MacDonell heads to Geography Bee semifinals



Sean MacDonell’s reward for winning the 2011 Cook County Middle School Geography Bee in January 2011 was another challenge. MacDonell took the National Geographic Society written test and earned a spot as Minnesota Geographic Bee semifinalists. MacDonell will be heading to St. Cloud State on Friday, April 1, where he will compete against the students with the top 100 scores […]

Hazel Kemp is finalist in PBS Writers Contest



WDSE PBS-8 prides itself on hosting the largest writing contest in the United States, with children in kindergarten through third grade writing and illustrating original stories. This year the station had entries from 5,062 children from 38 area schools. The finalists in the contest are invited to a young authors’ celebration at The Marshall School in Duluth on Sunday, April […]

It takes a village?



Creating Birch Grove Community School was a community effort. Thanks to the Birch Grove Foundation, established in 1985, and countless other individuals and organizations, this community now has a school that educates youth from preschool to grade five. Birch Grove Community School is now in its sixth year of successful operation. In 2006, the township of Tofte purchased the Birch […]

Class of 2011



Happy Trails



At press time, local ski and snowmobile groups provided the following snow report: Banadad Trails As of March 16, the trails were still described as being in “great” shape. The groomer said that with day temperatures predicted to be in the 30s this week and cooler at night, trails may be icy in the morning. There is 18 inches of […]

Hibernating bears



Everyone knows that black bears hibernate during the cold winter months. They tuck away some time in December and keep hitting the snooze button until early spring. I was reading about some hibernating black bears in Brainerd, MN and decided to find out how they are able to sleep for such long periods of time. It turns out that bear’s […]

Where are the fish biting?



Fish report for week of March 23 from Jon at Buck’s: We are getting near the end of the season (except for the border lakes which stays open for a couple of weeks in April) so you better get out there while you can. There’s been some action around at Saganaga. Around the islands you might want to try shallower, […]

Conservation Officer Tales



Although the Cook County News-Herald knows that the majority of sportsmen and women are law-abiding folks, there are a few that run afoul of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Conservation Officers. Periodically, the DNR provides a report of some of the miscreants the Conservation Officers (CO) have encountered. The News-Herald shares these stories as a reminder to all […]

Peewees finish season with decisive defeat of Dragons



The Silver Bay/Grand Marais Peewees hosted one last hockey tournament for the season this past weekend, March 19-20 in Silver Bay. Our local boys took to the ice Saturday morning and claimed their first victory of the weekend over Moose Lake with a score of 7 – 2. They kept their goal scoring alive later in the day against Two […]

Boomer makes All-State Honorable Mention



Brea Boomer’s senior season of basketball was memorable for a lot of reasons. First of all, she helped the team to a 20-4 record with her heads up, all out hustle, unselfish play. The team’s final loss came against Mountain Iron-Buhl (MIB) in the play-offs in a hard fought, close contest. MIB would go on to finish third at state, […]