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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Nayari Guthrie, 2, jumps into her mother’s arms in the shallowest waters of The Beach at Pinehurst Monday, the hottest day of the year so far in the Northland. Nayari’s mom, Najae Swanigan of Duluth, said they decided to head to the swimming pond in Cloquet because it was “a nice hot day.” Also adventuring Monday was 21-month-old Lennox Bauer, who happily went down the canoe slide into the waiting arms of his dad, Beau Bauer of Cloquet. Aquatics coordinator Kimberly Miens said it feels like su...
A former Cloquet police officer who recently settled an employment dispute with the city broke her silence last week. The Cloquet City Council voted unanimously to dismiss Laci Silgjord in February, which she appealed. The council then voted to settle with Silgjord, who agreed to resign, after a closed meeting June 7. Through her attorney, Silgjord said she has proudly dedicated her life “to the service of others” through both her military and law enforcement career. “This is a bittersweet time in my life, as I will miss the community and my wo...
The Fond du Lac Reservation Business Council will soon welcome two new members. Robert Abramowski will replace Ferdinand Martineau as secretary/treasurer of the tribal council, a position Martineau held for 16 years, and Brad Blacketter is the new District II Sawyer representative to the RBC. Blacketter had 134 votes to Naomi Northrup’s 77; incumbent Sawyer Rep. Bruce Savage took third in the primary election and didn’t advance to the June 14 general election. Abramowski had nearly 54 percent of the votes, or 455 votes to 389 for Mar...
Suzanne VanHoever, an administrative assistant at the Carlton County Historical Society, sent us a picture of this item found there. “We have no idea what this is,” she said. “It’s made of wood and the round part on the bottom spins the stick. There is a small metal hook at the end of the stick.” Can you help identify what this is? Send your information to news@PineKnot News.com with “History” in the subject line. If you have items and pictures that need some group think, send it along to Hist...
The bad news just keeps coming: War in Ukraine, mass shooting, gas prices and inflation. But in the midst of the cacophony of the negative, we can find reasons to hope for a better future. One of the promising signs appeared in the form of student council members from Cloquet Middle School volunteering at the Mobile Food Pantry program distribution in Cloquet. This program is one of five in the area developed as an outreach service by Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank. Executive director...
The back of her big red truck is filled with healthy green plants, as Wanda Pearcy pulls into a space at the Cloquet farmers market. People soon gather around to see what's new or find a special perennial to fill a gap in a flower border. And they tend to linger, because Wanda is more than willing to share advice and insights from her years of gardening experience. Pearcy didn't start out with a green thumb. "I was not a gardener; in fact, I killed all my houseplants," she said. But when she...
The Cloquet Area Fire District has a new assistant fire chief, a new position board members hope will bring more stability to the department and easier succession planning for the future. Corey Larson was unanimously approved as the new assistant chief at the CAFD board meeting June 15. Larson has been with the CAFD for the two and a half years as the district's training officer and firefighter/paramedic, worked in Superior before Cloquet, and has 13 years of experience in the field. Larson...
The Cloquet Area Fire District will hold a special open meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 29, in the Northwoods Room at the Cloquet Public Library. The consulting firm of Fitch & Associates will report on the cost allocation for ambulance services for the district. This is the first time the district will have a clear idea of how much each service costs and the meeting is open to the public. Made up of the member communities of Cloquet, Scanlon, Perch Lake and Brevator, CAFD also provides...
I've never responded to an editorial before, but I can't let this pass. We have been fighting so hard to keep our school going and great things have happened up until this school board decided to run with rumors, become racist, fight against the core teachers who make our school what it is and feel threatened by our superintendent. One who is so valuable because she understands the system and put together — along with her colleagues — the updating of our building. No only on that level does she shine, she knows our students personally. She tak...
Typically, when cops show up at your door, it’s not the best news of the day. When they show up after midnight, it almost always isn’t fun. Back in the day — 10/15/25 years ago, in this town, when the cops showed up it was 100-percent likely to be a chubby-esque white dude in his 50s (or looking like it) with either coffee or liquor or both on his (always “his”) breath and either impatience or disdain in his attitude. Things have changed around here. One of the few benefits of qualifyin...
Once again, arts entrepreneur Annie Dugan and her family are offering up a mix of 11 remarkable films for their June 24-25 Free Range Film Festival in their family barn. I've had a chance to review some of them. Here are my takeaways. For me, "A Life on the Farm" is the standout. A nephew discovers a stash of home videos made over several decades by a wacky uncle, Charles Carson, a farmer in rural England. With his friends, the nephew creates a feature-length home movie out of the videos. It...
From writing golf stories for the fabulous award-winning Pine Knot newspaper and with my 50-plus years as a member of Cloquet Country Club, most readers likely associate me as a golf advocate and not an angler. It’s hard, but I try to do both. And I can’t let Pine Knot outdoors writer Bret Baker have all the fun. This is a story about fishing. My parents had a cabin on Eagle Lake in Cromwell when I was a little kid, so I had exposure to fishing as a youth. I won a True Temper fishing reel and pole in a Cloquet Co-op Credit Union’s annual meeti...
Welcome, summer — it arrived Tuesday, June 21, with the longest day of daylight in the Northern Hemisphere. I had heard you can balance an egg on its narrow end on the first day of summer due to the rotation and revolution of the earth. We’ve tried it and managed to balance several eggs on June 21 in the past. And now that summer is here, it’s heat, heat, heat, and a mosquito invasion. What next? Oh, yeah, a bear got my bird feeders, too. Bill and Judy Haapoja will be singing at the Villa Vista...
Students around the world have faced many challenges the past few years, from remote learning to not being able to see loved ones and to canceling high school sports and other activities. High school years can be tough on any student, and the pandemic has further complicated everything in general. Despite it all, many Fond du Lac youth have demonstrated their ability to adapt to changing environments and remain resilient. This is true for several seniors, including Jezlyn Abramowski, Conner...
“A” Honor Roll Grade 12 Nicholas DeVriendt-LeDoux Maria Villena Hortelano Alaina Kiehl Carley Parker Morgan Laveau Joseph Solomon Grade 11 Korah Crane Eliza DeCaigny Emma Peterson McKenzie Midge Grade 10 Michael Cadotte Luukas Korpela Gavin LeBrasseur Megan Matarelli Sam Ojibway Grade 9 Gavin Gibson Zander Hall Lauryn Hilton Jackson Korpela Amber Lawry Jazmyn Martini Kayla Radkte Aryanna Rodeghiero Amy Schwoch Skyler Vernon Grade 8 Karysa Brown Alex Gillette Grade 7 Ava Jenne Landon Jenne Brielle Simula Teagen Tessier Danica Wyman Grade 6 Kat...
Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College announced more than 120 students attending the college during Spring Semester 2022 achieved high academic standing and earned dean's list honors for the semester grading period. Requirements for earning dean's list honors at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College include maintaining a GPA of 3.0 or higher while completing 12 or more course credits during the semester. A total of 1,269 full-time, part-time, PSEO, and College in the Schools students were enrolled at FDLTCC during the semester. The...
“A” Honor Roll Grade 12 Ludovica Abbozzo Jacob Anderson Rylie Dobosenski NataLee Hakamaki Anja Johnson Scarlett Korpela Alaina Lind Jay Olesiak Andrea Pocernich Augustas Poskus Zevvus Smith Andres Vallejo Angulo Chandell Warner Michael Zoeller Grade 11 Avery Aho Ellie Anderson Noah Foster Isaac King Sascha Korpela Jacob Measner Steven Ridlon Payton Rosbacka Liam Schoenberg Grade 10 Elliott Anderson Jillian Anderson Avery Birman Anaka Burton Tanner Collman Marissa Dahl Caya Forland Aurora Gervais Wyatt Goranson Kyra Granholm Mya Gronner Max...
“A” Honor Roll GRADE 7 Tessa Bednarek Natalie Carlson Ruth Dinger Connor Ferrin Lillian Genereau Piper Johnson Halle Kauppila Arie Koecher Taylor Lake Lucy Maher Reuben Olson-Williams Nora Piri Miah Sandberg Lauren Soukkala GRADE 8 Kaitlyn Bartz Alizondra Collelo Cadence Fanning Lucy Franek Sophia Frank Grace Grover Eoghan Heaslip Brock Hurst Riley McNamara MaKenna Nordstrom Morghan Nynas Ava Nyquist Danika Olson Iris Polecheck Aleksander Shefchik Annabelle Soukkala Aubrey Tuura Abigail Vargo GRADE 9 Ella Bednarek Casey Corrigan Connor Cor...
During Tuesday’s meeting, Cloquet city councilors unanimously adopted the Carlton County all-hazard mitigation plan, which was already approved by the state of Minnesota and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Carlton County emergency management director Marlyn Halverson answered council questions about the plan, which has been under development for the past 18 months and will serve for the next five years once every city and township in the county has adopted it. Asked how many people worked on it, Halverson said “a boatload.” The repor...
The Cloquet American Legion Post 262 recently changed commanders. Glenn Wirtanen stepped down as commander of the post. He was the post commander for the last ten years, and the vice commander for two years before that. He was presented with a Commander Award plaque last night at our monthly meeting. He is replaced by Steven Birkemeyer, who has served as a post commander at another post in the past....
Construction work began Monday, June 20, on Interstate 35 near Barnum. The initial work will be constructing median crossovers in preparation for two-way, head-to-head traffic traveling on southbound I-35, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation. While median work is taking place, motorists can expect daytime lane closures in the inside lanes. The northbound side of Interstate 35 will be closed starting July 5 for the duration of construction, with northbound traffic shifted to the southbound side under a two-way head-to-head...
Dreams of new outdoor basketball courts in Esko could soon become a reality. According to Matt Berger, a former basketball coach, player and trainer, the outdoor courts in Esko have been well-loved by the community over the years. But now, summer basketball players find themselves wrapping a lot of skinned knees due to the uneven and cracked nature of the old courts. Berger told the Thomson Township board of supervisors at its meeting Thursday, June 16, about the crooked posts and worn-out hoops there. During the summer of 2021, Berger and...
South Terrace Elementary School in Carlton has a new principal. The school board on Monday approved the hiring of Donita Stepan, the former superintendent in Thief River Falls in northwestern Minnesota. She will replace Ben Midge, who resigned this spring to take a principal job in southern Minnesota. Midge had been the principal of the entire Carlton school district, covering the elementary through high school grades. Superintendent John Engstrom said a search for a replacement for Midge would be easier if the district posted a job for the ele...
There are two new staff members in the Carlton County Extension Office in Carlton, and both of them grew up here and are looking forward to helping local kids and adults with everything from farming questions to 4-H projects. Agricultural educator Mercedes Moffett grew up on a beef cattle farm west of Moose Lake. She graduated from Moose Lake High School in 2015 and then went on to college. She found that she was not ready to be away from home yet. “I lasted one semester,” she said. “I came...
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources named Eric Senarighi, a Carlton resident and president of the Carlton County Riders ATV Club, the 2021 ATV Safety Instructor of the Year. Senarighi is a longtime ATV enthusiast who has taught ATV safety, through the club and individually, for years. The club trains about 100 kids per year in sessions in the spring and fall. In addition to prioritizing responsible habits and providing students the foundation for a lifetime of safe riding, Senarighi...
