Radio icon sings praises of Minnesota town to lure doctors

With a song from his heart, humorist Garrison Keillor may help a small town in Minnesota find enough doctors to keep its clinic open.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. June 11, 2007.

The loons are calling, the fish are biting and the hammock is waiting. Some folks say this is paradise. On the map, it's called International Falls, Minn.

The tiny northern town of 6,300 on the Canadian border has plenty of scenic beauty, boating, hiking and hunting. What it doesn't have is enough physicians. A shortage threatens to close the town's clinic, the only one within 20 miles.

Two years of conventional advertising failed to recruit new doctors, so local leaders decided to try a different approach. Maybe a song about the virtues of their community would attract the medical crowd. And what better troubadour than Minnesota's native son and beloved ambassador of the airwaves, Garrison Keillor?

Keillor agreed, penned the tune himself and crooned it on his Minnesota-based show, "A Prairie Home Companion," which reaches about 4.3 million listeners on 580 public radio stations.

They're looking for doctors, in International Falls.