The Future of Aging is going to take ‘Center Stage’ next week at the Minnesota State Fair in the Big Top Tent, and you’re invited to participate: The Minnesota Sesquicentennial Commission is holding a series of community conversations over several days next week. The discussions are called:

Minnesota, Real & Imagined: What Minnesotans Need to Know for the Next 50 Years.

Partners in the project are the Bush Foundation, Twin Cities Public Television/Minnesota Channel, and the Citizens League.Discussion moderators will include: Mary Lahammer, political reporter for Twin Cities Public Television; Lori Sturdevant, editorial writer and columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Peter Hutchinson, president of the Bush Foundation.

The Age Wave Discussion:

The Age Wave will be the topic of the Health and Wellness Panel on Wed., Aug. 28, which will include three 25-minute conversations (from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.) (this is based on the old Chautauqua Lyceum models in which citizens accepted a bit of education with their entertainment [or a bit of entertainment with their education]). The Age Wave discussion, the third conversation, will feature:- Kathy Bakkenist, Ecumen’s chief operating officer and senior vice president of strategy and operations- Jan Hively, Ph.D., former deputy mayor of Minneapolis and founder and advisor to the Vital Aging Network- Jim Scheibel, former mayor of St. Paul and former director of the Corporation for National and Community Service- Sean Kershaw, executive director of the Citizens League