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
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As the Minnesota Legislature breathed its last gasps of air of the 2020 session, Carlton County can find some wins and some big losses when contemplating what became a session extended by five months with mostly unproductive special sessions since May and until this week. A school district consolidation will have to wait. A long-planned waterline project is a go, as is a grant for the county jail to explore increasing services for female offenders. On the flip side, the county will have to wait for permission to ask county voters to allow a...
Carlton County school superintendents were among 35 different school districts in the Northland to send a heartfelt message to residents Friday. Help us keep kids in school, they said. Wear your masks, wash your hands, observe social distancing guidelines, keep family and social gatherings outdoors, and stay home if you’re sick. Just four weeks into the school year, many schools across Aitkin, Carlton, Cass, Cook, Itasca, Koochiching, Lake, Pine and St. Louis counties have had to move to more re...
A Carlton County grand jury voted last week to charge a Cloquet man with five counts of first-degree murder, another development in a case that shocked county residents last spring when the bodies of a pregnant woman and her toddler were found hidden in their home, brutally murdered. Sheldon James Thompson, 33, was charged in March with two counts of second-degree murder and a third count of second-degree murder of an unborn child. As a result of the grand jury indictment, he faces a total of...
We know there are many fans of the history column who may be wondering where it went. After running “This Week In History” for about 18 months, we have decided to retool our history feature rather than repeat items that have previously run. We have always tried to localize the items listed by the Minnesota Historical Society. Now we are attempting to hyper-localize our history. We’d like readers to send us their History Mysteries. This could be a simple query about any facet of local history. It could be a call for help in identifying an old p...
Neighbors on the Bromfield Road in Atkinson Township voiced concerns about a proposed Enbridge staging yard at the Carlton County board of commissioners regular meeting Tuesday. The Atkinson town board’s approval of Enbridge’s use of the road for access and the Carlton County planning commission’s clearance for the yard site had seen little public input until now. Alex Omar has property on road which has been leased by Enbridge for the staging yard and has a proposed access road about 500 feet from County Road 61 off Bromfield. The propo...
The Cloquet Chamber of Commerce will hold a local candidate forum 6-9 p.m. Oct. 21 in the council chambers at Cloquet City Hall. No spectators will be allowed at the forum, which will be livestreamed on the city’s website at cloquetmn.gov and aired repeatedly on CAT-7 leading up to Election Day Nov. 3. Featured races (in order of appearance) include candidates for Cloquet City Council (6 p.m.), District 5 Carlton County Commissioner (6:30 p.m.), Cloquet School Board (7 p.m.), and the state legislative candidates (at 8 p.m.) for house and s...
A Duluth man was airlifted Saturday after he was injured in a dirt bike accident Saturday, Oct. 10. According to a press release from the Carlton County Sheriff’s Office, the accident occurred in the 300 block of the Harlis Road in Holyoke Township. Rylan Wantaja, 20, apparently lost control on the Wilderness Trail while traveling with a large group of riders. He sustained several significant injuries due to the accident and was taken off the trail by medical, law enforcement and rescue personnel. The awaiting medical personnel assessed the p...
The United Way of Carlton County and B&B Market are coordinating with the AEOA Farm to Family program to provide another free food box event from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 20 at the B&B Market on Big Lake Road in Cloquet, and then from 1:30-3:30 p.m. at the Moose Lake hockey arena. They ask that people do not arrive more than 15 minutes before the event starts. There is no charge, but organizers ask that anyone who comes either makes 300 percent or less of the poverty limit or have an urgent need due to Covid-19....
Carlton County Road 1 north of Esko opened in the past week after a months-long project to replace the bridge across the Midway River. The reopening came on schedule....
A public hearing to discuss allowing residents to raise chickens drew no public participation during Tuesday's Cloquet Planning Commission meeting and was passed unanimously by the commission. The change would require amending two different sections of the city code. Planning commission members voted 5-0 to change the lot size from a staff suggestion of 11,000 square feet to 10,890 square feet, which is exactly a quarter-acre, for the language in Chapter 8.4.02 of the City Code, the city's...
The Barnum school district got some good news recently, in a year that saw the small rural school district facing financial woes and then a pandemic. In this case, however, two negatives made a positive. The fund balance for the Barnum school district should be around $450,000, the finance committee reported at the school board’s working meeting Tuesday, Oct. 6. Final figures will be presented to the board by the auditor at its monthly meeting Tuesday, Oct. 20, said superintendent Mike McNulty in a telephone interview this week. “Fifty per...
Cloquet's Jody Dixon crosses the pedestrian bridge over the St. Louis River just off Cloquet's Spafford Park earlier this month in this photo of fall beauty taken by her husband, Bill Dixon....
Enrollment numbers are down slightly in Cloquet, and superintendent Michael Cary said he's blaming the usual culprit these days: Covid-19. In a discussion with Cloquet school board members Monday, Cary said open enrollment numbers are down between 25-30 kids this fall. At the same time, they've seen an uptick of about 20 kids who are homeschooling this year (which is different from distance learning, because it is not run by the school district), and a "giant decrease" in kindergarten numbers. "...
DFL Congressional candidate Quinn Nystrom made a campaign stop in Cloquet Saturday as part of a whistlestop tour across every county in the 8th Congressional District. Nystrom addressed close to 30 masked and mostly socially distanced supporters at the gathering in the parking lot between Premiere Theatres and L&M. She started by being thankful for the sunny fall weather. "After announcing this 18-county tour, we didn't know if it was going to be more of an 'Amy Klobuchar announcing a...
National Prescription Drug Take Back Day is Saturday, Oct. 24. Come to the lobby of the Cloquet Police Department from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. to drop off any old or unwanted medications. This national day addresses a crucial public safety and public health issue. According to the 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 9.9 million Americans misused controlled prescription drugs. The study shows that a majority of abused prescription drugs were obtained from family and friends, often from the home medicine cabinet. Help prevent drug addiction...
Minnesota schools and communities wanting to develop safer places for students to walk and bicycle can apply for three different grant opportunities this fall through the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s Safe Routes to School program. Communities and schools can apply for planning assistance grants to help assess current conditions and create plans to improve walking and bicycling through programs and infrastructure. SRTS “Boost” grants supportexisting SRTS work, like adding bicycles to schools to improve physical education curri...
Minnesota Supreme Court Associate Justice Paul Thissen is trying to retain the seat he was appointed to in 2018. His challenger is Michelle MacDonald, a controversial lawyer who is making her fourth bid for the court. This is the first time Thissen will face voters as a Supreme Court justice, but it’s not the first time he’s faced voters. Before he was appointed to the court two years ago by then Gov. Mark Dayton, Thissen had a long run as a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. He served from 2003 to 2018, including a stint as spe...
We’ve been seeing candidates for public office, or their representatives, showing up at our front doors at odd times: evenings, Saturday afternoons, just about anytime really. Sometimes it’s a volunteer. Sometimes it’s the actual candidate. The pitch is uniform: “Hi, I’m so-and-so and I’m running for you-name-it. Are there any special concerns you have in this election? I’d like your vote.” We encourage you to answer the door when these candidates knock and spend a socially-distanced and masked minute or two with them. Let them know what your...
Local radio will never quite be the same after today. Kerry Rodd, who has been at WKLK Radio for about 14 years now, is retiring Friday. Well, retiring from radio, that is. He's planning to work at a local car dealership, using his media experience to promote the business as well as sell cars. He's been the general manager at WKLK for the past eight years, a job I really don't understand. How can you run a radio station while hosting a three-hour show every weekday morning and programs on...
I find it distasteful, disheartening and sad that Jeff Dotseth, Minnesota House of Representatives District 11A candidate, has stooped so low as to participate in fear propaganda. A September meeting agenda notice posted online was revealing. Questions to invited participants incited fear that local polling places would be closed down, stopping people from voting, and “Are you prepared for when they (BLM) come to your city? Do you have a network of Patriots that you can count on?” Wow. This manner of inciting fear in our communities is dep...
I always read the Pine Knot with interest, but the latest issue was an emotional rollercoaster for me. I was happy to see the Christmas fireworks canceled. As a local curmudgeon and dog owner, I cringe when Generous Jerry pitches his tent in the Super One parking lot and my neighbors rush to give him their monthly grocery allotment for their firework displays, which go on for days. Christmas is theoretically a religious holiday, and fireworks are just superfluous. If we need another display, make it for the Chinese new year, and set them off...
I will try to refrain from cursing, although sometimes I do believe it can be the perfect ingredient or the frosting on the cake. I am going to share some perspectives, maybe some words of encouragement, and a heck of a lot of Covid-19 puzzlers about all that has happened and all that you may be feeling. This year has been super challenging, in so many different ways for all of us. If you have had any feelings of anger, frustration, fear, worry, sadness and grief on any level, to any degree — then you are a living, breathing, real life human b...
Have you ever wondered why our neighbors decide to run for office? What life encounters led them to do so? Here are my endorsements for three local candidates - Michelle Lee, Mike Sundin and Quinn Nystrom - along with some background exploring their paths and priorities. Michelle Lee A Moose Lake resident and former news anchor/reporter for KBJR 6 in Duluth, Lee is running as a Democrat for Minnesota Senate District 11 seat. She grew up in Minnesota in a family of seven children. When she was...
Mary Jean Purcell, 92, died Oct. 9, 2020, in Minnetonka from complications of old age. Mary was born to John J. and Rosemary Rouse on Oct. 26, 1927, in Iowa City, Iowa. After her mother died, Mary was adopted by her distant cousin, William E. Noble, and his wife, Emma, in 1932. Mary lived in Albert Lea until 1941. She moved to Marion, Ohio, then Huntington, Indiana before moving to St. Paul. She graduated in 1945 from Central High School in St. Paul, then attended Bethesda Hospital School of...
Barbara Rae Ziehl, 86, passed away peacefully on Oct. 7, 2020, while being cared for by the amazing and loving staff of the Evergreen Senior Living Center and St. Croix Hospice in Cloquet. Barbara was born around July 22, 1934. She was found on the doorsteps of Ripley Memorial Hospital in Minneapolis, and was adopted on Dec. 11, 1934 by Ray and Olive Amlotte of Cloquet. Barbara enjoyed her childhood years by reading, learning to play the oboe, piano, and cello, and spending time with her cousins. Barbara graduated from Cloquet High School in...
