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 Carlton man accused of felony attempted murder in February will undergo a psychological screening first to see if he is suitable to take part in court proceedings. That was the result Monday of a hearing for Jacob Clarin, 37, who is accused of assaulting a fellow resident Feb. 21 at Lake Venoah Board and Lodge outside Carlton, in Twin Lakes Township. Clarin appeared in an online Sixth District Court hearing Monday before Judge Rebekka Stumme. A prosecutor with the Carlton County Attorney’s Office and a public defender both agreed and recommen...
A fire destroyed an unattached garage in Atkinson Township north of Mahtowa Friday, March 1. Fire crews and emergency responders were called to the 3100 block of Carlton County Road 144 at about 4:30 p.m. There was no one home, and the fire had taken over a garage and was threatening a nearby pole barn. The fire was contained and the barn had only minor damage. The garage and its contents were a total loss. Responders included those from the Carlton County Sheriff’s Office, Minnesota Power, and the fire departments of Barnum, Mahtowa, W...
If one had stumbled upon the library at Carlton High School on Monday, you would have gotten the impression you were eavesdropping on some sort of couples therapy. There was talk about doing the right thing for the kids. Talk about trauma. About threats perceived and then called misconstrued. Talk about taking a breath and letting cooler heads prevail. There were demands made and demands denied. There was talk of impasses rebutted with carrying on, keeping the dialogue going. To someone who...
Cloquet was fifth out of 55 teams in the Lake Superior Regional FIRST Robotics competition last weekend at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center, the best the team has placed in its five years of competing. The team went 7-2 in qualifying matches and was in three playoff matches. The RipSaw captains summed up the weekend: "We fought to maintain our position near the top of the ranks. Our robot, Bebop, was a dominant force on the gamefield by being a top scorer of each match. On Saturday, qu...
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...
The Cloquet school district needs to make roughly $2 million in cuts for the next school year, officials said at Monday’s school board meeting. That’s a lot, even for a budget that is fast approaching $35 million a year. But the news is not as bad as it might seem. Superintendent Michael Cary stressed that close to three-fourths of those cuts are coming as a result of two large grants ending in 2024. Those cuts were anticipated from the start of the Covid-19 federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding and a sta...
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...
After the Cloquet Area Fire District opened its February meeting with a moment of silence for fallen first responders in Burnsville, CAFD board members unanimously accepted a donation of 12 bulletproof vests from the Dead on Arms shooting range and firearms store. Assistant fire chief Corey Larson said acquiring the new Safe Life Defense vests fulfills a key objective of a crew safety system. The district has been working with the Cloquet Police Department over the past two years to maximize...
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...
Joint meetings of the Carlton and Wrenshall school boards that had been scheduled to commence the first Monday in March have been put on hold. Instead, the smaller consolidation committee will meet at 5 p.m. Monday in the boardroom at Carlton High School. The committee, or consolidation team, meetings are open to the public, and feature superintendents as well as board chairs for both districts. Carlton and Wrenshall districts are moving toward consolidation into a single district as soon as the 2025-26 school year. School boards from both...
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...
Following a special meeting Friday morning, Cloquet school board members voted 5-1 to approve the list of softball coaches for this spring, including head coach Tyler Korby and assistant or JV coaches Joel Korby, Brian Fleck, Olivia Diver and Travis Warnygora. Board member Hawk Huard was the lone “nay” vote. The board previously approved all the other spring coaching staff with no discussion at its Feb. 5 meeting. The special meeting was closed for a time to discuss allegations against a school district employee. No action was taken Friday reg...
Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College is honored to share that Achieving the Dream has awarded FDLTCC the 2024 Leah Meyer Austin Award. The Leah Meyer Austin Award signifies a college’s adoption of practices and strategies leading to a student-focused culture, notable increases in student outcomes, and reduction of equity gaps. The announcement was made at the annual DREAM conference, which brought over 2,000 community college leaders, faculty, and student affairs staff to the Orlando World Center Marriott. FDLTCC joined ATD in 2017 among a...
Superintendent Donita Stepan asked the Carlton school board to downsize staff by more than four full-time positions, including three teachers, during Tuesday’s school board meeting. Included in the cuts were one full-time position at South Terrace Elementary and the band program at the middle school/highschool. Declining enrollments and the accompanying decrease in revenue from the state have driven the retrenchment. In her remarks on the issue, Stepan pointed to the unassigned general fund balance — which should be kept to at least 16 per...
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....
The Cloquet city council laid the groundwork for a number of new or ongoing initiatives Tuesday, including plans for future transportation and housing projects. Councilors and Mayor Roger Maki unanimously passed a resolution supporting the “multimodal” use of Highway 33 between Big Lake Road and Cloquet Avenue, with a letter outlining the city’s viewpoint shared with the Minnesota Department of Transportation. MnDOT is looking at rebuilding that stretch of the state highway in 2028 and held a public information meeting in Cloquet on Feb. 1. The...
The Indigenous-feminist Spiderwoman Theater is bringing its 16-member ensemble to Cloquet as part of a five-day residency at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College, and Northland College, in Ashland, Wisconsin, Feb. 27-March 2. Spiderwoman grew out of the urban Native community centered in Brooklyn in the 1950s. In addition to their experimental and activist focuses, they have emphasized the importance of interconnectivity among Indigenous communities across the globe. Spiderwoman Theater was...
Once again, Cloquet sent the largest contingent of students to Saturday's regional science fair, held at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Fifteen middle school and four high school students from Cloquet competed, plus a number of students from other schools. Although overall numbers declined this year after a post-Covid jump last year, the overall projects were better, judges said. Most of the students will compete at the 2024 State Science and Engineering Fair March 22 at the St. Paul...
It’s been a year since roughly 40 residents packed Thomson Town Hall to comment on two proposed township ordinances regarding private roads and driveways. Many speakers provided constructive criticism, while others outright rejected the attempt to set standards for shared private roads and driveways. Although township attorney David Pritchett told people they would fine-tune the ordinances and hold another meeting in a while, there have been no meeting notices or new draft ordinances posted on the website. Nor have any of the people that v...
