Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Sorted by date Results 979 - 1003 of 9873
By LARRY HOLCOMBE [email protected] LANSING - Copper Peak's future received a $20 million shot in the arm Thursday when the Michigan State House passed State Senate Bill 565. State officials and local organizers say the funds will be used for the restoration and development of Copper Peak in Ironwood Township with the aim of creating a world-class facility that will attract a series of international ski competitions year-round and provide sports-related tourism to the region. Senate...
By CHARITY SMITH [email protected] EWEN — Around 60 Panther fans who were unable to make it to East Lansing for Ewen-Trout Creek’s boys basketball team’s state semifinal game on Thursday evening gathered at the school auditorium to watch their team play on the big screen. “We could get this at home on the computer and hook it up to the TV, but this is so much better,” said Pat Talsma. “This is life-size, practically.” She recalled her experience taking a group of kids down to Lansing to watch the team play in the 1982 championship....
By ZACHARY MARANO [email protected] BESSEMER — Gogebic County Sheriff Ross Solberg introduced a new road officer, Deputy Ryan Zawodny, to the Gogebic County Board of Commissioners at their regular meeting on Wednesday. Zawodny said he was originally from the Lower Peninsula and previously worked at the Ironwood Public Safety Department before starting to work at the Gogebic County Sheriff’s Office on March 13. “I’m not a native Yooper but hope to stay here for a long time. I went to Northern Michigan University, originally for biology...
By CHARITY SMITH [email protected] Heavy wet snow overnight Wednesday into Thursday caused power outages in northern Wisconsin, including the area around Mercer, Manitowish Waters and Presque Isle, according to a power company official. Chris Ouellette, a spokesperson for Xcel Engery, said they company had recorded 2,000 customers without power on Thursday morning. “The outages started Wednesday evening with the storm that brought heavy, wet snow to the region,” she said. “It broug...
By ZACHARY MARANO [email protected] With the bipartisan infrastructure law delivering $65 billion to improve broadband access, Iron County, Wisconsin is in a prime position to capture funds to upgrade to high-speed internet, according to Iron County Development Zone Coordinator Kelly Klein. But to qualify for additional state and federal grants for underserved areas, the county needs data to show that homes and businesses have little broadband access or internet speeds that fall below federal standards, said Klein. To that end, the...
By CHARITY SMITH [email protected] IRONWOOD - The Awkward Stage Drama Club returned to the stage Tuesday night, after a nearly two-year intermission, for the first of three performances of "Cafe Murder" at the Golden Dragon Restaurant in Ironwood. The light-hearted dinner theatre murder mystery comedy tells the story of Rosemary St. John, an annoying girl with a water allergy who is murdered during her birthday party at a restaurant. Through the comedic play, the actors interacted with t...
By ZACHARY MARANO [email protected] IRONWOOD — Ironwood Area Schools Superintendent Travis Powell said that the COVID-19 case count in Gogebic County is very low and the state of Michigan is starting to relax their restrictions at the school’s board of education meeting on Monday. Last month, the state of Michigan announced that masks are no longer required on school buses and more recently, they said that they do not have to continue publicly displaying COVID-19 cases at the school. As a result, Powell said that Ironwood Area Sch...
By CHARITY SMITH [email protected] IRONWOOD - Black River Harbor docking permits will be issued via a lottery system this year, according to an announcement from the Ottawa National Forest Service. The Harbor offers one of the area's few access points to Lake Superior. According to Lisa Klaus, public and administrative affairs officer for the U.S. Forest Service, the demand for the permits has been ever increasing over the years. Klaus said the forest service continuously recieves more...
In the aftermath of warm weather and temperatures above 50 degrees this past weekend, the Iron County Snowmobile and ATV/UTV Trails were closed for the winter season at 8 a.m. on Monday. The Iron County Forestry and Parks Department can legally keep the trails open until March 31, but they closed the trails 10 days early this year because of the warm weather and rain, Office Manager and Trail Coordinator Tara Krall said to the Daily Globe on Monday. When the rest of the snow melts and the ice...
BESSEMER - The A.D. Johnson Junior-Senior High School in Bessemer was flooded with the sound of music on Saturday morning, as roughly 50 students competed in the District Solo and Ensemble Festival. The students, who represented both the Bessemer Area School District and the Ironwood Area School District performed various solo and ensemble pieces for both band and choir. The students performed one or two selections and then received feedback from Dale Smith, of the Wisconsin School Music...
By ZACHARY MARANO [email protected] HANCOCK — The cumulative COVID-19 case rate for Baraga, Gogebic, Houghton, Keweenaw and Ontonagon counties has dropped for the fourth week in a row, according to an update from the Western Upper Peninsula Health Department on Friday. The COVID-19 case rate per 100,000 population is 276.2 in Baraga County, 208.5 in Gogebic, 150 in Houghton, 182 in Keweenaw and 206.4 in Ontonagon, for a total of 185.2 cases per 100,000 population in the western U.P. As of last week, the cumulative case rate for the f...
By CHARITY SMITH [email protected] BESSEMER — The city of Bessemer chose an alternative thickness of sewer pipe for the city’s water and sewer project as a result of an increase in price for the product. The city council voted on Monday to use SDR35 pipe instead of the SDR26 pipe the city had previously selected. “Force Majeure declarations remain in effect for raw materials, specifically PVC resin, resulting in allocations and limits on new orders, with older orders of pipe having been cancelled or not ordered/ taken delivery of altog...
By ZACHARY MARANO [email protected] HURLEY - The student body of Hurley K-12 School gathered in the high school gymnasium on Thursday morning to send off the Hurley Northstars boys basketball team before they headed to Madison for the state basketball tournament. The pep rally started with a comment from Jay Aijala, mayor of Hurley, and special education associate and elementary athletic coordinator at the school. "It has been an extremely exciting week around school and around our...
By CHARITY SMITH [email protected] RAMSAY — Eric Haukkala, of Haukkala CPA in Iron River, will be the new auditor for Bessemer Township. “We hired him to do the audit for the Powderhorn Area Utility District. It seemed like he did a very good job, so we looked into him ourselves,” said Jeff Randall, township supervisor. The board voted to hire Haukkala during its meeting on Monday. The board voted to approve a health insurance benefit package with a 80/20 split. The township will cover 80% of the employees' health expenses and the e...
By ZACHARY MARANO [email protected] HURLEY — At its Feb. 15 meeting, the Iron County Comprehensive Planning/Land and Zoning Committee considered a request to change the definition of a lot in the Iron County shoreland ordinance. Iron County Board Chairman Joseph Pinardi asked Land and Zoning Administrator Erika Roeder to compare their definition with that of other counties in the state. Roeder shared her findings with the committee at their meeting on Tuesday. The request came from Wayne Riebe, owner of the Gateway Lodge and Resort i...
By CHARITY SMITH [email protected] BESSEMER - In an effort to show support for the people of Ukraine, students at A.D. Johnson High School in Bessemer have created a wall of hand-colored blue and yellow ribbons. "Even though we cannot be there to support the Ukrainian people, we can still show our support," said Kaylee Miljevich, a student in the high school Peer program. "Women need to be empowered and the Ukrainian women are a great example for us as young women in America," she said....
By ZACHARY MARANO [email protected] IRONWOOD — The city of Ironwood planning commission’s zoning ordinance revision is still not ready to be approved as discussions continued at a combined work session with planning commission and the city commission on Monday. The main purpose of Monday’s meeting was to discuss options for the regulation of medical marijuana caregivers through the zoning ordinance. Director of Community Development Tom Bergman said that two concerns regarding caregivers often came up in their discussions. “That...
By MEGAN HUGHES [email protected] People gathered at Ironwood's Depot Park on Monday afternoon to celebrate Pi Day (March 14 or 3/14) for a Pi 3.14-K walk/run. The event along the Iron Belle Trail in Ironwood was organized in part by the Gogebic Range Health Foundation. The route began and ended at the Historic Depot downtown Ironwood. The nearly two-mile trek had participants take the trail west to Lake Road and turn back around. The route had been marked with cones. After the 5 p.m....
By CHARITY Smith [email protected] MONTREAL, Wis. - A group of people, known as the North Pole Bar Polar Bears took a plunge into freezing water on Saturday to raise funds for Regional Hospice. The event is a spin-off off the Regional Hospice event which used to take place annually in Wakefield, but because of COVID has not been able to do so. The bears, decided to host their own event this year to raise money for hospice. A total of 14 people jumped into a portable water tank that was...
By CHARITY SMITH [email protected] IRONWOOD — Gogebic Community College has announced that it will hold its first in-person graduation ceremony since 2019. The ceremony will take place at 6 p.m. on Friday, May 6, and will include graduates from 2020, 2021 and 2022. “We just felt like with (current) CDC (Center for Disease Control) guidelines (on COVID-19), things have been improving and we wanted to get back to some sort of normal,” said Kim Zeckovich, director of admissions and marketing. Zeckovich said that as many as 350 to 400 f...
By ZACHARY MARANO [email protected] HANCOCK — When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated their way of monitoring COVID-19 community levels on Feb. 25 to be determined by the number of new COVID-19 admissions and staffed inpatient beds, the five counties in the western Upper Peninsula went from a high risk of transmission to low community levels. Because of these changes, the western U.P. was suddenly considered low risk for COVID-19 by the CDC for the first time in months. This may have been short lived, however, as a...
By CHARITY SMITH [email protected] IRONWOOD - Sixteen teams from 11 regional school districts participated in the annual Spring High School Quiz Bowl at Gogebic Community College on Thursday. Hurley, Ironwood, Bessemer, and Wakefield-Marenisco each sent two teams to the tournament. Calumet, Chassell, Hancock, Houghton, West Iron County and Phillips, Wisconsin, were also represented. The teams faced off against each other through the morning on all sorts of questions. Subjects included...
By ZACHARY MARANO [email protected] BESSEMER — The Gogebic County Ambulance Committee and Board of Commissioners met at the courthouse on Wednesday. Jim Lorenson, chair of the ambulance committee, reported that the contracts with the Beacon and Aspirus MedEvac services have been signed by all parties and are in place. He reminded the committee that the Aspirus MedEvac contract includes a payment to license staff and rigs at the Eagle River hospital, so Watersmeet Township will be served from the south and east. Lorenson said that an a...
By CHARITY SMITH [email protected] BESSEMER - Eleven high school students in Gogebic and Ontonagon counties will participate in the Michigan College Access Program Personnel Student Leadership Summit at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor this week, as part of the TRIO pre-college programs. This includes six students from Bessemer, one from Wakefield-Marenisco, one from Ewen-Trout Creek and three from Ontonagon. In total, the Keweenaw TRIO Upward Bound and TRIO Talent Search...
