Minnesota
Who’s Minnesota’s ‘Blanket Lady’? More than a superfan, she was a women’s basketball pioneer
Minnesota is in a tough spot. The No. 4 Gophers are down 9 points to No. 13 Green Bay in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
They hadn’t been to March Madness since 2018. Not only that, but also the Gophers earned a host spot. They should win. But the pressure is mounting.
Luckily for them, the Gophers have something Green Bay doesn’t: Blanket Lady.
During a timeout with 6:01 left in the third quarter, the Blanket Lady begins her ritual. She raises the blanket, decorated with a Minnesota emblem, and she runs, waving the maroon and gold fabric as she goes, up the sideline and down the baseline. As she runs, the crowd cheers, louder and louder until she returns to her seat.
“I was saying in the locker room after the game, that’s probably the loudest it’s been, I think, the whole time I have ever been here,” senior Amaya Battle said. “It was a ton of fun. It was nice to have them rally around us.”
The timeout ends, but the energy hangs in the air. Minnesota responded with a 30-8 run, securing a comeback victory and a spot in the Round of 32 for the first time in eight years.
“I feel like we just won the NCAA Tournament,” the Blanket Lady says the next day.
You know who get this game turned around? BLANKET LADY.
She got this crowd on their feet when the #Gophers needed her most! pic.twitter.com/X6NzmSv85q
— GopherHole.com (@GopherHole) March 20, 2026
You can forgive the exaggerated excitement. She’s better known in The Barn by her Blanket Lady persona, but she’s really 81-year-old Elvera “Peps” Neuman. She’s a superfan who has been hyping up Minnesota supporters at home games since 2004. And she’s loved basketball long before the sport loved women back.
Neuman grew up on a farm in Eden Valley, Minn., with a basket attached to the side of her family’s barn. It was put there for her four older brothers, but Neuman took to the sport. She practiced shooting whenever she could, even when she was milking the cows.
“The milkers were supposed to be on the cows for like, three minutes,” she said. “Well, I thought I could go out there to shoot for three minutes. But sometimes it got to be five or 10 minutes. It probably wasn’t easy on the cows, but we got more milk.”
Neuman’s passion couldn’t be contained to her family farm. She wanted to play for her high school, but in the early 1960s, there were no teams for girls around her, and the boys wouldn’t let her play with them.
“Not to brag,” Neuman said with a laugh, “but I was better than most of the boys anyway.”
In an effort to stay close to the game, Neuman joined the pep club, supporting the same boys who refused to play with her. Then, a conversation with her English teacher changed everything. She told Neuman a team of women were coming to Paynesville, a town just 14 miles down the road, to challenge some of the local coaches.
Neuman went to the game and was in awe of the Harlem Chicks, a team of Black players. As soon as she got home, Neuman wrote a letter to the team’s promoter. She wanted to play for the Chicks. Segregation prevented that, so instead, Neuman joined the Texas Cowgirls barnstorming team. From there, her basketball career took off — at least as much as it could for a woman at that time.
Neuman played basketball until she was 44, and even founded her own barnstorming team, called the Arkansas Gems. Each season, Neuman played in around 140 games, traveling from town to town, sometimes driving 400 miles in one day. It was a grind, but it was all Neuman knew. And it was the only way she could play basketball.
“I loved it,” she said. “I absolutely loved it.”
Elvera “Peps” Neuman started her own barnstorming team when gender rules and segregation kept her from joining teams. (Courtesy of Elvera Neuman)
Every time Neuman walked on the court, she put on a show, once scoring 108 points in a game. That kind of vivaciousness doesn’t just go away, not even at 81 years old. Neuman still brings it to the court, only now, she’s on the sidelines.
“I get more attention from being the Blanket Lady than I ever did from playing basketball,” Neuman said. “That might upset some people, to not get the attention, or the money, but I’m just the opposite. I’m pulling for these girls at 200 percent.”
The Blanket Lady tradition started accidentally in 2006. Neuman serves as a caregiver for her friend and former basketball teammate, Vicky Nelson. Because Nelson is in a wheelchair, the duo sits courtside in an accessible seating section. The blanket was a gift from two other Minnesota fans who noticed that Nelson always draped her jacket over her knees in an effort to keep warm during games.
Overcome by the kindness of the gesture, Neuman held up the blanket to the crowd, and when she did, everyone cheered. Ever the showman, Neuman took the cheers and ran with it — literally — up the sideline. The Blanket Lady was born.
Elvera “Peps” Neuman brings the same energy she brought to the basketball court as a player to her Minnesota courtside seats. (Courtesy of Elvera Neuman)
Neuman and Nelson haven’t missed a Gophers home game since 2004, when All-America point guard Lindsay Whalen was a senior. They certainly won’t miss Minnesota’s March Madness second-round game Sunday against Ole Miss.
If the energy dwindles, Neuman will be ready.
She paved the way for the current Gophers during her barnstorming days, and she’s still doing everything she can to help them succeed.
“I’ll be there,” she said. “I’ll be there with the blanket and my Gophers gear. I love this team.”
The outer edges of the Twin Cities are booming with new places to live.
So far this decade, the Twin Cities metro has, on average, added about 17,000 housing units per year, according to data from the Metropolitan Council. That includes homes, condos and apartments.
If you go by total housing units added, at the top of the list is Lakeville, a city growing so fast it put a pause on accepting new building permits. It has added 4,861 units from 2020 to 2025.
It’s followed in order by Woodbury (4,271 units), Maple Grove (3,599 units), Rosemount (3,186 units), Cottage Grove (2,279 units) and Blaine (2,677).
“Those suburban edge communities have the land supply, and they have the infrastructure, and the connection to the metro,” Todd Graham, the Metropolitan Council’s principal forecaster, explained.
Space to add homes and infrastructure to handle the growth, all while staying within the metro bubble, is why developers are targeting those communities.
Cottage Grove has been adding about 287 homes a year this decade, but the mayor tells us of a new trend.
“What’s changing is we are seeing additional multifamily apartments, higher density,” said Myron Bailey. “And then we’re putting a little bit more focus on some affordability options, especially around our business park.”
Which suburbs will grow the most in the future?
If you go by population, Blaine and Maple Grove are forecasted to add about 20,000 people each from 2020 to 2050.
But if you go by percentage, two communities stand out. Corcoran in Hennepin County is expected to more than triple its population from 6,185 in 2020 to 19,600 in 2050. Carver in Carver County will see its population nearly triple from 5,241 in 2020 to 14,900 in 2050.
“We’re planning for it in the City of Carver. We have a long-term financial plan, we have a strategic plan, we have a comprehensive plan,” said Carver Mayor Courtney Johnson.
For example, new builds will push the limits of Carver’s current water treatment plant sometime in the next decade.
“We are already thinking about where and how we’re going to build a new one to expand our capacity to bring fresh water into homes,” she said.
Cottage Grove is building a second water tower right now on the west side of Highway 61, with plans for a third in the future. The city also has ample space to add homes and businesses.
Carver, meanwhile, has a smaller footprint, but it has an agreement in place with the neighboring Dahlgren township.
“When the landowners in that community are approached by developers for homes or commercial, they would then become part of the City of Carver, and then our boundary area would expand,” said Johnson.
Corcoran’s boundaries are the opposite of Carver’s. The town covers just under 36 square miles, making its land size similar to Maple Grove and Plymouth. Most of it still consists of farmland, prairies and wooded areas with home developments spread throughout.
A spokesperson for Corcoran told WCCO that new developments will be focused on the eastern third of the city, where growth can be best supported. That includes a new water tower and water treatment plant in the city’s northeast district.
With more neighborhoods and people come a need for more entertainment, dining and shopping. Bailey said that’s becoming apparent in his community.
“The biggest complaint that I get is we don’t have enough restaurants or retail in our community. So, that’s been frankly one of the things that I’ve been trying to work on,” said Bailey.
One element of growth that is particularly challenging for smaller towns is maintaining their small-town image. Johnson said much of Carver’s development is happening on their western edge, where farmland is plentiful. The downtown area near the Minnesota River, however, will keep its historic charm.
“We have one of the largest contiguous areas on the National Register of Historic Places. That’s never going to change, and we’re working really hard to maintain that area and promote our historic downtown,” she said.
Corcoran is taking a similar approach, balancing the need for growth while preserving the city’s existing character. Being a rural community is part of the city’s identity, meaning growth will have to happen in a “thoughtful and intentional way.”
Closer to the heart of the metro, cities like Edina and Bloomington are projected to add thousands of households over the next several decades. There’s very little space to build new subdivisions and homes, but that’s not where the growth is expected to happen.
“They identify that they have land supply available for transition to either high-density apartments or mixed-use neighborhoods,” said Graham.
That includes rezoning land initially developed for commercial property to allow for apartments and condos.
“In the Southdale area, you’ve seen that there are apartment buildings going up and there are plans for more of that,” Graham said.
To see how your community in the Twin Cities is projected to grow by the year 2050, click here.
Minnesota
Several vehicles damages by large rocks, oil thrown off I-35 bridge near Rush City, sheriff says
Law enforcement in an east-central Minnesota community is asking for the public’s help to find those responsible for throwing large rocks and vehicle oil off an Interstate 35 overpass.
The Chisago County Sheriff’s Office said there have been multiple reports in the past week of vehicles being struck by objects dropped from the bridge by 530th Street near Rush City, about 60 miles northeast of the Twin Cities metro area.
On Sunday night just after 10 p.m., authorities say someone “threw numerous large rocks and a significant amount of oil onto passing vehicles and the roadway itself,” resulting in “multiple vehicles being damaged.”
The sheriff’s office says the Minnesota State Patrol is assisting in the investigation, and anyone with information is asked to call 651-257-4100.
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