A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 48
Two days after Jackie DeFoe and her 20-month-old child were found dead, a crowd of more than 75 friends, family and fellow Fond du Lac band members gathered and marched in her memory. Before starting the trek along Big Lake Road they made a giant circle, prayed, listened to drums and song, and smudged - wafting the smoke from a bowl of burning sage over their bodies to purify the body and soul, and cleanse any negative energy. The walk started only a block or two away from the house where DeFoe,...
It was Christmas Eve and traffic was expectedly heavy on the interstate just north of Minneapolis. David Rice was headed home to Cloquet from a temporary construction job. He wasn't exactly in the holiday spirit. He was going through a divorce and in limbo about his work. The heaviness was there when a pickup suddenly passed him and then shot into his lane in front of him. The driver overcorrected and the truck left the road and did a barrel roll into the ditch off Interstate 494 in Plymouth....
The Minnesota State High School League has now canceled both the boys and girls state basketball tournaments, because of ongoing coronavirus concerns. The notice went out at 10:57 a.m. Friday, March 13, following a notice yesterday that said the tournament would be played, but with limited spectators. Here is the exact text of the MSHSL notice: "Effective Immediately: The Minnesota State High School League is immediately cancelling the Girls Basketball State Tournament. Additionally, all Boys...
Carlton County Sheriff's Office deputies were called to Black Bear Casino and Resort Monday, March 9, after a caller reported a person with a hand gun and a shot fired inside the Seven Fires Steakhouse there. According to a press release from the Sheriff's Office, deputies arrived and found a male deceased, by self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, in the restaurant. There were no other injuries and the incident was isolated to the steakhouse. The investigation is ongoing. The male was...
The Duluth Diocese sent out the following press release Friday, March 13: In light of the rapid spread of the coronavirus (covid-19) across the world and now to Minnesota, Father James B. Bissonette, diocesan administrator for the Diocese of Duluth, has dispensed Catholics in the diocese from the obligation to attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation for the duration of the crisis. For Catholics, attending Mass on Sundays and certain other important holy days is an obligation and a precept of the church. That obligation is not...
Carlton County is sending regular updates on COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The following update has been edited by the Pine Knot News to make it more relevant to the general public. These updates are providing you with the most up-to-date information that public health has from the Minnesota Department of Health and the Center for Disease Control, and are based in science and not hearsay or rumors. Current Numbers as of 3/12: Global: 125,048 confirmed cases, 4,613 deaths US: 1,215 confirmed cases, 36 deaths (42 states and...
When she was murdered, Jackie DeFoe joined a long list of Native American women who have been victims of violence. A 2016 National Institute of Justice report revealed that four in five American Indian (and Alaskan Native) women have experienced violence in their lifetime, and more than half have experienced physical violence by intimate partners. It’s an issue that touches everyone, said Cloquet’s Sheila Lamb, who sits on the statewide Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women task force and works...
All four medical insurance companies that sell private health insurance plans on MNsure are waiving co-pays, co-insurance and deductibles related to Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) diagnostic testing. Minnesotans who are enrolled in those plans will have no costs associated with medically directed testing in compliance with the Centers for Disease Control guidance. MNsure encourages consumers to contact their insurance company directly for questions about plan benefit details and how best to access care. Minnesotans with questions about...
A Cloquet man was charged with killing his girlfriend, Jackie DeFoe, her 20-month-old son, Kevin, and her unborn child in Sixth District Carlton County Court on Tuesday, March 10. Sheldon James Thompson, 33, faces two charges of second-degree murder and a third count of second-degree murder of an unborn child. The killings, disclosed Sunday morning by the Cloquet Police Department, rocked the communities of the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation and Cloquet, where the victims and the suspect lived....
The sixth annual Outdoor Expo, a free community event celebrating everything outdoors, will take place this weekend. Doors open at 3 p.m. at the Moose Lake Covenant Church, 700 Fifth Street, Moose Lake. The event is planned by a group of churches in the area with the goal of eliminating "cabin fever" and getting people together to celebrate the great outdoors. This year's free event will include keynote speaker Ted Youker on "stalking whitetail deer," as well as a display of the 20 largest...
Two national traditions will combine Sunday, March 15, at the annual Mojakka Cook-Off, when at least 15 area cooks will show off their best Finnish soups, all washed down with the buyer’s choice of green or purple beer. The cook-off starts at 1 p.m. at the historic NorthEastern Hotel on Dunlap Island in Cloquet. The mojakka and the purple beer pay homage to St. Urho’s Day, March 16, the day that St. Urho dined on a hearty bowl of the soup before heading out to rid the Finnish vineyards of a plague of grasshoppers. The green beer, of cou...
Dan Bremnes “Wherever I go” 2020 Spring tour and documentary screening is coming to Common Ground Coffee Bar & Deli at 103 Avenue C Sunday, March 15 starting at 7 p.m. Tickets are $15. This intimate acoustic performance will feature hit records “Wherever I Go” and “Up Again” as well as a screening of his documentary about the making of the “Wherever I Go” music video, which was filmed around the world over eight days. It’s a fam-ily-friendly performance....
Historic Minnesota events with anniversaries this week. March 14 1919 Humorist Max Shulman is born in St. Paul. An author and Hollywood screenwriter, he is best remembered for creating the character Dobie Gillis. Shulman died in 1988. March 15 1927 The Arrowhead Bridge across the St. Louis River opens, linking West Duluth to Superior, Wisconsin. 1941 Thirty-one Minnesotans, mostly unsuspecting motorists caught on the roads, die in a blizzard, the second killer snowstorm of the season. The deaths exceeded 60 in the region as the storm barreled...
Councilors nearly tabled a project that would repair some of the city's worst streets after a public hearing Thursday, March 5 revealed the biggest pothole in the project: attitudes about the planned addition of a sidewalk to Prospect Avenue between 14th and 22nd streets. On one side were numerous residents, many who live in homes that came with small front yards that would likely get smaller. On the other side were people advocating for pedestrian safety: representatives from the Cloquet Area F...
With the temperature climbing into the 40s Saturday, the conditions weren't exactly perfect for the annual City Ski Meet at Cloquet's Pine Valley. Too much snow had already melted to use the 40-meter ski jump, so the jumping competiton began with the 20-meter jump ... before it melted too. Lots of younger children braved the 10-meter jump, and some very tiny ones blipped over the 5-meter, which is basically a small bump in the side of the hill behind the chalet. The day wrapped with Nordic ski r...
Esko residents learned that Canosia Road North of Highway 61 will be closed starting July 1 and into the fall for replacement of a bridge over the Midway River. The news about what is also known as Carlton County Road 1 came at Tuesday night’s Thomson Township annual town meeting, where a handful of residents joined township officials and employees reviewed the annual financial statement, heard from department heads, and discussed other town business. It was a 40-minute meeting at Thomson T...
Changes unfolding in the Carlton County Extension Office were laid out in a report presented by acting supervisor Donna Lekander at the Carlton County Committee of the Whole meeting March 3. The Extension program has been under intense scrutiny since Troy Salzer, longtime Carlton County/University of Minnesota Extension Service agriculture educator, left for another job. An initial evaluation of the Carlton County program showed a lack of supervision for staff working there and a need to set staff guidelines for their particular job. County...
A community meeting brainstorming solutions to financial issues in the Barnum School District aimed to bring people together Wednesday, March 4. A circle of 21 stakeholders, made up of three members of school personnel, students, parents, community members and support staff expressed their views about what needs to be changed in the Barnum School District now that the school board is discussing cuts in staff because of a deficit budget. Facilitators Laraine and Paul Mickelson of Mickelson Consulting led the discussion using a circle process,...
A former Barnum School District payroll employee who took — and paid back — $14,062 from the school’s food service fund pleaded guilty to theft last fall under the terms of a plea deal. Nancy Colleen Monfeldt, 58, was initially charged with embezzlement of public funds, one count of failure to pay over state funds and two counts of felony theft in March 2019. The embezzlement and state funds charges were dismissed when she pleaded guilty to the theft charges. According to the criminal complaint, then Superintendent David Bottem contacted the Ca...
The Carlton County Board of Commissioners passed a revised tobacco ordinance last month, and we have a question: Why bother? The new ordinance prohibits the sale of tobacco and vaping products to people under the age of 21, which a federal law already does. But the revised version completely removed the provision that would have prevented stores from selling flavored products. That means, as long as you’re 21 years old, you can buy bubblegum flavored vapes, spearmint chew and even grape flavored cigars. The revisions came after a number of l...
June M. Reed, 100, formerly of Cloquet, passed away Monday, March 9, 2020 at Maranatha Presbyterian Home in Brooklyn Center. She was born Dec. 22, 1919 in Kelliher to Leaman and Myrtle (Collins) Bradford. June graduated from Cromwell High School in 1937. She was united in marriage to Gordon Reed on May 25, 1942. June worked as a bookkeeper for Montgomery Ward in Cloquet, J-Mark in Minneapolis, and retired as a claims examiner for Prudential Insurance in Minneapolis in 1988. June was preceded in...
Alvin “Tillie” M. Tillman, age 91 of Cloquet, died peacefully on Sunday, March 8, 2020 at Inter-Faith Care Center in Carlton, Minnesota. He was born on December 15, 1928 in Little Falls, Minnesota to Michael and Martha (Zyvloski) Tillman. Alvin served in the U.S. Army during WWII from July 1948-June 1952. During his service, he boxed under the Eisenhower administration. He was united in marriage to Dorothy Walczak on July 3, 1954 at St. Casimir’s Catholic Church in Cloquet. Alvin worked for t...
Leland Scott Miesbauer passed away Feb. 9, 2020. He was born in Cloquet in September 1941. Lee graduated from Cloquet High in 1959, and from the University of Minnesota in 1964 with a degree in civil engineering. He relocated to San Francisco and then San Diego, where he worked as the site engineer for Coronado Bay bridge. After its completion his family relocated to Seattle, where he worked for the state ferry system, ABKJ, SSOE Group and CivilTech. He had many passions such as the outdoors,...
After the Cloquet City Council fired Eric Lipponen, the CAT-7 cable TV coordinator, I have been asked repeatedly: Is CAT-7 dead? Will "Harry's Gang" ever come back? I am encouraged by the comments, actually. I have produced exactly four "Harry's Gang" shows in the past year, not counting some candidate interviews. (In case you didn't realize my point, there are 52 weeks in a year. Having taped 4 weeks out of 52 is a sign that maybe, just maybe, something is wrong at CAT-7. So, to have so much in...
Congratulations to our Boys and Girls Basketball teams as they finished another very successful season and good luck at state to the girls! The girls team was set to play at 3 p.m. Thursday March 12. The Friday and Saturday game times are yet to be determined, but I hear these games will be televised. Our school is aware that there are many concerns related to COVID-19, otherwise known as the Coronavirus in the school and community environment. At this time there are three confirmed cases in...
