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This is Up North News Radio.
Now, live from our Lake Wissota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Breidler.
Well, hey there, Wisconsin.
Good morning.
It is 6.06 on this Tuesday morning, March 11th, 2025.
Another beautiful day to have you here up north.
Live from Lake Wissota for more every year listening all across the Civic Media radio network.
Or maybe you're listening on the app or watching us on Facebook or YouTube or catching us when it's not.
6 o'clock in the morning on demand by podcast.
However you do it.
We appreciate you tuning in today.
I've got a question for you.
What does it say when a congressman like Derek Van Orden is only seven weeks into his second term and has already drawn not one but two likely Democratic challengers for 2026?
You can probably expect that to play out.
in congressional districts across the land as people really take measure of what the Trump administration has been doing during its short time in office.
And the members of Congress who have been silent, not only not appearing at town halls, but essentially ignoring, you know, the pleas of their constituents that these are not the kinds of things that they voted for when they were supporting Donald Trump for president.
Regardless, we can tell you that Eau Claire City Council President Emily Berge has confirmed up north news that she is considering a run for Congress against Derek Van Orden and Rebecca Cook has told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that she is going to be announcing a candidacy as early as today.
So we'll talk more about that throughout the course of the morning and I sense well into the coming cycle here.
of Democrats looking at key swing districts like the Third District in Western and Central Wisconsin and saying that by the time the midterms come around, folks are probably going to be ready for a change.
Also coming up on the program today, we're going to be talking to Christina Laurie in this hour.
The Green Bay Packers are busy all year round, even as we're thinking more like March Madness and Spring Training Baseball.
The Packers have a message for a certain segment of their fan base.
They're seasoned ticket holders, a sliver of them who aren't fans so much as ticket brokers.
And the message is use it or lose it.
And Christina will talk more about that.
In our second hour, we will talk to Hans Brighton Moser.
He's pretty active in the Wisconsin Farmers Union, and it was recently Farmers Lobbying Day, where lawmakers hear from not your lobbyists who wear suits and walk around the Capitol all day, but what I call lowercase L lobbyists.
You know, regular folks who come in to talk to their lawmakers and say, look, these are our priorities for our particular group, that group being farmers.
And I'm guessing that group is saying something along the lines of could you please stop the president from trying to put all of us out of business with another trade war and with massive cuts to the farm safety net.
There's also been a newly announced massive cut by Trump's US Department of Agriculture cutting a billion dollar program that helped make sure that school lunches were supplied with
locally grown food.
So basically a big, big metal finger to local farmers from the Trump administration in terms of another market that the Trump administration is closing to farmers.
By the way, you know, apropos of nothing, but it was on this day in 2021, four years ago, that President Joe Biden was eight weeks into his term and on this day signed the American Rescue Plan into law.
which helped set the stage for the greatest recovery in the developed world out of the COVID pandemic.
Meanwhile, the stock market had its worst day of the year yesterday.
So.
Take that for what it's worth.
It is Women's History Month and that is the subject of our newsletter, our regular newsletter that you can sign up for over at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
Christina Laurie has another story in there about a Wisconsin Trailblazing Woman in her field.
She also has a story that she did not have the note about the USDA under Trump cutting a key school food supply program.
But she does have a note in here saying that one in every nine Wisconsin kids is food insecure, meaning they don't often have enough food to make it through the day, which is why the Department of Public Instruction is looking for sponsors for its 2025 summer food service program to feed kids in need.
And that was before learning that some federal funds may be cut.
There's also a story there about how Great Lakes shipwrecks are disappearing.
Normally they're well preserved in the cold water, but of course leave it to invasive species to be playing a role in that.
So that and more in our newsletter, sign up for it over at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
At the bus stop this morning, temperatures look like this.
It is 35 here on Lake Wissota, 28 in Haymary.
I'm sorry, 28 in Hayward, 30 in Haymary.
Walsall is at 36.
It's 43 in Rapids, 44 in La Crosse, 43 in Green Bay, Madison's at 38.
It's 49 in Milwaukee and it's 48 at Radio Park in Racine where we find one Greg Bach standing by to wish us a good morning in the voice of his choosing.
Sometimes it's his own other times a little less.
So Mr. Bach.
Good morning.
Good morning.
That's that's
I don't want to wake anyone bat.
It's so
early.
It really really is.
But but but I mean almost hitting the 60s yesterday temperatures.
It was like it was like mid 60s here.
It was
So nice.
Oh, it was, it was, it was gorgeous.
And then the
phone around eight o'clock last time, like
22 degrees colder tomorrow.
Yes.
We are, we are so on that roller coaster that Brittany Merlot talked about and we'll talk to her in an hour about it.
But yes, we are going, uh, we were up, now we're down.
We're going up again for a couple of days that we're going down again and.
What are you going to do?
Nothing.
This is where, you know, I've got, the way my closet is set up is the, all the long sleeve shirts are over here and all the short sleeve shirts are over there.
And, you know, in the middle of summer, in the middle of winter, you're only paying attention to those shirts.
And this time of year, it's like.
All right, I'm going to wear this one.
Oh, wait.
Nope.
That's too warm.
I'm going to go put on this shirt sleeve one instead.
It's mid, it's mid, it's mid September through October-ish.
Yeah.
Mid October, two, two and a half months.
And then in the, in the, in the early, the spring, quote, winter, spring time, it's like end of February through early April, where it's just, who knows?
And
even
sometimes
may
we get, we get some snow, but like it's
always
that, it's that, that like uncertainty of like six weeks.
Yeah.
It's, it's that theater of seasons, which can, can drive us a little crazy.
Sometimes though I will say, and again, I don't, I don't say this out of any sense of pity from living in the Caribbean for three years as we did about a decade ago.
Um, we were so happy back then to be escaping Wisconsin winters for that short period.
You actually do start to miss seasons.
There's something to be said about being hot and sweaty every single day.
So that when you get, we'd come up for a visit and temps would be in the fifties or sixties and we would just be like, this is the greatest weather ever.
It should be sixties every day, which of course you don't want.
You want that range, but when you don't get it, you miss it.
You miss those seasons.
I would happily take 65 to 72 every day.
I don't need it to be.
I don't need to be in the forties.
I don't need to be eighties.
I just want comfortable.
That's what
I want.
Yes.
We're all we're all that's what we're all looking for.
We're all looking for a little bit of comfort, which which yesterday that was comfortable.
Oh, yes, it was.
I really like that.
Hey, tomorrow we've got our first ever live event through Up North News.
It's a forum all about the state Supreme Court race, which also means that Thursday morning after the event on Wednesday night, I'll be doing the show from Civic Media World Headquarters in Madison.
Oh, you just fancy.
That doesn't have me nervous at all.
Why?
You're going to do great.
No, anytime we have to move.
I mean, I'm a creature of habit.
I'm right here.
I'm in my home office.
The microphone is here.
But no, we'll give that a go so that we're going on the road.
for a couple of days here, which should be really nice.
Folks can head out to the Overture Center Wednesday from five to seven, where we will have three different panel discussions with experts and lawmakers in areas about reproductive health, about education, about the economy.
And in all three of those areas, there are many subtopics below it, but in all three of those areas, the outcome of this state Supreme Court race is going to be so instrumental.
I mean, in reproductive rights alone,
You're talking about the difference between protecting a woman's right to control her own body and potentially a full-on abortion care ban in the state of Wisconsin.
That's just one thing.
Much less public education, much less the economy, jobs, our natural resources, you name it.
And so if you'd like to hear from some of these folks on our panels, Todd Alba, Dan Schaefer, and I will be moderating.
Learn more at UpNorthNewsWI.com slash Supreme.
And then if you can't make it, I can finally tell you, confirm for you, that you can hear it tomorrow evening, right here.
across the Civic Media Radio Network.
On all of our news talk stations, it'll be starting just after 5 p.m.
Join us and listen in as we talk to folks about the stakes of the race and remind you of the importance of voting on April 1st.
Hey, I mentioned our newsletter, our regular daily newsletter, but when you sign up for that, you can also get our weekend politics newsletter.
And I bring that up now simply because I'd like your input, even if you don't get the newsletter, I'd like your input on our question of the week that we put in there, because we actually took a little break from politics and wanted to ask you about book clubs.
Remember, we had author Laura Bird on a week ago.
talking about book clubs, how to find a good one, or how to start a good one.
And we asked, what has your experience been?
What do you recommend about book clubs?
What worked, what didn't work?
Are there online resources?
And folks have been writing in quite nicely about that.
And you can email us radio at upnorthnewswi.com.
and tell us more about your thoughts on book clubs.
So we would love to hear more about that and of course sign up for our newsletter over at our website upnorthnewswi.com as well.
Not a lot to tell you for sports here the Bucks play tonight at Indiana and try to snap a two-game losing streak and of course It's conference tournament week, but the Badger men's basketball team they will have a buy in the first round So they don't play until Thursday afternoon same goes for Marquette in the Big East tournament They will first play on Thursday afternoon against Xavier Manny Badger women's hockey team kicks off the NCAA national college women's college hockey tournament on Saturday
afternoon.
So just a little bit of sports to share with you.
Coming up after this break, we'll talk about the two Democrats that have now stepped forward to say that they would like to be the challenger to Derek Van Orden in the Third Congressional District next year.
Wherever you're listening to Cross Wisconsin on this Tuesday morning, when you're here, you're up north.
I'm Pac Rightlaw.
Be right back.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get
started.
as we play the theme to the Lawrence Welk show.
As the happy little music maker is part of today's history lesson coming up in 30 minutes here on up front news radio.
Are you of the age where you were held hostage by parents or grandparents who watched Lawrence Welk on Sunday evenings?
I was talking to Don Rosen about this.
My parents were not fans of Lawrence Welk, so I didn't have to watch it.
And I don't remember my grandparents watching it.
I don't think no, he was.
I mean, he was just
He was on the background.
You'd flip on the channel and be like, Oh, PBS.
There's a guy with the weird bubbles and the smile.
And then you turn it off.
Like he
was not Bobby
and Sissy
would be dancing and singing for us.
He was not an integral part of the Bach household.
Okay.
Yeah.
My, my grandparents who actually watched Lawrence Wolk.
perform live when he was, you know, a young musician doing barn dances in South Dakota before he made the big time.
So, so they kind of had the, to him, he was, to them, he was like, you know, the hometown musician done good, you know, getting a network show and everything.
So yeah, it was on every Sunday.
And those blasted bubbles.
When I see when I see Saturday Night Live do that little spoof, usually with Kristen Wiig with the little tiny doll hands.
I still kind of laugh.
I think that's a great send up.
Yeah,
I love it.
So we'll tell you more about that coming up in the history lesson in just a moment.
Just posted to the website is my story about how there are not one but two Democrats who are looking to.
against Derek Van Orden next year.
Yeah, next year.
But let's keep in mind that Derek Van Orden was recently elected to a second term.
He is in week eight of that second term and already two different Democrats are saying this guy's got to go and we'll be working to build support because
In both cases, while Van Orden did win, it was by fairly narrow margins.
And so once again, Democrats will see if they can unseat him.
Eau Claire City Council President Emily Berge confirmed to Up North News that she's considering a run.
People close to Berge that I've talked to say her potential candidacy is rooted amid frustration by Chippewa Valley constituents.
who say Van Orden is all but ignoring Eau Claire.
It may be a democratic base.
It's also the largest city in the third congressional district.
And you will recall how last week a group of Eau Claire constituents thought they were going to be meeting with a Van Orden staffer when that staffer saw that four times as many people signed up as the room could hold rather than look for a different way to hear their concerns.
He just didn't show up.
So they found him in the meantime.
One person close to Berge, who's been talking frequently about a potential run, said Van Orden is unfit, unqualified, and too inexperienced to serve effectively as a member of Congress.
Berge had been planning to wait until after the April 1st elections for State Supreme Court Justice and State Superintendent of Public Instruction before making any final decision or
any announcement.
Emily Berge is a licensed mental health counselor.
She was first elected to the Eau Claire City Council in 2018.
She was elected by voters to the council president role in 2023.
That's also the year she was elected president of the League of Wisconsin municipalities.
And she's in Washington DC this week as part of her duties for that.
Then this morning in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, we get word from Rebecca Cook.
that she is also going to be announcing a run for the Third District Congressional seat.
This would be her third attempt at the office.
She cited massive cuts by the Trump administration, supported by Van Orden, as well as a new trade war that will hurt farmers and consumers.
Reproductive health care rights will also be a centerpiece of the Cook campaign.
as Van Orden's challenger last year, Cook finished with stronger margins than Vice President Kamala Harris and Senator Tammy Baldwin.
So she ran ahead of the rest of the ticket, but still lost to Van Orden by just under.
12,000 votes, the same margin that Brad Paff fell short by in 2022.
Cook first ran in 2022, but was second to Brad Paff in that primary.
They recall that last year she defeated former state representative Katrina Shanklin in the Democratic primary.
The journal Sentinel quotes the source
close to Paph is saying he has been encouraged to make another run.
Katrina Shanklin told the Journal Sentinel she is not going to run in 2026.
What does Derek Van Orden think of all this?
I guess we'll just have to keep following Twitter because that's where he tends to do most of his public engagement, normally through insults or confrontations.
I looked yesterday and at last count he had posted 17 different times.
to Twitter, now known as X. That was just yesterday.
So there's no doubt that he actually relishes this, the idea of confrontation and having an opponent or opponents to lash out at and to insult.
It's
basically how he has run.
He has paid a lot of lip service to farmers.
He does a lot of photo ops at farms where local news crews will dutifully show up and report that Derek Van Orden came to visit a farm and said, farmers are great.
You don't hear quite so much about the other activity going on that I told you about earlier, the massive cuts to farm programs, even the most recent one affecting local food going to school lunches.
cancelling contracts with farmers for conservation programs, which will cut into their family income.
You hear very little about any of those things from local media about Derek Van Orden, but we'll continue to talk about it and tell you more about both Emily Berge, Rebecca Cook, and any other Democrats who emerge to try to retake the Third Congressional District next year.
Governor Tony Evers yesterday announced his capital budget project, his projected budget for capital budget projects.
The capital projects, those are the big dollar ones.
Those are like, you know, building or remodeling, you know, brand new state office buildings or other state facilities.
These are the big items on university campuses and for state agencies around the state.
And his projected budget is about $4.1 billion overall.
which sounds big, but he also noted the continued obstruction and delays from the Republican-led legislature.
Just the deferred maintenance backlog has skyrocketed past $13 billion.
with 3.4 billion in critical high priority needs that demand immediate attention to prevent system failures, safety hazards, and costly emergency breakdowns.
Again, that's the deferred maintenance budget alone.
So when Republicans tell you that Tony Evers is asking for too much in his capital projects budget, just remember the size of that budget is a symbol of somebody who actually wants to do the work, to get the work done.
before it costs an arm and a leg or gets somebody hurt.
Christina Laurie is up next.
You're up north.
Hey, welcome back.
It is time for the uplift.
When we talk to Christina Laurie, who puts together our daily newsletter and many of our uplifting posts about Wisconsin that you can find, just look up up North News, WI, on your favorite social media feeds.
Christina, how's it going?
How are you?
I'm great.
How are you, Pat?
Very good.
Nice to talk to you.
I was just commenting the hoodie that you are wearing today says America Needs Journalists.
It was about 2016 that we first started seeing that.
Yeah, it popped up at the Iowa Caucus.
It was kind of a time where it felt like a lot of journalists were under attack.
And unfortunately...
It's only gotten worse.
It really has.
I mean, you know, at the time, journalists weren't thought of as, you know, enemies of the state as some people, or at least one certain person has described it.
Well, what's funny or actually not so funny is that my just imagine this, I just graduated from college.
I was still 20 years old.
My very first political event that I ever covered was Donald Trump's rally.
I believe it was in Cedar Rapids.
You didn't even you didn't get
You don't get to say the good old days about boring news events.
You just started baptism by fire.
Yes.
And then the second one was one where he ejected a woman who was wearing a hijab because that was un-American.
So
it really, it just sadly not much has changed for the best
second.
Right.
I mean, it's so.
We're not in a traditional place anymore.
You know, last week with with Trump's address to a joint session of Congress, it was so not traditional.
You know, we were comparing it to say Tony Evers is state of the state addresses.
And you've covered things like that as well, right?
Yes.
And the one thing I did want to say about that is I was a little frustrated with the representative from Texas that stood up and
Shouted that way because until then the protests were by Democrats.
I think we're very impactful I loved the signs that they held up So I thought it was great that the Democrats from districts that opposed Trump protested in a peaceful way I would love to see everyone carry that on but to anyone you also have to put in perspective, you know standing up and shouting at the president first
climbing the Capitol walls on January 6th.
There you go.
Yep.
Yep.
There's the
perspective of things in
context.
Yes.
What what Al Green with Congressman Al Green from Texas did.
Yeah, definitely pales in comparison and and you know, he took his stand as he thought he had to even if a lot of folks didn't think it was especially helpful.
Hey, switching gears, you know
what
else is not helpful.
This isn't what you bring me in here for.
Let's get to the good
stuff.
It's good to the good stuff and I just as I'm looking here at what we what we're going to talk about it is really not helpful when Green Bay Packers fans season ticket holders don't go to the games and instead of somebody else in a Packers jersey sitting in that seat you might see some some Viking purple or something like that and it sounds like the team has kind of had enough of that.
So I actually didn't think of it that way.
That's a good point that they may might not be selling it to Packers fans.
So let's rewind a little just a week and a half ago, the Packers announced that finally they're going to start cracking down on season ticket holders who sell 100% of their tickets and have done so for multiple seasons.
So if you only did it last year for some, you know,
some reason, health reason, perhaps, you know, you're still good.
But if you've done this multiple years in a row, your season tickets have already been voided.
Probably you've got that notification and they're going to go to someone else on that notoriously long 40 plus year wait list for Packers season tickets.
It makes
sense.
Because you're a broker at that point.
You're not a fan.
You're a broker.
It does, however, the one to play devil's advocate here, the one other side I did see of it, and I didn't think of what you had mentioned that they might not be selling it to green
and
gold fans.
However, they are giving more opportunities to more fans.
That's
six or seven, eight more games that different people can go to instead of that same fan.
However, on the other side of that, obviously,
People die hard have been on that list some of them their parents put it on the year They're born and then they finally get season tickets by the time they're in their 40s and 50s and can
afford
them themselves So it's nice to see those people get off the list and I've already been getting up quite a few messages of screenshots from people Getting that email saying you're finally in or people moving way up I'm talking like tens of thousands of places up on the wait list.
So that's really exciting for all of them
That really is.
And look, I'm not a lawyer.
I'm sure that there are people out there saying, hey, wait, you can't do that.
They were seasoned ticket holders.
That's a contract.
You got the money for the tickets.
They can do with the tickets, whatever they want.
But I think that that carries into, yeah, we can do whatever we want.
There are tickets.
It's our team.
It's our stadium.
And here's the rule.
You can't sell 100% of your tickets.
So I'm sure there are some legal legals that would like to debate me on that
one.
That's out of we started this with politics.
We're not going to wait until legalities as well.
Let's just make this as complex as it gets.
No, let's let's switch to something that's a little more uplifting here.
And that would be Greg Guard and the coach's own underdog story.
We we at this time of year.
focus so much on, you know, the, the, the March madness of it all and the X's and O's and it's, it's nice to, you know, again, get kind of that, that personal side of, you know, the people who are behind all those X's and O's on the hardwood.
I just can't imagine how cool it would be.
I hope Greg Gard does this every single day.
I hope he thinks about how he grew up a Wisconsin Badgers fan.
in the tiny town of Cobb Wisconsin population 480.
And now he is not only leading that team, but has done so for the past decade as head coach, and has done a phenomenal job.
He repeatedly defies the odds.
This time last year, there were already a lot of calls, or I guess, shortly after, you know, this time next month, last year, people were
calling for Greg Guard to be fired after they once again didn't make it as far as people expected in March Madness.
But let's rewind to the beginning of pretty much every season where Wisconsin is continuously discounted.
This year they were predicted to finish 12th in the Big Ten.
Now they could finish second in the conference.
And just his story, it's just so cool.
He happened to meet Bo Ryan at an eighth grade basketball camp.
The two
hit it off.
He impressed Bo back then as a student.
So by the time he got to college, he was volunteering at Bo Ryan summer camps.
Ryan eventually hired him once he graduated.
And the two began a 23 year coaching partnership, which took them to three different schools.
Obviously the last was here in Madison.
And just the coolest part of all of this, I know I feel like I'm saying everything is cool, but it is the best part is that other D one schools have come calling over the past decade.
Greg Guard could have left Wisconsin for a more prestigious job.
I know we all think the Badgers are the top of the top, but a lot of coaches don't feel that way.
Greg Guard does.
He wants to be here.
He's been committed to this school, and it's just so cool.
Well, but that is literally in his DNA, I guess you could, OK, figuratively, but it is in his DNA is to have longevity and loyalty to a job.
And his brother has that as well.
His brother is the coach at Platteville, where Greg himself once was assistant coach under Bo Ryan.
And Platteville has had a record-breaking season as well.
They're the first team and the WIAC to ever win back-to-back conference and regular season titles in a year.
So the guards are just people to know.
Well, yeah, and then we've got mom and dad.
We're a high school secretary and an agricultural loan officer who remained at their respective jobs for internally 40 years each.
I'm not saying that the coach is going to be on the job here for 40 years, but it's a very long record of loyal service.
We'll take it.
I mean, and people forget he joined Wisconsin all the way back in 2001.
So this is already his 25th season.
He's definitely on his way to the 40, right?
Yes.
Good for him and obviously a lot to track this time of year for all the teams and always good to know some of the stories that are happening behind them.
And one of the last great things about him is that the one issue on the other side of this when you get
you know, some will say stuck with one coach for a long time.
You can kind of just tend to zone out and get into the same patterns.
But as we've seen this season, Greg Guard isn't afraid to switch things up.
And that's been part of their success this season.
He went out and he hired Kirk Penny.
former Badger brought him back in and you know he really electrified their offense and they're doing a whole new look shooting style that includes taking a lot more shots a lot more threes and it's really paying off so good for him for not being complacent.
Really?
Yeah, very much so.
And then let's turn to one more on the sports side of things and that deals with, you know, it's high school tournament time and people tend to watch, you know, basketball.
Some people, for some people, it's hockey.
But then there's also wrestling that's going on and has expanded in ways like never before.
And I
I know we could have talked about girls wrestling with, you know, national girls and women in sports day.
But look, anytime of year, it's right to talk about the way that girls are continuing to make great strides in sports that previously had been close to them.
It's nice not to confine it to just one day, too, because, you know, girls do play sports, 364 other days a year.
And this wouldn't have been possible without all that practice that they put in.
So Wisconsin wrestling has been a
sport officially at Wisconsin High School since 2022.
But this was the very first year that they awarded a team title because it took three seasons to build up enough teams to actually compete for this.
But what's really awesome about this is two weekends ago they held the state championships at the Cole Center.
It was completely sold out for both boys and girls matches and
Wisconsin made history as the first state to ever have an actual girl on their wrestling trophy.
Other states have girls wrestling, but it's always a boy figurine on the trophy.
They actually had a girl model for it.
She has two braids going down her back and there's actually a girl symbolically on that trophy, which I just think is a great.
It's another thing that Wisconsin is, you know, paving the way for.
We were the first in a lot of
you know, women's rights issues, whether it was voting, electing the first, you know, openly gay female senator, it's nice to see us innovating in all these areas.
Without a doubt.
And so, you know, our hats off to them for the trophies and trophies that are correct, you know, shall we say.
And again,
I can't say what it is like to be feeling like you're excluded or, you know, to get a trophy.
I mean, I've won trophies in my time, not bowling or wrestling trophies, but, you know, for speech and debate and things like that.
And, you know, there was always some guy on there.
And so it's nice to know that we can be a little bit more inclusive in how we award things.
That's funny you say that because I was just like you.
We probably would have been on the debate team together in high school and My debate team was really good.
So I actually do have a lot of debate trophies and Every single one of them is a man in a suit standing in a podium.
Yes, I have no not one woman
You know, as I was looking at other posts that we've put up not too long ago, there was another wrestling one here that I thought was worth noting, three generations of Wilders who've competed at the state wrestling finals for Auburn Dale High School.
There was Grandpa Rich who lost by...
One point back in 1971, then there was Nate who took home a title and this weekend Colton followed in his dad's footsteps, winning the 150 pound division and getting the school's eighth state championship.
I just love these stories every year about these these kinds of families.
So no pressure to that future son.
No,
no, not at
all.
Right.
Well, and well, the good part here is that if they stay in Wisconsin,
even if they have a girl she could carry on the family tradition.
That's right.
Exactly.
So we both mentioned speech and debate.
Any other trophies that you have in, you know, in a box in the basement somewhere by now?
Not any meaningful ones.
I did cross country and it was the era of a lot of participation ribbons.
We didn't even get so much so as trophies or I mean, they weren't really participation.
They'd give ribbons like all the way up to 25th place though.
And I feel like I don't need, you know, my
25th place ribbon so I got rid of a lot of them but just if anyone does have extra especially like metals or little trophies I did have a few meaningful ones that I wanted to save but I'm running out of space and I'm also way too old to be using my parents house as a storage facility
as I
had been so I turned them into Christmas ornaments I like ripped the top off of some trophies I turned some metals into Christmas ornaments and
It's cool.
It's like just personalized memorabilia.
That's true.
Wow.
Okay.
Our new Christmas decorating hack to keep in mind.
You have 10 months to get this sorted out.
Yes.
I'll get right to work on that.
Christina Laurier does a lot of stories for us on social media for our newsletter.
You can get the newsletter at upnorthnewswi.com.
Always great to catch up with you and we'll talk to you again next week.
Thanks, Christina.
Have a great
day.
You too.
I have today's history lesson coming up
right
after this.
You're up north.
in a lot of halls of fame, personal halls of fame, lists of favorite albums.
This one by Neil Young Harvest makes that list.
It was the number one album this week in 1972 with Heart of Gold.
We'll hear Old Man a little bit later on as part of today's history lesson for this March 11th.
There's already one old man here, so to balance things off, we bring in young Dan Hagen from WJFW News Watch 12 in Rhinelander.
Mr. Hagen, how are you?
I'm doing quite well.
Many of my colleagues call me old, so I appreciate being young.
Really?
Because Greg just called you TV, which I think he was trying to denigrate you, you know.
But as a former TV anchor myself, I say I salute you for being nicknamed TV.
Well,
I'm motivated out of the fight.
Okay,
what now?
I'm sorry.
What was any of that?
I was
gonna
say you can bring Neil down now Don't drown out mister.
I wasn't
right.
Whatever
now.
I just
feel like it's two against one and I could turn this all off
You know what here let me offer you some advice from birthday boy Bobby McFerrin play Bobby There we go, don't worry Greg
Be happy.
Bobby McFerrin is 75 years old today.
Does the song still make people happy or has it crossed the line into annoyance?
I think the song has a deep reservoir of nostalgia now.
You know what I think unseated it was Pharrell.
Pharrell Williams' song, Happy.
That's still kind of your feel good happy song.
Yeah.
All right,
that's enough happiness.
Paul McCartney was knighted by Queen Elizabeth on this day in 1997.
Happy birthday to Mark Stein.
78 years old today, the New Jersey native.
You know him as, well you don't, only us really old folks know him as.
The lead singer of Vanilla Fudge with this interesting take on a Supreme's classic.
First time I ever heard this version.
I thought it was a smooth version.
I just I thought it was like a comedy record or something like nope This is a This is a real remake of it that some folks really like
and I will give you my hot take Patrick Jerome quite
low.
Yes.
Yes,
this is the best version
That is a hot take.
Yep.
That is that is a take Dan if you tell me that you know Kylie Minogue is is your favorite.
I
I might just end the segment right here.
I feel like it's getting annoying when I say I've never heard of a song before, so I'm just going to
pick one.
I do.
I think we've already asked you about Lawrence Welk too, so we're just going to skip over the fact that he was born this day in 1903 in Strasburg, North Dakota.
George, I don't know the pronunciation on this.
Kuimans, lead guitarist and
vocalist
for Kuimans, for Golden Earring, is 77 years old today.
another hot take Pat.
Yes.
If you play anything less than the full album cut of the song, I don't respect your opinions on most things.
Hundred percent.
Hundred percent.
I'm totally with you on that one.
Yes.
And I didn't get the name because he was born this day in 1948 in the Netherlands.
And as most people know, Dutch is a language nobody can pronounce, except maybe the Dutch.
My
name is George Kuemans.
All right, cool,
man.
That's
awesome.
Great, great.
Yep.
Cheryl Lynn, one of our disco-era singers, is 68 years old today.
Oh, I know this song.
Now, do you?
Or do you know that it's been sampled a thousand times?
Isn't this
a taste of honey?
No.
Oh, Dan.
Dan.
Anyway, you're like Captain America and the Avengers.
You're like, I got that one.
I understood that reference.
Lisa Loeb is 57 years old today.
What's the other one?
Lisa Loeb, everybody plays Stay.
Yeah.
Yes.
That's her big huge hit.
That's her big hit.
I'm not a fan.
I really like this song.
I do.
And while she plays in the background, I'll tell you that on this day in 1989, Debbie Gibson, then 18 years old, went to number one with her album, Electric Youth.
Today is Organize Your Home Office Day.
It's World Plumbing Day as well.
And Dan, over at NewsWatch 12 these days, stories that you're working on, including the Vilas County Sunmobile Trails, shutting her down.
I'm sure they didn't get in nearly the year they would have liked.
Nope, they didn't get in a decent weekend, so that is good.
All the trails will be closed today going forward.
Then we just made a trip up to Ironwood.
They got
I think around $300,000 in tax revenue from having five dispensaries in their city.
So they're using that towards public infrastructure, which is interesting to see.
That is extremely interesting because again, Wisconsin is.
pretty much an island in terms of marijuana legalization.
And so you can see, you know, within a stone's throw of where you are, the way that the sales tax from those sales has provided some kind of a benefit, you know, a revenue shot in the arm as it were.
And I like the feel good story here about the Rhinelander food pantry that you've got anonymous donors who are matching spring donations.
I mean, nobody wants to you wish food pantries didn't have to be a thing, but they are.
So at least we have some generous folks in your community.
Yeah, absolutely.
A lot of people step up time and time again in the Northwoods.
And those food pantries getting more needed, unfortunately.
Yes, they are.
And so for that and so much more coverage from the Northwoods, you got to tune in to Dan over at WJFW News Watch 12 in Rhinelander and hear him throughout the week on various civic media shows as well.
We always love when he pops in.
Dan, thanks for being part of today's history lesson.
Thank you.
You can just call me TV for now on, I think.
I like that
because he's so pretty, everybody.
Hey, yes.
Hey, there's a compliment.
I know.
It'll work.
Coming up, we will have Hans Breitenmoser talking a bit about farmers lobbying lawmakers in the second hour of Up North News Radio live from Lake Wasota on the Civic Media Radio Network.
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