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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.
Now, from our Lake Wissota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
Well, hey there, Wisconsin.
Good morning.
It is 6.06 on this Wednesday morning, June 11th, 2025.
It's another beautiful morning to have you here up north.
Live from Lake Wissota from wherever you're spending your mornings.
listening across the civic media radio network on the app, social media podcast, wherever you do it.
Thanks for starting your day right here.
I've got a question for you.
What do you like on your pancakes?
And I know that, you know, yesterday we talked about having, you know, maple syrup in your coffee.
Who?
Parker Olson's here in Madison as well.
Who is it that had maple syrup in their coffee yesterday?
There's our pop quiz from yesterday.
Was it Dan Hagan?
Yes, it was.
It was Dan Hagan's dad.
Yeah, who put maple syrup in his coffee or maybe he did.
I thought it was him.
I don't know.
Yeah, it could be.
Anyway, so the question is, what do you like on your pancakes?
Well, take maple syrup.
That's like the default answer.
I'm thinking more like, like this morning, I made them with blueberries for sherry, strawberries for me.
I also like chocolate chips when I'm doing chocolate chip waffles.
I call them when I do the chocolate chips in my waffles, they're called chip waffles.
Chippewaffles.
Anyway, chocolate chips and pancakes as well.
Thank you.
Delayed.
I'll take it.
That's fine.
Then there's people, I know people that put peanut butter on their pancakes.
So what about you?
Are you just straight-up maple syrup or what?
Yes, let's see Tony says maple syrup raspberries and also Alicia's dad and Dan
There you go.
So there you go.
Anyway, not that he's saying put Alicia's dad and dad on your pancakes.
It's maybe a weird pancake.
Yeah, would.
So anyway, having having had a wonderful hot breakfast of fruity pancakes, we're ready to get on with our day here.
How does Parker Olson start his day way before the crack of dawn?
Because I know you drink
Water yeah, so I mean what are you gonna tell me next that you have a granola bar or something for breakfast or anything at all?
pretty rare.
What do you do after the show?
Do you go get like a late breakfast?
Yeah.
All right.
Well, now that you and I know you're, you're still relatively new there at the top of State Street in Madison, but do you have a favorite lunch place yet?
it a turkey and cheese sandwich.
Oh yeah.
I'm a simple man, Pat.
I'm a very simple bottle of water and a turkey and cheese sandwich.
Yep.
And yes, kids, his skin is as white as it sounds by that menu.
Yes.
Yes, I am.
Borderline translucent over here, but we'll work on it.
We'll work on it.
Coming up on the program today, if you're hearing a sputtering sound, it's coming from Republicans who are stammering about how their big bloated boondoggle of a budget bill doesn't actually cut Medicaid benefits to deserving Americans when it actually does.
Bigly.
In fact, we need to correct our record from yesterday on just how much will be cut from the stable, affordable healthcare coverage that millions of working families rely on for security.
Yesterday, while talking about it, I didn't grab the right word, and I talked about Republicans wanting to cut $600 million from Medicaid.
It wasn't that.
It was $600 billion over the next 10 years is gonna be cut.
By the way, saw a great video clip from Congressman Tom Tiffany here up north that he put out on YouTube in the past day or two.
A fact check on all the things about Medicaid cuts.
I'm gonna be fact checking in the fact check.
in the next couple of days here, you're going to want to stick around for that.
We're going to talk to a Madison area chef later this hour about why so many small business owners want the legislature to knock off its attempt to kill a working program that makes childcare more affordable.
And ask again, what is it that Republicans have against affordable childcare in this state?
We will again this hour torture our poor Wisconsin Rapids friend, Melissa Kay, about her quest for a new
pigeon, complete with new jingle and everything.
In our second hour, it is always harder to defend yourself when you can't see your attacker.
And that is certainly the case for public schools and a lack of transparency about the voucher program.
Because without that transparency, taxpayers aren't able to see how much of their money is being siphoned away to vouchers for well off families to send their kids to private schools.
So, we will talk about that issue, the state budget debate, and other end of the school year issues with Brent Bergstrom, president of the Green Bay Education Association, and Jeremy Trainor, president of the Eau Claire Association of Educators.
And in our climate check segment, in our third hour, Melissa Baldoff talks about transportation secretary Sean Duffy's war on pollution controls for automobiles.
Again, I feel compelled to read that again.
Sean Duffy's war on pollution controls for automobiles.
She also has some opinions on that new Dan Schaefer column.
Remember how much we were teasing it yesterday?
Yeah, it came out yesterday afternoon and it has generated as much conversation as I thought that it would where Dan Schaefer in his column calls on Governor Tony Evers not to run for a third term.
lays out all the reasons why he thinks that Governor Evers has been an amazing governor.
Good for the state.
but shouldn't run for a third term.
Melissa Baldoff, a former advisor to Governor Tony Evers, has some thoughts on the column.
We'll also check in with Civic Media's Earl Ingram, Todd Alba, James Kelly, so much more along the way as well, plus our Scotty Summer Text to Win contest, but you can send us a text right now, 855-75-CIVIC.
use that Civic Media app to text us that way or put something in the comment sections on Facebook or YouTube.
That would be the Up North News Facebook page or the Up North News YouTube page or the Civic Media Facebook page and the Civic Media YouTube page.
So, Tony says, what are your thoughts on that column, Pat?
Look at Tony stirring the pot nice and early on this.
Wonderful.
And look at Parker laughing at Tony about that.
Look at that.
He's a pot stirrer.
It's what he does.
So it does best.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So much like the race for Democratic chair this weekend coming up in Wisconsin Dells, I'm going to play the role that I've always played as a TV anchor as a humble facilitator of discussion and let people, you know, comment on both sides of it.
I haven't, you know,
taken sides in the DPW chairs race.
Those are three very good quality candidates.
I have excellent things to say about all of them.
And there's definitely, there's definitely points to be made on both sides of the question of whether Governor Evers should run again.
I will say, let me put this out for fodder here, because I'm in the minority on what Joe Biden should have done last year.
And I'm sticking to it.
I understand that most people disagree with me.
But just so you know where I'm coming from on this, I don't think Joe Biden should have stepped down from the ticket.
And I hear all kinds of people right now saying, great, well, you know, the Republicans would have like 60 senators right now and all that.
I'm not necessarily sure about that.
I think Joe Biden and his team screwed up how to move forward.
I think Joe Biden should have basically embraced his age and run with it and said, yeah.
I'm an old man.
I cannot run a 40-yard dash right now.
There's a lot of things I can't do.
But look at this team I've surrounded myself with and look at the legislation that I've passed.
I'm the manager of this team.
Vote for this team.
Or here's what Donald Trump would put together.
I think if he'd have gone with a team strategy that would have looked more at that cast of characters that Donald Trump has put together that
Joe Biden probably could have done better than a lot of people are giving him credit for.
That said, I don't begrudge his decision to leave.
I just think again, that was handled poorly.
If he was ever going to not run, and he should not have run, but he should have made that decision a lot earlier, like Labor Day of 2023 so that you could have an actual Democratic primary.
But when you get to this point in the calendar, I mean, you're in and you find the right strategy to go forward.
But he made the decision he made, Kamala Harris, much like Hillary Clinton, both women far more capable, far more responsible, far more qualified to be president.
Frankly, far more qualified to be American citizens than Donald J. Trump ever could hope to be.
But you don't take it on who's most qualified.
You take it on who runs the best campaign, who runs the most negative ads versus positive ads, and who can fool enough people enough at the times.
to get the votes.
And Donald Trump's been able to do that when he's run against these two different women, not against Joe Biden, which again says a lot about our political system today and how we have to do our messaging and how we have to stop letting the bullies win.
And how do you counter that?
So all of that comes into play when you look ahead at questions like, you know, Governor Tony Evers and whether he runs on his record and says, again, look at what I stand for.
Look at the team I've put together.
Again, I'm not here to run 100 yard dash for you.
Or if he says, Hey, I've accomplished a lot.
I'm, you know, I think it's time for other folks to give it a go.
Democrats.
Had a very shallow bench in the last decade after all kinds of folks present company included were bounced from office The bench was real thin it has built up really nicely right now So if the governor decides not to run for a third term there are plenty of people who will be ready to step into the fray and again make the case of who actually is backing
Wisconsin families who's actually backing Wisconsin businesses, who actually wants affordable health care in the state, who actually wants to have broadband extended all across the state, who actually wants middle-class taxes to be affordable, and who doesn't?
Who's been an impediment to all of those things?
I think Governor Evers or any Democratic candidate can make that case next year.
But first, we have to take care of the parlor game, which is, will hear, won't he?
And so Governor Evers says once the budget is done, that's when he's going to make a decision and announce it.
And so we will have to wait until then.
But it's not going to stop people from talking about it at the convention this weekend in Wisconsin Dells and Dan Schaeffer's column as I predicted.
was just the chum to throw in the water, if you will, to get everybody swarming and talking.
I think nobody really wanted to get into it one way or the other, depending on how you feel about it.
And Dan has essentially given everybody permission to go ahead, share your feelings, because you know what?
When it's all said and done, let's say it's half the people.
Half the people on one side of that question or not are going to turn out to be having chosen the wrong side.
and they're gonna have to, you know, make that decision to say, okay, that didn't go how I wanted it to go, but, you know, all hands on deck full speed ahead.
Because if not, you end up with whoever wins the Republican nomination for governor next year.
You end up with Robin Voss being the most powerful person in Wisconsin.
Right now, he's the most powerful Republican in Wisconsin.
He's got far more power than you know, Ron Johnson or anybody else, but he's got a governor that serves as a check and balance on him.
Do you want Robin Voss to be the most powerful man in Wisconsin?
That is truly what's on the ballot next year if you think about it.
In sports at 619, Jackson Churio and Jake Bowers hit home runs.
And pitcher Quinn Priester struck out seven in six strong innings as the Milwaukee Brewers beat the Atlanta Braves four to one on Tuesday night.
And Trevor McGill, here's a nice surprise.
He pitched the ninth and got his 13th save in 15 tries.
They will do this one more time this afternoon at 12.35 is when the pregame will start across several civic media stations.
Head over to civicmedia.us to learn much more.
We'll check Brittany Merlowe's state forecast in just a bit as well.
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 Krightlo.
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.
Well, I really got going with that last question there, so I forgot to get to things like, oh, I know, Brittany Merleau's forecast.
She says multiple systems are lined up and headed toward Wisconsin with many rounds of rain and thunderstorms expected over the next few days.
So it's dry pretty much everywhere now, but at least in the northern two thirds of Wisconsin, don't get used to it.
The state forecast for today, partly sunny and warm, chances for light rain, especially in central Wisconsin, highs today will range from the mid 70s up north to the low 80s in the southern part of the state, a northwest wind at 10 to 15 miles an hour.
Showers and storms arriving tonight, starting in west central Wisconsin, moving to southeast Wisconsin lows tonight.
In the upper 40s up north, the upper 50s in the southern part of the state and a north wind at five to 10 miles an hour.
And Brittany will join us.
coming up in our next hour with more about the rain and the temperature changes ahead.
Here's our daily reminder to get our newsletters plural.
Head over to UpNorthNewsWI.com and sign up for those.
We've got a new weekly sports newsletter on Saturdays from Christina Laurie and of course we've got my Sunday morning one as well.
In today's newsletter, again, she talks about our ongoing pledge drive.
We do that once every quarter and invite folks to support us.
You can always click support at the top of our homepage up north news wi.com.
She also talks about a website that provides what they advertise as progressive shopping brands.
And we get this a lot when we're talking about certain businesses and other people will chime in and say, well, I don't support that business because they support Republican candidates or something like that.
And that is entirely fair.
And that is a decision somebody can make if they want to.
I don't have any problem with that.
What this website's doing is saying, well, rather than businesses you
don't care to support.
What about the ones where there is a track record of supporting progressive causes or candidates?
And it again goes through all the contribution records.
These are national brands, by the way, and says, you know, instead of saying it, say this hotel chain, consider this hotel chain instead.
So there's a link to that in today's newsletter.
There's an article about Swedish pancakes, like the kind you get at L Johnson's and sister Bay up in Dora County.
The
pancake that's made lighter and fluffier by using less flour, more eggs, and of course, butter.
And then finally, one that I think we'll have to save for another time, Parker, but we'll get into it.
We get into it every so often.
Where is the Midwest?
Oh, in other words, in other words, who is not the Midwest?
And you start with this big old map.
Yeah, I'm gonna take out the easy ones on either side.
Montana.
Yep.
No, you are not in the Midwest.
Correct.
Pennsylvania.
No, no, you are not in the Midwest.
But then you start getting toward, you know, Ohio and the Dakotas and, you know, people go, Well, is that is that the Midwest?
Are those the plains?
Is the Ohio Valley?
And it's just it's the same as what we do when we talk about what's up north.
What is?
I know.
So there's that in the newsletter today.
A bit of a, I think there's a poll in there about where people see all of these various states.
Again, get that newsletter at upnorthnewswi.com.
The Joint Finance Committee of the Wisconsin Legislature was asked to provide an extra way to give better security to judges and courts and legislative Republicans
once again rejected a request to create a law enforcement agency to protect Wisconsin judges even though the number of threats against judges continues to climb and despite some high-profile incidents as well not to mention the execution of a Wisconsin judge back in 2022 by a man he had sentenced to prison a decade earlier.
Governor Earl's state budget plan had included a request from the Supreme Court, the state Supreme Court, that would have expanded the court's marshals office into a statewide agency with eight employees to continue to help provide security for justices, for judges, and for the courts as well.
Again, there have been many
new threats.
Democratic Senator Kelder Roy is on the Joint Finance Committee says in this Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story, I'm deeply concerned about threats to the judiciary.
We have an administration in Washington that is using language and denigrating members of our judiciary that we've really never experienced before in this country.
This Supreme Court has made this request over numerous years because they understand better than any of us do what it is like to try to serve the public in this critically important but increasingly dangerous role.
And again, Republicans in the Joint Finance Committee decided against that.
They did provide some extra funding for courts overall and that is not nothing, I think.
I think there's a debate to be had on what you do with existing law enforcement versus creating a new agency.
But in any case, it underscores where we've come in this country at this point that we have courts and justices that are seeing this continued rise in threats and are asking for help.
And they can't get it because at the moment there is a political class in this country that would rather arrest
judges and Shackle them, parade them in front of cameras and celebrate that rather than engage in actual law and order.
And that's what I would ask again is who is it that's really for law and order?
Meaning following and adhering to the law versus disruption and ignoring the law and doing things that are extra legal.
Thankfully, it was a mostly quiet night in California last night, but President Trump continues to provoke and try to exacerbate tensions to the point where there's some kind of violence that would justify violence on his part.
And none of it has anything to do with actually following the law or immigration crackdowns.
It is all about having the appearance of and the tools of an authoritarian strongman.
We'll talk to a local chef and small business owner about childcare support in Wisconsin.
Next, you're up north.
Tomorrow on the program, we will have State Senate Democratic Leader Diane Hasselbein.
We'll be joined by Sean O'Malley to talk about your money and the markets.
We'll talk to Chad Holmes, Sharita Booker, all that and much more ahead tomorrow on these mornings powered by Up North News.
Ollie in the Northwoods, I see you up there and unfortunately our phone system is not quite ready yet to take phone calls once again.
So Ollie, we can see the call coming in, but we can't.
actually route it, you know, up to on the air, which is why I keep talking about texting all the time.
So send us a text and trust me when the phone lines are ready to go again, we're going to be pasting that phone number everywhere for people to come in.
So I don't have to just listen to myself yapping all the time.
And according to the text line, one Luke Mather says that once again, instead of saying Governor Tony Evers, I referred to Governor Earl, Tony Earl, no, Tony Evers, but it's always nice to be reminded just how old I am.
and how many governors I've seen already.
Late yesterday, I talked to Chef Evan DeNelz from Cadre Restaurant in Madison and Lola's High Low Lounge.
He's been one of the folks with Main Street Alliance who's been especially vocal about ways that politicians could be more helpful to small business, more helpful in leveling the playing field.
The classic example that I would give is there's a small business owner that wants to
help his employees and provide, say, paid time off.
But if his competition across the street doesn't do that, he's at a disadvantage.
I mean, he might attract, you know, the better workers, but he's also going to run out of money first, or she as the case may be.
Whereas if you just increased the minimum wage for everybody, or if you had paid family leave for everybody,
Well, that would be good for all small businesses.
A rising tide lifts all boats.
That's the kind of arguments that Main Street Alliance makes and Chef Evan Dennells makes those as well as a restaurant owner and as somebody who has looked at the issue of child care.
And we know what a crisis we have right now for affordable child care in this country.
And we also know that there's something that would work.
There's a tax credit that's there's there's a
I'm sorry, there's a tax credit that Republicans have put out there that hasn't worked, and there's something Governor Evers has tried that has worked.
It's better to go with the easier, less complex solution, as you'll hear in my conversation here with Chef Evan Donels.
First of all, you've got to back up and get to the root of the issue itself, which is child care issue.
Child care is not a business issue alone.
It's a people issue.
It's a society issue.
People need childcare at almost all walks of life at some point in time in their lives.
A lot of people need it in order to have a dual income household because we all know the single income household essentially doesn't exist at this point unless you are making a lot of money.
So the problem that I have with it is the childcare industry was absolutely gutted by COVID.
It was already
heading towards broken in a lot of ways in terms of their ability to compensate their employees.
But all of a sudden when COVID happened, nobody wanted to take their kids to childcare because everybody was worried about a virus.
So people left the industry in mass.
And so the federal government and the state government both subsidized sort of their reopening and getting back into the flow of things, which helped bring some people back to the industry.
They never reached 100% staffing levels after that.
And, but those subsidies.
Are a necessity in order for them to provide affordable childcare that everyone can have access to, not just people needs.
And so we run into this problem where.
We start to have a debate about what the role of government is in these sorts of businesses and.
In my opinion and the opinion of a lot of people, the role of government is to essentially set the stage so that people can have a competitive marketplace inside of any given industry period.
And what we have right now is, if there was profit to be had in this, some big business would step in, but they're not.
Almost all childcare facilities are small businesses run by people who care genuinely about caring for children.
And they're telling you that they can't even pay their employees.
the lowest wage I've heard of on average of just about any industry inside the state of Wisconsin, and they need help for it.
The Republican answer to that is, oh, well, we'll have the employers give a tax credit to make it more affordable for people to be able to afford their childcare.
But the problem with that is twofold.
One, you can't have a single thing like that paint, that paintbrush across the entire industry.
It's not going to work for lots of people.
We all know that.
The second thing is,
As employers, we don't want to deal with that.
We're happy to pay people and do our business, but that's just extra complications for our world where we're busy trying to do our business as well.
And so from an employer perspective, it's like we don't want to deal with having to try to navigate with our employees, how to utilize the tax credit that we're not even positive when we work for them.
Because again, if it had worked before, people would have used it.
And so we run into this problem and there are other states that have done this like New Mexico subsidized childcare all the way across the state and right away like employment levels went way up as people who were forced to be single-income households could become dual-income households again.
You did talk to Eric Gunn of the Wisconsin Examiner and I heartily recommend that to everybody.
And you also gave a response as to why
a tax credit like this wouldn't work it can't be evenly applied because I mean you gave the illustration just of your full-time employees and whether that tax credit would work and certainly not work equitably.
Well and I don't think that it will necessarily I mean it's it's the same general philosophy as running into whether people can write off or they should just take the standard deduction.
A lot of the people in a lot of industries aren't
really seeing tax returns and they're living very hand-to-mouth and so having the promise and some subsidy at the end of the year doesn't help them get taxed.
Child care in the moment.
And I
hate to have this be a partisan issue, but it certainly has become one.
Well, I'm still not sure how it became a partisan issue because let's backtrack to the Affordable Care Act.
The Affordable Care Act, before it was derided as Obamacare by Republicans, the idea for the Affordable Care Act
actually came from conservatives that said, how about if you make it easier for people to afford private insurance?
And so now you have that.
And that's the model that has been working fewer uninsured people all the time.
So it seems to make sense.
You would do the same thing with childcare, make childcare affordable again.
And rather than trying these complicated tax credits and everything else, I feel like we know the answer here in some folks in politics for whatever
reason just don't want to acknowledge it.
Yeah, and when it becomes the same problem of the sort of juxtaposition of if people can't afford child care, they eventually go broke and then they need to be on state bachelor care and they become a burden of the state.
But we have to look at child care the same way.
If people's income levels drop below, then all of a sudden they're on battery care because they're not paying for their own insurance anymore.
They're on
food stamps because they have to be because they had to try to pay for childcare.
Like all these additional costs put people in a system where they end up costing a lot more money than if they were out contributing and generating more tax revenue in the first place.
And this isn't
complicated math.
And you would really hope
at the end of the day the one thing that wouldn't be partisan would be you know feeding and providing shelter for children during the course of the day but as we saw with trying to get free unlimited meals to kids in schools we do this interesting job where we're requiring children to be in a facility from ages 5 to 18 but we don't do anything and that's paid for by taxpayer money that's called school but we don't provide school for zero through four
And it doesn't make any sense.
So many mothers are on badger care.
Their child is on badger care right after they give birth for the first year of their life.
Then they've got to go figure out some way to upend their lives to take care of their children for the next four years before they're mandated to be in school by the state again.
So we should just take care of that all the way through.
And as an employer, I don't mind paying additional taxes to know that it's taking care of children.
I don't want to navigate an unproven, untested theory about how a tax credit is going to somehow make it affordable for client employees because I'll have to deal with the consequences of it if it doesn't work.
We're talking to Chef Evan DeNels from Cadre Restaurant in Madison about child care and tax credits versus direct support through the Child Care Counts program.
And again, much like the Affordable Care Act or Health Care overall,
I keep coming back to this one notion that we always heard from small businesses back then as well.
We don't want to be in the healthcare business, and I heard you say earlier, you don't really want to be in the childcare business, so instead of tax credits, help the people who are most in need so that you can get back to focusing on widgets, or in your case, running a restaurant, rather than seeing if your employees can jump all the right hoops for people to get a tax credit.
Well, and even
better, do that through the childcare facilities themselves.
Why are you making the employer have to deal with this?
When the one thing that all these people have in common is they're wanting access to childcare, channel that money through the childcare facilities.
They're already heavily regulated.
They're already monitored.
There's a lot less of a chance that it's going to be abused.
It's going to go to the right people and it's going to give people more childcare.
Chef Evan Dennells, thank you so much for joining us and talking from a small business standpoint about the impact of this very important issue.
We really appreciate your time.
Thanks again for having me back.
It was really nice to get a chance to talk to him.
taking time for I'm sure you heard all the restaurant work going on in the background there at Cadre restaurant in Madison.
He also has Lola's high low lounge.
And as I was talking to him, I was looking at the Instagram page for Lola's in Madison as well.
And this is where Parker comes into the equation because in in the Lola's
Instagram feed at a mallards game in the back scoreboard there.
It says free spicy popcorn at Lola's with your mallards tickets.
I asked him about that.
He said we can't even keep that.
That spicy popcorn has become so popular.
Oh, yeah.
I love all those things, you know, whether it's the Eau Claire Express up here or wherever.
And again, you get you get small business involved or, you know, small midsize businesses and, you know, reward people for getting off their duff, get out of the couch, get out of the house and go to go to a game like this.
You know, do something.
Not
everything
has to be Brewers Packers Badgers.
Go to go to some of these smaller teams and taking a game there.
Yeah.
How often do you work all
yeah.
Okay.
It's it's it's an adjustment, trust me, the the early alarms here.
A reminder that coming up later this evening on Nightlight with Pete Schwabba.
will be our own Christina Laurie, who puts together the newsletter for Up North News.
So she'll be joining Pete during the seven o'clock hour and you can always subscribe to her newsletter and mine at upnorthnewswi.com.
Also ahead, we're still going to have our Scotty summer text to win contest.
Again, we do a different keyword each, well, four times a day.
And then you use your app to text that into us.
And if, you know, we draw yours that hour, you get that hours prize, which might be $100.
be brewers tickets.
And then you're in the running for one of the grand prizes a weekend stay in Dora County or in the Wisconsin Dells area and some gas money to get there as well.
So again, that's the Scotty summer text to win contest coming up.
Parker, when Aaron Rodgers had his welcome or initial press conference with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and he talked about, oh, being back in football is good for my soul.
Did you catch the other little nugget that he dropped out there?
The married thing?
The thing where he got married a couple of months ago.
Yeah.
thing I think I've ever heard.
By the way, I got married.
I don't I don't even know who I because honestly, I haven't cared enough to look at the coverage.
But you know, he's and I say all this.
I mean, I wish him well.
But I also feel like we've simply set the stage for, you know, the next big celebrity break up out there.
Today's history lesson is next as we always do with Melissa K mornings up north and live on the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
Melissa Kay is here for today's history lesson.
It's a couple skate only right now, everybody, for Graham Russell and Russell Hitchcock and Air Supply.
Graham Russell has a birthday today turned 75 and Russell Hitchcock the other half of the the duo turns 76 this weekend so they've known each other going way back and I mentioned of course last year taking Sherry has always been an Air Supply fan and taking her to see Air Supply in Milwaukee last year and they're still they're still touring 50 years later.
Really?
They're still out and about they really are.
Oh wow that's cool.
That's a long time to do that.
I know, but they look like they're still having fun, you know, cash the checks.
Here's Melissa Kay from 97.5 WFHR and one of 55 WIRI.
How are you, Melissa?
Good morning.
I'm really excited.
You are?
Yes.
Okay.
Well, let me get through the history lesson first and then we'll get to the stuff to be excited about.
Peter Dinklage from Game of Thrones, Tyrion.
He is 56 years old today.
The late Vince Lombardi was born this day in 1913.
And a bittersweet reminder again that he passed away in 1970 at the very young age of 57.
Cancer, right?
Guys, you gotta get those prostates checked, you really do.
Let's get back to the music here and go to 1991 and the release of this version of Now That We Found Love by Heavy D and the Boys.
This is
his
workout song.
Yes, it actually was back in the days when I did this thing called working out.
Yes, it was on there.
This one peaked at number 11 back in 1991.
On this day in 1770, British explorer Captain James Cook ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, technically making him the first tourist
but certainly not the last to damage the reef.
Let's see.
Donnie Van Zandt is 73 years old today from 38 Special.
Donnie Van Zandt was the middle of three sons.
His older brother Ronnie was the original lead singer for Leonard Skinder, who died in that plane crash in 1977.
His younger brother, Johnny,
Had been lead singer for Lyndards Kindred since 1987 and of course Donnie there with 38 specialists 73 today the number one song this week in 1966 was by the Rolling Stones You know what
You know, it's a really nice coincidence here.
This, too, was on my workout tape, my running tape, when I used to run.
This was on my running playlist as well.
I mean, listen, can't you just run to that?
You could.
The very,
very beginning sounds a little like a medieval
minstrel.
Yeah.
It definitely keeps the beat going.
And apparently, we've got agreement from Tony on YouTube.
Paint of Black is one of the best songs ever.
So there you go.
Thank you.
That was 1966.
How about we go to 1977 when the number one song was by Casey and the Sunshine Band?
American Idol premiered on this date in 2002.
And one last quick note here.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off hit theaters this week in 1986.
Here's a little clip of Matthew Broderick leading a parade through downtown Chicago lip-syncing to the Beatles.
Parker, you're not that young.
You've seen Ferris
I will
I
skip school, right?
That's the only way to watch it.
I haven't
seen it, but I know that
much.
Melissa, you've got to put that on your bucket movie list.
I don't have
one.
I don't have any.
Let's see, Parker's going to take the music out because it's time for the thing that everybody else has been waiting for.
We get to Wednesday morning, and people want to know what's the latest with Melissa K in this edition of...
Wow, pre-production.
It's so much.
Oh, it's so perfect.
When we make time.
You have to send that to me.
That's adorable.
Oh, thank you.
We put all the five seconds into that.
Oh, it's so
great, though.
It's perfect.
So what's the latest on Melissa gets a pigeon?
I got an email last night at eight o'clock from the pigeon rescue in Chicago.
I have been
approved.
Oh, baby.
Look how excited you are.
She's a
winner.
They are confident that I am an ideal pigeon home.
Oh, believe me.
You are an ideal pigeon home.
Yes.
They sent me.
They said, thank you so much for sending the photos of the pigeon cage you prepared in your lovely home.
They think my home is lovely.
Your home is lovely.
at least what part of it that we can see.
I am so excited, you guys.
I mean, outside the camera range, you might be a full on hoarder, but no, I think that's a lovely home.
It's a great looking corner.
That is going to be one lucky pigeon.
But we don't know yet if you're going to get your choice of pigeon.
Well,
bell pepper is available.
Bell pepper.
But then so is Princess P, Sam or Thrace.
And then she also recommended paint bucket.
And I'm very curious about paint bucket.
Paint bucket.
Yes, that's the name of the bird and named so for the colorful like it looked like she walked through under
a
paintbrush.
Okay.
But yeah, so I have to decide.
On the text line here, Laura from Wisconsin Rapids, I can't wait for the pigeon pick up a road trip story.
I mean, you have to go get the pigeon, right?
They don't deliver
it.
I don't want them to ship it.
They do ship birds, but that just seems awful.
So I'm
going to go get it.
No, no, especially when it comes in a bucket.
It's got KFC written on it.
It's just so delicious.
Melissa K, thank you.
Oh, we're out of time.
Wow.
Two or more hours of this to go as we get rolling on another one of these Wednesday mornings powered by Up North News.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
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