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 26 - 50 of 192
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...
Last month, when I was at the Carlton County Historical Center perusing old Cloquet skiing information for a story, director Carol Klitzke brought me a big box of files she asked me to review. They were scrapbooks from the 1950s, donated by legendary Cloquet coach Angelo Pergol and his wife, Blanche. It was a perfect record of Pergol's team coaching heroics. There were newspaper clippings, congratulatory letters, telegrams - wow, telegrams - testimonials, birthday cards, speaking invitations,...
Hopes for a Cloquet girls basketball trip to state were dashed March 7, when No. 2 seed Cloquet fell to the No. 1 seed Rock Ridge, 58-41, in the Section 7AAA final. It was the second time this season the Lumberjacks played the new cooperative high school formed by joining Eveleth-Gilbert and Virginia, and the second time Cloquet lost. It was a much closer game most of the night than the final score indicated. Lumberjacks head coach Heather Young said they were prepared to face a really good...
Unprecedented. That was the keyword from Big Lake Golf Resort co-owner Bill Jaskari, regarding the opening of the golf course on Friday, March 1. It was 11 a.m., about 50 degrees, and a few curious players and their vehicles were trickling into the golf resort parking lot. "We've owned the course for four years and this is, by far, our earliest spring opening. In comparison to last year, when we experienced record snowfall, we opened for golf the second week of May," Jaskari said. There is...
The gentle breeze was swirling at 7 miles per hour from a north-northwest direction. It was sunny, and a beautiful Groundhog Day, Friday, Feb. 2, 2024. Earlier in the day, Punxsutawney Phil had predicted an early spring. Being retired from full-time employment, I have the luxury of taking afternoon walks, sometimes with my bride or others, at various regional locations. On this particular day, since there was hardly any snow, I was walking the 2.5K loop at Cloquet's Pine Valley Ski Area and...
Like me, I think most of Minnesota and its baseball fans were glad to see Twins catcher Joe Mauer inducted into Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Only two other catchers, Johnny Bench and Ivan “Pudge” Rodriquez, were also elected in their first year of eligibility. Requirements are such that candidates must be out of baseball for five years and have at least 10 years of playing time to be considered for HOF enshrinement. Mauer is only 40 years old and is now the y...
It was surprising to not see University of Minnesota Gopher coaches P.J. Fleck and Ben Johnson pushing their way through the Esko gymnasium doors at the Jan. 12 boys basketball game. After all, Esko's Koi Perich (football) and Cherry's Isaac Asuma (basketball) are two of the most heralded 2024 Gopher recruits in their respective sports and they were playing each other in a clash of northeastern Minnesota powerhouse teams. Cherry prevailed over Esko, turning a close game at halftime into a...
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...
Reviewing the recent home mailing from the Cloquet Educational Foundation, I recalled an exceptional environmental learning experience with my son at Wolf Ridge Center in Finland, Minnesota. It was around Thanksgiving 2000. Fifth-graders from Cloquet took a bus to the center to experience being outside and hiking, looking at the stars, feeding birds, the infamous “ropes” obstacle course, staying overnight, and interacting with other students and parents. I was a parent chaperone. Wolf Ridge is...
Obviously, it has been a strange winter. I didn’t (but could have) rake leaves in Cloquet on Dec. 18. There was no snow, but it was too windy. It’s wacky. The Rugged Spruce Senior Golf League in Mahtowa played competitively on Nov. 15. Greens were a hair slow, but it’s still pretty lucky to be hacking outdoors near the end of the year. The course was playing a little easier because the water hazards were frozen. The Twin Cities area, just last week, had golf courses opening for play and all t...
Ken Schloer has been a retired Cloquet coach and educator for more than 20 years, and I recently visited with him to find out what drove him to having such a successful teaching and coaching career. Schloer was born in Red Wing, grew up in the Twin Cities area, and graduated from the now closed Minneapolis Central High School. He had an older and a younger brother. They were all together in Boy Scouts growing up, but he was the only one who played organized sports. By the 10th grade, he quit...
There are things happening every day, or that have happened over time in history, that seem hard for us to fathom or believe. The Ripley's Believe It or Not! books and museum are full of snippets that seem misleading, defy logic, or just can't be true. Sports too can present unbelievable odds of an upset ever occurring - and then, it happens. The Harlem Globetrotters - yes, that team - way back in January 1938 came to the Esko gymnasium and lost 42-41 to the Esko Future Farmers of America team....
The Cloquet Area Community Band presented its annual holiday concert at the Cloquet Presbyterian Church on Sunday, Dec. 3. The band (and the fantastic acoustics) provided the audience with a great variety of toe-tapping and bell-ringing holiday music favorites. With soothing hot drinks and treats provided after the performance, it was a happy occasion....
Shut your eyes, picture it's the Fourth of July or Labor Day in Cloquet. It's parade time. The veterans have passed by, now here comes the music. You recognize the familiar trailer, with its red, white and blue decorations. It's the Cloquet Community Band. Cloquet has a decorated city band history dating back to at least the early 1900s. Even before World War I, according to "A Hometown Album: Cloquet's Centennial Story," Cloquet boasted "a first class city band and the local Finnish population...
An autograph can become valuable, but most people usually don’t collect them for the money or as an investment. They collect these cherished documents and put them somewhere in their personal treasure chest. An autograph can turn a fleeting moment with a celebrity into a lifetime memory. When doing some certainly unscientific local research, I got a variety of answers and reactions when I asked about seeking autographs. When she was 5 years old, my wife asked legendary Scanlon accordion p...
I attended the annual Harvest Festival at the Cromwell pavilion a few weeks ago. Scheduled for the first weekend after Labor Day every year, the festivities drew a good-sized crowd. Area residents were happy to get together and laugh, especially with the construction and its detours on Highway 210 now completed for the year. My resistance level being low, I sat next to my Eagle Lake neighbor at a picnic table to get details about the piece of pumpkin pie and ice cream he was sampling. It looked...
Pine Hill Golf Course on Highway 61 in Carlton will have a new owner soon, and there are some big changes in store for the popular nine-hole golf course. Jim and Cassie Barry have owned and operated the golf course since 2005, and listed the golf course for sale three years ago. Tom Kraemer Inc. of Moose Lake contacted them a day after it went on the market. TKI, formerly StorMor, is presently located just off Minnesota Highway 27 and Old Highway 61. The company offers large, portable storage...
Created by Pine City's LeRoy Samuelson in 2010, the four-day, four-person Senior Scramble recently completed play at five golf courses in the region. While Samuelson passed away a few years ago, his sons, Loren and Brad, have continued organizing the September event. This year, 22 teams, with many from Carlton County, cleared their golf schedules to play. Courses played included The Retreat (Floodwood), Pine City, Moose Lake, Rugged Spruce (Mahtowa), and Pine Hill (Carlton) golf clubs....
The Dan Sheff Memorial adult-child golf tourney last month saw 170 people and 90 teams play in an event that many mark on the family calendar each summer. “It, for some time, has rivaled our Club’s invitational for sheer numbers of players,” said Bill Manahan, golf pro and course manager. “We had players from 6 years old being the youngest, to over 85 for the oldest. Golf truly is a game that can be played for a lifetime.” The Aug. 26-27 tournament format called for teams’ “best ball” score f...
They still haven't accepted their Olympic silver medals. The 1972 U.S. men's basketball team lost to the Russians by a point in the championship game in what was a highly controversial and contested last minute of play. Up to that point, the United States, in the days of all-college rosters, had never lost an Olympic basketball game. Team captain Kenny Davis included language in his will preventing his children from ever accepting the silver medal. The team members have met several times since t...
Few Cloquet Country Club families have been more intimately involved with club activities and programs over the century than the Rosen family. The Rosen siblings held a family reunion last weekend to coincide with the club's 100-year celebration. Bob and Aletha were their parents. They were both from the little town of Perham but did not meet until they were both at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in North Chicago during World War II. They got married and moved to Cloquet after Bob...
On Monday, golfers from as far away as Iowa, the Twin Cities area, and the Iron Range gathered for the fourth annual "Moose" Cancer Golf Fundraiser at the Cloquet Country Club. The event is named in honor of Gary "Moose" Pastika, who died of colon cancer in 2018. Moose was a CCC member for over 50 years. The fundraiser benefits the infusion therapy center/oncology department at Community Memorial Hospital and a portion also goes to the Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank. The tournament...
If you blink your eyes, you might miss it. I know I did, many times. Traveling west on Minnesota Highway 210, it's just past the Sawyer Store, about three miles on the left. A few years ago, the wild turkeys were thick in this area. Unfortunately, I hit one with my car, twisting my side mirror. I pulled to the side of the road to check out the damage and it was then that I saw the sign advertising "Bedding Plants," "Greenhouse," and, even better yet, "Sale." My wife, dog, and I were in no rush...
In 2023, the Cloquet Country Club will be celebrating its 100-year anniversary since formation. Inaugurated in 1932, the Cloquet Invitational tournament just completed its 92nd annual event with Brian Moores of Duluth securing the coveted golf championship title. It was Moores' first invitational win in 13 tries. He defeated two-time past winner Alex Kolquist (2012 and 2020), by one stroke in the final group. "I want to thank Bill Manahan [manager] and all his pro shop and clubhouse staff and...
One hundred years after the founding of the Cloquet Country Club, Karson Patten won the coveted title of club champion. The 2023 Cloquet High School graduate led the Lumberjacks to the Minnesota State High School Class AA golf tournament in mid-June, where he finished second, while the team took third place. The golf star had a hole-in-one at the club a few weeks ago and also recently qualified for the Minnesota Golf Association state tournament. Needless to say, Patten is having an awesome...
