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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A community meeting brainstorming solutions to financial issues in the Barnum School District aimed to bring people together Wednesday, March 4. A circle of 21 stakeholders, made up of three members of school personnel, students, parents, community members and support staff expressed their views about what needs to be changed in the Barnum School District now that the school board is discussing cuts in staff because of a deficit budget. Facilitators Laraine and Paul Mickelson of Mickelson Consulting led the discussion using a circle process,...
A former Barnum School District payroll employee who took — and paid back — $14,062 from the school’s food service fund pleaded guilty to theft last fall under the terms of a plea deal. Nancy Colleen Monfeldt, 58, was initially charged with embezzlement of public funds, one count of failure to pay over state funds and two counts of felony theft in March 2019. The embezzlement and state funds charges were dismissed when she pleaded guilty to the theft charges. According to the criminal complaint, then Superintendent David Bottem contacted the Ca...
The famed rodent of Punxsutawney Pennsylvania did not see his shadow this year, prognosticating an early spring for 2020 and right here at the Food Farm we had our first picnic of the year… in the greenhouse. The thermostat said 94 degrees on Sunday afternoon and some of the smaller amongst us were in tank tops. There are other signs of spring on the farm. We have onions in the ground, the bees have been spring cleaning their hives, we got our seeds inventoried, and we’ve been busy telling the...
Reduce, reuse, recycle … it’s stated so much that you probably give it little actual thought and instead just let it go in one ear and out the other. Now there is nothing I have negative to say about the three R’s, as it outlines the exact concepts and hierarchy we need to strive for: giving greatest priority to reducing our overall waste creation in the first place then looking toward responsible management through reuse and recycling. But the three R’s don’t explain the benefits gained by...
After much discussion on Facebook pages and in local coffee shops over the past two weeks, the Lumberjack logo debate has been settled, at least as far as the Cloquet School District is concerned. During Monday’s School Board meeting, Cloquet Superintendent Michael Cary pointed to the the Pine Knot News story about the history of the Lumberjack mascot logo, and said he and others had talked to many of the same people quoted in the story. “Everything we can find points to the fact that the Lum...
Carlton School District Superintendent Gwen Carman announced to the school board this week that she is seeking positions in other school districts. She said she had accepted an invitation to interview for a superintendent job in Mora. “I have also applied to other school districts,” Carman wrote. Carman is one of six finalists for the Mora job, which had 26 applicants. The school board there was expected to interview candidates Thursday and today. The Mora superintendent is retiring. Carman is in the throes of consolidation discussions wit...
The Cloquet mock trial team finished 14th out of 16 teams competing in the Mock Trial State Tournament in St. Paul last week. Madelynn Dostal was named an All-State attorney and Ian Gunelson was named an All-State witness for their performances. Coach Corinne Gornick-Heehn said the Cloquet team held its own against teams that were coach by "literally, a team of attorneys." "I was so proud of my team," Heehn said. "They argued smart and hard ... against teams that went on to take third and...
The Cloquet Ripsaw Robotics team, members pictured above at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center, was the top Carlton County finisher in the FIRST Robotics regional competition in Duluth last week. Cloquet finished 10th in Lake Superior Regional that pits the most experienced programs against each other for a chance at moving on to national competition. Cloquet finished just outside the group moving on. The team did win the Safety Award, a technical achievement that teams covet. The...
Ninety-five percent or about 143 million households in the country will receive an initial invitation to respond to the 2020 Census in their mailboxes between March 12 and 20. The U.S. Census Bureau released informational copies today of the invitations, the enclosed materials, and the subsequent reminders households will receive. These materials can help the public know what to expect and avoid potential scams. Households are encouraged to respond when they receive their invitation. Depending...
Carlton County went big for Democratic candidate Joe Biden on the DFL side, and President Trump on the Republican side in Tuesday's presidential primary election. The results here reflected results across Minnesota. With Trump the only name on the ballot for the Republican Party, he received 97.8 percent of the votes cast by Republicans. On the Democratic ballot, the voting results were more varied, but also quite decisive. Joe Biden got a total of 2,057 votes (45.2 percent) in Carlton County,...
The question of who designed the Cloquet High School Lumberjack mascot logo leads almost immediately to another question: Which logo? There have been dozens of iterations of the Cloquet Lumberjack. Yearbooks dating back to at least the 1940s, maybe even further, show depictions of lumberjacks. The 1948 White Pine featured a hulking, thickly bearded, flannel-clad lumberjack on its cover, and another drawing of the lumberjack fishing inside. In the 1960s, a more exotic lumberjack began appearing...
Being green has its benefits. Just ask the folks at Sappi. What started almost 20 years ago as an effort to prolong the life of the on-site landfill at the Cloquet paper mill has turned into an environmental success story that goes beyond Minnesota, even beyond North America. Sappi North America - and particularly the Cloquet mill - was one of 41 companies recognized globally last month with a SEAL Environmental Initiative Award. It all started with the landfill. With the Cloquet mill adding...
The Carlton VFW would like its American flag back. Carlton VFW manager Cody Solem said the bartender at the veterans organization at 124 Chestnut in Carlton realized something was wrong with the flags on a Sunday morning a few days after a break-in Feb. 5 at the Four Seasons Sports Complex in Carlton. Solem said when he got to work, he found that someone had stolen the U.S. flag, but left the POW flag behind. “The rope was cut straight across, and our flag was attached using carabiners and grommets,” Solem said. “If it was just the wind rippi...
After initially voting against paying a professional lobbyist to help persuade the Minnesota Legislature to make school consolidations eligible for greater state aid, the Wrenshall school board met early Monday morning and reversed that decision. Wrenshall and Carlton school districts will each pay half of the $25,000 cost of hiring lobbyist Reid LeBeau. A successful effort in St. Paul could lead to state funding that would pay 40 percent of the estimated $38 million in school improvements. Both districts agreed they will not continue...
Most of Cloquet and close to 5,000 Minnesota Power customers in northern Carlton County were without power for one to three hours Friday. Like in the movie “Ice Age,” the whole problem started with a squirrel. According to a Minnesota Power tweet, the company eventually determined there was a squirrel in the substation that serves the city of Cloquet. Squirrels can serve as electrical conduits to transformers, throwing the system offline. The outage began at approximately 10:45 am Friday and affected much of Cloquet, Scanlon, plus Gnesen, Twi...
Two drug overdoses — one in Cloquet and one in Carlton — on Monday, March 2, may be linked to a spate of seven overdoses in Duluth. The patients in the two Carlton County cases were a 20-year-old man from Superior and a 53-year-old woman from Cloquet. Both were transported by ambulance to a local hospital for treatment. As members of the Lake Superior Gang and Violent Crimes Task Force, Cloquet interim police chief Derek Randall said the CPD was notified of an alleged batch of heroin containing fentanyl that the task force believes is connected...
The Cloquet Area Chamber of Commerce honored businesses large and small along with its volunteer of the year at its annual meeting and banquet Thursday, Feb. 27 in the Otter Creek Event Center at the Black Bear Casino Resort. For 67 years, the Cloquet Area Chamber has recognized the significant contributions that area individuals and businesses make to the local, state and national economies with the presentation of awards and recognition to its member businesses each year. Award winners for...
Don't give up, Duluth cartoonist, illustrator and author Chris Monroe told a room full of third-graders at Washington Elementary School last month. She walked the kids through various versions of Chico Bon Bon, the star of her "Monkey with a Toolbelt" series of children's books. "He looks like a horror monkey," said one child of an earlier version. Monroe did lots and lots of sketches before she arrived at her true vision of her tool-belt wearing, fix-it-or-build-it monkey. "Eventually I found h...
The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) has confirmed Minnesota’s first presumptive case of novel coronavirus, COVID-19, health officials announced today. The case is an older adult resident of Ramsey County who recently traveled on a cruise ship with a known COVID-19 case. The patient began to develop symptoms on Feb. 25 and sought health care yesterday. Samples were collected from the person and sent to the MDH Public Health Laboratory for testing today. The test was found positive earlier today. MDH is awaiting confirmatory testing from CDC...
A Cloquet woman and her 18-month-old child are dead and police are seeking a suspect (who is likely armed and dangerous) after a welfare check ended in the discovery of the two bodies. Police have not yet named the victims, but the home where the bodies were found sits only a block away from the Fond du Lac police department, on a dead-end road tucked behind the Fond du Lac Health and Human Services building and Min-No-Aya Win health clinic. The Cloquet Police Department issued a press release...
The Cloquet Police Department announced that after an extensive search and investigation, authorities have located and arrested Sheldon James Thompson in connection with the double-homicide that left a 27-year-old woman and her 18-month-old son dead. According to the press release : Since discovering the victims, law enforcement worked throughout the evening and today investigating the whereabouts of Thompson, gathering information and evidence related to the deaths. At 8:43 p.m., law...
A Cloquet man was charged in Sixth District Carlton County Court this morning with murdering his girlfriend, Jackie DeFoe, her 20-month-old son, Kevin, and her unborn child. Sheldon James Thompson, 33, faces two charges of second-degree murder with intent, not premeditated, and a third count of second-degree murder of an unborn child, not premeditated. The murders, announced Sunday morning by the Cloquet Police Department, rocked the communities of the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation and...
The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) confirmed a third presumptive positive case of novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19, on Tuesday, March 10. The case is an Anoka County resident in their 30s who was likely exposed through contact with international travelers. The patient developed symptoms Feb. 28 and sought health care March 9. Samples were collected from the person and sent to the MDH Public Health Laboratory for testing March 9. The test was found positive earlier today. MDH is awaiting confirmatory testing from CDC, but health...
The Cloquet school district has a mystery it needs solved: Who really created the school's ubiquitous grizzled lumberjack mascot logo? The subject came up as part of a discussion over rights to the logo, as a new sporting goods store is opening on Cloquet Avenue and the Lumberjack logo figures large in the Cloquet Sporting Goods' decor and marketing. "They've essentially done all their branding using the lumberjack logo," superintendent Michael Cary told the Cloquet school board during its...
Esko High School students partnered with the Carlton County Soil and Water Conservation District to create six videos highlighting conservation programs. The competition addressed the challenges of outreach and public awareness by using the talents of local students in technology and creativity to create the videos. Sophomores in Chris Evavold's and Laura Zimny's science classes got word in October about the competition. Interested students then joined for a tour of a local conservation...
