Baseball: UW-LaCrosse 19, Bethel 2

Baseball: North Dakota State Science 7, Rochester Community 5

Softball: Depauw 16, Saint Mary’s 8

Softball: Coe 6, Saint Mary’s 3

Baseball: LaCrescent-Hokah Lancers 4, LaCrosse Logan Rangers 0

WINONA, Minn. – After a day of golfing, a Rochester man was eager to get somewhere fast and was taking the taking the infamous near-hairpin on Stockton Hill at 72 mph. Apparently Steven Wayne Moore, 48, was oblivious that he had a deputy sheriff on his tail – and oblivious too that the curve is posted for 50 mph. In the inevitable traffic stop that followed, the deputy said, the smell of alcohol was obvious. So too, he said, were Moore’s bloodshot and watery eyes. “Drinking?” the deputy asked. Moore: “One or two.” A field breath test showed Moore’s blood running with 0.11% alcohol – roughly 1-1/2 times more than the legal max. A second gets at the Winona jail showed 0.10%.The stop had been about 7:30 p.m. on U.S. 14 near Seminary Road.

ALMA. CENTER, Wis. –An explosion destroyed a camper at the KOA campground between Alma Center and Hixton in northern Jackson County. The camper was unoccupied. Nobody was hurt. This was about 5 a.m. A crew of 16 firefighters from Hixton extinguished the fire quickly. A propane leak inside the camper was blamed.

KOA campground. At N9657 State Highway 95. Image: Hixton Fire Department

ETTRICK, Wis.  – Sheriff Brett Semingson isn’t saying much about a death near Ettrick on Wednesday except that he’s classifying it as suspicious. Semingson stopped short of using the term “foul play.” He said he doesn’t believe there is any danger to the public. The sheriff gave the location of the death as U.S. Highway 53 and County Road TT south of Ettrick. Anyone with video on the 30-mile stretch of U.S. 53 in Trempealeau County between Galesville and Blair from 7 to 9 p.m. on Wednesday was asked to contact the sheriff’s office in Whitehall.

WINONA, Minn. – Police took a man onto custody after an argument with a girlfriend in which he poured gasoline around a house in the Knopp Valley neighborhood. This was about 2:40 a.m. on Hillsdale Court. Police took the man to the hospital for a mental stability check and an emergency hold.

Allyson Fergot (WKBT, May 16, 2024): “Love in the Public Domain: Ousted UW-L Chancellor Joe Gow and Wife Open Up about Impact of Scandal and Strong Relationship”

Rachel Mergen (Winona Daily News, April 30, 2024): “Winona Pilots Pave the Way with New Invention”

Nathaniel Meyersohn (CNN, May 15, 2024: “What Went Wrong at Red Lobster: Is the All-You-Can-Eat Shrimp and Crab to Blame?”

OSSEO, Wis.  – The driver who was found dead in his wrecked car Tuesday near Osseo was Jadyne M. Kaufman, 18, of Osseo. Trempealeau Sheriff Brett Semingson released he name belatedy.

Earlier: Cause of death uncertain in crash near Osseo

WINONA, Minn. – A Wisconsin driver who police said showed signs of intoxication was arrested during a speeding stop. Clifford Lee Tyson Sr., 47, of Arcadia, refused to be tested for his blood-alcohol level, but, said the arresting officer, he had an alcohol odor, bloodshot eyes and slurred speech and fumbled through roadside tests for balance and dexterity. Also, the officer said, Tyson didn’t make much sense. The officer quoted Tyson that he was with friends although he was alone and that he was walking down the street although the officer had been tailing his car for blocks for speeding. The arrest was about 1:35 a.m. near Broadway and Ewing streets on the West Side.

WINONA, Minn. – A Winona woman was charged with drunken driving after erratic weaving on the East End, police said. Tracy Allyn Benson, 52, was stopped about 3:10 a.m. near Third and High Forest streets. During the stop the arresting officer realized that Benson’s driving license had been suspended and that the car’s court-ordered transmission lock somehow had been overridden. This may take some explaining to the judge.

Softball: Saint Mary’s 7, Depauw 3

Baseball: LaCrosse Logan Rangers 6, LaCrosse Central River Hawks 5

Soccer (girls) LaCrosse Central RiverHawks 4, Holmen-Vikings 1

MINNESOTA CITY, Minn. – A deputy arrested a man in a pickup truck down in a Prairie Island ditch and who, when asked to step out of the vehicle, needed the deputy’s help to stand up straight. Charged with drunken driving was Joseph Bernard Diekmann, 34, of Winona. At jail Diekmann’s blood-alcohol registered at 0.28% — more than twice the allowable level for driving. A passerby had reported the pickup off the road about 7:50 p.m. and said the driver was attempting to drive himslf out but failing. The deputy arrived and found Diekmann unhurt behind the wheel but, the deputy said, very drunk. He smelled heavily of alcohol and had droopy eyelids, blood-shot and watery eyes,  and slurred speech, the deputy said. Diekmann denied drinking or doping, but the  deputy, concerned about substance poisoning, called an ambulance to take him to the hospital.

Earlier: Scared but OK: Search of marshes finds lost driver

WINONA, Minn. – Hate groups like Aryan Freedom Network are known  for secretive night-time drops of zip-lock bags with racist messages inside to promote their cause, as happened last week Winona, says researcher Nancy Vaillancourt. They throw the baggies out of car windows at night, focusing usually on certain areas of a town, she said. Vaillancourt, a librarian in Owatonna, is a leading scholar on hate groups in Minnesota history, particularly the Ku Klux Klan. “From the historical perspective, the anonymous solicitations delivered in the middle of the night was a tactic used by the Ku Klux Klan in Minnesota in the early 1920s,” she said.

Shifting hatreds

Unlike the KKK of yore, she said, most current neo-Nazi literature assures people that they are not anti-Catholic. About the Winona drops around the Catholic Cotter schools campus and the historically Catholic East End, Vaillancourt was not surprised.  The Texas-based Aryan Freedom Network departs from its KKK roots and solicits Catholics explicitly. “Inviting Catholics to join would make sense in Winona, with its larger Catholic population and traditions,” she said. Continuig themes of hate groups include white supremacy and  a disdan for Jews and immigrant grouos  A latter=day theme has been homophobia.

Owatonna experience

Vaillancourt knows first-hand about overnight racist propaganda drops that are hard to trace. “In Owatonna last year there were several incidents in which hate groups distributed zip-lock bags with racist messages inside,” she said. “They were thrown out of car windows at night — but only in certain areas of town.” In addition, she said, flyers were left around Owatonna just before the Juneteenth slave emancipation holiday.

Earlier: Cops: No local link seen in neo-Nazi messages

Earlier: Hate group droppings around town: “Join us”

Earlier: Inside Minnesota’s dark legacy of hate

Earlier: Remember when: Houston County’s KKK hate-mongers

GREENCASTLE, Ind. — The Saint Mary’s University fastpitch softball team opened the NCAA Division III regionals with a 7-3 victory over host DePauw. It was the first Cardinal NCAA regional game since 2005. The Cardinals broke open a 2-2 stalemate with five runs in the top of the sixth inning. With the victory, third-seeded Saint Mary’s advanced to winner’s bracket against top-seeded Coe.

Earlier: Saint Mary’s wins MIAA softball title

WINONA, Minn. – A resident at group home went berserk over a fellow resident’s cigarette-smoking and attacked the guy, said police who witnessed the assault.  Joseph Allen Maupin, 35, was restrained and arrested. This was about 4:40 p.m. in the 450 block of East Second Street. Police had been called to a disturbance at the address and thought they had calmed the situation when, they said, Maupin shot out of his chair and smacked the other guy and grabbed the guy’s cigarette from his hand and slapped him three or four times, police said. Police said they tried to restrain Maupin but he dug his fingernails into a forearm of one officer and drew blood and  kicked a second officer above a knee.  Once cuffed, Maupin was off to jail.

Maupin. Facing three assault charges.

WINONA, Minn. — Two 14-year-old boys may face assault charges for a schoolyard beating that left another boy bloodied and bruised. The incident was about 3:35 p.m. at the Winona Middle School as students were boarding buses to go home. Video showed one older boy running up behind the 13-yrea-old and punching in the face and nocking down and then the other older boy rushing in and punching and kicking the 13-year-old, police said. Staff pulled the older boys away. The 13-year-old, bleeding from his mouth, was taken inside and triaged for his wounds.

WINONA, Minn. – Smoke from western Canada wildfires that prompted health warnings in the Upper Midwest over the weekend have abated — for now. Prevailing winds had left a milky haze as far south as Iowa and east into Wisconsin. But for now the winds have eased and shifted. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency issued its first statewide air quality alert of the season Sunday. So did Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The National Weather Service noted that 90 fires were burning in British Columbia and Alberta – short of 200 a year ago. The severity of problematic and unhealthy air in the Upper Midwest in coming weeks will hinge on weather conditions and wind patterns, meteorologists said.

Earlier: Wildfires force Canadians to abandon tundra city

Earlier: Canada wildfire smoke keeps blowing south

Earlier: Wildfires rage in Alberta, Manitoba aspen forests

Earlier: Canada wildfire smoke pollutes Minnesota air

Earlier: Peril from latest Canada wildfire smoke