Pioneer Year in Review

Bemidji curling rinks make international news at Olympics

 

Bemidji Pioneer

 

Bemidji made international news this year with the two United States Olympic Curling teams originating in the hometown club.

The men’s team, made up of Skip Pete Fenson, John Shuster, Joe Polo, Shawn Rojeski and Scott Baird, brought home the Olympic Bronze Medal from Turin, Italy. Bemidji celebrated with processions, parties and a big bronze medal around Paul Bunyan’s neck.

The women’s team of Skip Cassie Johnson; her sister, Jamie Johnson; Jessica Schultz; Maureen Brunt; and Courtney George didn’t medal, but they are looking forward to the 2010 Winter Olympics. The curling excitement definitely put Bemidji on the map.

The mid-term elections Nov. 7 were also big news locally, statewide and nationally with DFL candidates receiving strong support. In the city of Bemidji, the big issue was the vote to extend the half-cent sales tax to fund a regional events center. The measure passed by 44 votes opening the way for the City Council to request permission from the state Legislature to keep the tax in place after it raises the $9.8 million revenue for parks and trails improvements.

Other notable news for 2006:

January

-- The Minnesota Hospital Association recognized North Country Health Services with four out of its 20 awards during the Jan. 13 presentation.

Dr. Doug Williams received the MHA Trustee of the Year Award for dedicated leadership of the NCHS Board of Trustees. Jim Hanko, NCHS president and CEO, received the Spirit of Advocacy Award for showing leadership in the association governing structure and promoting health care issues.

NCHS also earned two awards for improving the lives of people in the community and promoting health care careers.

-- Concordia Language Villages held a house blessing Jan. 17 for the BioHaus, a residence on campus certified to consume 85 percent less energy than currently set by Minnesota code. Zetah Construction of Bemidji served as the general contractor for the innovative, futuristic building.

-- The Bemidji and Blackduck branches of the Kitchigami Regional Library were forced to cut staff and operating hours due to a dispute with KRL Director Marian Ridge and the KRL Board over a change in the funding formula.

February

-- “Bemidji Leads!” celebrated the second anniversary of the organization to direct the city’s future in positive directions.

-- The war in Iraq brought death close to home again when news broke about Army Spc. Patrick Herried dying in the explosion of a roadside bomb. He was the son of Bill Herried of rural Bemidji.

-- The Minnesota Finlandia Ski Marathon celebrated the 25th anniversary of the event held at Buena Vista.

-- Bemidji’s first Business Expo drew more than 300 visitors to tour 32 business exhibitions.

-- Five wrestlers on the Bemidji High School Lumberjack wrestling team — Greg Skerik, Joe Anderson, Travis Beighley, Dan Sorby and Kaleb Young — qualified for the state meet in St. Paul. Skerik also moved up to compete in the National High School meet in Pittsburgh, Pa.

March

-- The campaign season for the Nov. 7 elections opened on a night of heavy, wet snowfall March 7. Democratic-Farmer-Labor, Independence and Republican parties held their neighborhood caucuses, and candidates made the rounds of the gathering places.

-- Soldiers in the National Guard 1/34th Brigade Combat Team, including a contingent from Bemidji, deployed from Camp Shelby in Mississippi for a tour of duty in Iraq.

-- The Oak Hills Christian College men’s basketball team brought home the school’s first national title for any sport. The Wolfpack won the Association of Christian College Athletics National Basketball Championship playing March 2-4 in Bethany, Okla.

-- Red Lake marked the one-year anniversary of the deadly March 21, 2005, Red Lake High School shooting with quiet reflection and memorial feasts. But for the families of the dead and wounded, life will never be the same.

-- The Kitchigami Regional Library Board restored services at the Bemidji and Blackduck branch libraries to 2005 levels. The board also restored funding to the two libraries for periodicals and new books.

-- The Bemidji State University men’s hockey team made it to the NCAA Tournament in Green Bay, Wis.

-- About 80 Bemidji area residents traveled to St. Paul for the first Bemidji Day at the Capitol. Lobbying for funding for a regional events center in Bemidji was a priority for the plaid-clad members of the contingent.

April

-- Gasoline nudged $3 per gallon. The jump in price was related to the destruction of refineries by Hurricane Katrina and $70-per-barrel oil.

-- Jeff May, a Red Lake High School student who tackled fellow student Jeff Weise, the boy who killed eight and wounded seven others at the school, was honored as the Reader’s Digest 2006 Hero of the Year. May was shot in the face, but his courageous action enabled 12 people to escape.

-- Veterans and supporters broke ground for the Freedom Defenders Veterans Memorial on the west side of the Beltrami County History Center. The monument honors veterans from 1776 to the present and future and features the image of Marine Cpl. Chuck Lindberg, one of the original Feb. 23, 1945, flag raisers on Mount Suribachi, Okinawa.

-- North Country Regional Hospital opened a new emergency department and rehab center. The additions offer more ER capacity and technology and real-life exercises for victims of stroke and other disabling diseases.

May

-- Bemidji Regional Airport added jet service, which allowed an increase of one daily round-trip flight from Bemidji to Minneapolis. The schedule went from three round-trip flights to four flights a day.

--- The Red Lake walleye fishery, closed after overfishing depleted the stocks in the 1990s, opened again, thanks to cooperative restocking by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the Red Lake Nation.

-- Red Lake Nation College graduated its first eight students after opening the two-year liberal arts and technical education degree programs in 2004.

June

-- The St. Regis Superfund site in Cass Lake received some additional attention. New, clean topsoil was spread to prevent residents from coming in contact with contaminated soil. About 35 homes tested above acceptable levels for dioxin or arsenic, or both. The St. Regis Paper Co. operated from 1957-1985. The cleanup was conducted by the current owner, International Paper, under the supervision of the Environmental Protection Administration.

-- On June 2, two pedestrians — Vanessa Rose Stillday, 25, of Ponemah, and Herman Joseph Strong Jr., 34, of Redby — died in a train accident as they sat on the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe Railroad tracks. A third person — Ronald Gary Brunette, 35, of Bemidji — was injured.

-- North Country Regional Hospital was tapped to serve as a mentor hospital for Healthcare Improvement. The goal is to enlist hospitals to commit to saving 100,000 lives by adopting six procedures proven to lessen dangers for patients.

-- The long-awaited announcement came in from the Department of Veterans Affairs that Bemidji would be the site for a new veterans’ outpatient clinic. The Bemidji clinic was among 25 new community clinics in 17 states and American Samoa slated for opening in 2006.

-- Bemidji State University continued to expand with the opening of the new Center for Advanced and Emerging Technologies for programs in applied engineering.

-- First National Bank Bemidji broke ground for its new home at 1600 Paul Bunyan Drive N.W. The groundbreaking ceremony on the 3.79 acres marked the official start of construction that should be completed by the end of 2007. The new building will feature 35,000 square feet with parking space, green space, trees and garden court.

-- The Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe held elections June 13. Arthur “Archie” LaRose won the secretary-treasurer position, Robbie Howe became the District 1 Representative and Lyman “Dede” Losh was re-elected as the District 2 Representative.

July

-- Bemidji is a base for Minnesota Department of Natural Resources firefighting tanker planes and helicopters, but usually only in the spring. The time between snow melt and green grass is a high fire danger time in the North Country. In 2006, however, the dry summer resulted in the DNR bringing the equipment back to Bemidji in July, rather than contracting out the planes to normally fire-prone western states.

-- Red Lake Chairman Floyd “Buck” Jourdain Jr. won re-election by 61 votes over his opponent, former Red Lake Secretary Judy Roy. Kathryn “Jody” Beaulieu won the election for secretary. The Red Lake Tribal Council upheld the election following a challenge on alleged vote-buying charges.

August

-- The community celebrated the first Lake Bemidji Dragon Boat Festival with races, food, music, a parade of cultures and fun at the waterfront. The top team was the Wooly Irishmen sponsored by Keg ‘N Cork and Bemidji Woolen Mills.

-- State Highway 371, which terminates in Cass Lake, was dedicated as Purple Heart Memorial Highway.

-- Concordia Language Villages opened BioHaus at its German village, Waldsee. The two-story, 5,000-square-foot residence is a high-tech design which uses 85 percent less energy than conventional buildings. BioHaus is the first Passivhaus in the United States.

-- Owners Gary and Sandy Trueblood shut down their Paul Bunyan Amusement Park at the Bemidji waterfront after 47 years.

-- Bemidji heard the news of another big box coming to town as Menards announced plans to build a store at the site of Spaulding Motors.

-- Ainsworth Lumber Co. Ltd. shut down one production line, which resulted in the lay-off of 110 employees.

September

-- Leech Lake Tribal College, recommended for accreditation in May by the North Central Association, cut the ribbon to open Phase II of the new building near Cass Lake. The new wing consolidated all tribal college employees on one campus.

-- North Central Door broke ground in the Bemidji Industrial Park for a new $7.5 million production plant scheduled to open for operation in the spring. The site is part of a Job Opportunity Building Zone (JOBZ) designed to increase employment.

-- The Bemidji Fire Department and Bemidji Police Department responded to a bomb scare downtown when an employee of Wells Fargo Bank discovered what appeared to be a pipe bomb in the bank parking lot Sept. 15. The Crow Wing County Bomb Squad also responded and used a robot to blow up the PVC pipe, which had a wire sticking out of the top. The suspicious item turned out to be a muskie lure inside a capped pipe case, but the exercise was good training.

-- The Bemidji City Council chose John Chattin to replace David Minke as city manager. Minke resigned in April to take a job in Colorado. Chattin was formerly the county administrator for Swift and Yellow Medicine counties in southeastern Minnesota.

-- The Bemidji City Council appointed Gerald Johnson as police chief and Dick Sathers as fire chief. Formerly, both the fire and police departments were managed by a public safety director, but the City Council agreed in August to divide the departments.

October

-- Kirk Malkowski, formerly of Detroit Lakes, bought the Olson-Schwartz Funeral Home from Tom Schwartz. The Schwartz family owned and operated the funeral home since 1965 when Tom’s father, W.H. “Bill” Schwartz, bought the business from the Olson family.

-- Bemidji in Bloom earned two blooms in the America in Bloom city pride and beautification program. The project started in 2005 when Bemidji eked out one bloom.

-- “Sweet Land,” an independent movie by Ali Selim based on a short story by Bemidji author Will Weaver, opened at the Amigo Theater.

-- Hunters donated scores of deer to the Bemidji Community Food Shelf. Bemidji Locker processed the deer into venison using a grant from the Neilson Foundation and the food shelf distributed the meat to people in need.

-- Grouse hunter Korey Kelly, who became lost in the northern Beltrami County bog country, generated a massive search. Searchers turned up his personal items and some clothing, but failed to find Kelly.

November

-- The Nov. 7 elections resulted in changes from the local level to the state and national levels.

-- Voters approved a sales tax extension to pay for a regional events center. The tax extension must still go before the state Legislature for approval. However, the 44-vote winning margin left plenty of room for opponents to continue arguing about the need for an events center.

-- Phil Hodapp, a Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator, won the race for Beltrami County Sheriff. He will take office Tuesday, replacing retiring Sheriff Keith Winger.

-- Charlene Sturk, former Beltrami County deputy recorder, won the election to take over her former boss’ job as Beltrami County Recorder. The position became open when Recorder Ann Allen announced her retirement. Sturk will be sworn in Tuesday.

-- Mary Olson, DFL-Bemidji, unseated incumbent Sen. Carrie Ruud, R-Breezy Point, in the Minnesota Senate election.

-- Incumbent Ninth District Judge Terrance Holter lost his bid for re-election to his former law clerk, John Melbye.

-- The United Way of Bemidji Area fall campaign raised a record $398,140 to support area non-profits.

-- Brothers Avery Lee Stately, 2, and Tristan Anthony White, 4, disappeared from their back yard in the Walking Shield development near the town of Red Lake. A widespread search failed to find the boys. FBI interviews of family members ruled out family abduction. The investigation continues.

December

-- The Bemidji State University football team qualified to play in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletic Association Mineral Water Bowl in Excelsior Springs, Mo.

-- Katie King of Bemidji marked the 1,000 birth of 2006 on Dec. 7 at North Country Regional Hospital.

-- Nicolas Suratt, 22, of Bemidji, died Dec. 19 when the car he was driving crashed into new vehicles parked at Spaulding Motors.