Suspect nabbed in drug bust

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

Sept. 22, 1999

By Devlyn Brooks

Paul Bunyan Narcotics Task Force and Bemidji Police Department officers seized about one-fourth of a pound of methamphetamine and arrested on person in a drug bust Tuesday.

Nancy Jane Hanson, 44, was arrested when the law enforcement agents executed a search warrant at an apartment at 920 30th St. N.W.

Hanson is being held at the Beltrami County Jail pending formal charges by the Beltrami County Attorney's office. She should be charged sometime today, Bemidji Police Chief Bob Tell said.

Tell said the drugs had a street value of about $11,000, but he added the site was not a methamphetamine laboratory.

"We're starting to see more and more of this in the region," Tell said.

Most task force busts are the result of investigations, Tell said, and they receive their information from a myriad of sources. He said he didn't know if this case was the result of an informant's tip.