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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Sammi Olson is a Cloquet native who lives in Minneapolis and is a pilot for Delta Air Line's regional carrier Delta Connection. She graduated as Sammi Proulx from Cloquet High School in 2017. She'd wanted to be a pilot for a long time. "I think my dad had a really big influence on it because he was a pilot for the Guard in Duluth," Olson said. Don Proulx is her father. "I always wanted to do it since I was a kid, and I never really had any other plans or ideas." Olson got her bachelor's of...
Cloquet Postmaster Todd Manisto retired April 3, 30 years and one day from his first day as a city carrier in the city of Cloquet. It's been a rewarding career, but increasingly busy as he climbed the ranks of the United States Postal Service. Manisto may not know what to do with himself at first. He often puts in six or seven days a week. "We'll miss him," said supervisor Ben Bergerson, after threatening "words" for Manisto. "I came to this office thinking I'd take postmaster for sure when he...
Bill Manahan, longtime Cloquet Country Club golf professional and manager, has accepted the general manager position with the beautiful The Wilderness at Fortune Bay golf course on Lake Vermilion near Tower, Minnesota. He starts his new job on April 1. Bill was my golf confidant and a friend. You could always count on Bill. He knew a little bit about everything and he liked to chat. He'll be missed, but it's a wonderful opportunity. "It's going to be an adjustment with me missing all the people...
Recovering from any addiction can be a struggle and the journey looks different for everyone. Cloquet native and now author Doug Norgren said priority and passion fueled his successful recovery. Norgren started journaling at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings about 16 years ago. From Day 1, he said, he spent time reading, note taking and diving deep into spirituality. It all led to his decision to pull it all together and in a book. Years later, the Covid-19 pandemic gave Norgren time and motivation...
Jobs? Greg Bernu has had them. "This is the best job of my life and I've had a lot of them," said Bernu, who spent the last 16 years as the Carlton County land commissioner. "It was a lot better than I've ever dreamed," he added. "The county board has given me great latitude to get the job done." Bernu punctuated the thought with his trademark sense of humor. "It's my job to make them look good and stay out of jail." Retiring at the end of the month, Bernu leaves behind a lasting body of work...
As someone who has attended my fair share of funerals, I have often found them to be bittersweet. Funerals can be joyful, as they are frequently filled with wonderful stories about our loved ones, encounters with long lost relatives, good food, and even the knowledge that our loved ones are no longer hurting and struggling but are at rest. Of course, I’m speaking in broad generalizations, but by and large most funerals have some joyous and hopeful moments. On the flip side, funerals really stink. They stink and they really hurt, because the p...
Three University of Minnesota Duluth journalism students are getting a taste of the small-town newspaper world with the Pine Knot News this spring through a first-ever micro-internship experience. Chloe Farnsworth, Max Thibault and Maddie Gagnon all seniors, will participate in the program. Farnsworth and Thibault will work on the editorial side of the paper, while Gagnon - who is business manager at UMD's student-run news magazine The Bark and its website - will be working mostly with Pine...
We practice yoga for many reasons. Some of us come to the mat to find a community connection. Some people come for the strengthening and balance that yoga provides, while others come for help with flexibility. Still, others come to their mat for assistance with finding calm, and learn new ways to tame an overactive mind. This is why it's impossible to compare yourself to others while practicing yoga. Not only does everyone have their own agenda, but they come with their own strengths and...
In one school year in the 1940s, in rural Moose Lake, there were five sets of twins riding a bus to school. This is testament from Jim Eckman, who, with his twin brother Chuck, belonged to one of those sets. Remarkable, yes. Was there something in the water? Maybe, Jim says. Of all those sets of twins, the Eckman boys stood out for a simple fact. They were born on Feb. 29. Leap year babies. The boys were born on the Harry and Eva Eckman farm on Feb. 29, 1936. Eva went into labor two months...
Finally legal Marlys Kilen of Cloquet will celebrate her 21st birthday on Feb. 29. "I'll be at an age when I can start to drink," chortled Kilen, who will be 84 years old. Growing up in Lakefield, in southern Minnesota - where she had one classmate, her future husband's cousin, born on the same day - her parents couldn't agree when to celebrate her birthday in non-leap years. Mom said Feb. 28. Dad suggested March 1, because she would be officially another year older then. "So we celebrated both...
The smile on Janae Sjodin's face was everything. But then someone must have said, "But wait, there's more." Wrenshall High School principal Michelle Blanchard called it all "surreal," like "something out of a movie." That Sjodin - the 2023 winter homecoming queen - was at the 2024 coronation on Friday, Feb. 9, to present new royalty was a real miracle. Eleven months ago, she was driving home with her sister Jaela after softball practice when their SUV was hit on Janae's side by a driver who...
It was a royal night of homecoming for schools on opposite ends of Carlton County last Friday....
The Lake Country Power electricity utility selected the Lakeside Quilters of Tamarack as the winner of its annual Touchstone Energy Community Award. The co-op chose to recognize the group as its members volunteer time to make quality quilts by hand and donate to people in local communities. The quilters were awarded a plaque and $500 that will go toward materials needed for making quilts. "Receiving this award is an absolute honor because it recognizes our mission to give handmade quilts to peop...
Over the years, Cloquet resident Clarence Badger has told stories of playing basketball at the old Civic Center where the fire station now sits. He shared photos of his uncles returning from World War II and partying in the Cromwell bars with happy friends. Of Pinehurst Park in the 1940s and '50s, he wrote: "The building that I used most was the large one where we would roller skate one or two days a week in a huge building that sat near what the tennis courts are today. The Wilsons would come...
For Cloquet's Julie Samuelson, even climbing a volcano in Guatemala can feel like home. "It got pretty serious, dealing with elevation and when the weather turned to crud," she said. "It was kind of like getting socked in by Lake Superior with the icky winds and fog." Samuelson, 56, was in South America last month, alongside 17 other kidney donors. They were there to summit three volcanoes across seven days as part of the second One Kidney Climb. The first, in 2022, saw a team of 20 living donor...
It's hard to believe, but Noah Parker has been the CEO of a thriving Highway 5, Carlton County seasonal business for 10 years ... after all, he's only 23. "I was 13 and asked my dad if he could give me money to go and see a movie," Parker said. "He told me, 'all the money you need is out here in the yard in the grass.' I didn't know what he meant." His dad then told him that he'd have to work hard, but could make plenty of spending money by picking and selling nightcrawlers to prospective...
Pine Knot News subscriber and two-time state ski jumping champion (1966, 1967) Rick Nelson stopped in recently with an obscure item for show and tell. It was a Northwest Paper Company notebook, complete with one of the company's iconic Canadian Mountie paintings, this one showing a mountie on horseback sharing what appears to be a wanted poster with three men working outside. While Northwest Paper notebooks are fairly rare these days - as the company was a precursor to both Potlatch and Sappi -...
Allow Hazel her moment. Allow her to consider herself one of Santa's elves. She certainly fits the bill. This holiday season, Hazel Aili stuffed the donation box at South Terrace Elementary with 19 toys for the 29th annual Toys For Carlton Area Kids drive. She did it the hard way, creating hundreds of craft items in past months and selling them at craft fairs in order to raise the money to pay for the gifts herself. She was able to spend more than $300 on toys. "It was an amazing, selfless...
As a teenager growing up in West Duluth in the 1970s, music really mattered to James Wiita, even more than school sometimes. He's been revisiting those times in recent years, as he researched and wrote his first book: "Rock On, Duluth!" It is, the cover proclaims, the story of YANQUI Productions and arena rock in Duluth from 1973 to 1978: "One promoter, one dream, the story behind it all." Now in his 60s and a musician himself, Wiita can still recall the little details of concerts he attended...
The Esko Fire Department marked the passing of one of their own by hanging an enormous American flag between two ladder trucks outside Nelson Funeral Home Friday morning. Esko grad Scott Allan Sunnarborg passed away at the age of 65 on Dec. 8. Sunnarborg was a volunteer firefighter for the Esko fire department, and retired after 38 years. “He put in a long time with the department. It was nice to have someone close during the day when he was working for the township,” Esko fire chief Kyle Gus...
The Northland lost its most famous fry cook last week, when Marilyn Lundquist died at age 94, having spent two-thirds of those years working the grill at her family's Gordy's Hi-Hat in Cloquet. "She was amazing," said Dan Lundquist, her son. "She was special." Her husband, Gordy Lundquist, passed away at the same age, 94, in July of 2021. When he died, the couple had been married 71 years. And while Gordy was the face of the popular summertime burger destination, it was Marilyn who was its...
Have you ever seen the movie, “Oceans 11”? If you haven’t, you should. It stands as one of Hollywood’s better renditions of a heist movie. Its characters set out to do the impossible — to rob the shared vault of three casinos on a fight night, when security would be at its highest level, but when the payday would also be the greatest. As you watch the heist unfold, you begin to think that things have gone wrong. Alarms have been tripped and the SWAT team is on its way. Only after the heist is completed are you allowed a behind-th...
Retiring Members Cooperative Credit Union learning and development manager Kathlynn McConnell was honored recently by the Minnesota Credit Union Network with a Credit Union Builder Award. The award honors an individual’s dedication to the success, growth, and vitality of the not-for-profit financial movement in Minnesota. McConnell was recognized Nov. 16 by MCCU leadership and representatives of the network. Prior to retiring in November, McConnell dedicated 17 years to the growth and d...
Churchill Elementary fourth-graders in Jessica Gagne's class learned beading this month. Here, the kids are making bracelets they designed themselves. Pictured from left are Franny Langer, Tucker Smedshammer and Andrew Albertson. Contributed photo...
