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 1 - 25 of 27
While Cloquet finance director Nancy Klassen painted a mostly positive picture of the city’s financial position last week, one number in particular stood out: a $3.2 million actuarially determined increase in the city’s long-term public safety expense, to cover ongoing and future insurance benefits for former police officers on disability. The issue is complicated because it involves actions by both the State of Minnesota and the Public Employees Retirement Association (PERA) which resulted in t...
The summer baseball season is slowly creeping towards the sunset. While the Senior American Legion has come to a close for our local teams, the Junior American Legion and VFW age playoffs are just ramping up. Esko did not field a team in the Senior American Legion playoffs due to a lack of numbers. Cloquet, on the other hand, did field a very young senior team, which dropped its first two games of the playoffs last week. Cloquet opened against one of the top seeds in the tournament on the road...
The Carlton County Board of Commissioners on Monday voted unanimously to build the proposed jail and justice center next to the Carlton County Transportation Building. Requested by Twin Lakes Township official Diane Felde-Finke, a motion by commissioner Dick Brenner in support for the “green site” passed with no discussion or dissent. The 20-acre site is just northeast of the current Transportation Building along old Highway 61 in Twin Lakes Township. Engineers and architects have projected that the site is relatively level, sandy, and doe...
Graduates of the Cloquet High School classes of 1953, 1954 and 1955 gathered at the River Inn in Scanlon July 22 and 1952 Alborn High School graduate Walt Lindquist was there with a camera to take class photos....
Carlton County veterans knew, but now the entire state is aware of what a special Disabled American Veterans commander we have after Stan Heuer was named "Minnesota Commander of the year" by the state DAV. Heuer said the members of Carlton County's DAV Chapter 18 nominated him, sending in a written story to the state commanders and Heuer was selected. "I had a feeling they were up to something because they were sort of hinting around," he said. The award ceremony during the DAV state convention...
The Chub Lake Park swimming beach is closed until further notice. E. coli levels are high, according to a Carlton County press release from last week. Water contact is not recommended....
To help ensure public safety and protect natural resources, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is expanding burning restrictions. Effective 12:01 a.m., July 27, areas within state jurisdiction in Aitkin, Becker, Benton, Carlton, Clearwater, Mahnomen and Stearns counties are included in burning restrictions already in place for the eastern portion of Roseau County and all of Beltrami, Cass, Cook, Crow Wing, Hubbard, Itasca, Koochiching, Lake of the Woods, Lake, Morrison, St. Louis, Todd and Wadena counties. The state will not issue...
The Superior City Council voted July 20 to support the transfer of burial lands on Wisconsin Point to the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. According to a story by Wisconsin Public Radio, the strip of land was once home to a vibrant Ojibwe community and represents the end of the Ojibwe migration story. At least seven generations were laid to rest at a cemetery on Wisconsin point. In 1918 nearly 200 graves were removed (and reburied at St. Francis Cemetery), followed by living tribal members several years later forced off by U.S....
Despite some recent rains, things are still pretty dry in these parts. So dry that firefighters were called to Athletic Park Monday afternoon for two grass fires: one on the outfield of the baseball field, the other next to the playground. Cloquet Area Fire District crews quickly extinguished the fires with assistance from the Cloquet DNR. There were no injuries, but CAFD officials would like to remind people of the abnormally dry conditions. "An unintentional spark in these conditions could be...
It's not only big-city police departments that are using embedded social workers. Thanks to a state grant, a social worker from the Human Development Center is working with four law enforcement agencies here: the Cloquet, Fond du Lac and Moose Lake police departments, along with the Carlton County Sheriff's Office. Troy Homstad has been working out of an office at the Cloquet Police Department since April. Cloquet Sgt. Nate Cook said he loves having Homstad along when he is called to situations...
Although August is just around the corner, the summer festival season isn't slowing down. Carlton County will be bustling with activity for the next week-and-a-half with Esko Fun Days, the Honey Bee Festival, Wrenshall Brickyard Days, and Ma & Pa Kettle Days all coming back after last year's Covid cancellations. The Honey Bee Festival returns to the Oldenburg House in Carlton next Friday and Saturday, August 6 and 7. Oldenburg House proprietor Glenn Swanson is eager for the festival to resume. "...
While Minnesota’s current upswing in Covid-19 is relatively mild compared to earlier surges, state officials are warning that the pandemic is not over yet and that those who are not vaccinated are especially vulnerable to a rapidly growing variant of the disease. Briefing reporters for the first time in nearly two months, state public health leaders didn’t unveil any new policy changes Monday, but they placed a heavy emphasis on the need to boost vaccinations to head off the highly contagious Delta strain, which they said is now driving 75 per... 
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Work on the new Carlton County budget for 2022 has started, with each department making presentations for their needs during the next budget cycle during the county board meeting Monday. Increased health insurance and employee salaries are again a focus with more than 400 on the county payroll. Historically, county program budgets that can have fund balances at the end of the budget year have been used to cushion the need to keep the property tax increase low for the coming year. The county land department and the county recorder’s office, f...
Well, here we are again. Before the recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control this week for mask wearing, there were already telltale signs that the pandemic we prefer to talk about in the past tense just isn’t over yet. Because of the Delta variant that has been spreading among mostly unvaccinated people in pockets across the country, including in Minnesota, masks are back in our lives. It didn’t have to be this way. The dangerous variant is feasting on the unvaccinated. And it is...
After thinking about it for months, my husband, Rod, and I decided to install solar power at our home. Rod researched the options. We chose to go with a small company, Wolf Track Energy of Duluth, recommended by Jeff Corey of One Roof Community Housing. We decided against putting the panels on our roof, concerned about potential damage. We opted instead to install them in the yard south of our home. More than a decade ago, we installed ground source heating and cooling, using an extensive...
As a kid, I often dreamed, looking out the Scanlon grade school windows, of what magazine cover I might someday grace. I thought it was very possible, in fact likely. Kind of cocky for a little kid. Would it be Sports Illustrated after hitting seven telephone poles in a row with a snowball? Or perhaps Cycling, after getting my one-speed Huffy bicycle to 50 mph on the newly paved 14th Street hill? Of course, after I won my own Scanlon Open, it appeared probable the magazine would be Golf or Golf...
Evelyn M. Graham, 95, of Cloquet passed away July 24, 2021, at St. Mary's Medical Center in Duluth. She was born on March 4, 1926, in Canada. She grew up in South Dakota and moved to Cloquet in 1954. Evelyn and her husband, Howard Graham, raised their family and formed many lifelong friendships there. She lived life to the fullest, enjoying her friends, gardening, dancing, church, sewing and, most of all, her home and children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She will be missed by...
Conditions weren't exactly the best Saturday for runners in the Minnesota Voyageur 50-mile trail ultramarathon. While the thunderstorms stopped in time for the 6 a.m. start, by noon runners were faced with sun, searing heat and stifling humidity, making finishing the race a real challenge. Held every year during the Carlton Daze celebration, race officials say they've seen incredible weather extremes dating back to its inception in 1982. At noon, while applying sunscreen to Voyageur veteran...
Recent Cloquet High School grad Sam Baker played in the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship in Pinehurst, North Carolina last week, and missed the cut by five strokes after two days of stroke play. Baker was nine over par for his two-day total: he was six over par on Day 1 and three over par for Day 2. More than 260 players qualified for the event, including a number of international players. After the first two days of competition, players with a score of four over par or better advanced to the...
Up North Elite is a 17U AAU boys basketball team based in Moose Lake - with eight Moose Lake/Willow River players and two players from Cloquet - just finished their season, playing in Nebraska and winning over Chicago 66-26, Oklahoma Next Level 91-70, Iowa Chill 74-60. The team lost two close games to Sioux Falls, 67-76, and Iowa Prep, 47-58, the weekend of July 24-25. Members of the team are ML/WR players Duane Broughton, Luke Dewey, Sam Dewey, Chance Lunde, Landin Kurhajetz, Logan Orvedahl,...
Atkins Northland Funeral Home may have new owners, but don't expect any big changes, said Bob Atkins, who officially sold the business in May. "Very little will change with the ownership transition," Atkins told the Pine Knot News this week. "The business names will stay the same and our employees will still be here with the goal of continuing to provide exceptional service while growing the business." The new owners are Foundation Partners Group, a privately held funeral services company with...
Public-record filings are indicating that there may be another shakeup in the direction of Cloquet’s only new car dealership, and its one-time owners have filed for bankruptcy. June filings with the Minnesota Secretary of State office shows that Cloquet Auto Center has renewed the various assumed names attached to Cloquet’s Ford and Chrysler dealership. What’s new is that the Cloquet Auto Center name was renewed in May with an address associated with Duluth-based car dealership group Evergreen, which owns dealerships in the Twin Ports and a...
The National Night Out will take place at the Cromwell Park pavilion, 5:30 to 7 on Tuesday, Aug. 3. Hot dogs will be served. Congratulations to Cromwell Area Sings winners Pearl Schulte of Wright, who placed tops in the age 20-and-over category, and Aurora Gervais and Zachary Kabus, who placed first and second, respectively, in the 12-19 age group. The competition was held during Wrong Days in Wright at the Big Top. They are eligible to participate in the Minnesota Sings competition in October....
Where there's smoke, there's fire ... unless you happen to be a firefighter in training. For a couple weeks now, firefighters from the Cloquet Area Fire District have been putting on their gear and driving various fire trucks and emergency vehicles to Dunlap Island to practice on a real building that they will burn in their final practice sometime in August. It's a two-story wooden building with a long history -- as a bar, a boarding house and more -- but in recent years it's simply been an...
In 2005, Rick Dalen and his wife Karola had the opportunity to start their own Community Supported Agriculture business under the tutelage of John Fisher-Merritt, founder of the Food Farm in Wrenshall. Dalen describes Fisher-Merritt as a "pioneer" of CSA farming and credits him with providing the means to test the waters of operating one himself. The deal was that Dalen could use a couple acres of land, equipment, greenhouses and hoop houses at the Food Farm in exchange for working at the farm....
