Minnesota prep
Basketball girls): Houston Hurricanes 54, Lewiston-Altura Cardinals 35
Basketball girls): Dover-Eyota Eagles 83, Albert Lea Tigers 50
Basketball girls): Stewartville Tigers 67, Mankato East Cougars 15
Basketball girls): Rochester Marshall Rockets 61, Zumbrota-Mazeppa Cougars 47
Hockey girls): Mankato East Cougars 7, Rochester Century/Rochester Marshall 2
Wisconsin prep
Basketball (girls): Cochrane-Fountain City Pirates 49, Alma-Pepin Eagles 43
Basketball (girls): Cashton Eagles 66, Galesville Gale-Ettick-Trempealeau Red Hawks 26
Basketball (girls): Altoona Railroaders 41, Arcadia Raiders 40
Basketball (girls): Whitehall Norse 67, Eleva-Strum Cardinals 66
Basketball (girls): Independence Indees 59, Alma Center Lincoln Hornets 39
Case closed on Stillwater prison drug dealing
STILLWATER, Minn. – A Stillwater orison inmate has had another 15 years added to an earlier murder sentence for running a meth distribution enterprise inside the high-security prison. Alex Renee Kramer, 37, was already serving a 24-year sentence from Windom for second-degree murder. Kramer conspired with a prison guard, Faith Gratz, to smuggle the drugs into the prison. Gratz was sentenced separatey to 27 months in prison.
Two horses dead in fire that swept rural arena
WINONA, Minn. – Two horses died in a fire that destroyed he Minnesota Equestrian Center and its indoor arenas, one of them as big as a football field. Ben Klinger, the Winona County emergency management director, confirmed the deaths. It was not known how many horses were stabled at the center, whose calendar was in a lull between events. The center has 356 stalls for show horses. Owners truck horses in from all over the Upper Midwest for competitions. Klinger said the staff at the center escaped unharmed. This included a family who had living quarters in the complex, Klingre said.
Klinger. Winona County emergency management director.
Yikes! Burritos as offensive weapons
WINONA, Minn. – After taking a burrito smashed in his face, a Winona man called police to report being assaulted. Police arrived and saw the burrito residue on the man’s nose. The victim said he had gone out of his apartment into the street to warn Anthony Martin Arreola that his presence was a violation of a victim protection order. That, he said, was when Arreola smashed the burrito in his face. Arreola fled on foot, the victim said. This was about 6 p.m. on Fifth Street. A few blocks away outside a Kwik Trip convenience store, police found Arreola. Told he was under arrest, Arreola said he wasn’t cool with that. Police said he backed away and raised his arms threateningly. There was a struggle during which, police said, Arreola insisted he would not go back to jail “with 278 days hanging over my head” — apparently a reference to a pending drug case against him. He continued violently to resist being cuffed but then was taken down to the the blacktop .Booking took six hours. Arreola ended up behind bars accused of:
> Violation of a judge-ordered restraining order.
> Assault intended to inflict injury.
> Assault that inflicted injury.
> Interference with an arrest.
What of the man with burrito on his face? He declined medical treatment. Extra spicy? Or mld? He didn’t say.
Arreola. 37 years old. From Winona.
Felon arrested with pistol in waistband
WINONA, Minn. – A Georgia man was arrested in a car parked at the Homer Road Kwik Trip after a clerk reported him appearing suspicious. Police said tney found a handgun in the waistband of Kent Edward Jones, 31, of Lithonia. Georgia, and took him into custody. This was about 2:15 p.m. Jones was booked not only for illegal possession of a firearm but also for being a felon not allowed to have a firearm. The weapon, police said, was a Hi-Point 40-calibre pistol. Police weren’t sure what Jones was doing 1,000 miles from home but that the car had Minnesota plates, Two women with Jones were in the store when the arrest was made.
Jones. Had been waiting in car outside convenience store.
Huge fire hits Winona show-horse arena
Minnesota Equestrian Center. Horse owners from the Upper Midwest haul their animals for competition at the center. It has stalls for 356 horses. The facility spans three acres. Most competition is in two climate-controlled indoor arenas. There also are two outdoor arenas
Dozens of firefighters arrive as flames spread
WINONA, Minn. – Fire destroyed at least some parts of the sprawling Minnesota Equestrian Center on flatlands out five miles above Winona.
There was no immediate word on staff or exhibitor injuries or whether any horses were lost.
Fire departments from Goodview, Kellogg, Lewiston , Ridgeway, Rushford, St. Charles, Wilson and Winona were the first to respond. Access to water was an early challenge. Police blocked off access County Road 21, Gilmore Valley Road and other access routes to facilitate the movement in and out of water tankers and pumper vehicles.
The fire broke out about 12 noon. The cause was not known immediately.
The center is near the Exit 242 to Winona on Interstate 90 but not visible from the highway. Smoke, however, was visible from I-90 rising above the horizon.
Flames at height. Worst damage appeared to in front entrance of the structure where spectators check in. This area also houses offices. Image: Butch Kuhlmann
Competition arena. One of two indoors. Both climate-controlled.
Classy stable. Among 356 stalls. They adjoin exhibition arenas.
Wabasha prosecutor didn’t see salary cut coming
WABASHA, Minn. – The Wabasha County prosecutor, Matt Stinson, said he was blind-sided when the County Board voted to cut his salary by $20,000. “I do wish the individual commissioners who had voted in favor of this resolution had come to me to discuss things beforehand,” The vote was 3-2. In an interview with a Minnesota Public Radio news reporter, Stinson acknowledged that the Board had sent him a list of questions about his job performanc, and that he requested a meeting, and that he never heard back. Stinson said he is weighing options to respond to he pay cut.. While county boards control the local prosecutors’ office budgets, the law allows salary changes only after the county attorney’s four-year term is over, he said.
Winter’s here: Cars slip, slide, crash
WINONA, Minn. – The first weather-related winter accident in Winona occurred on Garvin Heights. A car slid into a second vehicle on East Garvin Heights Road near the cutoff to the scenic overlook. No one was injured, police said. In the county, deputies responded to three cars off the road in separate incidents – two on U.S. Highway 14 over Stockton Hill and one on Interstate 90. In additon, about 7 a.m. a vehicle overturned on County Road 12 between Wilson and Wyattville. First-responders extricated driver and called an ambulance.
Minnesota lad is Trump choice to lead Pentagon
FOREST LAKE, Minn – Pete Hegseth wasn’t much remembered in this St. Paul suburb until this week. Then somebody figured it would be a good idea to add him as a notable local on the town’s Wikipedia entry: “Nominee for United States secretary of defense.” It was a shocker but true. President-elect Donald Trump had asked the U.S. Senate to approve Hegseth to take over the Defense Department — the nation’s largest employer with 2.8 million personnel around the globe, an $820 billon budget, and the world’s most powerful nuclear arsenal. This for a kid who played football and basketball at Lake Forest High School and graduated in1999 as valedictorian but who went off Princeton and, locals say, never looked back except for a short-lived 2012 bid for the Amy Klobuchar seat in the U.S. Senate.
Sexual assault and tattoos
So how did Pete Hegseth, now age 44, get from here to there? Hegseth had ben a low-level White House adviser on veterans affairs during the first Trump presidency. Whether Trump remembered him isn’t clear, but Trump, looking at tapes prepared by staff on large screen, saw the photogenic Hegseth as as a right-wing Fox News personality who was rabidly attacked Trump’s critics. For Trump, that was good enough: “Let’s make him secretary of defense.” Further vetting was halted, which quickly turned out to be problematic.
> What about a 2017 claim by a woman at a California Federation of Republican Women convention that Hegseth raped her in a hotel room and then paid her not to tell? When the issue popped last week, a Hegseth attorney said that Henseth was being blackmailed.
> What about an anti-Semitic tattoo on his chest. There also was a tattoo on a bicep with the Latin phrase “Deu Vult,” a code among Christian nationalists that translates as “God wills it.” The tattoos got Hegseth booted off a National Guard unit assigned to protect President Biden at the 2021 inauguration. Hegseth resigned from the Guard two months later.
Miliagerial credentialstary and man
Trump himself has no record with the military. He was a Vietnam era draft-dodger with only a vague sense how the military works. He seems to believe somehow that Hegseth’s low-level National Guard experience was good enough run the giant Pentagon defense machinery. Hegseth’s Guard experience was in the infantry – not even at any significant management level. He never saw combat although he was awarded a routine Bronze Star for service in a war zone. In 2012 Hegseth was deployed to Afghanistan as a counterinsurgency instructor. He left active duty in mid-ranking major.
Hegseth’s Trump connections
In college at Princeton, Hegseth became a strident right-wing conservative. After Trump was elected in 2016, Hegseth became a low-level advisor to Trump on veteran affairs. During this period Trump briefly considered Hegeth to lead the U.S. Veteran Affairs Department but had second thoughts. Henseth, meanwhile, was continuing his Republican activism. He wiorked his way into leadership of Concerned Veterans for America, a group backed by political extremist billionaires Charles and David Koch. He made himself available as a speaker at GOP events. Jn fact, it was at convention of Republican women that his Room 528 at the Hyatt Monterey hotel got into police records.
Hegseth’s worldview
In books and public utterances Henseth has expressed a confusing range of views outside contemporary orthodoxy.
> Terrorists. He supported he 2019 Trump pardoning U.S. military service members who had been convicted of war crimes in Iraq, including the fatal stabbing of a captured teenager who was receiving medical treatment.
> Resolving political differneces. He described polaruzation in U.S. politics as irreconcilable — ” perpetual conflict that cannot be resolved through the political process.”
> Polarization. He called for an “American crusade” — “a holy war for the righteous cause of human freedom”.
> Democracy. In a 2024 he denied that democracy was ever a premise in the American creed: “Do you know what our founders did not want us to be? A democracy.”
> Voting age. He fretted about “young kids voting” because, he said, they are averse effects climate change.
> Education. Hegseth alleged that colleges teach “environmentalism and radical environmentalism”: “Universities are poisoning our kids’ mind.” In one televison stunt he brougt out his Harvard diploma, marked out the uuversity’s name, wrote in “Critical Theory” and marked it “Return to Sender.” He called Harvard is “a factory for that kind of thinking.”
> Foreign llinces. He called the NATO an outdated and impotent defense alliance.”
> Ukraine. He called U.S. concern about the Rusian invasion of Ukraine overblown. More importatn, he said, were domestic “wokeness,” which he didn’t define, and crime.
> Israel. He opposed a two-state solution over Gaza as impossible. Israelis. He said Israelis were “God’s chosen people.”
> Pentagin leadership. He called for General Charles Brwn to be purged as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , as well as all generals who favor diversity, inclusion and equity in the military. The military phrase tyat “our diversity is our strength” is the “dumbest phrase on planet.”
> Women in combat. He opposed women in combat roles. Women in the military, he said, are a distraction to male soldiers. Also opposes transgender soldiers in the military..
> CoVid. He accused Democrats during the CoVd pandemic “rooting for the coronavirus to spread.” Without citing medical evidence, he urged healthy people to work at catching the virus to build immunity.
> Capitol attack. He defended the January 6 insurrectionists as patriots, arguing that they had been “been re-awoken to the reality of what the Left has done” to the country.
> Women. He bas favored “traditional family values” and a “return of the acceptability of the ‘homemaker’ vocation.”
> Christian nationalism. He has has chest and arm tattoos connected to anti-Semitism
> Russia in 2016 election. He was vocal against special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference.
> News media. Not knowing the facts, he mocked he New York Times for a report on the 2018 arrests of Isis terrorists, even though the Times had he story right.
Hegseth. Lives near Nashville, Tennessee, a quick skip 600 miles to Washington. Also a $138 one-way flight
Hegseth degrees
> Princeton: Bachelor’s in politics, 2003.
> Harvard: Master’s in public policy, 2013.
Hegseth books
Hengseth wrote four books during the Trump era, mostly during the interregnum. The books were issued by small-scale imprints for narrowly extremist right audiences already inclined to contrarian and conspiratorial views. Promotion of the books capitalized on Hegseth’s exposure as a Team B host on Fox news and business networks. Sales were modest, despite false claims they were bestsellers.
> 2016: “In the Arena: Good Citizens, a Great Republic, and How One Speech Can Reinvigorate America.” From Threshold Editions, an imprint of Simon & Schuster specializing n conservative nonfiction.
> 2020: “American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free” From Center Street, a Hachette I,rint for narrowly targetd audiences.
> 2022: “Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation.” From Broadside Books, a HarperCollins right-of-center thought and opinion.
> 2024: “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free.” Also from Broadside Books.
Personal life
Hegseth married his first wife, Meredith Schwarz, in 2004. They divorced in 2009. In 2010 he married his second wife, Samantha Hegsegh and Deering and had three children. By 2017. While still married to Deering, Hegseth had a daughter with Fox executive producer Jennifer Rauchet. Also in 2017 was the dalliance, described by he woman as rape, at a convention of the California Federation of Women. Hegseth and Deering divorced. In 2o19 Hegseth and Rauchet married. She had three young children from an earlier marriage, besides an the out-of-wedlock child with Hegseth.
Religion
Hegseth belongs to Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, which is affiliated with the Family of Reformed Evangelical Churches, which sees jtself as amalgam of “modernism and fundamentalism, which it doesn’t define.
Axe accident
In an on-air stunt for Fox News in 2015 Hegseth accidentally hit a West Point drummer in an axe-throwing stunt on Fag Day. He missed. The video went viral. The drummer sued, claimng “severe and serious personal injuries to his mind and body,” as well as “permanent effects of pain, disability, disfigurement and loss of body function.”
News summary at mid-week: November 20, 2024
POLITICS: Trump proffers SMU grad for cabinet
CRIME: Blow by blow: Red Wing police stand- off
CRIME: Man proclaims self the devil, kicks cop in groin
CRIME: Fugitive: “Ain’t from Winona, cain’t touch me”
COLLEGES: Budget-strapped Viterbo cuts faculty, other posts
ELECTIONS: Calendar blamed for delay on election terrorism
ELECTIONS: Simon: Probe needed on alleged voting lapse
ACCIDENT: Police reconstruct fatal car-train wreck
INFERNO: Final report on massive Caledonia fire: Accidental
GOVERNANCE: Wabasha Board docks prosecutor’s salary
ENVIRONMENT: North Dakota agency OK’s CO2 pipeline
RIVER: Where, oh where, to pile all the shit, err silt
TRANSPORTATION: Amtrak to freight lines: Don’t get in our way
College scores
Basketball (men): Rochester Community 82, Luther of Decorah JV 62
Xbox, cash missing from West Side house
WINONA, Minn. – A woman on the West Side reported that someone entered her house during the day and stole a $500 Xbox gaming machine and a coin jar with $124. The items were In the living room, she told police. She said she may have e left the door unlocked. This was in the 400 block of West Wabasha Street. She discovered the theft when she came home about 9 p.m. Police began canvassing the neighborhood for doorbell cameras.
Crash on backwater bridge injures drivers
WINONA, Minn. – Two Wisconsin drivers were taken to the Winona hospital after a head-on collision on the low bridge on the Wisconsin side across the Mississippi River from Winona beyond the interstate bridge. Without explanation Buffalo County Sheriff Michael Osmond declined to release the victims’ names. Sources said they were a 36-year-old Trempealeau woman and an 18-year-old Union Grove woman. The injuries were described as minor. The accident was about 7:30 p.m. One driver lost control, overcorrected, and hit the oncoming vehicle, sources said. The bridge –- the only Mississippi crossing in 30 miles either direction — was closed two hours.
Bridge access closed. Weather and speed appeared to be factors. Image: Buffalo County sheriff
Critical injuries on icy U.S. Highway 14
EYOTA, Minn. – A driver and an 8-year-old child, each in a different vehicle, were injured critically in a crash on icy and snow-covered U.S. Highway 14 between Eyota and Rochester. The crash occurred about 6 p.m. In a 2011 Nissan Murano heading east toward Eyota:
> Kevin Douangmychit, 35, of Rochester, who suffered life-threatening injuries.
Heading west toward Rochester in a 2017 GMC Yukon:
> Colleen Jennifer Ronningen, 43, of Rochester, whose injuries were non-life threatening.
> A girl, age 12, from Rochester, whose injuries were life-threatening.
> A girl, age 8, from Rochester, whose injuries were life-threatening.
All were taken 10 miles to a Rochester hospital.
Pickup rolls, burns; occupants escape
ORONOCO, Minn. – The driver and passenger in an overturning pickup truck survived not only the wreck but the fiery roadside explosion that followed. This was about 6 p.m. on Highway 52 between Oronoco and Pine Island. Goodhue County deputies said the truck lost control on the snow-slickened highway, rolled several times, and landed in the ditch. The occupants were able to get out before flames engulfed the vehicle fully. There were three other accidents, none serious, while first-resondef]rs were at the scene.
Slick patch on U.S. 52. This was one of four wrecks within minutes north of Oronoco. Image: Goodhue County sheriff
Tiny flakes our first wintery hint
Spirea reigns. The skimpy white layer of flakes even better shows off the yellow spirea than the underlying bed of crisp brown foliage from nearby maples. Image: Steve Lunde
In-car assault: Woman to hospital for nose injury
WINONA, Minn. – Deputies were called to the Winona hospital where a Rollingstone woman had shown up with a broken nose from an assault the day before. The woman, age 39, said she was attacked in a car en route from Rochester on U.S. Highway 14 on Tuesday about 5:30 p.m. The woman blamed another woman visiting from Saginaw, Michigan. They had been arguing in the car, she said. Investigators said the assault itself actually may have occurred in Olmsted County between Rochester and St. Charles, which left a jurisdictional issue unsettled.
$22,000 to Southeast advanced machining students
WINONA, Minn. – The California-based Gene Haas Foundation, which supports manufacturing training nationwide, awarded $22,000 for scholarships at Minnesota State Southeast. The funds are for students in the college’s advanced machining and programming program. Over the years the college has received $65,000 in Haas funds.
Calendar blamed for delay on election terrorism
WINONA, Minn. – An email bomb threat at the Winona County elections office went unopened for several days because it arrived after hours followed by a long holiday weekend and the hubbub of post-election business, said county elections chief Chelsi Willbright. Once the email surfaced in a queue, Willbright said, she immediately contacted the county emergency management office. Deputies were sent to check for a bomb and found nothing suspicious. This being 4-12 days after terroristic threat was delivered, albeit unopened, no evacuation was recommended, Willbright said. She disputed an earlier report that the threat was received election night as votes were being tallied. The threat, she said, was time-stamped as coming in Friday, November 8, at 9:14 p.m.
Now come a delay of 4-1/2 days
This is how Willbright explained the delay in notifying the county emergency management director:
> Friday, November 8: The treat arrived by email at 9:14 p.m. addressed to a general county elections address, which wasn’t staffed after-hours, and funneled automatically to Willbright’s personal office inbox.
> Saturday, November 9: Office closed for weekend.
> Sunday, November 10: Office closed for weekend.
> Monday, November 11, Office closed for Labor Day holiday.
> Tuesday, November 12: Willbright was way from her computer to prepare for post-election canvassing in a separate room.
> Wednesday, November 13: Canvassing, a legally required post-election process, began in the morning, after which Willbright found the threat sitting in her email in-basket and immediately called the emergency management office.
Who the terrorist? Why not Election Day?
Willbright, as well as sheriff’s spokesperson, declined to answer news media questions about message itself, but sources said it was only a couple sentences that said, oddly, that there could be human injury although no property damage. It would seem, also, tyat the greater disruptive would have been on election day. Asked whether she could make sense of the message or why the sender waited until three days after the election to send the message, Willbright said: “I’m not going to speculate on why the terrorist waited until after the election.” Winona County was not singled out. Steve Simon, secretary of state, said half of Minnesota’s counties received he same message on November 8. Said Simon: “Affected counties are responding in accordance with local policies and procedures.”
Emergency, fire crews make 40 calls
WINONA, Minn. – The Fire Department reported 34 emergency medical calls plus 6 fire calls in recent days:
> Tuesday, November 19: 6 medical calls plus 1 fire call.
> Monday, November 18: 6 medical calls plus no fire call.
> Sunday, November 17: 6 medical calls plus 2 fire calls.
> Saturday, November 16: 8 medical calls plus no fire calls.
> Friday, November 15: 4 medical calls plus no fire calls.
> Thursday, November 14: 3 medical calls plus no fire call.
> Wednesday, November 13: 3 medical calls plus 3 fire call.
Earlier: Emergency, fire crews make 46 calls
Blow by blow: Red Wing police stand- off
RED WING, Minn. – During a Sunday stand-off with police, a Red Wing man admitted to killing his girlfriend and begged police to shoot him. The details are in a criminal complaint charging Darryl Dion Nixon, 41, with murder. Here, according to the criminal complaint is what happened:
> Police responded to 1052 “Putnam Avenue about 5 p.m. after a 911 call from a woman crying for help.
> Officers found the address quiet.
> After police pounded, Nixon came to the door with gun and blood on his shirt and told officers to “shoot me.”
> Officers implored Nixon to drop the gun, but he pointed it to his head. “Just shoot me,” he said.
> Nixon stepped away from the doorway and locked it.
> Negotiations followed. Nixon told officers: “She is not OK.”
> Police sharp-shooters arrived.
> Nixon unlocked and opened the door with a gun and yelled to be shot and fired a round toward the sky.
> A sharp-shooter aimed a nonlethal round and hit Nixon.
> Nixon stumbled back inside and closed and locked the door again
> Police negotiators asked Nixon if anyone else was with him in the house. He told them that he was with his girlfriend and that she was “gone, gone, gone,.dead.”
> Asked how he knew she was dead, Nixon said: “‘Cause I shot her.”
> After hours of negotiation, Nixon put his gun down and surrendered without further incident.
The criminal complaint, filed in Goodhue County court, accused Nixon of second-degree murder with intent but not premeditation.
College scores
Basketball (women): Saint Mary’s 85, Northland 53
Basketball (women): UW-LaCrosse 71, Bethany of Mankato 56
Hockey (women): Saint Mary’s 3, UW-Eau Claire 0
Volleyball (women): Wayne State of Nebraska 3, Winona State 0
Minnesota prep
Hockey (girls): Kasson Dodge County Wildcats 6, Winona Winhawks 0
Hockey (girls): Northfield Raiders 7, Rochester Mayo Spartans 2
Hockey (girls): Rochester Century/Rochester Marshall 9, Red Wing Wingers 2
Wisconsin prep
Basketball (girls): Necedah Cardinals 52, Whitehall Norse 44
Basketball (girls): Altoona Railroaders 45, Galesville Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau Red Hawks 18
Basketball (girls): Arcadia Raiders 46, Sparta Spartans 30
Basketball (girls): Blair-Taylor Wildcats 47, Eau Claire Immanuel Lancers 42
Basketball (girls): Cadott Hornets 65, Eleva-Strum Cardinals 62
Basketball (girls): Adams-Friendship Green Devils 46, Black River Falls Tigers 44
WELCOME
The worthiest goal of journalism is to promote intelligent citizen involvement. Such is our goal with Winona Journal. We focus on local issues so you can go about your daily activities with confidence that you can be a genuine and valued part of informed public dialogue on the kind of community we’re building.
Although Winona-centric, we are attentive also to regional issues. Our community doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
You will find opinion here. We quote and paraphrase with attribution so you know the source and can assess ideas and thoughts. Sometimes you will find our commentary but always clearly labeled.
As journalists we are committed to accuracy but not perfect. Please let us know if you spot an error, whether substantive or even just a dumb typo. We’ll get errors squared away promptly.
We’re glad you’re with us.