. Most people don’t get that opportunity,” Wedel said.

While she wouldn’t take the company’s top spot, Wedel said she would “jump at the chance” to work as a salaried marketing director under new ownership.

As for Sellars, just because he wants out of the office doesn’t necessarily mean he’s out of the game.

“I’d love to stay involved and help someone else take over and be successful,” he said. “If the opportunity arose and there were more places to research — I’d go!”