From tragedy to accomplishments, 2005 was memorable

 

By Molly Miron
Pioneer Editor

 

The shooting deaths of 10 people on March 21 on the Red Lake Reservation was the top story of 2005, not only for the Bemidji Pioneer. News media worldwide carried the story of the tragedy.

Jeff Weise, 16, shot and killed his grandfather and his grandfather’s companion before stealing his grandfather’s Red Lake Police service weapons and squad car. Weise drove to the Red Lake High School where he proceeded to shoot a security guard, teacher and five students before turning the gun on himself and committing suicide.

The tragedy continues to reverberate in the Red Lake and area communities. Louis Jourdain, Red Lake Chairman Floyd Jourdain’s 17-year-old son, has been accused of having a connection with the shootings. He will be sentenced soon after pleading guilty in November to “threatening interstate communications” in a plea bargain.

Since the tragedy, scores of support efforts have been reaching out to Red Lake, from federal officials’ visits to healing walks and ceremonies by students, elders and people of all ages.

But Red Lake is not defined by the tragedy. Good news comes from the Red Lake School Board’s proposal to seek about $55 million in state bonding for projects in the district’s master plan. On the special election ballot, residents of the district voted to accept the School Board’s proposal to increase general education revenue by $447.10 per student per year for 10 years to finance school operations, additions and demolitions.

The walleye restoration project, a collaboration between the tribe and the Department of Natural Resources, also met success. The fish have come back in such numbers as to allow a limited sport fishing season to open in the spring.

An overview of other news from the Bemidji area highlights numerous other stories

January

- The B-TEAM--Beltrami Tobacco Education Awareness Movement--applauded the beginning of the county ordinance creating smoke-free public places. The exceptions, until Jan. 1, 2007, are for bars and restaurants, which can permit smoking between 8 p.m. and 3 a.m.

- On Jan. 7, Spc. Dwayne Bellanger McFarlane, 20, a member of the Cass Lake-Bena High School Class of 2002, was killed when his patrol was hit by a roadside bomb, an improvised explosive device, or IED. He was on foot near Baghdad when the bomb went off. McFarlane was raised from the time he was 6 years old by his uncle and aunt, Don Bellanger and Alvera Reyes of Cass Lake. He was a member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. His funeral was held in his high school gym.

- Northwest Technical College-Bemidji celebrated its 40th anniversary on Jan. 13. Enrollment has surpassed 1,000 students and course offerings continue to expand.

- Bemidji joined other Americans in gathering funds to help the people devastated by the Dec. 26 Indian Ocean tsunami. One of the projects, Bemidji’s Kids Against Hunger, brought hundreds of volunteers together at the National Guard Armory to fill bags with 100,000 nutritious meals for tsunami victims.

- Owls from north of the North Country invaded the area. Food shortages for the raptors in their native Canada brought scores of great gray owls south. Most people finished the winter with an owl sighting story.

February

- The Save Babe campaign, a collaboration between the Bemidji Area Chamber of Commerce and the Bemidji Rotary Club, started work to raise about $80,000 to mend the cracks in Bemidji’s famous Blue Ox.

- Beryl Wernberg, Beltrami County communications supervisor/emergency management director, received state and local honors on Feb. 5 with the Association of Minnesota Emergency Managers Most Outstanding Regional Coordinator and the Most Outstanding Employee awards. Later in the year, she received the Outstanding State Director of the Year.

- Bemidji will carry the United States challenge at the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics. Team Fenson, skipped by Pete Fenson of Bemidji, and Team Johnson, skipped by Cassie Johnson of Bemidji, qualified in the men’s and women’s finals to put a predominance of Bemidji athletes on Olympic ice next month.

- Red Lake members celebrated the third annual Chief’s Day on Feb. 21 to honor the ancestors who preserved the homeland from being carved up into individual allotments.

- The continuing struggle among members of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Reservation Business Committee came to a head on Feb. 25 after Secretary-Treasurer Arthur “Archie” LaRose was sworn in following a contentious Feb. 15 special election required because of his removal from office in 2004 by petition. The RBC, also know as the Tribal Council, also issued letters excluding LaRose from Leech Lake casinos. The situation continues to smolder.

March

- The Beltrami County Board put in motion steps to borrow $6 million toward construction of a new $10 million County Judicial Center. The 61,000-square-foot Judicial Center is now rising in the Beltrami County Courthouse campus block.

- The Cass Lake-Bena High School girls’ basketball team earned a berth in the state Class A tournament. And the Cass Lake-Bena boys’ basketball team matched the girls’ efforts by earning a trip to state for themselves.

- Tanya Kleis of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe and Autumn Day, a Leech lake Band member, were chosen to be among the 12 women featured on the 2005 American Indian Beauties calendar.

- Six years into making the move to the NCAA Division I ranks, men’s hockey at Bemidji State University registered success with the fourth-best conference record over the last four years of any team in the nation. The Beavers also scored academically with a 3.2 grade point average over the last four years. The team won both the CHA and regular season titles and advanced to the NCAA Division I national tournament for the first time. The Beavers gave eventual champion Denver its toughest battle of the tournament, falling 4-3 in overtime.

- A major discussion among various American Indian tribes and the state Legislature related to partnerships in a casino or racino to bring more income to all concerned. The issue eventually failed for lack of agreement on all sides.

- Terry Schiavo, 41, died March 31 after a years-long public fight between her parents to keep her alive and her husband to take her off life support. The battle extended to the Florida Legislature, Gov. Jeb Bush’s desk and the U.S. Supreme Court.

- The Bemidji High School Lumberjacks wrestling varsity team gained the state team meet for the fifth time in the past six years, finishing fourth.

April

- In a dignified and tranquil setting, 84-year-old Pope John Paul II died at the Vatican on April 2. He served as head of the Catholic Church for 26 years.

- On April 5, the Bemidji Pioneer unveiled a new look and added a cast of comic page characters.

- The Boys & Girls Club of the Bemidji Area moved from its original home in the old Seventh-day Adventist School to a new site in a renovated portion of the old Bemidji high School. The move offered youngsters more space and program options.

May

- J.W. Smith Elementary School celebrated 50 years, bringing together current and former students in a 1950s-theme birthday party.

June

- The Family Advocacy Center for Northern Minnesota, a unique partnership among North Country Regional Health Services, Red Lake Band of Chippewa, MeritCare-Bemidji and law enforcement entities, opened at North Country Regional Hospital. The Family Advocacy Center focuses on the medical and mental health needs of victims of child abuse, sexual assault and domestic violence.

- A piece of good news for Bemidji State University, Northwest Technical College-Bemidji and other students in schools of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system came in June with the announcement that tuition hikes would be in the singles digits, rather than the massive jumps of recent years.

- Alisha Schulman became the first member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe to earn an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. Schulman, a Cass Lake-Bena High School graduate was chosen for the elite college out of 10,000 applicants.

- Barricades went up at highway rest stops at the end of June as the state government prepared for a shutdown due to budget talks impasses. However, legislators made the deadline and the emergency was cancelled.

July

- “Bemidji Leads!,” a consortium with members from a diverse range of the community, issued a set of destiny drivers, goals members believe will lead the city toward the vision they have for the future. The signing of a Declaration of Interdependence was a symbolic ceremony marking the need for partnership to develop Bemidji in a healthy and prosperous way.

- The Bemidji City Council, in an effort to decrease the urban deer population, passed a feeding ban.

- The long ordeal trying to find a use for the old Bemidji High School property on 15th Street and Bemidji Avenue found a solution with the offer of Bemidji State University to buy two parcels for $1 and a third parcel for $575,000. The BSU Foundation will also take responsibility for demolition.

- For the first time, Bemidji took part in the America in Bloom contest. Residents spent the early part of the summer planting flowers and tidying up their property. The judges toured the city for two days before making suggestions for future improvements. Jean Humeniuk launched the campaign.

- The Bemidji-Beltrami County Airport officially adopted a new name

the Bemidji Regional Airport. The new name more accurately reflects the expanded service of the terminal and the growing business and population center.

August

- Beltrami County opened the new County Administration Building at 701 Minnesota Ave. N.W. The $4.2 million building, part of the downtown campus, features a 100-seat County Board room and offices for county administrators.

- Bemidji National Guard members received news that they would be called up for active duty in Iraq. The 53 soldiers from Bemidji began training at Camp Shelby in Mississippi, with a spring 2006 overseas deployment schedule.

- One of the “Bemidji Leads!” destiny drivers is construction of an events center to house Bemidji State University hockey, as well as conventions, shows and concerts. The committee decided that the best site for the proposed events center would be downtown near First Street and the railroad corridor.

- On Aug. 24, Northwest Technical College-Bemidji broke ground for a new Allied Health Center. The project is schedule to open for the beginning of the 2006 fall semester.

September

- When Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana and Mississippi on Aug. 29, and the New Orleans levees collapsed, Michael Meuers remembered something most Bemidji residents had forgotten. Bemidji and New Orleans had signed sister cities pacts in 1986 and the mayors had exchanged keys to their respective cities. That was the beginning of the connection, originally a Mississippi River preservation effort from the Headwaters to the Delta. Many local organizations responded to help the southern sister with fund-raisers of T-shirts, buttons, dinners, donations and the three-day Sister City Fresh Start.

- Pauline Winge, a social worker at Bemidji Middle School was honored as the Minnesota School Social Workers Association Social Worker of the Year.

October

- Dan Ninham, Cass-Lake Bena High School boys’ basketball coach, was named Class A State Coach of the Year. Later Ninham made news by proposing drug testing for all students taking part in the school’s extracurricular activities. The Cass Lake-Bena School Board is studying the suggestion.

- The destruction of Gulf State oil refineries and world politics led to record high fuel and home heating costs. The prediction was for home heating to top $1,600 for the winter in Midwest states.

- Sophie Jurek of Becida is chosen as the November calendar girl for the Down Syndrome of Minnesota 2006 calendar.

November

- The Minnesota Fire Chiefs Association honored Red Lake Nation firefighters for their speedy and courageous action during the Red Lake High School shooting.

- The United Way of Bemidji Area annual fund drive burst the traditional thermometer symbol by raising $392,668, well above the $370,000 goal. The fund-raiser netted a record amount to support area agencies and nonprofits.

December

- Operation Happy Holidays, a movement to raise money to help Bemidji’s National Guard soldiers with the cost of their travel to return home for Christmas and New Year’s, started with the hope of $15,900, or $300 for each soldier. The fund-raiser and dinner at the National Guard Armory surpassed expectations, so the soldiers received a little extra as a surprise gift. The soldiers will return to training at Camp Shelby, Miss., and then take off overseas for duty in Iraq in the spring.

- The Neilson-Reise Ice Arena reopened for skating again on Dec. 28. The arena closed in April because of leaks that developed in the 13 miles of refrigeration and heating pipes.