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 201 - 225 of 1471
Pink isn't a good color for city ash trees these days. That's because Cloquet trees marked with bright pink dots (and some with large X marks) are short-timers, doomed to be cut down in response to the invasion of the emerald ash borer. Five trees in a row bear the mark on Eighth Street, and another five or six on 17th Street sport pink accents. The list of city ash trees affected by the emerald ash borer (EAB) has grown from 20 to 32 since mid-December, when Cloquet public works director Caleb...
Under the watchful eye of Scanlon employees Dave Line and Matt Baquette, Barnum's Pete Began gets warmed up during his first skate of the year Monday afternoon. Began, who once lived in Cloquet, made a special trip to Scanlon to meet a friend and skate, because there was no ice in Barnum. Line said crews started making ice as soon as the temperatures came down in the past two weeks after a record-warm December and early January. "It takes about 50,000 gallons of water," he said, adding that...
Rad Zoo owner Jamie Pastika gets help holding a large boa constrictor named Louie from a handful of children Thursday, Jan. 18 at the Cloquet Public Library. A 33-year-old former pet, Louie was extra shiny because he had just finished shedding his skin. More than 200 children and their family members packed the large meeting room to learn more about various reptiles and amphibians from the visiting zoo, which travels around the state and is based in an outlet mall in Medford, Minnesota. Other...
More than 50 people turned out for the Barnum school board meeting Tuesday, the majority in a show of support for school bus drivers. The crowd came as the board considered contracting with a private company for transportation services. It's something the district began exploring last summer, when it was down to three bus drivers. It takes eight to drive all the Barnum routes. By the start of the school year, there were four. Now, the district is up to six with the potential return of a...
Cloquet School Board members accepted an anonymous donation from “Fans of Cloquet Tennis” during Monday’s meeting. The donation of nearly $21,000 is to be used to buy bleachers for the new high school tennis courts. The board also accepted 24 Cloquet Educational grants totalling $28,400. Board members also approved a new three-year contract for schools superintendent Michael Cary, including a raise of 4.61 percent (equal to the Education Minnesota union increases), to bring his salary to just over $166,000 next school year. The board will...
The currently condemned Hotel Solem building in downtown Cloquet could become 18 market-rate apartments, if plans by a pair of structural engineers click into place. The three-story building at 915 Cloquet Ave. was constructed after the 1918 Fires decimated Cloquet, with the first section going up in 1919 and an addition in 1923. The city gained possession of the former Mexico Lindo building in 2022, citing public safety issues to condemn the building and using eminent domain statutes to take...
Picture a surgery room. A neurosurgeon is performing surgery on the patient's spine. But only after a state-of-the-art X-ray machine does a 360-degree scan of the patient - creating an interactive picture, or template of the person's spine that allows the surgeon to see precisely where his surgical tools are going inside the patient's back. "It's like GPS for the spine," neurosurgeon Dr. Matthew Davies explained, pointing to a large screen that shows the spine model on the table before him and...
A suspected double murder/suicide at the Super 8 hotel in Cloquet Monday resulted in the death of a Cloquet woman and two male hotel guests, one of the men the killer. The shooting forced the evacuation of the hotel and nearby businesses and a community lockdown as authorities searched for a suspect. That search ended in the hotel parking lot, where the suspected shooter was found dead with evidence suggesting a self-inflicted gunshot wound. By midweek, investigators still had no information on...
"To know Shellby was to love Shellby," said Lizzie Strickland of Shellby Trettel, the 22-year-old Cloquet woman who died Monday after being shot during a shift as a clerk at the Super 8 hotel in Cloquet. Police are still trying to find out if there was a motive behind the shootings, and if Trettel was targeted. Her friends and family want people to remember Trettel for the person she was, not as just a tragic statistic. "I think everybody should see her smile, and her laugh and how she was. Who...
Reorganization was the first item of business at the Thomson Township meeting on Thursday, Jan. 4. Ruth Janke will again serve as chair of the Thomson Township Board of Supervisors, with Bill Gerard as vice chair, both by unanimous vote. Board members voted to continue with their current committee assignments as well. The board also approved a list of office appointments including Leah Pykkonen as deputy clerk treasurer, Jon Bouvine as public works supervisor/assistant weed inspector, Dan...
Barring an emergency, there will be no New Year's baby at Cloquet's Community Memorial Hospital this year. The three delivery suites - with private baths and whirlpools, forest views and aromatherapy patches - sit empty. "We've got a pause on it right now," said Rick Breuer, CEO of the independent nonprofit hospital. It is not a permanent change at this point, but it was necessary due to low staffing levels, Breuer said of the decision made last summer. "As much as I hate to blame anything on...
A giant warehouse that will one day support the medical supply needs for more than 100 Essentia Health facilities has transformed the Esko Industrial Park over the past several months. Hidden from Highway 61 - where the park entrance is located - the dark rectangular building looms large to those driving past on Interstate 35. It represents a $36 million investment by the regional health care system. According to Essentia spokesperson Tony Matt, the building structure is complete. Contractors...
A Carlton County man who was sentenced last month for shooting his ailing wife died by suicide two days later in a Minnesota prison. Judge Amy Lukasavitz had sentenced 67-year-old Raymond Arthur Julian to 25 ½ years in prison — the guideline sentence — after an emotional sentencing hearing at the Carlton County Courthouse Dec. 18. (Find that story in the Dec. 22 issue of the Pine Knot News.) Aaron Swanum, Minnesota Department of Corrections spokesperson, confirmed that Julian entered Minn...
Cloquet police have lifted the shelter-in-place order issued in response to a shooting at the Super 8 hotel in Cloquet. Law enforcement officials confirmed three people died, including one person they believe was the shooter. Cloquet police issued an online warning to residents of Big Lake Road and Highway 33 area just after 7 p.m. Monday to remain home, lock doors and shelter in place as there was an active shooter incident in progress with the suspect still at large. For several hours Monday,...
After responding to a shooting, then issuing and later lifting an order to shelter-in-place, the Cloquet Police Department confirmed that a man killed two people at the Super 8 in Cloquet before taking his own life. According to a Cloquet Police Department news release, an employee of the Super 8 hotel in Cloquet called 911 at approximately 6:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 8, to report they'd found another hotel employee who looked like she'd been attacked. Cloquet police responded and found a...
Three people from three different cities were killed Monday in a suspected double murder/suicide at the Super 8 hotel in Cloquet that forced the evacuation of the hotel and a community lockdown as authorities searched for a suspect. That search ended on hotel property, where the suspected shooter was found dead with evidence suggesting a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police continue to search for a motive. "Last night was a very difficult night for our community," said Cloquet Police Chief Derek...
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...
Pine Knot subscriber Billy Anderson shared his own piece of Christmas history: an original "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" book. Handed down to him by his grandmother, Claudia Johnson, the book was definitely read and loved over the years. The cute rhyming underdog (or is that under-reindeer?) story was written by Montgomery Ward advertising copywriter Robert Lewis May in 1939, because officials at the department store chain wanted to attract customers by giving away a free Christmas story....
Given the choice between watching his wife continue to suffer or ending her life, Raymond Julian told the courtroom that he chose to honor her request to die. He would do it again, given the same circumstances, the 67-year-old man stated. Emotions ran high during the sentencing hearing Monday, Dec. 18, held at the Carlton County Courthouse two years to the month after Tracy Julian's death. As with the murder that led to Raymond Julian's arrest, there was no easy choice, said Sixth District...
The third weekend of December saw green grass and puddles at Pine Valley, where pine trees loom above a network of trails. There was no sign of the usual ski jumping and Nordic skiing that keep the city's woodland park hopping in the winter months. To find the skiers, one had to travel 12 miles to Duluth's Spirit Mountain, where they can make snow. More than 200 high school skiers from area schools were skiing quarter-mile loops next to the Grand Avenue Nordic Center on Thursday, Dec. 14. They...
At the final meeting of 2023, Cloquet City Council members prepared for 2024. They selected the Pine Knot News as the city’s official newspaper, approved standing rules and selected at-large councilor Lara Wilkinson as the acting mayor again, to take over when mayor Roger Maki is absent. The council also set updated fees and charges. Taking a look ahead at the time when the Cloquet police department gets its new body cameras, they set the fee for public data requests regarding camera footage as payment for actual expenses incurred. Public W...
It began with a group of parents in the early 1960s looking for something - places to go, things to do - for their grown children, all of them adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities. Pinewood, Inc. grew out of that early effort at Zion Lutheran Church. Formed in 1964, the nonprofit organization offers employment and day support services to adults (over 18) with intellectual or developmental disabilities. Some may be born with the disability, others may qualify because of a...
Now that the new Esko school fitness center is nearing completion, school district officials are focusing on another big question: What to do with the 3,800 square feet occupied by the current fitness center? Create a flexible learning center, offered superintendent Aaron Fischer. He likened it to a commons area, a modern open space where students could go study for College in the Schools (CITS) classes at Esko, or even post secondary education option (PSEO) classes they're taking away from the...
Changing school culture - and incorporating more of the local Ojibwe culture - has paid off for Cloquet's Washington Elementary School, in test scores, recognition and especially the well-being of its American Indian students. Washington principal Robbi Mondati recently learned the school has been designated a National ESEA Distinguished School, an unexpected honor promoted by better test scores. ESEA, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, aims to close the skill gap between students. The...
Soon the rest of Minnesota can find out what Cloquet residents already know: Pine Valley is special. City officials learned last week that Cloquet's Pine Valley Recreation Area - home to ski jumps and woodland trails for skiing, walking and mountain biking - was designated a regionally significant park. That means the woodland park will be included on various statewide maps and online resources. More importantly, it makes the park eligible for Minnesota Legacy funds, statewide sales tax dollars...
