Kayaker rescues flood-stranded motorist
The driver leaps from the door sill of his stalled car to a kayaker who paddled out on a flooded Holmen street to help. Ths at Ryan Street and Starlite Drive. Storm sewers all around LaCrosse were overwhelmed with run-off from extreme storms. Image: Holmen Fire Department
Touchdowns close, apparently skip Winona County
Yucatan ñridgetop. Supercell drops cyclonic forces from blacker than black sky in northwest Houston County. Image: StormChasingVideo
Slow-moving front spawns twisters, some touchdowns
NODINE, Minn. – Weather radar picked up a tornado forming near Nodine, off Interstate 90 in eastern Winona County, but apparently it never touched down. This was about 7:30 p.m. A touchdown was reported in Houston County, about 12 miles south of Nodine as the flies, but no damage. Ben Klinger, the Winona County emergency management coordinator, said half a dozen of his storm-spotter volunteers were out traversing ridgetops but didn’t any touchdowns in the county. The Nodine radar blips were among dozens as a storm moved powerfully but slowly, about 30 mph, through northwest Iowa and southeast Minnesota into Wisconsin. There were dozens of rural touchdowns and also sporadic and scattered deluges of rain. There was flash flooding. LaCrosse had flooded streets.
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Man accused of spitting at officer during arrest
WINNONA, Minn. — A Winona man who didn’t want to be arrested spit an officer in face on the way to a squad car, according to the police blotter. Charged with assault was Blake Paul Eggert, age 26. Police said they had been called to the Hiawatha Mental Health clinic on Sarnia Street about 1 p.m. A staff member was aware that a judge had ordered that Eggert to be picked up for an earlier issue and called police. tyathe was at the clinic
Eggert. In custody facing new charge.
Doctor-sculptor accused of indecent teen contact
AMERY, Wis. — A retired physician who had privileges at the Amery hospital has been charged with molesting two teen-age boys whom, according to a criminal complaint, he enticed to model nude for his sculpture art hobby. Kenneth Lee GaleWyrick, age 71, was arrested on a Wisconsin criminal warrant. The arrest was at his $2 million retirement home on Flathead Lake in Montana. He was booked at the Lake County jail in Polson to await extradition. According to the criminal complaint, one victim, 16 at the time, undressed for nude modeling sessions and was touched inappropriately. The other boy, age 15, gave investigators a similar account. This was between 1995 and 2003, according the complaint. The complaint was signed by Polk County District Attorney Jeffrey Kemp. He said the state Justice Department assisted in the investigation.
Amery profile
Amery is in northwest Wisconsin, about 30 miles from Minnesota border. Located in Polk County, which has 44,00 people. The Amery hospital is a 35-bed facility with a clinic.
GaleWyrick. When arrested in Pollson Montana, awaiting extradition Wiscosin.
Judge slashes bail for LaCrosse shooting
LACROSSE, Wis. — Bail was reduced to $10,000 for a LaCrosse man accused in a downtown shooting in May. Damon-Ty Smith, age 32, sought lower bail so he could get out of jail and earn money for his destitute household. Judge Romona Gonzalez granted the request. Bail had been $25,000. The shooting was about midnight on May 29. Police said a vehicle with two occupants istopped n the 300 block of Fourth Street South. A man got out and fired a gun. The target suffered a non-life-threatening injury. Smith, was charged with recklessly endangering public safety, possessing a firearm illegally, pointing a firearm, and attempting intentional homicide. The driver, Kaylee Jo Berg, 33, was arrested for probation violation. The shooting followed an argument, police said.
Smith. Claimed family financial hardship without him.
Dad’s plea in horrific child abuse case: Not guilty
EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — An Eau Claire man charged with hard-to-believe child abuses pleaded not guilty. Daniel Tlusty, 41, entered the plea at an arraignment hearing on charges of physical abuse of a child and recklessly endangering safety.
Charges: Child sexual abuse for eight years
EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — Two men, were charged with serial sexual abuse of pre-pubescent children in their neighborhood across from a playground not far from South Middle school. The separate criminal complaints didn’t allege whether the men were a team but claimed they were aware of each other’s carnal predilections and activities. The men themselves lived kn the same street — Pine Ridge Road. The complaints said that the children were between 3 and 10 years old and that incidents occurred from 2014 to 2022. Charged were:
> Robert Karstensen, 82, whose bail was set at $1 million.
> James Barbey, 54, at $250,000.
Police began investigating in May when a social worker leaned of possible child abuse. The criminal complaints are specific that Karsten assaulted five victims and that Barbey assaulted three. The complaint says police asked Karstensen how he chose kids to assault and quoted him that the kids played on his property and were. were around all the time. The assaults allegedly occurred in homes, an RV, and outbuildings, the complaints say.
Karstensen. The charges, some as multiple counts: Repeated sexual assault of a child, hild enticement., exposing genitals, sexual contact with a child, exposing a child to harmful material.
Barbey. The chatges, some as multiple counts: Child sexual assault, sexual contact with a child. exposing genitals or pubic area.
Big Macs in St. Charles? Yes, coming soon
Ground broken. Latest location in Courtesy Corp. expansion in western Wisconsin, southern Minnesota and northern Iowa. Franchises owned by Lommen family of LaCrosse. Two locations in Winona.
Across Enterprise Drive at Love’s I-90 truck stop
ST. CHARLES, Minn. — Does this western Winona County community need another fast-food shop? Courtesy Corp. of LaCrosse thinks so. The company has broken ground for its 65th drive-through and sit-down restaurant, this at the Love’s truck stop off Interstate 90. Target for grand opening: August. Hiring has begun at $13 an hour. St. Charles, population 3,700, already has a Subway, an A&W, and a Cabin Coffee. not to mention Genesis on U.S. 14 and the downtown fixture Del’s. And already at Love’s is a Hardee’s for I-90 travelers and Amish Ovens across the interstate.
Emergency, fire crews make 43 calls
WINONA, Minn. – The Fire Department reported 28 emergency medical calls plus 23 fire calls in recent days:
> Tuesday, June 24: 2 medical call plus 1 fire call.
> Monday, June 23: 6 medical calls plus 3 fire calls.
> Sunday, June 22: 5 medical calls plus 4 fire calls.
> Saturday, June 21: 3 medical calls plus 5 fire calls.
> Friday, June 20: 4 medical calls plus 4 fire calls.
> Thursday, June 19: 6 medical calls plus 4 fire call9
> Wednesday, June 18: 2 medical calls plus 2 fire call.
> Tuesday, June 17: 5 medical call plus 1 fire call
Earlier: Emergency, fire crews make 47 calls
Emergency crew extricates man from wreck
ELEVA, Wis.— One driver was injured and taken to the Osseo hospital after two vehicles collided on State Highway 93 south of Chimney Rock. The accident was about 4:30 a.m. Without explanation, Trempealeau County Sheriff Brett Semingson didn’t release the victim’s name. The man’s medical condition was not known to deputies at the scene. He was trapped in the wreckage and needed to be extricated. The ambulance trip to Osseo was 13 miles. Deputies said a Nissan Altima went through a stop sign and hit a Mazda 6. Both vehicles, deputies said, were damaged heavily.
Lee pays $9.5 million in subscriber data case
DAVENPORT, Iowa — Subscribers to the Winona Daily News and other Lee Enterprises news sites are eligible for $41 checks for a dubious scheme to target advertising anonymously to subscribers. The court-ordered payments, totaling $9.5 million, resulted from a class-action lawsuit. Eligible are online Lee subscribers going back 4-1/2 years. Advertising was sent unsolicited to an estimated 1.5 million subscribers. The settlement has serious financial implications for Lee. The Iowa-based company has been in trouble for years with circulation and advertising losses. Lee is $450 million in debt, largely from ill-timed acquisitions of other newspapers in 2005. The chain owns 77 newspapers that it claims are dailies but that have been trimmed to three days a week.
Earlier: Lee fixes digital wreck left by hackers
Why Lee settled
Lee installed an invisible online tracker from social media giant Meta-Facebook to target advertising. This, according to a class-action suit, was a violation of federal law that requires privacy protection. The software was designed to build profiles secretly of Lee subscribers “with the hope of improving the effectiveness of advertising targeting those users,” according to the class-action suit. Lee claims it did nothing wrong but chose to settle the dispute rather spend years and millions of dollars to fight it out. Fact: Other companies that used such tracking tools have been found liable for disclosing personal information.
Tire slashed, wallet stolen up Knopp Valley
WINONA, Minn. — Somebody slashed a tire on a car parked at a Knopp Valley home. Also, said the owner, a wallet was stolen from inside the vehicle. The doors were unlocked, the owner told police. This was in the 1500 block of Pleasant Hill Drive. The report to police was about 9:30 p.m. Police hoped to identify the vandalizing thief from home security video.
Tire explodes, fatally injuring Lake City man
LAKE CITY, Minn. — A Lake City man was killed when a tire on which he was working exploded. Killed was Joshua Moechnig Jr., age34. His father, Joshua Moechnig Sr., was airlifted 35 miles to a Rochester hospital with face injuries.
Cops: Wisconsin woman admits hit-run
WINONA, Minn. — Police traced a hit-and-run accident to a Fountain City woman and cited her for leaving the scene. Police said that Darlene Mary Marquette, age 80, admitted to hitting a parked car in the Hy-Vee grocery store parking lot. She told officers that she waited about 15 minutes and drove off only when nobody showed up. A witness gave police the plate number on Marquette’s Toyota van. This was about 12:50 p.m.
$50,000 bail in $86,000 scam of elderly victim
LACROSSE, Wis. — Bail was set at $50,000 for an Illinois man accused of swindling an elderly LaCrosse man out of $86,000. Anas M. Vohra,21, age 21, was charged with facilitating the swindle by posing as a fraud investigator from U.S. Bank. The criminal complaint says the victim was told to buy a $6,000 gift card and call back. He did as instructed. A day later he received a follow-up call: An additional $30,000 was needed to rectify his account. Again the promise was made to set up a new and clean account. Then came another call, this for $50,000. The latter transfers were in a dark sedan thaty he vuctm was told would be parked and waiting at the Catholic Diocese offices on the South Side. Police traced the car Vohra. This all was in September. When arrested, according to the complaint, Vohra admitted to the swindle. Judge Ramona Gonzalez ordered Vohra held in lieu of $50,000 bail.
Vohra. Accused in three-step escalating swindle.
Pickup crash leaves Osseo driver injured
PIGEON FALLS, Wis.— An Osseo man suffered minor injuries when his pickup truck went over an embankment and hit a tree. Jackson Frye, age 21, was taken nine miles miles to the Whitehall hospital. The accident was about 11:35 a.m, on Schroeder Road near Daggett Coulee Road. He was alone.
Remember when: Isle Royale as Franklin’s deal-breaker
Pristine. Never mined. Today a national park but for only hardy hikers and campers. No roads. Access only by boat or seaplane from Grand Portage, Minnesota, or Houghton, Michigan. Among the 63 U.S. national parks, it’s the least visited. The richness is the experience – not gold, not copper. Image: National Park Service
Ben bought into myths about mountains of gold
PARIS — The Philadelphia printer, inventor and colonial statesman Ben Franklin was obsessed that the 200-square mile Isle Royale in northern Lake Superior was rich with rare minerals. In Paris in 1783 he was on the American negotiating team to end the Revolutionary War. When it came time to draw boundaries, Franklin insisted that the British cede Isle Royale to the new republic. The Brits were dumbfounded about his Isle Royale fetish. What did he know that they didn’t. “Let him have it,” they decided and moved on with the Treaty of Paris agenda to put the war behind them. Franklin’s secret was from tales about mountains of precious metals. He wanted them for the new republic. Franklin was wrong. He never had visited the island, which was 1,400 miles through wilderness from Philadelphia. But he had heard stories second hand or third hand or maybe 100th hand from fur traders that Indians ventured regularly to island and chipped copper, gold too, from the rocks. So now you know why Isle Royale isn’t Canadian although geographically it should be.
Geographical oddity. As any cartographer will tell you, the natural and commpnsene for Canada’s southern border shoild incude Isle Royale on the Canadian side.
Franklin. By age 77 when the Treaty of Paris was being negotiated, Franklin had acquired a reputation as one of the wisest people in America. But on Isle Royale he was wrong. Nonetheless the park is a gem in its own right, just not for rare metals.
Man says beaten, stabbing threatened
WINONA, Minn. – A Winona woman was charged with domestic assault on a 64-year-old man at an East Side address. The man told police that Breanna Rose Burt, age 31, struck him 20 or more times in the head and face and threatened to stab him. There had been an argument over a bedroom issue that escalated, the man told police. The arrest was about 11 a.m. in the 550 block of Hamilton Street. The man’s injuries were minor and only to fingers, police said.
Burt. Charge: Violence and violent threat.
Hortman mourning: Flags to remain half staff
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Governor Tim Walz has directed that U.S. and Minnesota flags continue to fly at half-staff at all state buildings until sunset Saturday. The internment of House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman is Saturday. It was 12 days ago that they were assassinated at their Brooklyn Park home.
On Huff Street. At campus gateway. Image: Steve Lunde
Abandoned boat retrieved at Dresbach dam
Freddie’s Fishing Pier. Home port for the boat. Apparently stolen over the weekend, perhaps as late as Monday evening,
Only access to pier is by boat
DRESBACH, Minn. — Deputies recovered a small pleasure boat floating without anyone aboard in the Mississippi River just below the Lock and Dam 7 gates. This was about 10 p.m. The boat appeared to have been tampered with. A fork was jammed into the ignition, deputies said. As best as deputies could determine, the thief then abandoned the boat. The boat, it turned out, was from Freddie’s floating pier on the Wisconsin side. For years Cap’n Tom has ferried customers to the pier from the Interstate 90 rest area on the Minnesota side for fishing, sandwiches and snacks on the pier. The boat, a 16-foot Polar Craft with a 40-horsepower Honda engine, had been tied up and secured three days earlier.
Generations of memories. About bjg ones that didn’t get away.
Cops: Wisconsin driver back, again drunk
WINONA, Minn. — A Buffalo City woman, Tonia Jessica Schwanke, was back in town and, said police, was driving drunk again. Schwanke, age 44, had been arrested Saturday. Now again, this time it was at the Midtown grocery store parking lot about 6:50 p.m. Police said a motorist reported almost being rammed on East Fifth Street. When police arrived they found Schawnke in a Chrysler minivan parked crossways outside Midtown. Officers said her eyes were watery and red, her speech slurred, and she smelled like a gin mill. She refused to be tested for how much alcohol was in her system, which is a citizen right, but police said the evidence was obvious that her intoxication was too high to be driving. Schwanke was 20 miles from home on the Wisconsin side of the river.
Utilities fret at heat-wave surcharges
RUSHFORD, Minn. — Utilities including MiEnergy asked customers to cut back their power usage through 6 p.m. because of the heat wave. Utilities face higher charges from electricity wholesalers when usage enters a peak mode. The surcharges eventually are passed on to customers. The message: Keep electricity rates stable and affordable by shifting electricity after 6 o’clock.
Fire destroys truck at Sparta fueling stop
Investigation pending. A Tomah fire crew extinguished a blazing fire that erupted in a truck parked at a Kwik Trip. No one was injured. This was about 10 a.m. The truck was hauling steel cargo racks on a semi-trailer. Image: Tomah Fire Department
Family trip interrupted when car hits deer
RIDGEWAY, Minn. — A South Carolina man was injured albeit not seriously when his car struck a deer on Interstate 90 near the Houston exit. Raymond Anthony Borgatti, 28, of Enoree, South Carolina, was taken 15 miles to the Winona hospital to be checked over. Unhurt were Katlynn Marie Borgatti, 26, and children 7 and 2. Airbags deployed, police said. The accident was about 9:45 p.m. The family, in a 2025 Nissan Kicks, was eastbound toward LaCrosse.
Memorial gifts for slain Wabasha woman
WABASHA, Minn. — A GoFundMe fund has been started by the mother of Melissa Hunt, a 37-year-old Wabasha woman who was fatally wounded in an attack at a boat landing. Melissa’s mother Bonnie Wolfe, as well as her family and friends, set an $11,000 goal for “a beautiful memorial and burial.” Donations quickly passed $8,0i00. Donations.
Family portrait. On the family’s GoFundMe page.
Earlier: Autopsy: Gun involved n boat landing murder
Earlier: Bail at $2 million in Kellogg boat landing case
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