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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Three University of Minnesota Duluth journalism students are getting a taste of the small-town newspaper world with the Pine Knot News this spring through a first-ever micro-internship experience. Chloe Farnsworth, Max Thibault and Maddie Gagnon all seniors, will participate in the program. Farnsworth and Thibault will work on the editorial side of the paper, while Gagnon - who is business manager at UMD's student-run news magazine The Bark and its website - will be working mostly with Pine...
The Cloquet Area Chamber of Commerce brings its Home, Business and Sports Show back to the Black Bear Event Center next weekend. The free annual event features numerous area businesses plus a large craft fair, along with numerous options for family-friendly entertainment. Home show hours are 1-8 p.m. Friday, March 15, and 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, March 16. The Easter Bunny will be making the rounds 4-7 p.m. Friday and 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, and balloon animals will be available 3-8 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday. Catch Shooting...
Marc Allen Jacob Owen Raihala, 93, passed away Tuesday, February 27, 2024. He was born December 13, 1930 to M.W. "Bill" Raihala and Lillian (Isojoki) Raihala of Floodwood. He married Marion Delores Lahti on May 24, 1952 and together they ran a successful tax service business for more than 40 years. Marc served in the Korean War and remained active in Cloquet's VFW Post 3979 for five decades, serving in numerous positions including Honor Guard. He served on the Cloquet Parks Commission and...
While the girls basketball playoffs are entering their final stages, the boys sectional tournaments finally kicked off this week. The Pine Knot News offers this overview of local boys basketball teams and the potential matchups over the next week. Section 7A South Ridge entered the tournament as the No. 8 south seed and had a play-in game on Monday against No. 9 seed Floodwood. The Panthers handled the Floodwood Polar Bears by a score of 71-30. The victory moves the Panthers into a second-round...
In Carlton County, there are folks who harvest and process the sap that brings us the local flavor of delicious maple syrup, maple sugar, and maple candy we've come to expect each spring. This year - with the frogs already waking up because the weather is warmer heralding an early spring - the trees should be ready to tap. However, the trees are trying to bud in the warmer than usual weather. When asked whether climate change would affect maple syrup products this year, some people say it's...
She just couldn't take it anymore. Life at home was not good. "The family dynamic was not safe," said Cat, a high school senior. Her friends could see it, a few encouraged her to move out. "They could see the decline in my mental health, how I was behaving, and even my overall appearance," said the high school senior. Cat did not share any details of her home life and the Pine Knot is not using her given name in order to preserve her privacy. "I just reached a point where my mental health...
The Minnesota Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by Sheldon Thompson to reverse his murder convictions and grant him a new trial. Thompson, of Cloquet and Fond du Lac, was accused and found guilty of brutally killing his pregnant girlfriend, Jackie Defoe, their unborn child, and 20-month-old Kevin Lee Shabaiash Jr. in March 2020. He was found guilty by a Carlton County jury of eight counts of murder in June 2022. Five of the eight counts were first-degree murder charges, which came with an automatic sentence of life in prison. Assistant...
One of Carlton County's longest-serving employees received statewide recognition last week for her exemplary work in the recorder's office. Kristine Basilici, Carlton County recorder and registrar of titles, earned a member-of-the-year award last week during a conference in St. Louis Park of the Minnesota Association of County Recorders. Auditors, treasures and recorders from all 87 counties were on hand when Basilici received the honor. She received a brass and wooden plaque "in recognition of...
Charles Franklin "Frank" Liupakka, 81, of Esko passed into the arms of his Savior, Jesus Christ, peacefully surrounded by his family on Sunday, Feb. 25, 2024, at Essentia St. Mary's Medical Center in Duluth. Frank was born on Sept. 17, 1942, to Moses and Ida Liupakka in Cloquet. He was raised in, and attended school, in Esko, graduating in 1960. Frank married his grade school sweetheart, Jane Marie Juntunen, on April 15, 1961. Frank was an ownership partner in Moses Chevrolet and Liupakka Oil...
Minnesotans will vote in the presidential primary Tuesday, joining a cluster of states and territories in what’s known as Super Tuesday. Democratic President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are favored in their respective primaries. The two are expected inch closer to the delegate totals needed to gain the party nominations, while Democratic Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota and former Republican Governer Nikki Haley of South Carolina hope for a show of strength. The Legal Marijuana Now Party is also holding a primary. E...
Authorities in Carlton County Sixth District Court charged a 37-year-old Carlton man with attempted murder Feb. 23, two days after he allegedly attacked another resident in a local halfway house using a weapon made with a railroad spike. Jacob Robert Clarin faces up to 20 years in prison for a second-degree felony attempted murder charge, labeled “with intent-not premeditated.” A second felony, assault with a dangerous weapon, carries a maximum seven-year sentence and $14,000 fine. The attack occurred Feb. 21, when Carlton County She...
Two national traditions will combine Sunday, March 17 at Cloquet's historic NorthEastern Hotel and Saloon, as area cooks show off their best Finnish soups, all washed down with the buyer's choice of green or purple beer. The purple beer pays homage to St. Urho's Day, March 16, the day that St. Urho dined on a hearty bowl of mojakka before heading out to rid the Finnish vineyards of a plague of grasshoppers. The green beer, of course, is in honor of St. Patrick, who chased all the snakes out of I...
On Feb. 14, after a previous public hearing and discussion, the city council of Moose Lake voted to contract with the Carlton County Sheriff’s Department to provide law enforcement protection for the residents of Moose Lake. It was not a decision made lightly. It was a vote to ensure that the residents of Moose Lake will be provided affordable, quality, consistent law enforcement protection. It will provide more coverage for less costs. Since that time I’ve noticed that some of the people quoted, who are in favor of keeping the Moose Lak...
Wrenshall High School English teacher Ted Conover said students in his College in the Schools composition course were eager to add to local discourse. So they revised and shortened their long-form problem-solution essays on local issues into print-length editorials, and shared those with the Pine Knot News. Topics range from addressing issues in local schools, arts, athletics, all the way up to state funding and the Legislature — and we are sharing them with you this week and next. Enjoy these thought-provoking writings from Wrenshall. Book b...
Thursday, Feb. 22 Boys Basketball Cloquet 72 Grand Rapids 63 Girls Basketball Fond du Lac Ojibwe 61 Silver Bay 46 Cherry 65 Carlton/Wrenshall 41 Braham 93 Barnum 42 Cromwell-Wright 68 Floodwood 27 Cloquet 58 Hibbing 27 Friday, Feb. 23 Boys Basketball Carlton/Wrenshall 80 Cromwell-Wright 72 Barnum 77 Cook County 36 Ely 83 South Ridge 73 Girls Basketball Ely 60 South Ridge 50 Saturday, Feb. 24 Boys Hockey Section 7A playoffs Hibbing/Chisholm 4 CEC 2 Boys Basketball Superior 76 Esko 64 Monday, Feb. 26 Boys Basketball Carlton/Wrenshall 82 Proctor...
The path to healthy food systems is a convergence of many tracks beaten by Indigenous elders, ambitious innovators, eager youth, and patient visionaries. Midwest farmers are in the vanguard with gatherings such as the Marbleseed conference, the region’s premier event for organic agriculture, which took place in La Crosse, Wisconsin Feb, 22-24. Over 1,400 people gathered to share ideas and experience. Three speakers at the general session gave new energy to “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” Ben Hartm...
February was Children’s Dental Health Month in Minnesota. Delta Dental of Minnesota Foundation delivered more than 50,000 dental health kits and educational materials to first-graders across the state through its Smiles@School program. Schools included most elementary schools in Carlton County. The kits contain critical oral health resources: a toothbrush, fluoridated toothpaste, floss, a timer, a water bottle, an oral health educational booklet, and more. The Foundation is also providing an educational video to teachers and nurses on the impor...
Court dispositions are public records submitted by the Sixth District Court in Carlton County. The Pine Knot News lists felony and gross misdemeanor convictions. OCT. 17, 2023 Anderson, Victoria Bernice, 32, Foxboro, Wisconsin, felony assault fourth degree, secure treatment facility, throw/transfer bodily fluid or feces. Fined $50. Samuelson, Darien Daniel, 30, Cloquet, gross misdemeanor nonconsensual dissemination of private sexual images, intentionally disseminate images without consent. Adult supervised probation, two years. Fined $50....
On Monday, March 4, the Cloquet Police Department issued a final report on their investigation into the shooting at the Super 8 hotel in Cloquet on Jan. 9 that left two victims and the shooter dead, revealing that the shooter had taken drugs but likely didn't know his two victims. Police were called to the Super 8 hotel in Cloquet just after 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 8. A hotel employee, 22-year-old Shellby Marie Trettel of Cloquet, was found with a gunshot wound to the head inside the building. She later died at a Duluth hospital. A second victim,...
Two former Cloquet residents were arrested in Arkansas last week for allegedly leaving seven cats behind - with no source of water or food - when they moved away from Cloquet late last year. Four cats were dead by the time someone entered the apartment 18 days later. A fifth cat died the same day and two cats have survived. Karlee Lynn Strum, 32, and Dominic James Welch, 26, were extradited to Minnesota this week from the White County jail in Searcy, Arkansas. They are each accused of 21 animal...
With plans for a first-ever city hall followed by cascading improvements from there, city leaders in Wright are aiming big in an attempt to provide more for residents and families. "Wright has always been the wild, wild West of Carlton County, and everybody kind of turned a blind eye to us and what's happened out here," city councilor Terri Lott told the Pine Knot earlier this month. "It was our business." Lott, mayor Donovan Ranta and fellow councilors Jerri Haugan and Gene Lott, Terri's...
Carlton County is short by up to 50 units of entry-level housing for new homebuyers, 350 units of affordable apartments, 60 units of workforce rentals and scores of units for seniors who desire to own, scale down or transition into settings such as assisted living. That was the stark tale told by a Comprehensive Housing Needs Analysis presented to the Carlton County board earlier this month. Presented by LOCi Consulting of St. Paul, the analysis left commissioners thankful for the information....
THUMBS UP to the Moose Lake city council for its unpopular but fiscally responsible decision to contract with Carlton County for its law enforcement needs. The months-long saga ended last week, in what many considered disappointing fashion, with a 3-2 vote. Choosing the Sheriff's Office to provide four deputies and a part-time clerk to cover the city meant dissolving the city's long-standing police force. But the force had dwindled to one, a result of disgruntled officers resigning and early...
I was mystified to read a revisionist history in the Pine Knot News op-ed article with local representatives offering a legislative session preview. Rep. Jeff Dotseth was actually taking credit for “delivering” $10 million for the Carlton County female offender and judicial facility. Carlton County taxpayers were supposed to receive $23 million, but Rep. Dotseth bungled the money, refusing to support the bill with the funding. Democrats had to ask Rep. Dave Lislegard from Aurora, not Dotseth, to sponsor the smaller amount primarily because our...
Urban legends and conspiracy theories are sometimes difficult to overcome, especially when they are often repeated. This appears to be the case with the $10 million funding for the Carlton County female and judicial facility addressed in the bill HF 3101. According to bill tracker, on March 23, 11A’s Rep. Jeff Dotseth introduced the bill as chief author. On May 10, HF 3101 was again presented by Rep. Dotseth and amended to include Rep. Dave Lislegard as chief author. This move was initiated by concern that with the Democratic trifecta in power,...
