Party-giver: Unwanted guest persistent
WINONA, Minn. — After leaving a party, there he was at the door again at 2:14 a.m. wanting back. The woman hosting the party shut the door in his face and locked it. At that point, she said, he began kicking the door and breaking through. The woman, who said she had been assaulted by the man in the past, fled to a bedroom with friends still at the party. She locked the bedroom door and called 911. This was all in 50 block of Links Lane in the Pleasant Valley neighborhood. When police arrived, they found Bobby Darnell Green, 40, Winona, hiding in a closet. As Green was being led outside to a squad car, he tried tripping an officer but himself fell, police said.
Green. Charges include domestic assault, fleeing, and obstructing officers.
The saga of black eyed peas and New Year’s
WINONA, Minn. – Black eyed peas may be dismissed as mealy, bland rejects to Upper Midwest palates. But in the American South they’ve been valued culturally since 1865 when they came to mean survival. To this day, Southerners, especially in Georgia, start every New Year’s Day morning with black eyed peas for good luck the year ahead. The story:
He knows his peas. The iconic Norse gnome Godfrey has no roots in old Confederacy but appreciates why Southerners revere black eyed peas for breakfast on New Year’s Day. These days they’re canned or frozen in plastic bags. Image: Steve Lunde
After capturing Savannah in 1864 the Union general Tecumseh Sherman launched a 250-mile “march to the sea” to Savannah to cut off Confederate supply lines. It was a scorched earth campaign. Sherman ordered crops burned and livestock slaughtered. Militarily the campaign succeeded but at horrible civilian cost. By December people in the Union’s path were starving. There was, however, a resilient crop — the black eyed pea, which came back in time to see people through the miserable tough winter of 1864 and 1865. This humble but hardy legume, which had been mostly hog feed, saved the people from staration. To this day, black eyed peas are a Southern symbol for good luck. Every January 1 begins with a bowl of black eyed peas.
Ravages of war. After the war, in 1868, artist and engraver Alexander Hay Ritchie depicted “Sherman’s March to the Sea.”
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Holiday greeting
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Week’s summary: Ending December 31, 2022
WILDLIFE: Deadly deer disorder present in Buffalo County
SCHOOLS: Shrinking enrollment means shrinking budget
COLLEGES: Charge: UM president has conflicting interests
POLITICS: Jacob’s seamless move from $23,400 to $48,200
POLITICS: Jacob backs farm-supplier for County Board
GOVERNANCE: Prinsburg mystery: Outgoing anti-abortion solon did it
GOVERNANCE: Miller’s convenient spin on failed 2022 tax relief
GOVERNANCE: Budget analysis: Southeast Minnesota federal projects
ARTS: Acrylic layering on exhibit at Slaggie gallery
CRIME: Step-by-step: Mall of America shooting
FIRE: Theory for Spring Grove fire: Layered re-roofing
BLIZZARD: Blizzard blocks interstates’ crossroad at Albert Lea
BLIZZARD: Blizzard puts power grid in stress
Cops: Speed stop yields drunken driver
WINONA, Minn. – A night boozing at downtown bars didn’t end well for Steven Eugene Czaplewski, 57, of Winona. He was stopped for speeding on the East End – 39 mph in a 30 zone at Sixth and High Forest streets. Officers checked his blood-alcohol level. The meter was nearly off the charts at 0.30%. Things get unacceptable at 0.08%. He went to jail.
Charge: UM president has conflicting interests
MINNEAPOLIS – Former Governor Arne Carlson and two University of Minnesota leaders want UM President Joan Gabel investigated for a role in a financial holding company connected to UM employee life insurance. They claimed a conflict of interest. Gabel is on the board of directors of Securian Financial, to which the university pays premiums of $4.6 million a year. The complaint was filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and state Attorney General Keith Ellison. Filing the complaint with Carlson were UM Regent Darrin Rosha and law ethicist Richard Painter.
Securian profile
Securian is a unit Minnesota Mutual Companies. Securian was founded in 1880 in St. Paul. Today’s assets are $78.6 billion and $1.2 trillion in plicies. Subsidiaries include:
> American Modern Life.
> Minnesota Life.
> Securian Life.
> Southern Pioneer Life.
Gabel. President of UM system since 2019.
College scores
Basketball (men): Winona State 81, Upper Iowa 68
Basketball (men): UW-LaCrosse 84, Bethel of Minnesota 53
Basketball (women): Upper Iowa 70, Winona State 63
Wisconsin prep
Basketball (girls): Hillsboro Tigers 54, Galesville-Ettrick-Trempealeau Red Hawks 50
R.I.P.: Alice Torgerson
WINONA, Minn. – Alice T. Torgerson, 94, of Winona, who retired after 20 years at the Watkins household supply factory, died at Saint Anne nursing home. She graduated from Winona High School. Her family remembered her as loving to dance and eat cucumbers and tomatoes.
Details: Fawcett-Junker Funeral Home
1927-2022
Man at downtown shelter refuses to give up beer
WINONA, Minn. – A man drinking beer at the New Beginning shelter on East Third Street was asked to put it away or leave but refused. Police were called. John August Berg, 48, of Winona, also was uncooperative with officers, police said. “What did I do wrong?” officers said he kept repeating. When officers tried to lead him to a squad car and cuff him, he went deadweight, then spit at an officer. This was about 1:45 a.m. At the jailhouse Berg refused a blood-test for alcohol impairment, officers said. He was taken to the hospital and left for evaluation. He went home on his own but not without charges being field: Trespassing and obstructing the legal process.
Now cops know why car was weaving
WINONA, Minn. – The way the Wisconsin driver smelled, the cops thought they better test his sobriety. The blood-alcohol level for Logan Jon Ramer, 35, of Whitehall, registered 0.28% — 3-/1/2 times the cut-off. Yes, he was drunk. Ramer had been stopped about 2:15 a.m. at Fifth and High Forest streets on the East End.
Ramer. Stopped for weaving over center line.
Acrylic layering on exhibit at Slaggie gallery
WINONA, Minn. – Winona native Paul Burmeister opens an exhibit of his layered acrylic regional buildings at the Winona Historical Museum’s Slaggie Gallery on Friday. Opening reception: 4 to 6 p.m. Burmeister, an administrator at Wisconsin Lutheran College in Milwaukee, uses a technique that begins with drawings, Then he builds up thin layers of transparent, translucent and opaque acrylics. For subjects he likes “regional vernacular buildings.” As a studio artist, values rhythm, proportion and especially color.
Winona through his eyes. Do you recognize this landmark?
Burmeister. Holds an art degree from Winona State University and a master’s from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He taught at Winona State and Saint Mary’s University in the early 1990s.
College scores
Basketball (men): Saint Mary’s 83, North Park 82
Basketball (women): Saint Mary’s 80, Massachusetts Tech 53
Minnesota prep
Basketball (boys): Winona Winhawks 55, Chatfield Gophers 38
Basketball (boys): Winona Cotter Ramblers 43, Prairie du Chien Blackhawks 37
Basketball (girls): Prairie du Chien Blackhawks 57, Winona Cotter Ramblers 32
Hockey (boys): Winona Winhawks 7, Waseca Blue Jays 3
Wisconsin prep
Basketball (boys): Winona Cotter Ramblers 43, Prairie du Chien Blackhawks 37
Basketball (girls): Prairie du Chien Blackhawks 57, Winona Cotter Ramblers 32
Rochester driver dies after I-35E crash
ST. PAUL, Minn. – A Rochester woman died at a hospital after a one-car accident on Interstate 35 East. Police said that Qushawna Dawn-Shamea Smth Pugh, 31, made a sudden lane change, lost control, and crashed into a median wall. This was at the spaghetti interchange with I-94 shortly before 8 p.m. She was driving a 2007 Chevrolet Avero.
Chain-reaction wreck kills Kellogg man
KELLOGG, Minn. – A Kellogg man driving a pickup truck died in a three-vehicle collision between Kellogg and Plainview on Highway 42. Killed was Hunter Bernard Christensen, 22. Police said Christensen’s 2006 Chevrolet Silverado rear-ended a 2021 Chevrolet Blazer. A 2005 Ford Escape, which was trailing, plowed into the wreck. All were southbound toward Plainview. A second driver, Jon Price Lackey, 69, of Plainview, in the Blazer, was taken 35 miles to a Rochester hospital. A third driver, Leo Arthur Eischen, 81, of Rochester, in the Escape, was unhurt. The accident was about 4:10 p.m. Pavement was dry, police said.
Rear-ended Jeep spins into oncoming vehicle
PLAINVIEW, Minn. — Four persons were injured in a collision west of Plainview and taken 24 miles to a Rochester hospital. The injuries were non-life threatening police said. The accident was about 4 p.m. west of Plainview on Highway 247. The police reconstruction:
> A 2005 Chevrolet Silverado driven by Robert Edwin Weis, 42, of Plainview, westbound, stopped to turn south onto 265th Avenue.
> A 2016 Jeep Renegade, driven by Shannon Joy Nelson, 46, of Plainview, rear-ended the Weis pickup.
> The Nelson Jeep spun around and collided with an eastbound 2014 Jeep Cherokee driven by Jacklyn Ann Matson, 20, of Albert Lea. Matson was unhurt. Passengers: Gloria Jean Nelson, 81, of Plainview, and Lillianna Joy Van De Walker, 20, of Plainview.
Federal agencies in new water quality accord
WASHINGTON – The muddle between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers on what constitutes “navigable waters” under the law has been settled. A new agreement creates a mutual regulatory definition both to protect people’s health and to support the interests of farmers, ranchers and landowners. The definition revises the 1972 Clean Water Act. The goal: A consistent understanding between federal agencies on policy on U.S. waters including the Upper Mississippi.
Step-by-step: Mall of America shooting
BLOOMINGTON, Minn. – From surveillance video, social media reports and witness accounts, police have reconstructed the fatal shooting on Johntae Hudson last week in public space at the Mall of America. The reconstruction became available in court documents accompanying murder and riot charges against four teenagers. The reconstruction:
> A teenager confronted a friend of Hudson at the mall and followed the friend and the friend’s mother out of the mall.
> The friend returned to the mall and joined Hudson and a second friend near the first floor up-escalator outside the Nordstrom department store.
> Hudson walking with these friends and attempting to get on the escalator.
> A group of youths. two of them brandishing handguns with extended magazines, engaged in argument with Hudson.
> Hudson attempted to leave the encounter, but two teens in the other group blocked him.
> Lavon Longstreet pointed a gun toward Hudson and fired. With Longstreet was TaeShawn Adams-Wright, 18, in a firing stance. In all, eight to 10 shots were fired.
> The shooters and others scattered.
> A mother and daughter shopping nearby dived to the ground for cover. The mother took one or two shots — one in her coat A bullet perhaps the same one, grazed a buttock. The injuries were superficial.
> A nearby police officer tried to revive Hudson but failed.
> A .40-caliber firearm was found near Hudson’s body.
> The medical examiner blamed Hudson’s death on multiple gunshot wounds. Two of the bullets were discharged near the victim’s body, the examiner said. The examiner also reported three graze wounds.
> Some individuals in the assailant group gathered at a White Castle burger shop nearby the mall, then left apparently for a St,. Louis Park house, 10 miles away, where they were arrested by a SWAT team the next morning
The root of antagonism remained unclear even a week after charges were filed. Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges blamed “some type of longstanding feud.”
Jacob’s seamless move from $24,300 to $48,200
ELBA, Minn. – County Board member Steve Jacob said he isn’t pleased that his County District 3 will be without representation for five to eight months after he leaves to become a state legislator in January. “But it is as it is,” he said in a Winona Post interview. Why the gap in representation? Jacob cited legal scheduling complexities for a special election for his soon-to-be vacant County Board seat before May. He also acknowledged that the special election could be delayed even until August. Somewhat adroitly Jacob sidestepped that he himself could have avoided the gap in District 3 representation He could have resigned the County Board the morning of November 9 after winning election to State House of Representatives. He even could have resigned six months earlier, in May, when he declared his candidacy for the Legislature. He chose not to — even though the county’s election supervisor, Sandra Suchla, informed him of his options. In the Post interview Jacob explained what he did and didn’t do this way: “My gut response to that was no how, no way, was I going to have the name Steve Jacob associated with quitting.” Instead he chose to continue on the County Board at $24,300 a year plus insurance until January 3 — the very last end of his term on the County Board, which also is the date he will be take the oath in St. Paul as a state legislator. This way he doesn’t miss a single government paycheck. He goes immediately, you might say slickly, to $48,200 a year plus $66 for daily expenses and as much as $1,600 a month for temporary housing in St. Paul. Meanwhile, one-fifth of the Winona County citizens, the roughly 20,00 living in District 3, have no voice in county business for five to eight months.
Earlier: Jacob backs farm-supplier for County Board
Jacob. Bidding good-bye to Winona County Board with resignation not until the last possible hour. Then straight away to State House payroll. It makes personal financial sense, but what about the void – five to eight months – in representation for the people of County District 3 on the County Board?
Army Corps names hall fame inductee
ST. PAUL, Minn. – A veteran Army Corps contracting officer, Mark Koenig., whose jobs included many Mississippi dam projects, will be conducted into the Corps’ St. Paul District hall of fame. Koenig has been with the Corps 41 years. He was the District’s emergency manager during the Global War on Terror and the 2011 Red River and Souris river floods. He deployed twice to Afghanistan.
Koenig. Most recent title: chief of construction.
Fire levels rural Rochester house; nobody home
ROCHESTER, Minn. – A large abandoned house southwest of Rochester went up in flames, a total loss, about 2 a.m. A neighbor a mile away reported the fire. By then there wasn’t much that firefighters could do, especially because water had to be trucked in. The area had no hydrants. Address: 233 County Road 16 .
In High Forest area. Loss estimated at $25,000 to $30,000. Image: Rochester Fire Department
Score one for sweets from home kitchens
MADISON, Wis. – A county judge ruled that baked foods and shelf-stable goods from home kitchens can be sold without a commercial license. Judge Rhonda Lanford was specific on candy, cocoa bombs, fried doughnuts and roasted coffee beans. So too cider, maple syrup and pickles .The ruling was a victory for the Wisconsin Cottage Food Association.
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