Time to put out the jelly feeder and oranges. The Baltimore orioles are starting to arrive from their long migration. A male rose-breasted grosbeak also stopped by at the oriole feeder. Images: Andy Frank

Baseball: Wayne State of Nebraska 8, Winona State 0

Baseball: Wayne State of Nebraska 8, Winona State 4

Baseball: UW-LaCrosse 7, UW-Stevens Point 2

Baseball: UW-LaCrosse 5, UW-Stevens Point 1

Lacrsse (women): Colorado College 17, UW-LaCrosse 6

Softball: Winona State 5, MSU-Mankato 2

WINONA, Minn. – A Winona driver was so drunk and unstable that the arresting officer was afraid to have him stand up for roadside exercises to test his sobriety, the officer reported. Scott Richard Hallman, age 73, also had peed his pants, the officer said.  At jail Hallman’s blood-alcohol level tested at 0.20% — 2-/1/2 times more than allowed. The officer had made the stop after a seeing the driver all over the road and striking a curb and almost hitting another vehicle. This was about 9 p.m. at Highway 61 and Vila Street near Gundersen Clinic.

Hallman. Admitted to three beers.

RIDGEWAY, Minn. – A Houston man was injured and taken to a hospital after his vehicle overturned on County Road 11. Injured was Gaylin Lynn Eide, 65. His injuries appeared sustainable, said a Winona County deputy. This was on the Ridgeway side of the Houston County line about 7:30 p.m.

WINONA, Minn. – Bail for a Winona man arrested Thursday in one of the largest drug busts in recent memory was set at $300,000. Justin John Dionysius, age 38, was then released on an alternative $30,000 cash bond with conditions intended to lessen the risk of his leaving town and to assure public safety. Dionysius had been arrested on a warrant after weeks of investigation by the Southeast Regional Violent Crime Task Force and Winona County and city police agencies.

Earlier: Police seize huge drug cache, also $148,000 cash

Softball: Winona State 5, Concordia of St. Paul 3

WINONA, Minn. – A police tactical squad arrested a Winona man and confiscated a massive stock of drugs some packaged for street sale, in a fifth-wheel camper parked at an East Side house. Arrested was Justin John Dionysius, 38. who has a lengthy a lengthy rap sheet, including at least two prison sentences for drugs and weapons. Confiscated inside the fifth-wheeler, where Dionysius lived, was $148,000 cash, police said. Also seized:

> 6.7 pounds of meth.

> 75.5 grams of cocaine.

> 23 grams amphetamine.

> 47 dosage units of Suboxone, which used to treat opioid addiction.

> 176 fentanyl pills.

> 9.5 grams of heroin.

> 2.5 grams of hallucinogenic mushrooms.

> 70 prescription pills.

> 248 grans of a white powdery substance.

> 10 handguns with ammunition.

> 200-plus of ammunition rounds.

Dionysius was arrested after driving away from the East Second Street address where he lived — as police were assembling to search the place. Whether Dionysius was aware of the pending raid wasn’t clear. As he drove away, some officers pursued his 2017 Cadillac XT5. He stopped and offered no resistance. In the vehicle, officers reported finding:

> 3.5 grams of meth.

> $715 cash

Back on East Second Street, officers from the Southeast Violent Crime Task Force, the Winona County sheriff’s office and the Winona city police department entered Dionysius’ fifth-wheeler. Inside, they said, were five small safes in which they found the drugs and cash. Also in the safes were two ounces of collector gold coins and several Rolex watches.

Evidence room. Two folding tables stacked with drugs, weapons and miscellany seized in the raid.

UTICA, Minn. – A farmer reported a $15,000 New Holland round baler missing from his barn near Utica. Somebody apparently hooked the baler to a pickup truck and drove off, deputies were told. There was a possibility, although remote, that a friend had borrowed the BR78o baler, the man said.  He checked with neighbors but none knew anything about it, he said. He filed the stolen property report about 8:15 a.m. The farm is off U.S. Highway 14 at County Road 33

Round bailer. Red with yellow trim

On a Wisconsin farm. Plowing from the seat of a vintage 1957 John Deere 620 outside Blair. Image: Leif Olson

WINONA, Minn. – Among residential property sales logged by Bob Bambenek, county recorder, in March:

219 Washington Street: Sanders to River Tides, $500,000.

342 Pleasamt Hill Drive: Shustrom to Sanders, $365,000.

1008 West Lake Boulevard: Peterson to Schustrom, $330,000.

50 Brickyard Lane: Heller to Palma, $320,000.

131 Oskamp Circle: Dencker to Eichstadt, $319,000.

Earlier: Winona home sales in March 2025

WINONA, Minn. – No commercial property sales in Winona County logged by Bob Bambenek, county recorder, in April.

Earlier: Winona County commercial property sales in March 2025

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Volunteers filled 29,000 bags of roadside litter last year in the state’s Adopt a Highway program. More than 1,600 Minnesotans volunteered 80,000 hours to pick up litter along 1,000 two-mile sections. The state Transportation Department runs the program.

Earlier: Spring cleaning on Riverview Drive

ROCHESTER, Minn. –  The state fire marshal has been unable to identify what caused a northwest Rochester house fire that left a woman dead in late March. There was an explosion of a medical-grade personal oxygen tank, but there likely was already a fire, investigators said. An autopsy blamed the death of Patricia Lynn Spitzack-Haylish was due to physiologic stress that worsened a chronic heart obstruction. There was no reason to suspect foul play, the fire marshal said.

Earlier: Rochester woman dies after house fire

Baseball: Luther of Decorah JV 9, Rochester Community 5

Softball: UW-Stout 2, UW-LaCrosse 1

Softball: UW-LaCrosse 2, UW-Stout 1

MINNESOTA CITY, Minn. – Two Philadelphia women who were hopping freight trains across the continent made it only 1,069 miles. The locomotive crew stopped a Chicago-originated train in Minnesota City and called for sheriff’s deputies to pull the women off a freight car. Ticketed for trespassing were Ellen Kathleen Foster, 40, and Jacqueline Mi Milestone, 30. It was unclear how the train crew, at the front end, became aware that the women were hitching a ride. The crew halted the train at Bridge Street. This was about 7:50 p.m. The women were issued tickets. Did they hop a later Canadian Pacific train to continue west? Who knows. The Amtrak passenger fare from Philadelphia to Winona is $405 in coach. A sleeper can run $1,500.

ARCADIA, Wis. – Two persons were injured when their car ran off a back road into a ditch. The car’s steering suddenly froze, the driver told Trempealeau County deputies. The driver, Rejina Hernandez Gomez, 23, and a passenger suffered minor injuries. The accident was about 6:20 p.m. on County Road A north of Arcadia.