Agency answers demand for state childcare data
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The state Department of Children, Youth and Families issued a list of payments to 10 childcare businesses to which it been accused of making payments for services that were not rendered. The agency said it was investigating the accusations. The accusations originated with a Utah blogger who made slap-dash sweeps of 10 Minneapolis childcare centers in a single-day and found no children. The blogger Nick Shirley claimed he had uncovered fraud. The video gave new ammunition to President Trump’s campaign to savage Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Tim Walz. In the video Shirley claimed that he found not only fraud but also “political corruption.” Shirley offered no evidence of corruption, however. The just-released list from the The state Department of Children, Youth and Families was compiled at the request of 30 Republican state senators who have been looking for evidence of incompetence in the Walz administration. List released by the Department of Children, Youth for shows payments to the 10 childcare centers in the Shirley video in Fiscal 2025. The list:
> Future Leaders Early Learning Center, $3.7 million.
> Minnesota Best Child Care Centers, $3.4 million.
> Learning Centers Quality, $1.9 million
> Minnesota Child Care Center, $2.7 million.
> Mini Child Care Center, $1.5 million.
> Sweet Angel Child Center, $1.5 million.
> Tayo Daycare, $1.1 million.
> ABC Learning Center, $1 million.
> Super Kids Daycare Center, $470,000.
> Mako Child Care center, zero (not operating since 2022).
Of these, the agency said, four centers have been under “active investigation.” Childcare centers are state-licensed for a specified number of children based on a complex formula that considers square footage, staffing, child ages and other criteria. Typical is 20 to 60 children. There are 1,200 childcare centers in Minnesota and 10,000 smaller family-care units, all licensed by the state Department of Children, Youth and Families. The goal is to allow parents to hold jobs outside the home.
Telling Winona’s story in match-sticks
Winona Chamber of Commerce logo. So much to tell. So little space. This key may help:
- Lumbering
- Manufacturing
- Industrial stacks
- Canoes
- Barge and rr]iver transport
- Downtown
- Sugarloaf
- Agriculture and industry
- Bridge and connection
- Rail transport
- Higher education
- Camping supply
- Healthcare
Pickup hits horse-dawn cart; no injuries
WESTBY Wis. — An Amish man and two children escaped injury when their single-axle cart was rear-ended by a pickup truck south of Westby. The horse pulling the cart also survived. Vernon County deputies said that Freeman Miller, age 53, was partially on the far-right shoulder of the southbound divided four-lane stretch of combined U.S. Highway 14 and 61. The cart, deputies said, was equipped with rear-facing amber lights and displayed a slow-moving vehicle sign. The accident was. before dawn about 5:15 a.m. The pickup driver, Russell C. Harless, age 67, of Viroqua, seven miles away, was unhurt. Harless was driving a 2005 Ford Ranger. Both vehicles were heading south out of Westby.
Mostly splinters. Collision was near Smith Road crossover. Image: Vernon County sheriff
Winona County commercial sales: December 2025
WINONA, Minn. – Among commercial property sales in Winon02County logged by Bob Bambenek, county recorder, in December:
LaCrescent: 31435 Veterans Road: Reinhart Real Estate Group to O’Brien Properties of LaCrescent, $1.5 million.
Winona home sales in December 2025
WINONA, Minn. – Among residential property sales logged by Bob Bambenek, county recorder, in December:
1432 Highland Drive: Beyerstedt to Molling, $615,0000.
75 Debi Lei Drive: Mollings to Warneke, $407,000.
182 Treetops Lane: Mounce to Haase, $385,000.
42571 Lisa Lake: Harding/Stage to Cervantes/Wilkerson, $345,000.
23146 Highway 43: Hansen to Coon, $345,000.
953 West Burns Valley Road: Schroetke to Wicka/Rutkowski, $343,000.
1751 Gilmore Avenue: Fogarty to Osburn/Brosig, $333,00.
68 Links Lane #3: Reinert to Trombetta, 315,000.
3120 Service Drive: Skappel to Hart, $315,000.
1376 Skyline Drive: Aldrich to McCarty/Roessler, $305,000.
24496 Gilmore Valley Road: Twin Hollow Acres to Marg, $302,400,
Earlier: Winona home sales in November 2025
Winona County home sales in December 2025
WINONA, Minn. – Among residential property sales outside Winona logged by Bob Bambenek, county recorder, in December:
Houston: 32653 Stinson Ridge Road: Gaulke to Swamy, $395,000.
LaCrescent: 32804 County Road 16: Gauquie to Waters, $350,000.
Rollingstone: 19905 Highway 248: Denzer to Kreidermacher, $425,000.
Fast-shopper’s busy day ends in jail
WINONA, Minn. — A Winona woman was accused of a shopping spree with a stolen credit card. Surveillance cameras identified Heather Lynn Meinke at one Kwik Trip and Sinclair convenience store after another starting about 12:30 p.m., police said. She bought food items from $20 to $50 and charged Lyft rides between the stores. At Walmart, with a cart loaded with $620 of goods, the card was declined. Her arrest followed. Police said Meinke has no permanent address. The card apparently was taken from a relative’s wallet or dropped, police said.
Meinke. Five counts of felony fraud.
“Whew,” say cops: Winona relatively tranquil
WINONA, Minn. — New Year’s Eve and the morning after came and went pretty much like a typical weekend. Police responded to three noise complaints in the city but nothing too loud. A handful of traffic accidents in the city and county were without injury.
Alternate-side parking tally at 1,141
WINONA, Minn. – Police took breather from enforcing the city’s alternate-side parking. The running tally:
> December 19 through January 1: None. Officers on other priorities.
> December 1 to December 18: 402 citations of which 45 were tagged and towed.
> November totals: 739 citations. l
No one home when fire strikes apartments
LACROSSE, Wis. — A South Side brick apartment building, nondescript except for a garish lavender and avocado paint job, was heavily damaged by fire. No one was inside. There were no injuries. The fire was reported about 5:40 p.m. The past-prime structure housed the Friendship Tree second-hand shop on the ground floor and four subdivided apartments upstairs. Firefighters were on-scene three hours to extinguish hot spots hidden in structural nooks and crannies. Smoke damage was heavy.
Upstairs panes gone. At 729 Sixth Street South. Cause not determined immediately.
Dubious distinction: First 2026 Winona DWI case
WINONA, Minn. — A woman who claimed she had spent New Years Eve as a sober driver to transport inebriated friends home safely was herself arrested. The charge: Drunken driving. It was about 12:40 a.m. that a police officer spotted Sara Marie Walchak, 28, of Winona, in a car stopped in the middle of Olmstead Street between Fourth and Fifth streets. She climbed out and walked around the vehicle looking confused, the officer said. Asked what she was doing, she answered she couldn’t get her headlamps to work. The officer found the switch and turned them on — and smelled alcohol. Walchak claimed not to have been drinking, but the officer observed bloodshot and watery eyes and conducted field sobriety exercises. A breath test suggested intoxication at 0.10%. Walchak then remembered a tequila a half hour earlier, the officer said. Later at the jailhouse she tested at the 0.08% threshold for impairment. It was the city’s first DWI case of the new year.
Our lived experience: 2025 in review
He loved Winona. And never forgot. With his fortune from the home-grown Fastenal, he bequeathed us a spiritual and bricks-and-mortar legacy: The reinvented Cotter Catholic schools. Signatures at the Bridges golf course. The Minnesota Marine Art Museum, The Main Square downtown complex and riverfront Fastenal offics. And the still-in-process Masterpiece Hall.
Bob Kierlin
1937-2025
His leadership gospel: Challenge rather than control. Treat everyone as your equal. Stay out of the spotlight. Share the rewards. Listen rather than speak. See the unique humanness in all persons. Develop empathy. Suppress your ego. Let people learm. Remember how little you know.
Politics: He was eklected to the Minnesota sente Disillusioned at what he saw, he didn’t seek a second term.
The final chapter. He had an aversion to flying and never did. When he had a heart attack at age 85, doctors at the Winona hospital called for an emergency helicopter med-evac to Mayo Clinic. He didn’t want to go. The story, never confirmed by the hospital, is that he died being wheeled to the rooftop helipad.
Dillying and dallying
Everybody knows that Winona needs a new firehall. So too a policing nerve center. In 2025 our elected city and county elders again have done nothing — nada — except gab and bicker about site possibilities and whether a combined facility is best. Fact: No site is perfect. Projected construction costs meanwhile have swelled over the years from an original $42 million to $76 million. Right now an early rejected plan in the gentrifying St. Stan’s neighborhood looks better and better. Even the former car dealership near downtown on Huff Street would do fine. Just do something. It’s time to end hiring yet another costly consultant siting study.
Time to move. Central Firehall is 70 years old, the joint Law Enforcement Center about 50.
Our first riverfront hotel
Plenty swank. Although not the ritz. Nor a Michelin five star. Hotelier Mike Rivers added 76 guest rooms to Winona’s inventory for travelers.
School enrollment
Winona public schools lost 170 students. A declining birthrate was blamed. The new total: 2,193. The Catholic Cotter Schools grew slightly, to 1,154. Cotter experienced a major loss of foreign students, from 55 a year. earlier to 33. Why? Parets abroad were fearful over Trump deportation policies, xenophobia and racism.
College enrollment
Enrollments stabilized at Winona State after a decade of perilous losses. September’s headcount: 6,160 with 12% more freshmen. Saint Mary’s, once with 1,200 students in Winona, claimed stability with 890. Still unclear was the effectiveness of new President James Burns’ rescue plan. He laid off dozens of faculty and trimmed programs in the liberal arts and performing arts.
Stealthy beer busts
Sheriff Ron Ganrude pre-empted another summer of wild weekend beer busts that had drawn hundreds iof under-age revelers to secretly arranged party sites at wilderness sites. Granrude’s solution: Online monitoring, increased patrols, coordinated multi-agency back-ups. The concern had been drunken car wrecks on backroads, brawling and injurues at hard-to-reach sites for rescuers, bonfires that could set forests and croplands ablaze.
“Bub’s” or “Boobs”?
Our little Winona secret was how to pronounce the favorite local lager from long ago. Bub’s brewery was run out of business by big-guy nationa l brands jn 1969. But a Fourth Street bar downtown kept the name alive until it closed this August. Now we Winonans have wholly lost our trick on how to recognize uninitiated newcomers. Long live boobs
Masterpiece riseth
The 700-seat concert hall waits its cladding of glass and Biesanz quarry slabs on Fouth Street. It’s world-class and like no other opera house in the wirld
A masterpiece falleth
When built at the College of St. Teresa in 1928, Lourdes Halk was gorgeous testimony to the beauty of Italianesque architecture. This year Cotter Schools acquired Lourdes for $1 million, decided it was too costly to maintain, and called in the wrecking ball.
Political: Seats up for grabs
U.S. Senate: Tina Smith retiring. In office since 2018. A Democrat. Among candidates as successor are to succeed her: Angie Craig, now in the U.S. Huse, and Peggy Flanagan, now lieutenant governor.
U.S: House: MN-1: Brad Finstad in office 1-1/2 terms. A Republican. In trouble for re-election because Trump coattails are in tatters. Serious challenger: Rochester school teacher Jake Johnson.
Minnesota Senate: 20: Steve Drazkowski retiring after 18 years. Has endorsed fellow right-wing winger Steve Jacob, now in the Minnesota Huse to fill his shoes.
Minnesota House: 20-B: Steve Jacob, an Elba Republican in second term, wants to move to Senate.
Minnesota Senate: 26: Jermey Miller, a Winona Republican with a strong Senate voice since 2010, is retiring, to spend more time with family and tend to business.
Minnesota House: 26-A: Aaron Repinski, a Winona Republican, is seeking a third term.
Minnesota House: 26-B: Greg Davids, a Preston Republican, hasn’t announced his 2026 intentions. First elected 1991.
Great shooters
Photojournalists whose Winona Journal images helped show us ourselves:
Kelly Beckman
Mike Beckman
Andy Frank
Steve Lunde
Leif Olson
Kevin O’Reilly
Nancy Wagner
No Trump and no king
Not even the anti-war citizen protests of the Vietnam era came close to 2025 Winona rallies against the monarchical Trum regime. Three rallies drew hundreds to Windom Park, two of them at 1,400 people each. See the flag, Yes, Trump vacillation on supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression was an issue too. Despite isolated Trumper taunts, the rallies were peaceful. No arrests. The rallies were locally organized as grassroots events but coordinated nationally to send a message. Millions demonstrated. Trump wasn’t listening.
Travails in the fields
Trump’s global trade war backfired on U.S. farmers. China retaliated. Our soybean farmers lost their largest export market in a heartbeat. Prices plummeted. Desperate to offset his disaster, Trump promised a multi-billion dollar rescue farm rescue from new tariff revenue. It was a lie. His tariffs had dried up imports. There wasn’t much left coming n on which to levy tariffs.
River shipping off
Early estimates showed a 27% loss in Mississippi River shipping. The loss was due largely to the Trump trade war that devastated agricultural shipping to Gulf ports for transoceanic transfers. The situation was exasperated by low water due to drought caused by climate change. Shipping compnies had to run light-load barges to avoid getting hung up on the bottom.
Canary in coal mine
Our first signal of the impact of Trump hollowing-out out of federal agencies with came early. In February a $1.1 million federal grant to Winona State University was cancelled. The grant would have funded local inter-agency prohects to better government services. More cuts followed. Most devastating: Elimination of Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center for research on the fish, wildlife and aquatic ecosystems. Gone: 86 jobs.
Weathering the storm
After a rough spot in April when investors in Winona-based Fastenal quivered at Trump fiscal gyrations, the company found equilibrium. A consensus of Wall Street projections at the end of the year showed an expectation of slightly improved stock-owner earnings. The nuts-and-bolts business globally appeared steady.
Innocent? Guilty? Somewhere in between?
Jennifer Bechle
Arrested for 2011 death of newborn Baby Angel, whose body was floated inside a carton down the Mississippi River with angel figurines. Age 43.
Eric Birth
Trial pending for Winona High School coach accused of serial improprieties with several girls on his track team. Age 31.
Justin John Dionysius
Arrested at East Side home where police confiscated 6.7 pounds of meth. Also cocaine, an opioid remedy, fentanyl, hallucinogenic mushrooms. Also 10 handguns, ammo. Age 30.
Joseline Puente Gundersen
Charged in the duct tape torture of a 3-yerod old boy in a videotaped series of abuses posted online. Why? Entertainment value. Age 29.
Jacob Andrew Klaver
Charged with pounding and strangling an ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend to death in the man’s bedroom in Holmen while she slept downstairs. Klaver from Winona. Age 37.
Ava Leone Kock
Found too crazy to stand trial. Had shot up a neighbor’s car in Elba and seriously wounded the woman. Why? She cited Biblical passages. Age 64.
Valentin Silva Quintana
Of Lewiston. To prison for 27 years for sexploitation blackmail of girls 9 to 12 years old. Ordered to pay $1.7 million restitution. Age 31.
Tom Sanvik
Local tennis impresario.Also a part-time Winona State University coach. Accused of collecting child pornography. Age 65.
Damen Duwjan Shade
Convicted of shipping drugs inside stuffed teddy bears from California to a Winona address. Age 48.
Damien Lamont Smith Jr.
Arrested after a series of drive-by shootings into Rollingstone homes late at night, a A tactical team took him down at a Winona address. Has cocaine record. Age 30.
Damien Bryant Winn
Pleaded guilty to shooting a fellow boozer outside George’s Bar at Bluff Siding. Arrested in Winona. Prosecuted in Bufalo County. Age 41.
News summary at mid-week: December 31, 2025
GOVERNMENT: GOP senators seek answers on fraud charges
GOVERNANCE: Walz to mayors’ gripes: Get your facts straight
SCHOOLS: Hospital discharges wounded Stewartville wrestler
HEALTH: Winona emergency room rated high
CRIME: Crash punctuates 80 mph LaCrosse chase
CRIME: Cops: Cigarette Bandit in custody
CRIME: Woman’s 911 screams lead to arrest
GOOD DEEDS: Bank’s holiday drive weighs in: 54,000 pounds
Minnesota prep
Hockey (boys): Proctor Rails 3, Rochester Lourdes Eagles 2
Hockey (girls): Rochester Mayo Spartans 4, Red Wing Wingers 3 (overtime)
Hockey (girls): Hudson Raiders 4, Rochester Century/Rochester Marshall 1
Man dies in Independence garage fire
INDEPENDENCE, Wis. — Firefighters found a man dead inside the burned-out wreckage a multi-vehicle industrial-style garage at a West Side residence. Without explanation Police Chef Adam Dustman declined to confirm the victim’s name to news reporters. The fire was reported about 8:30 p.m. No foul play was suspected, Dustman said. There was no immediate explanation for the fire.
Fire site. At 35543 Sixth Street. Image from last summer.
Nearing the last hour of the last day of the year
Over the river and through the woods. Burns Valley Creek near the Winona Farm at dusk. Image: Kevin O’Reilly
Truck sideways on slick I-90 at Wilson
WILSON, Minn. — A truck with a semi-trailer slid off Interstate 90 near the Winona exit. The driver. Abdihakim Noor Garat, age 37, of Urbandale, Iowa, was taken 10 miles down the bluffs on State Highway 43 to the Winona hospital. The accident was about 3:40 p.m. I-90 was slick with snow and ice.
Assault charged in odd Rollingstone incident
ROLLINGSTONE, Minn. — A Rollingstone woman her talked her way into a stranger’s house to use the phone and then, deputies were told, she turned bizarre and pulled a pen as if to stab the other woman and pushed her into a table. The victim told deputies that she fell to the floor, and the intruding woman left. This was about 11:50 a.m. Based on the victim’s description, deputies recognized Amanda Jo Lee, age, 41, and went to her home. Lee refused to talk. They issued a citation for assault. Less than an hour later Lee called the Winona County police dispatcher and threatened violence. Deputies returned to Lee’s place. She extended a fuck-you gesture, uttered profanities, refused to open her door, and told the deputies to leave. They did. This was in the 100 block of Cleveland Street — a couple blocks from the original incident on Main Street. Deputies returned 12 miles to their Winona base to mull a possible additional charge regarding the telephone threats to the police dispatcher. Meanwhile the woman in the original complaint, age 49, said she suffered a minor injury in falling to the floor but wouldn’t be seeking medical treatment.
Lee. Deputies have ongoing experience with her involving emotional behavior.
Winona snow-plowing unimpeded so far
WINONA, Minn. — City crews have been making steady progress plowing streets without yet invoking the municipal even-date even side parking ordinance. It appears that police tickets for noncompliant vehicles — 1,141 since November 15 — have gotten everyone trained for the season without any towing.
Crash punctuates 80 mph LaCrosse chase
LACROSSE, Wis. — A high-speed police chase ended when the pursued driver went airborne and cashed into gas pumps at the large Kwik Trip convenience store on George Street in on the Far Nort End. There was no explosion. Bystanders pulled Andrew D. Hermes, age 25, from the wrecked car. Then he ran. Police gave chase pn foot and arrested him. Thus was about 8:40 a.m. The charges: Fleeing police, jumping bail, and recklessly endangering safety. In the crash, police said, Hermes almost hit one bystander. Debris flew into a pickup truck at one gas pump and caused serious damage. The chase began near the Menards mega-store two miles away on Lang Drive. Speeds reached 80 mph on city streets, police said. Hermes’ white Mercedes missed the curve from George Street to West George Street. The vehicle struck a curb, sailed over a retention pond, and bounced airborne again before striking the gas pump and a canopy strut. Once caught, Hermes explained that “El Chapo” was after him, police said. It didn’t make much, the officers said. Paramedics took Hermes to a hospital to be checked over for injuries, which appeared minor, and to confirm whether officers were correct in their suspicion that he was high on medications, drugs or alcohol. There was no doubt he was confused and disoriented, they said.
Mangled tangle. After car crash-landed into a Kwik Trip gas pump following two aerial bounces at a North End curve in La Crosse. Driver had neem clocked at 80 mph.
Hermes. Banged and bruised at jail booking.
Emergency, fire crews make 58 calls
WINONA, Minn. – The Fire Department reported 48 emergency medical calls plus 10 fire calls in recent days:
> Wednesday December 29: 7 medical calls plus 2 fire calls.
> Tuesday, December 29: 5 medical calls plus no fire calls.
> Monday, December 28: 8 medical calls plus 2 fire calls.
> Sunday, December 27: 6 medical calls plus no fire call.
> Saturday, December 26: 9 medical calls plus 1 fire call.
> Friday, December 25: 2 medical calls plus 1 fire call.
> Thursday, December 24: 3 medical calls plus 2 fire calls.
> Wednesday, December 23: 8 medical calls plus 2 fire calls.
Earlier: Emergency, fire crews make 35 calls
College scores
Basketball (men): UW-LaCosse 84, St. Norbert 58
Minnesota prep
Basketball (girls): Randolph Rockets 58, St. Charles Saints 31
Hockey (girls): Rochester Century/Rochester Marshall 2, Winona Winhawks 1
Wisconsin prep
Basketball (boys): Galesville Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau Red Hawks 78, Neillsville Warriors 52
Basketball (boys): Plainview-Elgin-Millville Bulldogs 67, Arcadia Raiders 62
Basketball (girls): LaCrescent-Hokah Lancers 61, Galesville Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau Red Hawks 40
Basketball (girls): Independence Indees 53, Cashton Eagles 27
Basketball (girls): Whitehall Norse 57, Osseo-Fairchild Thunder 34
Basketball (girls): Onalaska Luther Knights 47,
(more…) (more…)
One injury in Harmony car-pickup crash
HARMONY, Minn. — A Wykoff man suffered less-than-life threatening injuries when two vehicles collided on wet U.S. Highwayv52 north of Harmony. William Russell Krahn, age 24, was taken 32 miles to a Rochester hospital. The accident was about 1:10 p.m. Fillmore County deputies said Krahn was a passenger in a 2023 Ford F-150 pickup turning left onto U.S. 52. A 2011 Honda Odyssey was traveling north on 52. Unhurt were:
> Cindy Sue Krahn, age 64, of Wykoff, who was driving the pickup in which William Russell Krahn was a passenger.
> Scott Michael Propson, 51, of St. Paul, who was driving the Honda.
> Elsa Alice Propson, 14, of St. Paul, in the Honda.
> Hans Michael Propson, 12, of St. Paul, in the Honda.
> Lilly Rae Sailo, 14, of St. Paul, in the Honda.
Everyone was belted, deputies said.
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