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 3318 - 3342 of 3909
In 2017, the Cloquet Public Library received a Rural Gateways grant for STEM programming in Cloquet and surrounding areas. The $3,500 National Science Foundation grant from the Califa Library Group will provide science-based programs for adults. While STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) are popular topics for children’s education, they are rarely mentioned in adult programming. The programs funded by the grant are essentially “book club meets science café.” Partic...
Last Saturday morning marked the fourth time in five years that the Borske family — mom Samantha, daughters Dallas, Makayla and Alexis — and their friends and family made their way to Carlton for the annual Suicide Awareness Memorial Walk. It’s a short walk, but a long journey for nearly everyone there. They come together each fall at Carlton High School in memory of loved ones who have died by suicide. Nearly 200 people participated in this year’s walk around downtown Carlton, which was col...
A shooting during a funeral in the Fond du Lac reservation community center gymnasium today left one victim with a gunshot wound to the head and the suspect in custody. Immediately after the shooting was reported at approximately 9:46 a.m. Friday, Oct. 18, the entire tribal campus was placed in lockdown for at least two hours. Interim Cloquet police chief Derek Randall said initial reports indicate that other people at the funeral "grabbed the suspect" and held him until law enforcement arrived...
Cloquet school district officials want you. Or rather, they want your opinion and input on a new strategic plan for the school district, in exchange for a light dinner and the promise of continuing to educate our young people. Superintendent Michael Cary said the district will be working with community members in a strategic planning session Monday, Nov. 4, with a light dinner scheduled for 5 p.m. and the planning session for 6 p.m. in the Cloquet High School cafeteria. Free childcare is available. All dinner attendees must RSVP by Oct. 28 to...
Tuesday’s Cloquet City Council meeting marked the move of the “public comment” portion to the beginning — rather than the end — of the meeting. The council changed the process to allow public input on issues before voting, rather than after. The city installed a digital timer to keep comments under 3 minutes, and some rules about the mayor’s authority to limit comments, if necessary, were read. The new system did not get a trial, though, as no citizens were present to make comments at the meeting. The city got good news on the search for...
The Cloquet City Council heard a presentation on a proposed ordinance on tobacco sales from the Carlton County Public Health and Human Services Department at its Oct. 15 work session. “Tobacco 21” is an initiative backed by the health department to reduce tobacco use — including smokeless options such as vaping — by restricting sales of the products to those under 21 years old. “So far, 36 cities statewide, and eight counties, have passed ‘Tobacco 21’ ordinances in Minnesota,” said Alli Mueller, who made the presentation with Meghann Levitt,...
During another busy day in the clinic, as I see an elderly patient in a wheelchair who is accompanied by family member or members, I am reminded at how lucky the patient is. It is estimated that 80 percent of the adults who require some level of care live at home. Unpaid family members provide 90 percent of that care. This means that the majority of the care of the elderly is falling on the shoulders of family members. A caregiver is defined as a family member or friend who is providing unpaid...
Medicare open enrollment began Tuesday and runs through Dec. 7. With it comes the opportunity for beneficiaries to make changes to their Medicare Advantage and Part D plans, if they choose to. The Minnesota Board on Aging’s Senior LinkAge Line can help Minnesotans on Medicare navigate changes and ensure they have a plan Jan. 1 that meets their needs. Each year brings changes to Medicare rules and regulations and to the plans themselves. This year’s most notable change is the revamping of Medicare’s Plan Finder tool, which people use to enroll i...
Following are recent felony and gross misdemeanor court cases resolved in Carlton County Sixth District Court. Arresting agencies are abbreviated as follows: Cloquet Police Department (CPD), Carlton County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO), Fond du Lac Police Department (FDL), Moose Lake Police Department (MLPD), Minnesota State Patrol (MSP). Defoe, Tony Joe, 33, Cloquet, 10/25/2017-Check Forgery-Felony. Disposition: 5/3/2019-Diversion, placed on unsupervised probation for 1 year. Hudson, Jesse John, 62, Barnum, 7/8/2019 Test Refusal-Gross M...
News that the ice plant in “The Barn” — the city’s oldest hockey arena — had leaked as much as 5,000 pounds of R-22 refrigerant came as a shock to Cloquet city officials earlier this month. So did the price tag. At $10 a pound, the cost to replace 5,000 pounds of R-22 is $50,000. Councilors balked at paying that kind of bill without more information at their Oct. 1 meeting, and requested a special meeting with area hockey officials to find out more about the cooling system itself, use of the ri...
Carlton County auditor/treasurer Kathy Korteum told the Carlton County board of commissioners that the estimated cost of the presidential primary has basically quadrupled. “We must be prepared for the new presidential primary occurring in March,” the auditor said, explaining that the statewide cost of the primary was first estimated in 2016 to be around $3 million, but now the figure has risen to $12 million. Counties will be reimbursed by the state for any costs associated with the primary election. This will be the first time in recent his...
The study of the Cloquet police department commissioned by the Cloquet city council was still not available to read in its entirety when the Pine Knot News went to press this week. Jonathan Ingram and Bill Connors of Novak Consulting Group, which conducted the study, made a presentation to the council at its Oct. 1 meeting. Mayor Roger Maki and councilor Kerry Kolodge asked for corrections to statements included in the study, and the consulting firm has yet to send the corrected version to the city, acting interim city administrator James...
The Minnesota Indian Affairs Council and the Office of the State Archaeologist — in consultation with the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa — have notified the Minnesota Department of Transportation that grave recovery efforts at the historic Mission Creek cemetery in Duluth’s Fond du Lac neighborhood have been completed. The project started after May 2017, when MnDOT uncovered burial remains in the historic cemetery while excavating to replace the Mission Creek Bridge. Since that time, project partners and contractors have worke...
Esko High School sophomore Jackson Pfister died Friday following a cardiac event that occurred during Friday’s varsity football game. According to a message sent out electronically to Esko school district families from school administration on Saturday morning, Pfister passed away “after receiving emergency medical care for a cardiac event that occurred near the end of the Esko varsity football game in Aitkin in which he was playing.” Pfister is the son of Matt and Brooke Pfister, a third grad teacher at Esko's Winterquist Elementary, and t...
Late nights and early risings mixed with the colder temperatures of fall creates a deadly, sleepy challenge for high school students. Some days, the rush to school can leave students without the daily dose of caffeine needed to get through those first few hours of class. Not anymore. Students at Cloquet High School can rest easy knowing that when they arrive at school, they can secure a quick cup of joe. Cloquet High School’s new café, Java Jacks, offers students a convenient and co...
Head. Heart. Hands. Health. These four words guide the lives of young children. These four words lead teenagers towards their goals. And these four words provide connections between ideas and action. This is the 4-H lifestyle. In honor of National 4-H Week, when new membership years begin, Jess Waldbillig and Aubrey Compo wanted to call attention to the 117-year-old program. Waldbillig, 19, is a Southern St. Louis County participant, and a member of the outreach committee for the Minnesota...
The consensus reached at a joint meeting Monday of the full Carlton and Wrenshall school boards is that members will likely seek a referendum in August of next year on facilities improvements at two schools. But that fact, as opposed to having a vote in February, does not mean board members are easing up on what has been a whirlwind of meetings this late summer and fall trying to work out possible conditions for a consolidation. “Let’s keep the momentum going,” Wrenshall board member Janaki Fisher-Merritt said. While the Wrenshall board is al...
After two days of heavy rains brought more than 6 inches of water to southern Carlton County, the Carlton County board of commissioners met and declared a state of emergency Tuesday. Heaviest hit was southeastern Carlton County in the Nemadji watershed, with parts of Highway 23 damaged. Road repair costs are estimated at $115,000. Some townships lost roadbed gravel after culvert washouts closed roads temporarily, and water was running over sections of road in several areas. Even with the...
Kwik Trip is expanding its footprint off Interstate 35 in Scanlon after its corporate owners bought the defunct motel near the convenience store. There will be a shuffle of properties as the Golden Gate motel is expected to be demolished this fall and the lot used for a liquor store and parking expansion. Kwik Trip bought the Gramma Polo's liquor store earlier this year and has run its Kwik Spirits operation out of it. It now plans to demolish the five-year-old building to make way for a car...
This past September, we had some tornado trouble in a month that turned out to be warmer than normal when averaged out. September’s departure from normal mean temperature was 4 degrees. Using that data and the numbers from the rest of the year, 2019 so far has a departure from normal of 0.25 degree. How will we fare in October? This month should have its ups and downs but there may enough warm weather to turn October’s departure from normal on the positive. We started off chilly and ove...
The Dusty Boots Tour of Cloquet's newest affordable apartments was as much a walk down memory lane as it was an apartment showing. Carlie and Jim Nynas recalled their courtship in high school, when Jim would drive over from Esko on his lunch hour to visit Carlie, whose dad owned Andrew's Grocery store across the street. A proud 1964 grad, Carlie said she has lots of fond memories of the school building and the building that now houses the health food store across the street. "I'm so glad...
The full school boards for Carlton and Wrenshall schools will meet jointly Monday for the first time since committees from each district reviewed costs for facilities in a consolidated school district. The cost of remodeling and building new parts of the schools in Wrenshall and South Terrace remains about $47 million. The committees met Monday to fine-tune construction details and also consider an idea presented by superintendents from both districts. Wrenshall superintendent Kim Belcastro said she and Gwen Carman wanted to provide the boards...
1. Current Kwik Trip store. 2. Current Kwik Spirits liquor store, formerly Gramma Polo’s, to be demolished and replaced with car wash. 3. Trapper Pete’s is staying put. 4. Golden Gate motel will be razed and the area cleared for more parking and extension off the store for a liquor store. 5. Kwik Trip’s purchase of the motel will allow frontage road access to Minnesota Highway 61. 6. Entrances at County Road 45 have been congested....
Cloquet's Dunlap Island was Pet Central Saturday, when the Cloquet police department and Carlton County sheriff's office teamed up with Northern Lakes Rescue to offer a free microchipping clinic for area residents. It was so busy that police had to monitor traffic coming in and out of the park, allowing vehicles in one at a time as others departed. Northern Lakes Rescue founder Shannon Steele said they microchipped 260 animals: 259 dogs and cats, plus one pig. "That's 260 animals that weren't...
Republican Jeff Dotseth has declared his 2020 candidacy for Minnesota House District 11A, the seat currently held by Rep. Mike Sundin. “As a fellow resident, I share in the love for this community,” Dotseth said. “Motivated by my concern for the future of Minnesota, I have become a candidate for the House District 11A legislative seat. My goal is to serve the people in this district by using my unique experiences to make Minnesota a better place to live, raise families, conduct business.” Dotseth and his wife live on the family farm in Kettle...
