Overview

• Her daughter, Gail Hagerty, said she died of complications from a stroke at a Grand Forks hospital.
• Hagerty spent nearly 70 years at the Grand Forks Herald, starting in newspapers as a South Dakota high schooler.
• An earnest 2012 review of the city’s first Olive Garden drew national attention with plainspoken notes on chicken Alfredo, breadsticks and décor.
• Anthony Bourdain publicly defended her during the viral moment and later wrote the foreword to a collection of her columns.
• She remained a celebrated local figure, with a city lift station named for her in 2002, and she continued contributing to the Herald into 2024.