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 33
Rep. Jeff Dotseth this week denied allegations brought to light in a Minnesota Star Tribune story Monday detailing his “extremely difficult divorce” case 15 years ago. Divorce proceedings in 2008 included affidavits obtained by the Minneapolis-based newspaper. Dotseth’s former wife and her son described repeated physical assaults and abuse since the early 1990s from the man who today represents Carlton County in the Minnesota State Legislature and is seeking a second term in the Nov. 5 election. Dotseth was arrested in 2008 after his wife...
Two Carlton County communities are being awarded substantial grants through the Small Cities Development Program. Kettle River will receive $600,000 for improvements to its wastewater and potable drinking water facility. Cromwell also will receive $600,000 for public facility improvements and community center rehabilitation. In total, 31 cities, townships and counties across Minnesota will receive nearly $21 million in grants. The funding must be used for commercial and residential property rehabilitation, public facility improvements and...
The Cloquet Area Fire District is conducting another Fire Explorers program for 2024-2025. The program allows youth members interested in a firefighting or emergency medical technician career to learn and experience the professions. The group will meet the first and third Tuesday of every month where explorers will be trained by firefighters and EMS professionals. The first session will be held at 6 p.m. Oct. 15 at Station 1 at 508 Cloquet Ave. in Cloquet. Contact assistant chief Corey Larson with questions at 218-499-4258, or...
The absentee voting period for the 2024 General Election begins today (Friday, Sept. 20). Voters residing in Carlton County may cast absentee ballots in person at the following location from Sept. 20 through Nov. 4: Carlton County Historic Courthouse: • In-person absentee voting for all Carlton County voters is available at the Carlton County Historic Courthouse, 301 Walnut Ave, Room 205, Carlton. Hours 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Friday. • The auditor/assessor’s office will have extended hours Oct. 26, Oct. 29 and Nov. 2-4 in advance of the Nov....
Students, football fans and community members packed the new Members Cooperative Credit Union Stadium for Friday's official grand opening. Pictured above, Cloquet school board chairman Nate Sandman gets the honor of the ceremonial ribbon cutting along with MCCU and school staff, and other school board members before the football game, which Cloquet won. (See Page 10, 13)....
The newest J-turn in Carlton County is being constructed near the Carlton Kwik Trip, with completion expected by the end of October, say transportation officials. "It's not a huge construction project," county engineer JinYeene Neumann said. "We're not doing anything with the existing traffic lanes; we're building alongside." Neumann compared the work at the intersection of Minnesota Highway 210 and Carlton County Highway 61 to a J-turn, or reduced-conflict intersection, installed outside...
Officials are investigating the death of a 39-year-old man found in his cell at Minnesota Correctional Facility - Moose Lake. According to a news release, an incarcerated man reported to staff that a cellmate appeared to be unresponsive in their room at 10:40 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 17. Corrections staff immediately responded and initiated life-saving measures, without success. The circumstances surrounding the man’s death remain an active investigation. The Minnesota Department of Corrections’ Office of Special Investigations, in coordination wit...
A 37-year-old man was injured in a single-vehicle crash Tuesday afternoon in Mahtowa Township. According to a news release from the Carlton County Sheriff’s Office, the crash near the intersection of County Road 61 and Painted Lane was reported at 4:51 p.m. Sept. 17. A Ford Ranger had left the roadway and crashed into the ditch. The reporting party found a 37-year old male lying on the ground next to the pickup. Carlton County deputies, along with Carlton Fire and Ambulance, Mahtowa first responders and EMS from the Cloquet Area Fire D...
Despite worries it would create another obstacle to consolidation with Wrenshall, Carlton school board members voted 4-2 Monday to extend business manager Angela Lind’s contract through June 2027. The three-year contract included a pay increase, and a year’s wages and benefits if the two districts consolidate during her contract and Lind is not selected as business manager for the new district. Lind was previously business manager for Wrenshall, which did not renew her contract in June 2023. Wrenshall school board members previously exp...
Outside the Wrenshall school library on Wednesday, football players from the Carlton/Wrenshall Raptors cooperative team could be seen running through their practice paces. Inside the library, the football coach and Raptors athletic director Brent Pokornowski joined officials from both districts for a meeting about the sports cooperative. In doing so, officials from the districts were meeting for the first time since a series of setbacks in the ongoing effort to consolidate the districts. In one of the most recent setbacks, Carlton sought to...
Tucked behind pine trees off Interstate 35 in Carlton, the Sweetly Kismet Candy Store turned its grounds into a hot air balloon festival Friday and Saturday evenings. It was the third year for the balloon festival, and the third location. Sweetly Kismet co-owner and balloon pilot Jon Parrott said this year's festival maxed out at six balloons Friday, with five on Saturday. Parrott said holding the festival at the candy store property worked well. "We really enjoyed it and I think the public was...
Cloquet city councilors set the 2025 preliminary tax levy at just over $3.9 million Tuesday, an 11.23 percent increase over the 2024 levy. Once a preliminary levy is approved, the figure can go down before it gets final approval in December, but it cannot be increased. City administrator Tim Peterson said the reason behind the jump is easy to pinpoint: wages. Salaries and benefits make up just over $6 million of the entire general fund budget of $9.5 million, he said. The total wage increases...
One of the most influential and famous persons over the last 100 years wasn't an athlete, celebrity, or political figure. She was a simple, short, 4-foot nothing, religious nun from Albania who would come to be affectionately known as Mother Teresa. At the age of 18, she left home and joined the convent of Loreto Sisters in Ireland. She was sent to Calcutta, India to teach at a school for upper middle-class girls. While she loved teaching these girls, she was increasingly disturbed by the...
With election season come more letters to the editor, most of them revolving around one or another political candidate or party. While we aren’t changing our regular rules for letter writers — including a requirement to be factually correct, avoid libel and not attack other letter writers — we feel the need to add a few additional rules especially for the season. Rule No. 1: Stick to local politics. No more letters about presidential or vice presidential candidates. We fact check all our letters as much as possible and we are a local paper...
I attended the West End Flourish on Saturday, Sept. 14. While there, somehow, I lost a set of keys and didn’t realize it until I got home. I returned and asked a few people if they had seen or heard of anyone finding some keys. No luck. I am not on Facebook, but a friend who knew I had lost the keys is on Facebook and saw a posting of some lost keys that were found. I was put in contact with the finder and was able to give her a full description of the keys, which verified to her that they were mine. I gave my address and the keys were r...
First, we wish to thank Dick Brenner for being our Carlton County commissioner in District 1 for over 32 years. Dick did an exceptional job, and his representation of the community was outstanding. Now that Dick is retiring, our focus turns to who should represent District 1. We submit that Sarah Plante-Buhs would carry on the tradition of exceptional representation and would be a stellar county commissioner. Sarah possesses high morals, values and ethics and her authentic, down-to-earth personality makes her approachable and reliable. Her...
There were 5,488 bills introduced in the Minnesota House of Representatives last session. Some ideas were good, a few were real doozies. Our State Representative Jeff Dotseth might have the distinction of putting forth the biggest head-scratcher. On March 7, he introduced HF 4687: “Harmful atmospheric activity prohibited, and penalties provided.” The bill talks about “cloud seeding,” “stratospheric aerosol injection,” “xenobiotic agents,” and “electromagnetic radiation.” These are all references to chemtrails, a discredited conspiracy theory t...
Three years ago, Carlton and Wrenshall combined for high school football and played their first season as a junior varsity team. Head coach Brent Pokornowski has been working on a five-year plan to slowly bring the Raptors football program along so that they can compete on Friday nights. "Our first year we had 22 players, and last year we had 36 players," Pokornowski said. "This season we are up to 46 athletes. We are slowly trying to build a program with numbers that can come out and compete...
Thursday, Sept. 12 Volleyball ML/WR 3 Carlton/Wrenshall 2 South Ridge 3 Cromwell-Wright 1 Two Harbors 3 Barnum 2 Proctor 3 Cloquet 2 Football ML/WR 38 Crosby-Ironton 20 Boys Soccer CEC 2 Duluth East 1 Girls Soccer Cloquet/Carlton 6 Two Harbors 0 Esko 2 Hermantown 1 Friday, Sept. 13 Football Cloquet 46 Duluth East 22 Esko 27 Mora 14 Cromwell-Wright 33 Bertha-Hewitt 27 Barnum 38 Deer River 13 Sebeka 66 Carlton/Wrenshall 0 South Ridge 18 Ely 14 Saturday, Sept. 14 Boys Soccer CEC 2 Grand Rapids 1 Volleyball South Ridge 2 Menahga 1 Barnum 2 East...
Kerry Rodd [email protected] A third-quarter explosion helped lead the Cloquet football team to its first win of the season Friday on the night the new Members Cooperative Credit Union Stadium was dedicated. The Lumberjacks scored 34 unanswered points - and put together a three touchdowns in the third quarter - to throttle previously unbeaten Duluth East, 47-22. "Our offensive line play was really good," said Cloquet head coach Jeff Ojanen. "The kids responded really well all week and did...
Last week's Cloquet-Esko-Carlton boys soccer matchup versus Duluth East was a head-turner, as fans of the program got to see an old coach in new colors. Greyhounds head coach, and former CEC coach, Dave Bergan returned to Bromberg Field Sept. 12 for the first time as another team's coach. With him came late-goal drama and a 2-1 Lumberjacks win over the Greyhounds. The Lumberjacks found their way early, in the fifth minute, as Collin Young touched his way around the Greyhounds goaltender to net t...
Through three games, Esko’s Koi Perich is making an impact in his first year at the University of Minnesota and the Golden Gophers football program. Perich made his college debut on special teams in the Aug. 29 loss to North Carolina. The next week, in a 48-0 rout of Rhode Island, Perich had 17 defensive plays and nabbed an interception. He also had a 28-yard punt return, the team’s longest of the season. With the regular punt returner injured, Perich returned punts in the Gophers’ third game, a win against Nevada. He had 22 yards on two retur...
In her third season as coach of the Fond du Lac Ojibwe School volleyball team, Larissa Littlewolf has a record 21 girls out for the team. She is starting to see the fruits of her labor. "It is so much fun to build a program," said Littlewolf. "I work full-time and I couldn't imagine not coaching this year and building this team. We have some ninth-graders who are growing so fast and killing it. You can just see their confidence growing every game." The Ogichidaag played their first home game of...
The official grand opening of the Members Cooperative Credit Union Stadium and athletic complex was held Friday night prior to the Cloquet vs. Duluth East football game. School officials, the school board and MCCU representatives joined in a ribbing cutting ceremony before the game, and giveaways were in abundance in celebration of the occasion. A lot of work went on behind the scenes to get the project done, and as with anything of this magnitude, everything had to come together at the right...
Lloyd A. Layon, 91, of Kettle River died Sept. 2, 2024, in New Perspective Senior Living in Cloquet. He was born July 13, 1933, in Moose Lake to Elmer and Amelia (Sippola) Layon. Lloyd grew up in Silver Township and attended school in Kettle River and later Moose Lake, graduating in 1951. He attended Hibbing State Junior College and received his associate's degree in nursing. Lloyd proudly served in the U.S. Army as a medical corpsman from 1953 to 1955. On April 4, 1959, Lloyd married Joyce...
