Railroad plan: One-person train crew
OMAHA, Neb. — The Union Pacific railroad, which operates a daily freight between Winona and LaCrosse, is testing one-person train crews in Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming. The goal: Eliminate onboard conductors systemwide. Nine UP states, including Minnesota and Wisconsin, require two people in locomotive cabs for safety reasons. The UP plan is to assign conductors to pickup trucks to follow trains for emergencies. Labor unions are wary.
Rollingstone teens hurt on separate dirt bikes
ROLLINGSINE, Minn. — Two boys, one 17 and one 13, were injured when their dirt bikes overturned just north of Rollingstone. Their injuries were non-life threatening, deputies aid. Sheriff Ron Ganrude declined to release their names immediately. The boys, both from Rollingstone, were heading toward town on State Road 248 when they left the path. This was about 3:45 p.m. near the Winona County Road 25 junction to Lewiston. The 17-year-old was taken 12 miles to the Winona hospital, the 13-year-old 40 miles to a Rochester hospital. Both were wearing helmets, deputies said.
R.I.P.: Ray Nelson
UTICA, Minn. — Raymond J. Nelson, 95, of Utica, a carpenter, died 2023 at St. Charles Assisted Living. He worked at Wolter Lumber and for Roger Brown. He also worked at GTA Elevator and the ASCS office. He tended bar at Shattuck’s in Utica and the St. Charles American Legion. For many years he worked in maintenance at the Turkey Store. He attended school in Minnieska and Winona High School until his father was injured and he stayed home to farm. He served in the U.S. Army in Alabama during the Korean War.
Details: Hoff Funeral Home
1929-2023
Our galloping gourmands: At Little Miami
FREEBURG, Minn. – Imagine it being in 1938 and tooling through the gorgeous bluffs near the Iowa border in your Model A coupe and turning the Crazy Curve at Crazy Creek and finding, surprise, a supper club. It’s still there on County Road 249, not much changed, and a welcome respite. They’ll tell you the name, Little Miami, comes from a spring-fed pool out back where locals have swum, well, probably since the since 1850s when farmers first settled in the area. There remains a country authenticity. Our server was monosyllabic. “Yup” he said to every query: Yup, yup, yup. Can’t get more country than that. Winona Journal’s Galloping Gourmands found the menu uninspired. The meals, although generally acceptable, fell short of the splendid experience of getting there through the beautiful bluffs. Pricing: More than 1938 but wholly reasonable. Comments:
> Cod. A routine batter. Will try the steamed option next time. $10. Walleye, shrimp available.
> Chicken. Broasted but, oddly, unevenly skinned. $10 quarter.
> Tossed salad: Great greens with the surprise of crunchy lettuce core cubes. Included with dinners. $4.
The Galloping Gourmands roam the region for great places to dine. The panel pays full fare. To assure dispassionate reviews, the panelists don’t identify themselves.
“Le Gourmand.” By the Belgian master Georges Croegaert. From his series in the late 1800s of a cardinal in sumptuous surroundings.
Remote delight. Mostly in getting there. West from Brownsville or east from Caledonia on County Road 3, turn south at Crazy Corners Road.
R.I.P.: Tina Williams
RUSHFORD, Minn. – Tina Williams, 59, of Rushford, who worked at J & L a few years, died at Gundersen hospital in La Crosse. She graduated from Lewiston High School in 1982. She struggled with multiple sclerosis most of her adult life, but it didn’t show until her walking was affected. Friends and family remembered her enduring positive attitude.
Detailw: Watkowski-Mulyck Funeral Home
1963-2023
R.I.P.: David Busch
WINONA, Minn. – David Arthur Busch, of Winona, who was afflicted with encephalitis from a mosquito bite when he was 3, died at age 71. Near death from the bite, part of his brain die., He became an epileptic with grand mal seizures. At age 15, David dropped out of school to become a farm hand. He also worked carpentry and lived in a converted school bus. For a while he was a long-distance tucker hauling cattle. He also was on a tree-planting crew and himself planted 3,000 to 4,000 trees a day. In his late 30s\ he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Al his life, despite travails, he kept going.
Detail: Watkowski-Mulyck Funeral Home
1951-2023
Seeing a dam, lock behind the scenes
HASTINGS, Minn. – The Army Corps has invited the public to an open house Saturday at its Mississippi River Lock and Dam 2 in Hastings. Time: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 1350 Lock and Dam Road.
Week’s summary: Ending July 15, 2023
RIVER: Feud over: Army Corps cedes silt disposal to Wabasha
RIVER: River news: First ecosystem wing-dam notching
CRIME: Cops lift DNA, fingerprints from ghost guns
CRIME: Prosecutor on Fravel: 40 years not enough
GOVERNANCE: Winona air-freshener conviction thrown out
GOVERNANCE: Pelowski: Upbeat post-mortem on 2023 Legislature
COLLEGES: Ceremony fetes Southeast College championship welders
COLLEGES: Video: Southeast College welders at work
RAILROADS: More trans-con Winona rail traffic due
REMEMBRANCE: R.I.P.: Harland Knight
REMEMBRANCE: R.I.P.: Mark Swart
ARTS: Library resumes tours of art treasures
SCHOOLS: Cotter assumes control of SMU arts conservatory
CRIME: A bruising battle overnight in resisting arrest
CRIME: E-scooter mystery: A gang of thieves in Dodge?
POLITICS: Formal drunk-driving charge awaits St. Cloud solon
JOURNALISM: Winona newspaper triples online subscription rate
POLITICS: Court backs up Walz on 2020 face- mask order
Earlier: Week’s summary: Ending July 8, 2023
DWI arrest: Deputy undeterred by man’s radio, dog
LEWISTON, Minn. – A sheriff’s deputy saw an oncoming pickup truck not signaling and weaving on U.S. Highway 14 above Farmers Park at Rolling Hills Road. The deputy turned around and gave chase. A mile farther at the Lewiston city limits the deputy caught up. The driver, Jesse Richard Whalen, 33, of Rochester, was drunk, the deputy said. The deputy reported that as he tried to communicate with Whalen, the guy kept fumbling with the vehicle’s radio and focusing on his dog. Then came field sobriety tests and a blood-alcohol test. The man’s blood was running 0.14% alcohol – close to twice the legal limit for driving. Later at the jail another test showed 0.15%. The deputy wasn’t surprised. He said Whalen had blood-shot and watery eyes, droopy lids and slurred speech and smelled drunk.
An unexpected ending to stolen boat saga
WINONA, Minn. – Four days after a 14-foot boat was reported stolen from the St. Charles Street landing, a deputy on patrol spotted it behind Latsch Island near the Old Wagon Bridge. Onboard the deputy found items belonging presumably to the thief. The boat was returned to the owner, who was pleased to have his boat back. When informed of who the thief was, the owner told the deputy he had no interest in pressing charges. Nothing of his in the had been taken, he said. A friend? A relative? He didn’t say.
Navy jumper slams ground at bad angle; badly hurt
DULUTH, Minn. – A paratrooper with the U.S. Navy Leap Frog demonstration team was injured seriously in a bad landing at the annual Duluth Air Show. Thousands of people saw the accident: Two parachuters were doing a trick with their legs locked, but one didn’t unlock in time to land safely. The sailor was airlifted to a Duluth hospital. The Navy declined to release sailor’s name but said he was in stable albeit serious condition. The Leap Frog team cancelled its next jumps at the show, which continues through Sunday.
Unlocking too late. After letting go of a fellow jumper, the parachutist on the right struggles to right himself to the ground upright for landing but without enough attitude. An estimated 30,000 spectators witnessed the accident.
Canadian smoke shrouds Lake Pepin visibility
LAKE CITY, Minn. – The Wisconsin bluffs on Lake Pepin were invisible from two miles away in Lake City. High concentrations of smoke particulates from Canada wildfires was expected at least through most of Sunday.
R.I.P.: Cleo Busian
ST. CHARLES, Minn. – Cleo Joanne (Kisro) Busian, who worked 38 years at the St. Charles nursing home, died at age 92. She was the 1948 valedictorian at Dover High School. She enrolled in the Methodist Kahler Cadet Nurse Corps to become a registered nurse in 1948. She trained at the University of Minnesota maternity unit. She also worked at St. Marys hospital in Rochester and later in private-duty nursing. She was musically talented, especially with her voice. She learned to play her mother’s upright piano by ear. She was known as a first-rate quilter. She cooked and canned foods until shortly before her death.
Details: Hoff Funeral Home
1927-2023
Winona newspaper triples online subscription rate
WINONA, Minn. –In its struggle to find a business model to keep afloat, the Winona Daily News has tripled its online subscriptions to $27 a month – the fourth increase 2-1/2 years. As recently as 2020 subscriptions were $9. The hike was announced in a letter to online subscribers on Daily News stationery but unsigned. The decision was made, sources said, by top-tier executives at the Lee Enterprises, the newspaper chain that owns the Daily News. The chain, which owns 77 newspapers in 26 states, is burdened heavily in debt and in financial difficulty. The record in online: subscriptions:
2020 (February): $9 a month
2020 (August): $11.49
2021 (December): $17.99
2022 (December): $19.99
2023 (July): $26.99
The chain recently added a third reporter to the Winona staff but this only after limping along with only one reporter for more than a year and skipping city and county government and schools coverage. Police news was covered by telephone from the chain’s LaCrosse office. Meanwhile, advertisers have largely abandoned the print edition. The losses have not been offset online advertising.
Earlier: Almanac: Lee Enterprises
Saga of shrinkage
Lee Enterprises acquired the Winona Daily News in 1980 from the White family and soon added a Sunday edition as an additional forum for advertising revenue. The chain also began inexorable pressure to reduce costs:
> Page size was reduced from eight columns per page to six and later five.
> The printing presses were torn out and production was moved to Lee’s LaCrosse plant.
> Printing in LaCrosse was abandoned and moved without announcement to Lee’s Madison plant.
> The sprawling Winona newspaper plant at 601 Franklin Street was sold and remaining Winona operations were moved to rental space at the old knitting mill in the Far East End industrial area.
> A Christmas Day edition was dropped to reduce costs.
> Editing of Winona content was moved quietly to LaCrosse.
> Editing of the Winona product was moved to a Lee operation in Indiana, also without announcement.
> The skeletal remaining Winona staff was moved to a modest downtown storefront.
> Without announcement, Lee abandoned having an editor, transferring those responsibilities to a regional news desk in LaCrosse.
> Local subscriber questions throughout the Lee empire were deferred to central call centers, with staff poorly trained to handle local queries and complaints.
> Tuesday and Thursday editions were dropped.
> Home delivery was discontinued with a thrice-weekly edition going to mail delivery out of Madison.
> The latest subscription increase was dated July 26 but arrived to subscribers 20 days later, a delay symbolizing continuing confusion and chaos in Lee business operations.
Charge: Minnesota tattooist trafficked in body parts
WHITE BEAR LAKE, Minn. – A sought-after Minnesota tattoo artist whose work includes the macabre, Matthew R. Lampi, was indicted by a federal grand jury as part of a network that bought and sold human remains. Lamp, age 52, owns the Get to the Point tattoo studio in the north St. Paul suburb of White Bear Lake. In his online promotions, Lampi advertises “dome art” for clients to enjoy while he works on their personal body art. The domes include bone-like creations, although whether they are facsimiles or actual human body parts is impossible to determine from Lampi’s online photos. Whether he sold the domes was not stated in the indictment, which charged only that he trafficked in remains. The remains cited in the indictment, which came from a federal grand jury empaneled in Pennsylvania. The charges: Conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen human remains including brains, lungs and stillborn babies. The indictment dealt with remains that the grand jury concluded had originated at the Harvard Medical School and an Arkansas mortuary. Lampi’s White Bear Lake studio is in the Wildwood Shopping Center. The indictment lists Lampi’s home address as East Bethel, 30 miles away.
Glass dome art. Lampi’s artistry had come to include dome art. Three-dimensional pieces are displayed in a “cloche,” a French word to protect outdoor plants from frost.
Literally a rough ride after rotary miscue
WINONA, Minn. – A driver jumped a curb and hit a tree in one of the new Mankato Avenue rotary intersections. Then, with one tire flat, he drove off on a rim. Police followed the telltale scrapes in the pavement and arrested Jonathan Patrick Catlin, 22. of Winona. This was about 3:33 a.m. Was Catlin confused by the new rotary intersection as have been many drivers? Perhaps. Police, however, suspected he was under the influence. He refused to provide a blood-alcohol sample. But with a judge’s consent, police took one anyway. Results weren’t back from the lab immediately.
Go figure: Booze lingers really long in his blood
WINONA, Minn. – The couple drinks that Zachary Thomas Drazkowski, 22, of Winona, admitted to earlier in the day apparently were taking quite a while to wear off. In a traffic stop sobriety test at 2:19 a.m., his blood’s alcohol content registered at 0.10% — one-fifth above the state’s definition of impairment. Later at the jail the reading was down a bit, to 0.09% — still too high. Drazkowski was charged with drunken driving. The stop had been on Johnson Street near downtown.
Police foot chase ends with fake ID, arrest
WINONA, Minn. – A Windom man, at 19 too young to be drinking legally, was arrested after a police foot chase. The chase started when an officer spotted Trenton Thomas Renquist peeing in the bushes at Broadway and Lafayette about 1:50 a.m.. He zipped up and zipped off, police said. He was tackled a block away. He smelled of alcohol and had bloodshot and watery eyes, the officer said. Asked for his papers, Renquist produced fake identification that listed him of age to buy alcohol. His blood-alcohol registered at 0.20% — 2-1/2 times what’s allowed. When the facts were sorted out, Renquist was charged with public urination and fleeing an officer. Friends took him home for the night to sober up. It wasn’t Renquist’s first run-in with the law over alcohol. In March 2022 be was charged with drunken driving at Broadway and Huff. in the same neighborhood.
Incredible: What a little of wine can do
WINONA, Minn. – A couple glasses of wine was all she had been drinking, she told police in a traffic stop. The officer who made the stop was dubious. The eyes of Amanda Lyn Lanik, 42, of Golden Velley, were watery and bloodshot and her speech slurred, the officer said. He took her in. In a jail sobriety test, her blood showed an 0.18% concentration of alcohol, way higher the allowable 0.08%. She faces a fine for drunken ds\riving. The stop was about 11:30 p.m. at Fifth and High Forest streets on the East End.
Cops: Driver’s blood-alcohol at 0.22%
WINONA, Minn. – A Winona driver, Jesse Lee Akerson, 27, was charged with drunken driving after a sobriety test during a traffic stop concluded his blood-alcohol level was 0.22%. Only a max of 0.08% is permitted for driving legally. The traffic stop was about 11:45 p.m. at King and Chestnut streets on the East End.
Akerson. Test: Too much booze coursing through his veins.
UTV driver hurt in ramming parked car
WINONA, Minn. – People on Olmsted Street told police they were worried when Roger Allan Brennan, 55, mounted his Polaris four-wheeler after partying. They had cause to worry. Brennan rammed into a parked car and ended up in the hospital. No one else was hurt. This was about midnight just off Fifth Street. At the hospital Brennen, who is from Winona, was boisterous and belligerent and refused a blood-alcohol test, police said. Later Brennan claimed not to remember a thing. Nonetheless, he was charged with drunken driving.
Fatality: Biker hits deer, then oncoming pickup
LAKE CITY, Minn. – A motorcyclist was killed after hitting a deer and then colliding into a trailer being towed by an oncoming pickup truck. Spencer Neal Streed, 29, of Lake City, died outright, said first-responders. The accident was about 11:50 a.m. on Highway 63 near Orchard Lane, just beyond the city limits. A Goodhue family of five in the truck escaped injury. The driver was Shamus James Ryan, 37 of Goodhue. The Ryans, including thrfee kids, one 11 and two 7, were heading into of town. Streed was heading
R.I.P.: Robert Werner
WINONA, Minn. – Robert H Werner, 86, of Winona, who worked at Winna High School for 37 years and retired in 1995, died at home. In retirement he worked another 20 years at Saint Mary’s College. He belonged to the American Legion and Eagles lodge. He served 19 years in National Guard, retiring as a master sergeant.
Details: Hoff Funeral Home
1936-2023
Hail badly damages greenhouse roof
ALTURA, Minn. – One of the hail storms that swept through western Winona County overnight hit the Pork & Plants nursery hard. Glass panels in the retail greenhouse roof were smashed. No injuries were reported. Meanwhile, auto body shops in the area were scheduling appointments a week out. Roofing contractors were making door-to-door rounds and offering free inspection and repair estimates. At Pork & Plants, on County Road 114, roofs besides the retail greenhouse also were damaged. So were crops on the farm. Even so, owner Ann Kreidermacher said that the nursery would be open Saturday as planned for the final sales day of the season. Hours: 9 a.m. 12 noon. “Please excuse the mess,” she said. “Being a farmer, you never know what life or the weather will throw at you.” There may be a delay on the family’s plan to lake off for vacation at a lake cabin, she said.
Earlier: Overnight hail downs tree branches
R.I.P.: Pauline Knight
WINONA, Minn. – Pauline Knight,, 94, of Winona, who with her husband Harland created a $2,100 annual scholarship for an education student Winona State University, died at St. Anne Extended Healthcare. She grew up in LeRoy. With a sister-in-law she opened K&K Drive-In and made french fries from scratch every day. She had a passion for education and campaigned to start kindergarten in LeRoy schools. She later moved to Austin, then in 1973 to Winona. She was politically active and involved in community organizations, especially in education.
Details: Hoff Funeral Home
1929-2023
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