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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Kratlow powered by Up North News.
Now for my Lake WSOTA studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Kratlow.
And good morning, it is 7 0 6.
Nice to have you along on this Wednesday morning, May 21st, 2025 live from Lake WSOTA.
Coming up in a bit, we're going to talk to our friend Earl Ingram, find out who he's talking to as part of his ongoing projects with Civic Media.
We'll get to meteorologist Brittany Merleau in just a bit as well.
In our homeroom segment at the bottom of the hour, we will be talking to Eau Claire, State Representative Christian Phelps.
He's a member of the Assembly Education Committee.
So we'll find out if he can give us any kind of substantive update about what Republicans are putting in front of the Assembly Education Committee.
Then in our eight o'clock hour, we'll talk to Melissa Baldough for their weekly climate check.
And we will be checking in with Devin Remaker, who is a candidate for a state Democratic Party chair.
He is one of three candidates for a state Democratic Party chair, and we will talk to all three candidates over the next three days.
Devin Remaker and then Joseph Pecky tomorrow and William Garcia on Friday.
all in our eight o'clock hour.
So tune in for that.
They will make their decision on a new state party chair at their convention in Wisconsin Dells in the middle of June.
So again, Earl Ingram coming up in just a bit.
But first meteorologist Brittany Merleau is here to once again, get all kinds of either abuse or confusion from people that just want to know what happened to spring.
Brittany, where did it go?
It went away for a little bit, unfortunately.
It feels like fall, almost a little wintery, especially up north.
We've got frost advisories again this morning.
that are in effect until 9 o'clock pretty much from Hayward to Park Falls and North temperatures right now are at 39 degrees into Rhinelander and 48 degrees down south at Kenosha where it's still raining.
A lot of widespread rain still ongoing, especially by Lake Michigan into the Fox Valley.
That's going to continue to be moderate as we go through the day today, kind of sprinkling out and lessening out.
further north, you're actually may see some sunshine later while the rest of us stay stuck under those overcast cloudy dreary skies with these raw, crisp, cold conditions.
Now winds are not nearly as strong as they were yesterday.
They're still a little feisty today, keeping our high temperatures to the upper forties far south.
and upper fifties far north.
You're going to see a little bit more sunshine so you'll get a little bit warmer up north.
Otherwise, widespread rain, all of us pretty much picking up an inch of rain so far, a good two inches towards Jamesville and Fonda Lack, about an inch and a half at La Crosse, Eau Claire and into Green Bay with another inch headed towards the Fox Valley, Milwaukee area, probably another quarter of an inch to a half an inch for the rest of us.
And then
Last but not least, the sunshine.
Where is it for the rest of us?
It'll be here tomorrow.
Hang in there.
All right, we'll do.
Good morning from Tigerton writes, Rob, it's cloudy, rain 42 degrees, wind chills 35.
We
got a
half inch of rain so far.
He said that he is enjoying his days off from mowing, but after this rain moves out, he will be very busy mowing lawns can't complain because it's money making time.
And yeah, once that sun comes out
after
all this rain.
Oh, I mean, you talk about the phrase is now watching grass grow, you will literally be able to watch the grass grow.
Well,
you could probably get a time lapse of it.
That'd be kind of cool.
Yeah, it would.
Rob
goes
on to say, Leo, Sarah was popular in the mid to late 70s.
And speaking of Mr. T, you remember was watching him on the A team in the mid 1980s.
He was also a tag team partner with Hulk Hogan and Russell Manion.
Of course, Mr. T was in Rocky III back in 1982.
So we get a whole 80s cultural visit.
Can I, Rob, from out in Tigerton?
Can I give you a
fun
fact?
Yes, you can.
I'm friends with his daughter.
What?
with Mr. T's daughter.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She's a comedian out of Chicago.
She's really one.
Erica Nicole Clark is her name.
She's very, very funny.
And there's times when you like meet people who are celebrity adjacent and you're like, I don't want to, I'm sure she gets asked all the time.
She will talk for hours about her dad and tell the funniest stories.
Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah.
She's, she's super wonderful.
And he, from what I understand is very nice man.
In the 70s, there was a character on all-star wrestling called Baron von Raschke.
And he had the claw, you know.
And it turned out, I mean, this very feared wrestler, his daughter went to school with my baby sister, and they were friends.
And she only said that he was the sweetest dad in the neighborhood.
Just the nicest guy, but then puts on the outfit and heads into the ring.
So, yeah.
Everybody's got their
gig.
I
know.
Brittany, thank you so much.
We'll talk to you in our next hour.
Thank you.
All right.
A note that in our daily newsletter at UpNorth News, sign up for it at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
We've got something in there about this being National Bike Month and how they rank various cities in Wisconsin in terms of trails and bike friendly businesses and supportive employers.
There's a link in there as well to a group that ranks some of those
Mike, those most bike friendly hometowns and organizations.
Also new on our website and LinkedIn, the newsletter, the Wisconsin Race Guide for 2025, all the best places to race or run, walk, fun, run, 5k, 10k, half marathon, full marathon, you name it.
Our Wisconsin Race Guide for 2025 is on our website, up North news, wi.com.
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Very happy to welcome Earl Ingram to the program.
now who after hosting the Earl Ingram show for low these many years has been part of some new projects for civic media in the same way that Chad Holmes and we're doing much more in terms of local cut-ins, local breaks, local stories, local people.
Earl's been doing that for us in Southwest Wisconsin.
We'll hear from James Kelly in Northwest Wisconsin a little later on in the program.
Earl, how you doing?
Doing fine.
How are you?
I'm great.
It's so nice to have you here and finding out the kinds of folks that you've been talking to and the stories that you've been covering and I
wanted to find out more about this series of conversations that you're going to be having with Dr. Howard Fuller for folks not from the Milwaukee area.
He was the former superintendent and one of the driving forces behind the original voucher program, which, Earl, I don't think I'm being hyperbolic when I say the original school voucher program was very, very different from what
the voucher programs have become all across the state, right?
Well,
the original voucher program was created by state representative Annette Polly Williams, Dr. Howard Fuller, and her assistant Larry Hallwell during the time that Governor Tommy Thompson was governor.
And it was created because then state representative Annette Polly Williams and long term state representative Annette Polly Williams
thought that it was important that poor black children had an equal opportunity at education.
And so she sat down with again Dr. Howard Fuller and Larry Harwell and they created an opportunity for them parochial schools, some of them, to take on black children who didn't have the economic wherewithal to
joined the parochial schools to pay for the tuition.
And then Governor, Governor Tommy Thompson thought it was a laudable exercise and that's what they did.
They created vouchers.
It was created solely in the city of Milwaukee.
Then President George Bush, the first and Scott Walker and others.
looked at it and thought it was something that they could push across the entire nation and started pushing it across the state of Wisconsin.
And then eventually across the nation became very popular.
And as we see today, it's mushroomed and certainly causes havoc to public schools all across the
state and all across the nation.
Do you get the impression from talking to Dr. Fuller?
I mean, does that lead to any sense of regret either in the creation of it originally or that there should have been some mechanism somewhere along the way that would prevent it from metastasizing the way that it has become just a cancer on Wisconsin public education statewide today?
Well, Dr. Fuller will clearly state that what has happened to the vision that they had is not what they envisioned.
When you look at the fact that there used to be a time when if you wanted to send your child to a private school, then you did that out of your own pocket.
And today, the way things are situated, whether or not you can afford to send your child to a private school, if you can, now taxpayers are saddled with paying for even those who economically don't need the support.
because of the way it's been gerry-rigged now, vouchers or school choice does not have an impact on whether or not you are a person who has low income or upper income.
We're gonna pay all taxpayers, pay for it all.
Sorry, I had myself on mute there.
Yes, they most certainly do.
So obviously we will be talking to State Representative Christian Phelps in our next half hour about what's happening on the Assembly Education Committee, but the work for educating students goes on.
And so you're also talking to Dr. Fuller about his continued work to help improve reading skills, learning to read amongst Milwaukee school kids.
Is that right?
Well,
Dr. Fuller, it's not only about Milwaukee school kids.
The work that he's working on is to address.
He thinks that one of the reasons why children, not just in the city of Milwaukee, but across the state and across the nation, reading scores have dropped precipitously.
And so this is not something that is solely about Milwaukee children.
It is national.
And so he believes that teachers don't know how to teach reading anymore.
And so he's pushing this new initiative that he's created that will improve the reading scores of children all over this nation.
So that will be a focus of what Earl Ingram is talking to Dr. Fuller about.
And you said this is going to roll out over a couple of different parts of conversations that you're going to be having.
Well, that actually is going to start.
I'm going to begin the interview process with him on June 3rd.
I've done several others.
I think really a lot of more and worthy interviews with people prior to this.
So we're going to be rolling things out
shortly.
I mean, I am so looking forward to this, to having the ability to do more of this long form reporting and visits because there are so many stories that need to be told.
There are lessons that need to be learned that you and the folks that you're talking to are in such a position to make and we can't get to that from the pinball machine that is the daily news cycle.
So I'm glad to get to visit with you about these upcoming conversations with Dr. Fuller and for folks who follow along with the show,
Earl will make more regular appearances on Wednesday mornings, but in the eight o'clock hour, we had a little extra time today in the seven o'clock hour, and so we asked Earl if he'd come on and visit and tease what are going to be future weekly visits, much like we do with Chad Holmes, James Kelly, and other friends across the Civic Media radio network.
And so we are very much looking forward to that.
Earl, I appreciate that update.
Thank you so much.
Thank you as well.
All right, I'm I'm I cannot tell you how much I'm looking forward to getting to visit with Earl on a more frequent basis here.
Let's do a little sports first now at 719 the Milwaukee Brewers.
They are they had game two of their series with the Baltimore Orioles.
Logan Henderson recorded seven strikeouts in five shutout innings.
There were home runs from Bryce Terang, Sal Freelick and Reese Hoskins as the Brewers beat the O's five to two last night.
It is the Brewers first three game win
streak in two weeks.
So, hopefully, things are falling back into place.
The Brewers will play again this morning.
It's a day game.
1135 coverage begins on several Civic Media stations.
From the heart of America's up north, live from Lake Wissota, thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
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.
We are going to talk about next year's elections and a new candidate that has emerged for state Supreme Court.
We'll hear from appeals court judge Chris Taylor.
I served with her in the Wisconsin legislature and now she has announced that she will be running.
for State Supreme Court against Justice Rebecca Bradley.
I'll have that little bit of audio coming up in just a moment.
First again, a reminder you can sign up for a daily newsletter at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
In there today includes a race guide for races all around Wisconsin and more about commuting by bike to work.
Looking through the the text line at the moment here and there was a comment from Matt in Germantown.
about Derek Van Orden and his comment about getting rid of the spring nonpartisan elections and Matt says
I get that his rationale is bad.
However, as someone who actively works the polls, I do think the spring elections are annoying and hard on both sides to get people out.
It feels like waste, especially and mainly when there are primaries for a school board seat, for instance, maybe just remove the primary from the spring elections.
I don't know.
It's just hard to having four elections in even numbered years.
And yeah, there would also be
elections in odd numbered years if a Supreme Court seat is up or for certain positions as well.
And look, there are people who can make the point that the spring nonpartisan elections, that is all a mirage and that should there be any nonpartisan elections anymore.
Look, what has happened to state Supreme Court races.
In fact, let's play that audio from Chris Taylor right now because she gets to the notion of
all of the money that parties now and partisan groups are pouring into these nonpartisan races.
Matt Smith from WISN TV, host of Up Front, talked to her yesterday and here's a bit of what Chris Taylor and Appeals Court Judge had to say about running for a seat on Wisconsin Supreme Court with Matt Smith.
Do you see your time as a state lawmaker, a Democrat, as a benefit in this race?
I
do, because,
let me tell you, it taught me a lot about the law, how it's made.
That's incredibly helpful to a judge, but it also taught me.
A lesson that I think about every single day, and that is, laws are about people.
Every decision that I make, I'm thinking about who's being impacted by my decisions.
And I want to make sure the people of the state have a justice that always puts them first, that respects them and treats them as fair as possible.
As you know, there's an incredible amount of money, a record amount of money in the last two state Supreme Court races.
Will you accept unlimited donations, whether it be from liberal donors or the state Democrats?
between now and next April?
Well, look, Matt, I don't like seeing all this money come into these races.
In fact, when I was a legislator, I really fought against the laws that opened the floodgates.
I will run a competitive race, and I intend to win.
So I'm going to have the resources to do that.
And you're confident you will have the resources in talking with potential donors?
I'm going to try my hardest.
You know, the people of the state of Wisconsin, they have my commitment that I'm going to work every single day to run a race that they're proud of and to make sure that I'm doing everything as a judge to ensure they have access to justice and they're treated fairly.
So this sets up the race that I think a lot of people really want to see.
And by the way, it's not final yet.
There's there's a long ways to go until that election next year.
But as it would set up right now,
you would have the justice, the justice who seat is coming up next year.
That would be Rebecca Bradley, who is arguably the most far right extreme justice on the court.
And I've made no secret that I have been reading her decisions for years.
I've been listening to her comments for years.
Her writings prior to becoming a justice
Everything about it indicates somebody who would be happier with hosting a Fox News show or something else on right wing media.
It is very clear to see where her political leanings lie in this.
Chris Taylor, now an appeals court judge, a former legislator, a Democrat who has been a tireless champion for women and women's health rights, which by the way, I thought it was
Shall we say curious that most media outlets chose to lead with the abortion issue in there?
Not just that this former legislators running, that this appeals court judge is running, but it was actually the media reports that were looking to frame next year's race as being all about abortion far more so than Judge Taylor herself was doing.
But it does set up this race where you're going to have somebody
in, you know, Justice Rebecca Bradley from the far right, you're going to have Chris Taylor being painted as somebody from the far left being from Madison being a legislator being in favor of women reproductive health rights.
If no other candidates get in the race, this will be the matchup April of next year.
If other candidates get in the race, there will first have to be a primary in February of next year.
And then the top two candidates will advance to the April general election.
But if no other candidates get involved, and it is Rebecca Bradley against Chris Taylor, it will be extremely expensive.
It will be extremely public.
It will not be, it will not be pleasant, shall we say.
And that is because both of these people are very much fighters for what they believe in.
One believes in a very far right extreme version of what Wisconsin law should look like and one does not.
One has been much more engaged in public service as a people's representative in the legislature before winning seats first as a judge and then as an appeals court judge.
So get used to hearing more about appeals court judge Chris Taylor running against Justice Bradley.
Justice Bradley has indicated that she is going to run for another 10-year term.
She's coming up to the end of a 10-year term.
She was initially appointed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court by Scott Walker, which is
pretty much all else that you have to say moving forward.
Coming up later in the program, James Kelly will tell us about stories he's working on for Civic Media Stations in Northwest Wisconsin.
We'll be talking to Devin Remaker, a candidate for State Democratic Party Chair.
We'll have him today, Joseph Pecky tomorrow, William Garcia on Friday.
Melissa Baldoff will have our climate check, and we'll have another check in with meteorologist Brittany Merlo, but up next, State Representative Christian Phelps.
Thank you for spending some time here as part of your mornings powered by Up North News.
More after the
For the Midwest Farm Report, I'm Pat Critewell.
Welcome back 735 now live from Chippewa Falls.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
Greg Bock is down in Radio Park where earlier Greg and I were talking to Melissa Kay from our Civic Media Station in Wisconsin Rapids and we learned from Melissa that she wants to get a pigeon and all of all of the accoutrements associated with pigeon keeping and on the text line Matt from Germantown asks is she going to use it to send notes to people?
Yeah.
And that, that is the challenge.
I think I would lay out for Melissa.
Is this just for a pet companionship or is there going to be something utilitarian?
Are we going to get some value out of this pigeon, you know, besides a potential very small, you know, dinner at some point of the pigeon.
I want to make sure this
pigeon is worth it.
Send me messages.
She also let us know about the whole pigeon culture, pigeon pants, pigeon mamas, pigeon cages, all the whole thing.
I just did not know.
If she I just picture her back in Wisconsin rapids right now going, I can't, I can't believe they bought all this.
I can't believe pigeon pants.
Who does that?
We did.
We're, we're into it.
We're totally invested.
So, uh, Matt in Germantown, good question.
So again, add it to our list.
Greg, if things talk to Melissa about next week, as we continue on pigeon watch, the Melissa K edition
2025.
All
right.
Let's turn to our homeroom segment now and talk to state representative Christian Phelps from Eau Claire, a member of the assembly education committee and
Friends of the show will recall joining us quite frequently on behalf of the Wisconsin Public Education Network prior to his election to the assembly.
Representative Phelps, how are you?
I'm great.
Good to see you this morning.
Yeah, it's nice to have you here as well.
You know what?
Before we get into the education aspect of it, maybe your ears were burning, but Dan Schaefer was mentioning you and we were talking about his column about races to watch, legislators to watch from now through November of next year in the districts that were close in the presidential race and with new, less gerrymandered maps have led to more competitive races.
And maybe Democrats have a chance to even take the majority in the legislature and
Obviously, you've been noticed right out of the gate, not just for the conditions of the district, but your work ethic and all the knowledge of education that you bring into this race.
So I wanted to get your impression on being listed as one of those, you know, races to watch already, whether, like me, you know, you become a one and done, one term thanks for serving, moving on, or, you know, if folks there think you've got legs and they're going to be around for a little bit, kind of nice to be on a list of people getting a little extra attention, I think.
because
And so people were already kind of watching and paying attention.
And I had the.
privilege and luxury and exhaustion of having a competitive Democratic primary and then a competitive general election.
So it was a very busy year and it worked out.
And I think our work is not done because, as I'm sure we'll discuss momentarily, we did not quite get the majority.
We've gained 10 seats in one swoop.
That's pretty good, but there's
there's a pretty hard limit on the amount of policy work you can get done when you when you work in the minority party in the legislature and so you know I think next year we will have some agenda items to really go back to the voters with and sell and and I think it's going to it's going to work out even better for us but we have to keep the 93rd
in our control in order to get that majority and actually get some some things done including investing in public schools including rural public schools in the 93rd so I look forward to talking to everybody about that.
Well and you have a majority that is much thinner for Republicans and yet is still trying to create that illusion of full and total control rather than seeing
you know, perhaps more bipartisanship than some folks would have expected with more competitive districts, which takes us to the Assembly Education Committee, on which you serve.
And certainly, I'm sure I framed the question similarly at the start of this session, and how did you think the Assembly Education Committee would unfold?
And I'm gonna put it in those same terms again, this time around.
How much of what you're seeing put in front of you by majority Republicans on the Education Committee,
is substantive and directly related to improving education quality in our classrooms versus what I would call sideshows, but other people just might say issues that aren't as relevant to the direct education of our kids.
How would your 30,000 foot view of the committee look so far?
And so we've gotten plenty of content in the first four or four and a half months here, and it is not substantive.
That's my observation.
The luxury of being a new person in the legislature is that I can walk around the Capitol with a flashlight and go into nooks and crannies and say, on behalf of the people of Wisconsin, why doesn't anything good ever happen around here?
What's going on?
And a big part of it is just the agenda setting.
So there are proposals introduced that would be substantive, that would help make it easier for kids to learn and teachers to teach in Wisconsin and here in the 93rd.
And then what happens is that the majority decides what moves forward and what doesn't.
So for example, on the Education Committee,
We have nine Republicans and four Democrats, which does not reflect the nearly 50-50 legislature.
So, un-Jerryman to the maps, Jerryman to the committees to maintain your control.
And so it was always kind of an open question, is there going to be more bipartisanship with the closer assembly makeup?
Or are they going to behave exactly the same ways they did when they had that manufactured one-party rule?
So far, they're doing the latter.
And so on that committee we've gotten we've gotten several full days of bills to hear and then debate and then release and then they make it to the floor those bills have been about things like whether we call our test standards basic or developing that took many many hours of taxpayer funded time we decided whether teachers should be allowed to use students pronouns We have discussed whether cursive should be mandatory
But proposals to do things like invest in school lunches for all and make them and reimburse school districts so that families can spend less on groceries and every single child can be fed at school.
That was proposed in January has not even been given a hearing yet.
So the agenda setting by the majority party is one of the main reasons that.
So little good stuff gets done in the capital.
If I could shine a light on that for the community, it's not great news, but it is true.
And I would take it a step further and seize on what you said there about some good bills like school lunches for all kids, not even getting a hearing.
And so when we talk about a group that still is maintaining the illusion of all encompassing power, it's one that looks at a bill like that.
And they could say, well, let's give this thing a hearing right away.
We don't want to pass it.
We think kids getting school lunches is welfare or whatever their position is.
But the fact that they won't even give a bill like that a hearing kind of gives away the game.
And where they want to keep 100% of their focus, which appears to be on all of these culture war issues and things like that, rather than anything substantive.
But.
I'll try to be fair here.
As you've looked through the budget process, as you looked at what Governor Evers proposed for education, what you would like to see versus what the Republicans have done in the Joint Finance Committee, have you been encouraged by anything that you've seen there so far as the budget starts to become put together by Republicans?
I'm so glad you asked that, Pat, because it is a perfectly fair question and I wish I had a better answer.
it's perfectly logical to say, you know, maybe a lot of the, a lot of the important public education issues belong in the budget.
So maybe we don't need to talk about standalone bills until after the budget process is over.
So the governor proposed the budget bill.
And then Wisconsinites were invited to four public hearings at the committee, the joint finance committee to voice where they stand on that budget bill that the governor had proposed.
He had proposed doubling the state's commitment to special ed funding, which is
way, way, way below where it needs to be right now and even further below what they fund private schools at.
He proposed increases to per pupil aid.
He proposed things like the Healthy Meals Healthy Kids program, teacher apprenticeship and grow your own programs to address the teacher shortage.
and peer-to-peer suicide prevention grants in schools, really important stuff that got overwhelming support at those public hearings before the Joint Finance Committee.
Everything I just listed was taken out all at once by the Republicans on that committee after hearing from Wisconsinites in their first executive session on the budget where they removed 612 items from the governor's budget bill.
At this rate the bill that they give us as the legislature out of that committee to vote on the biennial state budget will not look anything like the budget that the governor proposed and on education issues Zeroed out almost every popular proposal that Wisconsinites overwhelmingly said that they actually wanted to see in there
Which actually presents both a an opportunity and a challenge for Democrats who?
can either shrug their shoulders and you know the voters just get the impression of well what are you gonna do you know they throw it out that's what they do they're in the majority as opposed to now they're on record saying these are good ideas and we don't like them and so you know we democrats are going to say to those republicans these are good ideas and so forth and so on so i mean you've got even in the setback of having these things thrown out it seems like you have a messaging opportunity going forward
Yeah, I think it's really bold for the Republican members of the Joint Finance Committee to do this again.
They've done it to the last few budgets, Governor Evers put forward, but at that time they had manufactured a two-thirds majority in the legislature.
But now they have colleagues like me and many others, 23 new Democrats in the Assembly alone.
who represent competitive districts.
They themselves represent competitive districts, many of them who didn't before.
And, you know, in my case, I represent a lot of rural residents of Western Wisconsin who don't have a private school around.
They're not interested in spending their taxpayer funds on private education.
Their public schools have had to go to referendum just to stay open.
In many cases, the public school district is the largest employer in these communities and they have a representative who's going to tell them the truth about what's happening in the capital and why their public schools are struggling.
Republicans haven't really had to face that in recent sessions, so it's awfully bold and dangerous politically for their future to continue to take out popular and much needed proposals from the budget.
without further consideration after hearing from people because now they have colleagues who are going to hold them accountable for it.
And frankly, you know, nobody has asked me or anybody else to sit back and use only a fraction of our power here.
I think if there's one thing that's clear after the 2024 election and 2025 state of politics at local, state and federal levels, people want their elected officials to use as much power as they can muster to fight for them.
And so
I'm a first term member.
I'm not on the Joint Finance Committee.
I'm not the governor.
There's a limit to how much power I have, but whatever I have, and however many loud microphones I can find to sort of speak the truth into, I'm going to use it because that's what people are asking us to do.
Well, that's what we appreciate having you here on our homeroom segment and, you know, throughout the course of your work to help people understand.
It's not just what's in the final budget bill, but all of this, you know, if you want to call it sausage making, that's fine.
But it is important to know that there were some good, healthy ingredients that were set to go into the sausage and we're getting a whole lot of filler and garbage instead.
State Representative Christian Phelps is a member of the Assembly Education Committee and is a first term Democratic State Rep for Montclair Christian.
Good to talk to you as always.
Hope you have a great day.
inviting me.
You bet.
Take care.
Hey, we've got daytime baseball across the Civic Media radio network today.
It'll be the Brewers versus the Orioles going for the sweep in that series and looking for their first four game winning streak and I don't know how long, but coverage begins at 1135 on stations in Richland Center, Oshkosh, Racine Kenosha Park Falls and Hayward.
Coming up in our eight o'clock hour, we will be talking to Devon Remaker, one of the candidates for state Democratic Party chair.
We'll talk to Joe Zipecky tomorrow and William Garstyn.
coming up on Friday.
Melissa Baldoff in our next hour as well.
Remember you can follow my team at UpNorthNewsWI.com and of course mornings here on the Civic Media Radio
Network.
752 and we are joined now by Todd Alba of the conveniently named Todd Alba show weekdays from two to four across the civic media radio network and he's got that.
He's got that little grin on his face where he's like, you can't make that joke anymore.
Guy with the show conveniently named after me now.
I understand.
So yeah.
How are you?
I'm good.
I'm good.
The jet lag is just about shaking off after like a 630 bedtime last night.
but again totally worth it loved loved of the trip loved portugal love travel and uh i mean do you have much for travel slash europe experience
no never been
to you
okay i i would like to go i have not been by the way i heard melissa k is getting a pigeon i also like pigeon it's called squad on my plate
Oh,
oh, you had
to go there, didn't you?
A man of the people.
Yeah.
Tony writes, I think she's going to be sending messages about troop movements that now we have to check on Pete Hegseth and see if he has pigeons in his backyard since he can't use signal
anymore,
you know.
So you remind me, though, of that's really funny.
You remind me of the pigeon comment and the squab comment about how when we have had our problem with buckthorn in the yard and we've talked about getting a goat and the thing about getting a goat is it would help control your buckthorn and other weeds and then at the end of the year
you can make some really good stew with it because one of the things we've certainly learned in our travels over the years is this is one of the few places where you can't get goat stew on a regular basis and that is good stuff, boys and girls.
Ladies and gentlemen, mark it down.
Something has finally gotten Pat Critlow's goat.
Oh, very nice.
Very nice.
What?
That was great.
By the way, that was not me.
That was not me.
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah.
By the way, yes.
I think I've had goat.
I think I've had goat once in El Salvador, like a goat taco.
But other than that, never really had.
Well, good.
Good thing you're used to both the goat tacos and El Salvador.
So that when you and I end up in that prison cell out there in the
perhaps not too distant future, at least you can
tell me
which which vendors I should you know get my tacos from.
Anyway, coming up
on
the show, it says you are live from location today at Kopke's greenhouse.
What's that all about?
It's it's a three-day tour.
It's just like Gilligan's Island We're starting at Copties greenhouse of our fine sponsors at Civic Media in the town of Dunn Just outside of Oregon the great great plans could talk to Gordy the proprietor there, but also maybe more importantly they do a great
auction every Memorial Day weekend.
They auction off a bunch of these beautiful planters, and they have concessions and drinks and free music.
All the proceeds for the weekend go to the Badger Honor Flight to get our veterans out to Washington, DC.
So it's a
great cause.
Then we're going to be down there.
And then Thursday, I'm going to be in the Greater Chippewa Valley area for my youngest niece's graduation.
We'll play Memorial.
High school.
And then on Friday, I'm going to be bringing my ice skates to join Pat Crightwell and Lake Wistona, perhaps.
I had this all planned out.
It was going to be a pontoon boat.
It was going to be nice and sunny.
And now, literally, I'm packing my electric vest to go to the outdoor graduation tomorrow night.
No Claire.
I'm not going to lie with this vacation.
Completely lost sight of lost track of the note that we were maybe gonna do a show this Friday Memorial Day Friday from the pontoon on the lake and It's a double check with Brittany and in about 15 minutes here, but it appears there's they know where that's happening at this point right now Jack it
on getting all bundled
up.
Oh Yeah, so anyway, well, well, we'll be on the road for a few days
What
what's happening?
He's not he's on the road because he's gonna be an old player
He'll be on the road.
I thought you meant your show was coming from a pontoon boat on Friday
not not my show his show was gonna come from Friday.
All right
behind the scenes everybody
We're all, we're all almost on the same page here now.
Um, so that's what's coming up on Todd's show this afternoon.
And before Greg leaves, he'll be back in an hour for matinee on air.
And you've got a, you've got a big old guest coming up today.
Uh, you and
Jane, we have state Senator Diane Hesselbein here on the show, just talking about what's going on in Madison and all, you know, the budget and whatnot.
And then, and the second hour we have Kathy Giorgio, who is a, uh, an author whose name, she's an alumni of.
of Waukesha North High School, whose name was had her.
She had her name taken off their wall of fame because they have banned her books from their library.
Yeah, that would seem to be incongruent, shall we say?
Like, yeah, you're on a wall of fame, but we're not going to put your books here.
Pretty much.
So
she'll be she'll be on the second hour.
Stay center, Dinah Hasselbein.
We are in the first hour and then always wrapping up with this shouldn't be a thing.
Okay, and then Maggie Dawn later today has Senator Kristen Dessler Alfheim and Dr. Kristen Lyrely on the program and then Pete Schwabba has artist and co-director of the Door County Contemporary Art Fair, Shane McAdams coming up.
So, so much going on here.
If the show doesn't take place Friday on the pontoon, Todd, will that be all right?
Have we started working
on
a plan B?
Oh, dear, I think
I
don't know
how to break this to you, buddy.
I don't
know how to break the line.
And Google's isn't being made in Chippewa there now.
So can't hear me.
Your wife,
Todd,
Todd, your wife is
terrible.
Once again, Todd didn't pay the bill and they're giving him, they're giving him pigeon powered Wi-Fi, ladies and gentlemen.
So.
You'll have to wait for him to come to the studio to hear him as crystal clear as always.
Mr. Alba, through the pixelation, like the days when we young men used to watch HBO after dark, it's good to kind of see you.
And Greg is definitely ready to move on to his... That
was
great.
That
was great.
I am so glad that we could once again take the standards of this show.
and put them right into the wood chipper, just like the guy at the end of Fargo.
I'm going to file this.
I'm going to wait for WBA.
Yes, please do.
Alarm with many others.
Thank you, Todd.
Thank you.
All right, Greg.
Greg is back in one hour for Matt and Air on Air.
And in our next hour, Devon Remaker and Melissa Baldoff and an updated forecast from meteorologist Brittany Merleau.
Remember, follow us at UpNorthNewsWI.com and Mornings here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
I'm Pat Whitewell.
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