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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By now, it cannot come as a shock that even our own backyard is not immune from gun violence. In the blink of an eye in America, where our infatuation with guns exceeds our sense of order, a grudge, grievance or some other precipitator can yield tragic outcomes and a citywide lockdown. Such was the case on Jan. 8, when a shooter killed two people and then himself at the Super 8 hotel in Cloquet. Authorities continue to investigate in search of a motive, and any possible connections between the shooter and victims. Praise for those who...
My office is in the old Cloquet Co-op building in Esko, and it carries a lot of history. The thing is built solid. Those Finlanders obviously expected the building to be around for a hundred years or more. It’s tight, too, not drafty at all. So many people have stopped in over the years to reminisce about the old co-op. I feel like I’ve been here since the 1950s, when it was built. It carried groceries, of course, but also hardware, sewing stuff, farm supplies, and some clothing. And yes, to...
I just wanted to express my gratitude for how the community responded on Jan. 8 to the shootings at the Super 8 hotel. Someone with the emergency response team mentioned to me, “I got into this line of work because I wanted to help people.” He called it the “farmer mentality.” Everyone does their part to help the ones in need. Every action is vital, and everyone has a role to play. Thank you, whether you were on the scene that night or a guest who talked us through it, sent us food, came to the candlelight vigil, sent a text message, called...
In your Dec. 22, “Our View” editorial and its “thumbs down” of the new Hunters4Hunters group, it was obvious to me that the individual writing this biased view either did not attend the Carlton meeting or was sleeping through the presentation. As a hunter for over 60 years, I was in attendance and listened attentively to the speakers because neither the DNR nor the state government has been listening to deer hunters for years. This wolf crisis has been brewing for years prior to this meeting and has finally reached a crescendo due to the tot...
The Barnum bus drivers continue to struggle with being short-staffed. The ultimate solution would be to hire two additional bus drivers. The district is considering an alternative solution that is concerning the bus drivers and the community. The district is proposing to sell its bus fleet to a private busing company. Most of the current drivers are Barnum graduates and/or have children connecting them to the district. They care about our school and our children, but are unwilling to work for a private for-profit company, as they will lose...
The holidays were fun, with so many relatives at our house that no one really wanted it to end. So, after Christmas, my sisters invited Tommy, 16, to drive back to the Cities with them. He jumped at the chance. Fifteen minutes later, he had packed a bag, made a few calls, and was ready to go. As he asked me for a few bucks, he said, “Dad, I’m heading to Minneapolis. I don’t know where I’m staying. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. And I’m not really sure how I’m getting home. This is gonna b...
Reviewing the recent home mailing from the Cloquet Educational Foundation, I recalled an exceptional environmental learning experience with my son at Wolf Ridge Center in Finland, Minnesota. It was around Thanksgiving 2000. Fifth-graders from Cloquet took a bus to the center to experience being outside and hiking, looking at the stars, feeding birds, the infamous “ropes” obstacle course, staying overnight, and interacting with other students and parents. I was a parent chaperone. Wolf Ridge is...
Years ago, the United Way of Carlton County was in a bit of a pickle. Potlatch had just been sold to Sappi; there were layoffs and uncertainty, and the annual United Way campaign was in jeopardy. A significant amount of the money raised each year was from the good people at Potlatch, and that year the donations were way down from previous years. Thankfully, they’ve rebounded since, but that year things were tough. Of course, the community was hurting too, and organizations and people who r...
I lived in Carlton then Cloquet for over 30 years. Then my job took me to the Twin Cities where I have resided since. I have family in your area so visit occasionally. I love it “up there.” Every week I look forward to the mail so I can receive my prized Pine Knot! It makes me feel I am still attached to my hometowns. Your staff does an exemplary job in making this great paper the very best. Thank you for all you do. Thank you, Pete Radosevich, for your perfectly worded article in the Dec. 22 edition. You hit the nail on the head, as often you...
Opinions are as unique as fingerprints. Everybody has one, and every one is different, even if only slightly. In politics, we gather together based on our opinions, much like metal shavings around a magnet, with people gravitating to one magnetic pole or the other, even if you don’t share the exact opinion with everyone in your group. In America, we call the magnetic poles “conservatives” and “liberals.” Republicans and Democrats. What most people are forgetting is that a magnet needs both pole...
Welcome to the final newspaper of 2023. For the first time in our five-year history, the Pine Knot News will be closed for a week, taking off the final week of the year, meaning there will be a two-week gap until the publishing of the Jan. 5 edition. Creating a newspaper every week is a labor of love for all of us at the Pine Knot News, but it’s labor all the same. We could use the breather, but not before we tell you how much we appreciate your readership and support. In the five years since we printed our first edition in October 2018, we’ve...
Obviously, it has been a strange winter. I didn’t (but could have) rake leaves in Cloquet on Dec. 18. There was no snow, but it was too windy. It’s wacky. The Rugged Spruce Senior Golf League in Mahtowa played competitively on Nov. 15. Greens were a hair slow, but it’s still pretty lucky to be hacking outdoors near the end of the year. The course was playing a little easier because the water hazards were frozen. The Twin Cities area, just last week, had golf courses opening for play and all t...
One of the things people say in the receiving line at funerals is "If there is anything we can do, please let us know ...." So, we did. We let you know. And we will continue to do so. Drowning people are rarely too shy to ask for help. And everyone has been amazing. The prayers - we feel them. The food - we've eaten it. The flowers - we've smelled them and done our damnedest to keep them alive. The nervous awkward smiles at the grocery store - no one knows what to say and how could they? We...
Rep. Stauber is on the wrong side of nearly every issue today, in my opinion. From wolves to MAGA to the United States Postal Service, he ignores the facts and plays to his base. An understandable political tactic, but very disingenuous and dangerous. Stauber knows better, but fails at every turn to do the right thing. When Trump speaks in Hitleresque ways, using terms such as “vermin” to describe his opponents, where is Stauber’s condemnation? Only silence. Every horrible statement made by his Republican partners has gone cowardly unack...
The Pine Knot News Facebook page is the only place we allow comments on stories, which often provide insight or lead to other stories. Or just bring joy because the story is appreciated or advanced the community good. And then there are the times that people cross the line and start calling names. If we see those, we get rid of them without debate. Like this comment from Stephen Peterson: “Keep our original state flag, you thin-skinned morons.” How did that comment add anything to the conversation? Happily, rudeness didn’t rule the day. There w...
I recently had the fun of chatting with some members of the local Rotary Club. Rotary, for those of you who don’t know, is a service club of local professionals and business people, whose mission seems to be networking with fellow members, coupled around public service. They meet for lunch weekly, and get themselves involved in community projects from providing books for young readers to maintaining Fauley Park in Cloquet. When I first got to town in 1999, Cloquet schools superintendent Russ Smi...
The Walli family home, just northwest of the city of Cromwell, required a septic system redo, which has consumed our lives for some time. The project called for both intelligent labor and impressive machinery, including two backhoes and a vintage dump truck. We started this summer by logging off the larger trees, mostly birch and poplar. We tossed the long skinny boughs downhill like javelins. The larger trunks Rod cut to manageable lengths - more or less than 2 feet - with his chainsaw. We...
What good is a state flag? According to flag expert Lee Herold of Rochester, Minnesota, a good flag creates a distinctive brand. Ideally, Minnesota's flag should also create unity, representing our state's values everywhere it flies. But this has not always been the case. The people of Minnesota have altered their state flag design in the past to meet changing needs. They are continuing to do so today. Thirty-five years elapsed between Minnesota statehood (1858) and the creation of an official...
There seems to be a cultural crisis facing Barnum that threatens the very existence of the city and its high school. The crisis? Kids at the school this fall elected two boys as the top homecoming royalty. There’s been no such thing as a homecoming “king and queen” in Barnum since 2019, when the annual tradition morphed into “royalty,” rather than kings and queens. Now, the students vote for a slate of popular kids and the top two vote-getters are the royalty of the homecoming court. No kings....
Shut your eyes, picture it's the Fourth of July or Labor Day in Cloquet. It's parade time. The veterans have passed by, now here comes the music. You recognize the familiar trailer, with its red, white and blue decorations. It's the Cloquet Community Band. Cloquet has a decorated city band history dating back to at least the early 1900s. Even before World War I, according to "A Hometown Album: Cloquet's Centennial Story," Cloquet boasted "a first class city band and the local Finnish population...
I was saddened when I learned that Sunnyside nursing home was going to be closed. But I was not surprised, since they had been operating at a loss for many years. Reimbursement was not keeping up with expenses so the inevitable was bound to happen. Sunnyside was 5-star-rated for many years, even though it was old and outdated. I have heard many positive comments about its operation thanks to the friendly staff and sound administration. It was indeed a real asset for our community. I feel sorry for the residents who considered it their home and...
There’s a real need for housing in Cloquet. It seems to me, slowly but surely, the central part of the city is deteriorating as more and more people move out to the larger lots available on the city’s edges. For example, some lots in the Sunnyside neighborhood are about one-third acre, while many lots in the older parts of Cloquet are much, much smaller. So when those older houses get too worn out to repair, they become vacant, taking up space that can’t readily be sold, because the lots are t...
Bruce Ahlgren Park. It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? I’ve been suggesting to anyone who will listen that we should be naming our public parks and facilities after the public servants who made such things possible. In Cloquet, there’s no one more deserving than Bruce Ahlgren, who served as mayor for many years, and on the school board before that. Bruce recently passed away, way too young, and it’s time to honor his legacy by naming a public park after him. I suggest we rename Wentwor...
An autograph can become valuable, but most people usually don’t collect them for the money or as an investment. They collect these cherished documents and put them somewhere in their personal treasure chest. An autograph can turn a fleeting moment with a celebrity into a lifetime memory. When doing some certainly unscientific local research, I got a variety of answers and reactions when I asked about seeking autographs. When she was 5 years old, my wife asked legendary Scanlon accordion p...
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