As a high schooler in little Embarrass, Minn., Warner Wirta appeared in newspapers because of his speed. He ran a mean mile with the Flying Finns, a state champion track and cross-country team that often beat bigger schools.
Later, Wirta regularly appeared in the newspaper for another reason — his letters to the editor. These passionate defenses of the environment and critiques of the federal government, printed in the Duluth News Tribune, spoke to his work as an activist and a teacher.
"He was active in the political, social and economic issues in the Duluth area," said Will Munger, owner of the Willard Munger Inn and son of the late state lawmaker after which it's named. "Very much someone who always stood up for the little guy."
Wirta died of cardiac arrest Dec. 19 in Duluth, where he had lived for 35 years before moving recently to Superior, Wis. He was 80.
Wirta was born in Embarrass in 1933. His father, Samuel, was Finnish, and his mother, Clara, was Ojibwe. His coach scouted the schoolyard for talent and, because there was no track, had his recruits train on gravel roads.
"We knew deer tracks and cow tracks, but most of us had never seen a running track," Wirta said in a 2008 interview.
Wirta, known to some locals as the "Flying Finndian," won the state cross-country championship in 1951 and the mile in 1952.
He often talked about "the way people looked at him when they saw him as an Indian, compared with the way people looked at him when he was a Finlander," said Marvin Lamppa, a track teammate and historian.
