Let’s face it, Minnesota is filled with outdoors-minded residents. All over the state, you’ll find people who love to hunt, ski, fish, play softball in the summer, run before work and play disc golf on the weekend.

Biking is a popular activity as well, and Minnesota has its share of nice biking and walking trails.

The Shooting Star Trail begins in the city of LeRoy and continues through Lake Louise State Park, and the Douglas State Trail stretches 12.5 miles from Rochester to Pine Island just to name a few.

In Albert Lea, there’s also the Blazing Star Trail that one day may connect to right here in Austin.

On Wednesday, officials hosted a meeting to discuss the second of four phases of trail construction. This latest phase is supposed to extend the trail from Myre-Big Island State Park to Hayward.

In 2005, $1.5 million came in from a state bonding bill for the project that must be spent or tied to contracts by Dec. 31, 2010.

At Wednesday’s meeting, a tentative timeline was unveiled for the extension.

It’s nice to see officials making progress on this project, and we hope this continues in a swift and productive manner.

This trail will be an asset to Southern Minnesota when it’s all finished, especially for the residents of Albert Lea, Austin and the communities in between. It will also be a nice showpiece for prospective future residents. At Wednesday’s meeting, citizens expressed concerns about making sure the deadline of 2010 is met and rightfully so. In a time when money is few and far between, we can’t afford to let these funds go to waste.

We encourage our officials to continue to move forward on this project, and we urge our residents to stay involved.