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 276 - 300 of 1471
Both Wrenshall Brickyard Days and the Cromwell Harvest Festival return this weekend, bringing a shot of community togetherness. In Wrenshall that togetherness comes with a game of cow patty bingo. Wrenshall cheer coach and Brickyard Days organizer Jolene Johnson explained the process behind the unusual game of chance, which involves a student walking a cow over a giant grid with 200 squares. “One of our students will halter-walk a cow around all the squares, whatever square the cow does its b...
Giant "Welcome back to school" signs greeted returning Churchill Elementary School students Wednesday, providing the perfect photo opp for family members as they said goodbye to children and summer in the cooler weather. Staff were ready and waiting inside and out, lined up along the hallways to greet students as they disembarked from buses rolling in on the building's west side, or piling out of cars or walking at the main entrance. "We got the first crew in," said American Indian Ed teacher...
Cloquet made statewide news last month, and not in a good way. The city was one of 12 Minnesota cities that exceed the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed new limits on manmade chemicals dubbed “forever chemicals.” During Tuesday’s meeting, Cloquet City councilors got an informational lecture on the chemicals and the possible impact on the city and its residents from public works director Caleb Peterson, who explained that the city’s five wells were tested, and one slightly exceeds the limit for PFAS in drinking water that will like...
The folks at Black Bear Casino Resort turned a torn-down hotel into an opportunity, by planting grass on the demolition site and hosting a hot air balloon festival next weekend. Up to a dozen hot air balloons (and their pilots) will convene there Friday and Saturday, Sept. 15-16, for the 2023 Kismet in Carlton Hot Air Balloon Festival. The festival is free to attend, and will feature balloon demonstrations, local food trucks, live music, chainsaw carving, tethered balloon rides and a special...
For more than a century, Cloquet has celebrated Labor Day with parades, picnics and other forms of revelry. That continued Monday, despite a severe lack of volunteers to run the event. Still, organizer Chad Tuura was happy. "For a nonpolitical year, it turned out pretty well," he said. Both U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar and U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber made the trip to the Cloquet for the parade, along with State Senator Jason Rarick and State Representative Jeff Dotseth. Grand marshal Pete Radosevich...
Cloquet is still the place to celebrate Labor Day in Carlton County, but the longstanding celebration is on life support. In his third year of organizing the Carlton County Labor Day celebration, Chad Tuura said a dearth of volunteers and donations mean the parade is the sole event this year — there is no banquet on Sunday and nothing at Veterans Park. On the other hand, there are car shows. Tuura, who got involved as the IronWorkers Local 512 representative on the Cloquet Central Labor Body, s...
After months of negotiations with the local youth lacrosse association, Cloquet school board members voted Monday to add both boys and girls lacrosse as a spring sport this school year. The boys team will be a combined Cloquet-Esko-Carlton Lumberjacks team, similar to boys hockey and soccer. The girls team will be part of the already existing Hermantown/Proctor Stealth team, because numbers aren't yet strong enough for a CEC program. Girls practices and most games will be held at Proctor or...
For $50, young people aged 14-20 can sign up for a new seven-month “fire explorer” program that offers exposure and training for both firefighting and emergency medical service careers. The Cloquet Area Fire District is offering the new program, which will be one of only a few in northern Minnesota. Assistant CAFD fire chief Corey Larson said the group will meet once or twice a month during the school year. The curriculum is very similar to firefighter and medic training courses CAFD alr...
Wrenshall school board members got their first look at Carlton’s response to their recent consolidation overture during Tuesday’s work session meeting. While Carlton’s response was by unanimous school board vote, it wasn’t enthusiastic. In her letter, Carlton superintendent Donita Stepan put conditions on any new discussions: that both boards agree one site is the only option for a consolidated school district and the site should be at Carlton’s South Terrace Elementary School. “If the Wrensha...
With the passing of "Doc Puumala" last weekend, Cloquet lost its last country doctor, a man who made house calls and didn't worry how long an appointment lasted. Ricard Reino Puumala died Saturday, Aug. 19, at the age of 88. At one time, he and his wife, Barbara, worked at the family clinic with both of his parents, Reino and Marie Bepko Puumala. His daughter, Dr. Vicky Heren, said Ricard (and both his parents) were general practice physicians. They did it all: pinning hips, removing...
As horses and ponies raced around the dirt track at the Carlton County Fair last weekend, one could easily imagine similar scenes playing since the original races there in 1891. The first race Saturday in Barnum featured adults running alongside the three smallest riders and their tiny ponies in the lead-line race. Insiders say the winner is determined by which adult can run the fastest as much as anything. The second race saw children riding ponies solo, like a smaller, shorter and much slower...
At first glance, it looks like a typical farm. Chickens cluck as they wander freely about the yard, with occasional herding by the family dog. Two ponies and two horses are snacking on hay from a feedbag hung over the red metal fence. On the other side of the paddock, bison graze in a field. Rewind that pastoral scene. Bison? Yes. Farm owners David and Patra Wise brought 12 bison, also known as buffalo, to their small-scale family farm last fall. A great-great-grandson of Chief Buffalo, David...
Esko Industrial Park is booming, so much so that Thomson Township supervisors recently raised the price on the last two available lots. For proof, just look at the amount of digging going on when you drive by the park, visible from southbound Interstate 35. That giant rectangle of dirt is the future site of a 163,000-square-foot highly automated warehouse that will support the medical supply needs for more than 100 Essentia Health facilities regionally, reaching to the Dakotas. Essentia chose...
Although the Esko school board voted to eliminate the Eskomos nickname and associated iconography as of June 30, it will take time to eliminate the word and associated igloo image from various locations and uniforms. For now, the school district is simply using a block-style letter “E” or the word “Esko” where it can, said superintendent Aaron Fischer. Board members considered and agreed with the block letter style following Monday’s school board meeting. Board members voted on the change in June, after the state passed legislation that prohibi...
On Saturday, Veterans Park echoed with music and filled with people of all ages, as the Wood City Worship Festival returned for its 10th time. Despite some evening rain, turnout was quite good. "It went above and beyond what we dreamed," said Joe Nelson, a board member of Kingdom Builders Ministries, which organizes the annual event. As part of that outreach, he was enthusiastic about the 31 baptisms performed during the festival. "Some people who won't go to church will go to a music...
Ma & Pa Kettle Days showcased downtown Kettle River Saturday. Both sides of Highway 73 were bustling, as residents and area businesses turned out for a three-hour stationary parade along the main drag. A lively cornhole tournament attracted at least two dozen people to the lot next to the Tower Tap bar, while others chose to wander the main drag, where they could find food, friends and meet a variety of folks. That included farmers, four-wheeler enthusiasts, folks for and against the Talon mine...
They didn't start out with winning in mind. But as the Small Town Kids team morphed and the Ragnar road race got closer, the team from Carlton County started looking pretty good. So good, in fact, they learned upon arrival they were seeded No. 1. Ragnar is a relay race, which starts near the capitol building in St. Paul and finishes in the Duluth Rose Garden. In between, racers take turns running on country roads, highways, the Munger Trail through Mahtowa and Carlton, Skyline Parkway in Duluth...
Close to 40 descendents of George Stearns Shaw stood on the steps of the Carlton County Historical Society on Saturday morning to celebrate the library their ancestors built not once, but twice, on Cloquet Avenue. Family members came from all over: California, Hawaii, Washington, Iowa, North Carolina, Kansas, and Alaska. Many hadn't seen each other for years, others had never met. And many in the group had helped pay for 2020 roof repairs to keep the Shaw Memorial Library building - now a...
What began as a booming one-day Christian music festival in Veterans Park 10 years ago has evolved into a days-long worship festival. Bracketed by tent revivals on the front end and an all-city church service Saturday the morning after, Wood City Worship Festival is the centerpiece of five days of opportunities "for people to meet Jesus," said Lee Harris, of Kingdom Builders Ministries, the non-denominational non-profit Christian organization that organizes the free annual event. Tent revivals...
One step at a time. After broaching the subject of consolidation again last week, Wrenshall school board members voted unanimously Monday to send a formal letter to the Carlton School Board with the goal of reopening consolidation talks between the neighboring (and both struggling) school districts. Wrenshall board member Mary Carlson said they planned to get the letter requesting a joint work session to the Carlton board as soon as possible, hoping the Carlton would get it on their agenda for Aug. 21. At least two Wrenshall board members plan...
With recreational cannabis now legal in the state of Minnesota, local cities can choose to regulate its sale in a variety of ways, Cloquet planner/zoning administrator Al Cottingham told the Cloquet City Council on Aug. 1. “Conceivably we won’t see [cannabis dispensaries] in the public areas until late (2024 or in 2025), however, we have some neighbors to the west that I’m not sure what may or may not happen,” Cottingham said, referring to the Fond du Lac Reservation and noting that the Red Lake Band opened a public dispensary the same day tha...
The goats were the hit of the Sappi picnic Friday, for those who were bold enough to lie on the yoga mat and let the goats jump over them. But there were plenty of other things to do and people to talk to outside of work at the all-day employee picnic at Veterans Park in Cloquet. It was the first all-employee picnic since 2012, said Sappi mill managing director Tom Radovich, but it won't be the last, he added. "One hundred twenty five years, that's a big milestone," he said of the mill's...
"Thunk," goes the arrow as it hits the target, nearly 55 yards away. It's almost impossible to see, but Kyle Olson can tell by sound how well he shot. "A soft thunk means it's in the middle, because that's been hit the most," he said. At the age of 65, Carlton archer Kyle Olson is taking aim at his biggest target yet: competing with the U.S. national team on the international stage as a barebow archer in the men's 50-plus category. To achieve that, he has to compete at a minimum of five USA...
Across Carlton County and the nation, Tuesday night saw residents, law enforcement, firefighters and others getting to know one another just a little bit better. While the idea that meeting your neighbors and public safety officials will help build a safer community remains at the core of National Night Out celebrations everywhere, each gathering is unique. In Scanlon Tuesday, local elected officials were out in force, along with a number of police officers and firefighters. Several - including...
Cloquet Area Chamber of Commerce members gather in the wood yard after taking a two-hour tour of the Sappi mill last week. Although public tours of the mill are rare, this year Sappi is offering tours in celebration of the mill's 125th year of existence in Cloquet, with 12 tours so far and a total of 230 attendees. Sappi employees take the visitors through almost every stage of the process, from debarking logs to creating pulp to adding a shiny topcoat to the company's glossy paper product....
