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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Sisters Addy, Lily and Nova Haglund of Esko play "sharks" in the water at The Beach at Pinehurst Park in Cloquet Tuesday as nearly 500 people come to cool off with temperatures in the low 80s....
Police are in short supply these days, so Cloquet city councilors voted Tuesday to spend the money to keep its department competitive, approving raises of 6, 5 and 4 percent in 2024, 2025 and 2026. Then they voted again after a closed session to make the pay even more competitive: adding a "market adjustment" to police hourly pay, a move that will likely increase taxes, city officials say. "We value our police department and we want to keep them working in Cloquet," said Ward 4 councilor Kerry...
A rural Carlton County man pleaded guilty to producing child pornography in U.S. District Court earlier this month. Cord Cameron Schipman, 33, was arrested last fall after an FBI covert operation revealed “sexually explicit contact” with a minor, including an explicit photograph. According to the criminal complaint, a special online covert FBI employee was searching chat rooms on Kik Messenger, which the National Center on Sexual Exploitation calls a “predator’s paradise.” They found a post by Schipman under the name Cord218 in a chat room...
From discussions about making a pitch for Hockey Day Minnesota, a less complicated, more locally driven idea was born: Hockey Day Cloquet. It's an idea that has legs now that the Cloquet City Council gave the city's blessing to use Veterans Park for the first-time event, set for Jan. 7-17, 2025. Nate Knutsen, who spearheaded fundraising efforts for the high school's new outdoor athletic facilities and the baseball updates at Mettner Field, presented the idea to the council at Tuesday's meeting....
It’s been four years since Covid-19 threw schools into disarray, and enrollment in Cloquet has still not bounced back. Even with more severe staffing cuts this spring than usual, on June 10 Cloquet School Board members approved a general fund budget for the 2024-25 school year that was approximately $88,000 in the red, with general fund revenues projected at $35,638,978 and expenditures of $35,727,681. The unassigned general fund is where most of the district’s payroll and day-to-day money comes from, versus specialized funds for tra...
Two of three incumbents were upset in Tuesday's elections for leadership of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. Bruce Savage will be the new chairman of the Reservation Business Committee, defeating two-term incumbent Kevin Dupuis Sr., by 52 votes, 478 to 426. Earl Otis defeated Roger Smith 104 to 69 for District 3 (Brookston) representative. District 1 (Cloquet) incumbent Wally Dupuis defeated Michelle DeBolt, 343 to 233. All three were elected to four-year terms that will begin in...
Ellie Evenson is not your typical beauty queen. Crowned Miss Minnesota for America Strong on June 2, the Cloquet grad wrestled her senior year at Cloquet High School and portrayed a delightfully wicked witch in the "Wizard of Oz," the school fall musical in 2022. Evenson would also say the Miss Minnesota for America Strong is also not a stereotypical pageant. Part of the Mrs. America organization - which also includes Mrs. America World and Mrs. World - participants are encouraged to be...
More than 100 people turned out Monday to tour the recently completed Esko Fitness Center. The response was very positive, said Esko superintendent Aaron Fischer. A large two-story blue and gray structure attached to the south side of the school building, the space contains a variety of fitness equipment and lots of natural light, including a view of the baseball field outside. Some of the equipment is personalized. Bright blue weight benches say "SISU" in gold lettering while the weights...
Longtime Cromwell Wright Area Fire District chief Lucas Goodin is no longer with the department after being dismissed by the CWAFD board earlier this spring. In response to a public data request from the Pine Knot News, attorney Donald Erickson shared that Goodin was dismissed as chief and a member of the fire district for several reasons, including: • Payroll and timecard theft: Goodin was accused of signing into his time card electronically and then changing the time to an earlier start time, on at least four occasions, added time that he w...
A 60-year-old Mahtowa Township man was charged with arson after allegedly setting a barn on fire following a dispute. Dennis James Jurek was charged in Sixth District Carlton County Court Tuesday, June 11, with first- and second-degree felony arson, felony first-degree damage to property with foreseeable risk of bodily harm and three gross misdemeanor charges of physically assaulting and interfering with a police officer. According to the criminal complaint, at approximately 9:52 p.m. Sunday, June 9, Fond du Lac and assisting law enforcement...
The senior citizens turned out early for the fifth annual Cloquet Senior Day, and found lots of vendors, food trucks and information waiting for them. Almost 30 vendors lined the walkways southeast of the picnic shelter at Veterans Park, offering everything from jewelry and cookware to cleaning services and free newspapers, plus a wide array of booths simply offering information about local resources for more than 150 seniors, plus plenty of free swag for the taking. WKLK's Dwight Cadwell...
Two parking lots in downtown Esko are the site of the latest Superfund cleanup in Carlton County. The site in Esko amounts to the Post Office and its lot, plus another lot used as an auxiliary student parking lot by Esko High School during the school year. Similar to the Frank Lloyd Wright gas station in Cloquet, dry cleaning chemicals are the main culprit. A building on the site that was first a creamery, then a coin-operated dry cleaner, was demolished in the 1980s. Chemicals used in dry...
Alert neighbors heard smoke alarms and called 911 last week, leading to the rescue of two dogs and a number of cats, along with the prevention of much-more serious fire damage. Cloquet Area Fire District firefighters were called to a possible structure fire at approximately 2 p.m. May 29 on the 300 block of Second Street in Cloquet. Upon arrival, firefighters found smoke coming from the first level of a two-story home, but the homeowner wasn’t home. They quickly located the fire and e...
Larson Commons is getting a new lease on life. All the pieces for the renovation of the seven-story senior high-rise building by new owners clicked into place during the Cloquet city council meeting Tuesday. That’s when councilors approved a housing program for Larson Commons along with the eventual issuance of $9.37 million in tax-exempt bonds, which will be used to pay for renovations and programming. The bonds will be paid back by the new owners, Steele Properties, LLC, which has experience across the country with affordable housing d...
While some people worked in their gardens, rode four-wheelers or frolicked at the lake, members of honor guards and local veterans organizations made their way from cemetery to cemetery Monday, honoring the dead on Memorial Day with taps and rifle salutes. At Veterans Park in Cloquet, the last stop for the Cloquet Combined Honor Guard and company, a crowd of nearly 150 people of all ages gathered for a short program on a day set aside to honor the men and women who died while serving in the...
Since the chaotic end to the 2024 legislative session on May 19, folks back at home have been trying to figure out exactly what it all means. Local ambulance services expect to see some of the short-term emergency aid for rural EMS, but exactly how much is still uncertain. Steve Risacher, who serves on the board for the Cromwell-Wright Area Fire District, said they’re pleased something passed, but they still don’t know what it involves for the ambulance service there. How to gain access to it, and what it’s going to be used for, is still pendi...
The Cloquet School District is hiring. For the first time in his tenure, superintendent Michael Cary said not enough paraprofessionals applied for summer care jobs. “We were short one person for three weeks, Monday through Thursday, so 12 days,” Cary told school board members during Tuesday’s meeting. “So by contract, we’re having to go from most senior to least senior and offer formal employment one by one until we find somebody willing to take the job.” Cary suspected why there was a dramatic dip in summer applicants: unemploymen...
At the start of the fourth quarter of the school year, Wrenshall English teacher Joel Swanson drew a 13-foot line on the classroom whiteboard, representing the lives of this year's seniors from kindergarten through senior year. Both Wrenshall valedictorians Jack Riley and Lexis Swanson spoke about it in their commencement speeches Friday afternoon. "He marked out the last three inches of that 13 feet - the time we had remaining as students here. He told us not to take those three inches for...
Carlton's Ben and Deb Croft (that's Ben in the picture) received a gift certificate to Outdoor Advantage when they were spotted in a Cloquet parking lot earlier this month with a Pine Knot News "I Think Knot" bumper sticker. Pick up your own sticker at our office at 122 Avenue C in Cloquet and maybe you'll win a gift certificate....
Thirty-five years ago, Cloquet Area Alternative Education Program principal Connie Hyde would not have dreamed she would be retiring from one of the state's leading alternative learning centers, a school that sends staff and students to train their peers at other schools and which graduated its highest number of students (57) on Thursday. The surprise is not that Hyde remained an educator. "I think I was born for it," she said. "You know how you play school with the neighbor kids? Nine out of...
Come July 1, Cloquet's most popular downtown bar, The Jack, will be changing hands. Longtime owner Adam Bailey is selling to brothers Ryan Lindstrom and Zach Zezulka, owners of Carmen's Bar & Restaurant. Both are Cloquet grads, both know their way around a bar. But first things first: The Jack will still participate in the annual Labor Day parade, although no one knows if the elaborate dance routines often starring the bar owner will continue. "We've got some fun ideas, a few things up our...
City planner and zoning administrator Al Cottingham received a round of applause during Tuesday's Cloquet City Council meeting - a meeting he hopes will be his last. Cottingham is retiring June 6, after 12 years with the city of Cloquet. "I will very very much miss seeing you here every day and keeping the rest of us on point," said city administrator Tim Peterson. Cottingham said he will miss the people, the job not so much. "It's time to retire and go do some things that I've been putting on...
Roundabouts are off the table, state officials told residents at a May 9 informational meeting on the proposed reconstruction of Minnesota Highway 33. The estimated $3.2 million project will include complete reconstruction of the four-lane highway from Big Lake Road to the north side of the St. Louis River Bridge. Replacement of the intersections at Carlton Avenue and Cloquet Avenue with enhanced signal lights was revealed Thursday as the recommended "preferred concept," said Angie Bolstad,...
Esko school board members set an open house for the new fitness center for 4-6 p.m. June 10. Expect to see lots of "Esko" and "Sisu" logos decorating the space, located on the south side of the school. "By June 10, all our equipment and furniture will be set up, and I believe our partner, Essentia, has what they need," said superintendent Aaron Fischer. "It's a big deal for Essentia too." At the same meeting Monday, board members voted unanimously to spend almost a half-million dollars to turn...
A larger-than-expected pipe helped unjam a planned apartment project being held up by sewer capacity issues in Thomson Township. Josh Evans, an assistant engineer with the township’s contracted engineering company, AE2S, had recommended a halt on any new construction in Thomson Township at the board meeting April 18, because he believed the sewer system there was at or exceeding capacity based on modeling and flow data. At the time, township supervisors had refused to issue a moratorium on new construction, but they did delay a vote on the 2...
