PINE CITY
THURSDAY, MAY 21, 2015 VOL. 130 NO. 21 www.pinecitymn.com $1.00
TRACK TEAMS TOPS: Girls, boys squads both take home conference championships. P12
Hit and run leads to standoff
HONORING OUR R VE ETERANS
BY MIKE GAINOR EDITOR@PINECITYMN.COM
NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION
Alvin Dvorak helped his crewmates escape the bombed and burning USS Arizona during the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.
Pine County man was last to leave the USS Arizona BY CJ GUSTAFSON NEWS@PINECITYMN.COM
As members of the Pine County Genealogical Society, it is not unusual for Al and Lyn Johnson to r eceive requests for information on people who have lived in the area. There have been some interesting inquiries over the years, but the phone call the Johnsons received in February of last year turned out to be life-changing. That call came from Ed McGrath, a documentary filmmaker from Los Angeles who was in the process of w riting a b ook and shooting a movie about Lauren Bruner, one in a group of sailors who were the last to leave
the USS Arizona following the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941. The filmmaker was interested in finding a photo of a nother man in the group, Pine County’s Alvin Dvorak, who grew up on a farm near Bruno before moving to Stillwater and enlisting in the Navy. When the USS Arizona was bombed, Bruner, Dvorak and three others escaped using a rope strung 60 feet above the roiling, fiery water between their ship and the USS Vestal. Dvorak, who had tied the knot for the rope and insisted on seeing that it held, was the last person to leave the Arizona, preceded by
A Circle Pines man allegedly caused a car crash on Highway 70, fl ed the scene, then threatened law enforcement officers with a knife before being taken into custody on the afternoon of May 15. According to t he Minnesota State Patrol, Darren M. Zigas, 42, was driving a 2 001 Chevrolet Cavalier east on Highway 70 near the intersection of Government Road at 2:40 p.m. The Minnesota State Patrol reports that Zigas swerved into oncoming traffic and sideswiped a w estbound 2005 Ford Thunderbird driven by May Voight, 70, of Hayward, Wisconsin. Zigas then left the scene of the crash in his vehicle. Voight was taken to Bu rnett Medical Center in Grantsburg. Her injuries were described as non-life threatening.
STANDOFF IN A FARM POND Officers of t he Minnesota State Patrol and the Pine County Sheriff’s Office began searching the area for the damaged Cavalier. Pine County deputies discovered the vehicle matching the description from the hit and run heading eastbound on Highway 70, east of Government Road. As officers approached the vehicle, Zigas fled on foot toward the north. “He abandons his car at this farm and runs off and jumps in a f arm pond or swamp in the back, and then is harming himself,” explained Pine
IMAGE PROVIDED
SEE LAST TO LEAVE, PAGE 11
Artist’s sketch of Alvin Dvorak.
SEE STANDOFF, PAGE 11
Art in the Park better than ever in 2015 BY MIKE GAINOR EDITOR@PINECITYMN.COM
The Pine City Arts Council is bringing another summer of free musical entertainment to Robinson Park with the 2015 Art in the Park series. Art in the Park will be held every Friday evening from May 22 through July 24, with food service
JUNE 4
offerings from various local nonprofits starting at 5:30 p.m. and shows running from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Adrienne Roubinek of the Pine City Arts Council said she’s excited for these eight evenings of m usic and fun. “It brings joy to o ther people,” Roubinek said. “I just love the community feel of it. I look forward to not cooking supper, I look forward
to visiting with my friends on Friday night, I look forward to seeing young families there with their baby on a b lanket, and the grandma sitting on a b ench tapping her toes with her gray hair shining in the sunset. So it’s a vast variety of things.” The series kicks off on May 22 MIKE GAINOR | THE PIONEER
SEE ART IN THE PARK, PAGE 11
The Pine City Jazz Band gets the party started this Friday.
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