Garrison Keillor: 'To Me, Fridley Was an Exotic Place'

“Did you get a chance to talk to Garrison Keillor? … There’s the big guy! … Look, it’s Garrison with his red socks,” said the donors for DFL-endorsed candidate Connie Bernardy while they munched on the bruschetta and gyro meat for which they’d paid $35 to $100 a plate at her  fundraiser.

Bernardy, who is running for the new state House District 41A seat that includes all of Fridley, said would be her largest such event of the election season.

Bernardy spent the beginning of the fundraiser ushering her donors into conversations with Keillor, the author, storyteller and radio host of A Prairie Home Companion.

“This person has a son named Keillor,” Bernardy said, moving Margaret Leibfried forward. “He wanted to make it tonight.”

“He’s a student at the University of Chicago,” Leibfried told Keillor.

“That’s nice,” he replied.

Keillor said he was supporting Bernardy because “she’s a great educator” whose “business is education.”

“Schools are out in the leading edge of society,” he said.

Keillor was born in Anoka, grew up in rural Brooklyn Park and draws on his experiences around Anoka County for his tales of the fictional town of Lake Woebegone.

“It’s good to be in Fridley,” he told the crowd of more than 100 donors who came to see him. “I grew up across the river and, to me, Fridley was an exotic place.”