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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake Rosota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
Hey, good morning.
It is 7 0 6.
It is nice to have you here up north in Wisconsin Rapids live from W F H R radio celebrating their 85th anniversary today with a parking lot party that will take place on this Wednesday morning, August 20th 2025.
Melissa K hanging around from W F H R to tell us more about that meteorologist Brittany Merlot standing by as well.
Then later this hour, State Representative Christian Phelps in our homeroom segment will be talking about
So what of a bait and switch idea for some federal funding that is ostensibly supposed to be for education overall?
but is just a backdoor way to continue to fund voucher schools and drain away our public schools.
So stick around for all of that.
While I'm in Wisconsin Rapids, we're going to talk with former state representative Katrina Shanklin coming up in our eight o'clock hour as well.
But again, Melissa Kay sticking around and Brittany Merleau here as well.
Brittany, I thought we might see you.
Come on down here to Rapids for the big parking lot party this afternoon.
You're a good forecaster, Pat.
How did you know?
see look how much Melissa you so happy now I mean I thought she was happy to see me you mentioned Brittany Merleau and suddenly I mean you blow the barn doors off this is this is really something
you kind of love WFHR I love
that
whole family up there this is so exciting happy birthday thank you I mean it's not till November but I'll take it
oh no this is a great day to celebrate it what kind of a day whether wise do we get for it
Oh, perfect weather out there, especially in central Wisconsin.
So yeah, we've got some patchy fog out there and places dense in some spots as well.
That's going to start to burn off.
Of course, as we go through the rest of this morning, temperatures right now, it's about 61 degrees in Fond du Lac and 70 degrees in Madison.
We've got a nice high pressure system that's building and setting in and sticking here with us as we go through the rest of this week.
So while the cloudy conditions are still there.
Misty out there on occasion.
We've got big waves still on Lake Michigan as well.
A beach hazard, two to five foot waves building there towards Milwaukee, Kenosha and Racine.
Otherwise, by Lake Michigan in the Fox Valley and Milwaukee area, a few spotty sprinkles or brief light showers are possible.
Winds are going to be off the lake, a nice lake breeze, but of course it could build those showers.
Now, very, very isolated chance for a spotty shower elsewhere in the state today.
I'm talking minimal, but it could happen.
Otherwise, more and more sunshine this afternoon, a gorgeous day, mix of sun and clouds on occasion and mid to upper 70s throughout the state.
It's going to be fantastic.
And we push repeat on that for tomorrow.
It's still going to be beautiful on Friday too.
up until the cold front moves through Friday night and into early Saturday.
That could spark a little bit of rain and then it makes it feel like fall for the weekend.
I'm kind of excited about, but don't worry, summer temperatures will still come back.
I was going to say, I've heard that that F word used a lot this week.
People saying it's starting to feel fall like around here.
There's some fall temperatures coming.
And I'm like, I don't think it's time for that yet.
No, but it is nice to have.
Magic.
You know
else?
People have sent me twice this week.
People have sent me photos of pumpkin spice products that are in grocery stores now, like pumpkin spice twinkies and things like that.
No, people.
No, let it let it go.
Don't buy
it.
Don't
cave.
Don't do it.
Coming out earlier and earlier be June and we'll have candy corn
stand up to big pumpkin spice
It's
all just marketing kids you can what is it nutmeg you can season these things yourself if you really want to Although I mean not not Tony of course is in Ashley.
He's like flannel time.
It's fall and
Rob, I was
thinking the same thing.
Rob on YouTube says that some of the leaves are starting to change colors.
He says, yeah, too soon.
Good morning from Tigerton.
Cloudy in 65.
I got my mowing jobs in Wittenberg.
Three in Tigerton.
Doctors appointment is Sean O, then going to an event in Neil Pitt on the Menominee Reservation.
where Dr. Kristen Lyrely is going to be as well.
So looking forward to it.
And finally, Rob says, Happy anniversary, WFHR.
I have to buy a drink for Brittany and Melissa again, some time like I did in Appleton last November.
Yeah, that was not coming to the party.
What?
I know
you've got a busy day, man.
Well, he does.
He's got he's got a mowing.
There's no mowing.
There's no mowing for him to do here.
It's just all parking lot right here.
Plenty
of plenty of room for the food trucks, not so much the lawnmowers.
All right.
Thank you, Brittany.
And we'll talk to you in the next
hour.
Yeah.
So with Melissa K. Stickin' around from WFHR, we get to talk a bit more about, we talked to James in the last hour about the station's history.
And by the way, very nice text from Jim in Brookfield who says congratulations to WFHR on 85 successful years of broadcasting.
That was a great interview with James where the passion he has for broadcasting could be heard in his voice.
It's good to know that WFHR is part of civic media.
Thank you.
That was very nice.
And yes, it was it was a thrill to talk to James.
Because again, while I was fortunate enough to have a career in TV, and then in politics as well.
I mean, it got started in radio.
And I still that's still what how I think of it that that's what I wanted to do.
Originally, was local radio.
And so when I came in here yesterday, and saw the passion that
you all have for what you're doing here.
It just did my heart a lot of good because it is still good work to be involved in.
You're not going to get rich doing it, but it's still good work to be involved in, Melissa.
That is very, very true.
And what you came and walked in on was a lot of sweat.
You, you were literally in front of the building, washing the windows.
And it's hot in that entryway.
It really is.
Yeah.
And look, and I've shared small market radio stories, you know, where you're cleaning the toilets and then everything else, because, you know, there's no cleaning lady coming in here.
This is not that kind of a corporation.
You got to take care of yourselves.
But it's also in your nature.
You take care of your own home, because you want to take care of your hometown.
And I know from the talk shows and, and the other
shows that you've worked on, that talking to the community through their local radio station is very important to people like you.
And, you know, the the community stories, I'm hoping we'll bring it back, Laura, and I have a grandiose plan to bring it back as a podcast.
But it's just, it's a wonderful opportunity to talk to community leaders and community members and honestly, just
anybody from the community to build up the beauty and the togetherness that we have here.
And I think it's, we're a lot more alike, James says this a lot, we're a lot more alike than we realize.
And there's more that brings us together than divides us.
And the more we talk to each other, the more we know that.
When you're talking to the Wisconsin Rapids community, I mean, you're talking about a community that like so many others in the Midwest has had to make some changes.
It is, you know, the paper mill towns
and
places like that.
They're not what they were in their heyday.
But I also see as I'm driving around and I'm looking at the businesses, I mean, the first thing people see is like, oh, they see all the fast food restaurants and all the short term things.
But you also see like a whole new generation of jobs in things like, you know, building computer networks and things like that.
Oh, Claire went through that when the tire factory closed, Wisconsin Rapids has found ways to embrace a new economy.
and get people educated for the jobs of this era, not the one that their parents and grandparents did.
And with Mid-State putting the Ameda Center in, that is going to be a huge I think draw for technical college education in those technical jobs that we need.
We desperately need those.
And we definitely have
a city council and a mayor who really want to invest in the economy of Wisconsin Rapids and work to build some more businesses.
Because yes, the paper mill days are gone.
We're still dealing with the aftermath in Wisconsin Rapids and in Port Edwards with the old paper mills that are still here.
That's going to be something we have to figure out.
But we're taking steps
forward.
Yeah but along with the work there's also got to be the play quite literally plays that you and James and others you have to have in order to have a vibrant community you have to have a vibrant arts community.
How would you rate Wisconsin Rapids there?
You know I am
I have not seen a community theater as beautifully furnished and, and staffed as Wisconsin Rapids has.
It's just, it's a pleasure doing shows there and going to see shows there because they have a beautiful facility.
They have a beautiful, um, like the backstage area is impressive.
The storage, I just, I don't know how much you know about community theaters, but a lot of them are tucked in and, and, or they have to just store stuff somewhere and then.
go and perform like they do in Steven's Point, where then they get to use the Century Theatre.
But it's beautiful there.
We have the Performing Arts Center with the Arts Council having art there.
We have the Cultural Center down on 8th Street.
And then all of the programs that our schools do with our students that help inspire and build those arts and music.
It's wonderful.
I think our community is vibrant and beautiful.
And they're really going to see a slice of that today in the parking lot.
What else are what are you looking forward to?
I mean, I heard food trucks, but there's going to be the desserts.
There's going to be the photo booth.
There's just going to be just a great excuse for gathering.
there is and I forgot to move those hula hoops that are behind you gracing the back of your
your
brain there.
Yeah, so we're going to have a hula hoop contest because it's always fun to make James hula hoop.
He has no hips.
And he thinks he can't but those hula hoops are special because they're weighted and and he actually can do it.
I was gonna say those are not typical hula hoops.
They look, she would say handmade.
Yeah, they're professional ones.
They're weighted and they're bigger.
Okay, so there will be hula hooping here today.
We'll be hula hooping.
There's going to be axe throwing.
There's virtual reality game.
We're going to have beanbag toss.
We've got sidewalk chalk food trucks with we're going to have a canopy with like tables and chairs for people to sit at like, we're going all out.
X throwing.
I am quite well aware one of the cardinal rules of broadcasting is to keep, you know, small to medium market radio people away from sharp instruments.
And yet
Here you guys are
throwing is coming.
They have they're going to set up outside.
I'm pretty sure that they're not real axes.
I think they're from this display,
but we'll
find out.
You know, you know, Parker talks pretty big from way down in Madison.
You come up here and throw all of those things.
Have you have either of you done like the arcade version where it's pretty much like a plastic axe and you're throwing it at like a dartboard?
type of thing.
No, I haven't.
I've only done like real throwing knives
in
my brother's basement.
Throwing knives.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, I guess I was gonna say, I guess any knife is a throwing knife.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Were there were there charges involved or is everything?
No, just a tendon cut on my brother's hand.
You okay.
that'll that'll end that juggling career.
So
juggle.
All right, Melissa, this is going to be a lot of fun.
And I will probably have to skip out before Todd's show.
But Todd, although we'll be here setting up as well to do his show from two to four.
So
say
hi to him, give him a give him a give him a piece of whatever dessert I was going to be sampling here.
And good, good luck with your own.
We're not going to we're not going to, you know, sway the judges, you know, you're just going to cut you but you've you've got stuff you're proud you're looking forward to.
Yeah, I am.
It's my grandma's recipe.
And I love it.
It's my favorite.
Oh,
It's going to be way fun.
Good deal.
Thank you, Melissa, so much.
Thanks for hanging
around.
Thank you, Parker.
I'm so excited that you did this from our studio today.
Thank
you for
doing that.
We are thrilled.
All right, we'll talk to you later.
All right.
A local update is next for some of you along the Civic Media Radio Network.
And then when we're all back together in about 15 minutes here, State Representative Christian Phelps will be joining us.
He's part of the Assembly Education Committee and wants to make sure that people are up to speed on something that Congress has passed amidst all the budget cuts.
There's this new pile of money for education, but it's not what it seems.
That's ahead here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
I'm Matt Cretelaw.
You're listening to Civic Media.
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It includes an article on specialty cheese making in Wisconsin and I think a lot of you knew that you know for being the dairy state so much of what we produce for milk goes into cheese making and so much of that goes into special specialty cheeses.
I mean you know most of the mozzarella cheese that you have in pizzerias around the country comes from Wisconsin but there's feta, parmesan, provolone, monster and more.
It's up to now 30% of all the cheese produced in Wisconsin last year
Those are specialty cheeses that are being made.
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Jimmy Koska will be here in a half hour.
We'll be talking about the Brewers.
And now, oh my goodness, there's a losing streak, a two-game losing streak, losing both games of a double header to the Chicago Cubs.
So let's all overreact, shall we, when Jimmy gets here a half hour from now.
Now, also coming up at 8.35, we will be talking to Katrina Shanklin, former state representative from the area.
And then tomorrow morning, we'll talk to Sarah Godluski, the current Wisconsin Secretary of State and former Wisconsin State Treasurer.
is making an announcement about her plans for next year's election.
So Sarah Godlowski will be joining us tomorrow.
Parker, well, I was listening to the, you know, there's several local stations across the civic media radio network here.
And in my headphones come the Madison Station from where you are down there in Studio A2.
And there was a story about basically folks having to be displaced in some public housing
residences because new apartments are being built to replace the old ones.
But it got me to the larger topic of being displaced in Madison.
And this whole notion, and this is this has been a thing for a long time now, where all in all these student housing places off campus housing, the leases expire August 14.
But the new leases don't kick in until August 15.
And so
for that night every year.
There's a huge chunk of the Madison population living on the street because nobody in Madison has thought to stagger lease dates.
They all go with one and then the other and I've been down there for it.
It is it is bedlam down there, especially if the weather's not nice that particular day.
But you didn't see that at like whitewater.
I don't recall seeing it at Eau Claire.
Okay, I mean, it just seems like maybe some leases will start this day, but some will start that day.
But
not on the scale of what you see in Madison.
I mean, I don't know about Eau Claire.
Whitewater is known as a suitcase college.
So you're not getting a ton of people just hanging around on the weekends anyway.
So I think a good chunk of people who may be going from one apartment to the other are probably going home for a while before that.
Oh yeah, I mean.
There are definitely more commuter campuses that way.
This thing in Madison.
I just, when I heard that news story, it reminded me that, oh yeah, they went through that again last week.
And I would again say unnecessarily so.
Let's see if we can't avoid the problem of having like an all night street party all throughout Madison.
And let's get a roof over people's heads, shall we?
nothing wrong with that.
Oh yeah, till it starts raining.
Yeah, can't can't have perfect summer weather every night.
That's for sure.
Noticing that Congressman Tom Tiffany has sent a sternly worded letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi saying that the US Department of Justice under the Trump administration should be trying to get back from the Lactoflambo tribe.
The money that was paid to them by the town of Lactoflambo nearby
in order to have access to the roads that were on the Lactoflambo Reservation.
And at the risk of going through this entire ordeal again, let me try to make this really quick, the Lactoflambo Reservation is a checkerboard.
There are some parcels in there that belong to non-tribal members because of a terrible law in the late 1800s.
that allowed the reservations in part to be broken up and also from an earlier treaty as well with the Lactoflambo.
So it's led to these non-tribal parcels in there, but you have to cross tribal land to get to them.
Well, that requires permission or an easement.
And for years that easement was was legally binding, but then it expired.
And the Lactoflambo said, well, we want a new easement and, you know, for you to pay for access.
Eventually, they lost that court fight, but not before at the time, wanting payments to, again, give that permission to cross across tribal land.
Now, Congressman Tom Tiffany, in the spirit of conciliation, because Tom Tiffany is nothing, if not about conciliation and compromise and working together, and yeah, that sarcasm, is now asking the Department of Justice to go after the tribe and get back some $600,000 that had been paid in the meantime.
And I mean, that is in keeping with somebody who, again, referred to the tribe as engaging in extortion and plenty of other strong language that went in there.
But it's also not a surprise when you also discover that Congressman Tiffany recently also sent a letter to the chair of the Public Service Commission and urged the commission not to give into any pressure to close
coal-fired plants prematurely.
Because again, Congressman Tiffany is all about coal and oil and saying that, you know, these are the power plants that we need, not the things that intermittent generation provided by wind and solar, he likes to say, because he still honestly believes that if the wind isn't blowing hard and the sun isn't shining that there isn't any electricity being generated out there.
And it's exactly this kind of thinking that about his tribal neighbors and about energy that he thinks is going to propel him to a run for governor.
We'll see how he makes that decision in the coming months here as we follow along on these mornings powered by Up North News on the Civic Media Radio Network.
We'll talk to State Representative Christian Phelps in just a bit.
The Milwaukee Brewers lost both games of a double header at Wrigley Field last night, game one.
Six to four, though Christian Yelich broke a week-long drought with a home run.
And then in the second game, Brandon Woodruff struggled through four and a third innings, allowing five hits and three runs.
The Brewers ultimately losing that game four to one.
They're back in action tonight at Wrigley Jacob Mizorowski, going up against former Brewer Colin Ray.
Again, that's coming up at 6.30, pregame begins across the Civic Media Radio Network Select Stations at theCivicMedia.us to learn more.
We will have former State Representative Katrina Shanklin here in one hour who represented folks here in the Wisconsin Rapids area.
and we will be talking tomorrow to State Secretary of State Sarah Godluschi about her election plans for 2026.
But now let's visit with current State Representative Christian Phelps of Eau Claire from the Assembly Education Committee and start by talking a bit about some new money that came from the federal government.
Something that wasn't a budget cut, but it's also not exactly what it seems.
Representative Phelps, good morning.
How are you?
Good morning, Pat.
I'm all right.
Good to see you.
Oh, it's good to see you here as well.
And I'm going to quote a bit here from an article in state's newsroom, which is the parent company of the Wisconsin examiner.
And the headline is new federal school voucher program poses a quandary for states opt in or opt out.
And it is a scholarship program that ostensibly state officials can steer the money in one direction or another.
but it really does put state officials in a weird position of either saying no to federal funding or saying yes to it and hoping that the money can be used toward public education in the state.
Is that a relatively near enough interpretation of what I'm reading here from state's newsroom about what this so-called scholarship program could
be?
That's pretty in line with my reading of their analysis here.
The basic premise is that the big, ugly budget bill, Trump's favorite bill that was passed federally right after the state budget was passed here in Wisconsin, created a program that education advocates like my friends here in the state and across the country were kind of watching closely.
to see what type of maybe federal voucher program might become a reality in the Trump administration because he's very cozy with school privatizers.
And what they created instead was a kind of scholarship program that governors of any state can opt into that kind of creates this
It's very similar to an ESA and education savings account that some states have.
It's not the way that Wisconsin's voucher program works, but it's similar and can be directed towards students for states that opt into it.
And ostensibly can be used not just for private school students, but for some of the costs of sending students to school and public schools as well.
So it is a very, it's a very tough position for
folks like me who believe that the government at all levels should be focusing their resources on public education because on one hand there's money on the table that you know purportedly could be used for students in public education but on the other hand it does read like um perhaps a more palatable stepping stone on on its way to a
federal voucher program, which would, which would to me be an abdication of the government's responsibility to support public schools and to favor private education instead.
Well,
so that's the position you
ran.
Not to mention, and I say this rhetorically and sarcastically, that it seems odd from people who said they wanted to return education to the states are suddenly now offering all of this federal money for education.
It would seem
too good to be true that they're actually changing their stance on federal involvement in education, right?
Oh, yeah.
I think that you're right there.
I think people should take a hard look at the people that are devising this plan, remember what bill it was a part of and which president hasn't been advocating for it, and remember what project they're involved in, which is a decades-long project to essentially end.
government support at all levels for the public schools that unite communities and people of all economic backgrounds and instead favor a private system, which is just not the government's role in my opinion.
I would also say that it almost appears that they're learning something that they could have known from the beginning if they just listened to public educators and advocates, which is that education works best if every child has access to it, and that it costs a decent amount of money to educate all children.
And they could have avoided having to create these complex
sort of semi-public, semi-private systems if they had just fully funded public education from the beginning, like educators and advocates have been asking them to do.
We're talking to
State Representative Christian Phelps from Eau Claire about national money for either voucher schools or scholarship programs.
The article from States Newsroom notes that in 2023, more than $6 billion was spent nationwide on so-called private school choice programs.
Again, that's $6 billion that could have been put into public education to benefit it instead.
Now, the
The thing about this language, this new language in the Trump bill is that they did not go all the way into crafting a federal voucher program.
They did give states some discretion.
So theoretically, there would be ways that Democratic governors could look at these federal funds and put them to use.
I guess what I don't know well enough is whether
whether that's worth the risk, is it worth the strings attached, or would you be better off saying, you know, we are cash trapped here in our state, but we're not going to take this federal money that might have strings attached.
Do you have an impression one way or the other on it?
I do.
And I'll admit, I am not the governor, and I haven't spoken with our governor about this, but I would
I would at this point, I would advocate not opting into this program because I think there are much better ways to save shared resources and fund education.
Wisconsin itself loses almost a billion dollars a year to our private voucher program, which does not come with public accountability.
That's money that we could be saving and using to fund the public schools that welcome all students and families.
And so that's another way to look at some of the money on the table that could be going to public education.
And instead of opting into this program, I would advocate fully funding public schools at all levels and remembering who's behind this.
I think in addition to learning that education is expensive, Trump and his allies, largely very wealthy individuals like himself, are realizing that
The federal voucher program probably wasn't going to be very popular because in the states that have voucher programs, they are not popular.
People that have them on their ballots as referenda or ballot measures always reject the idea of their public dollars going to private schools over which they do not have public accountability.
I think that we should be accurately diagnosing this as a perhaps a more palatable stepping stone to what their ultimate goal is, which is a government program that ceases to support public education and instead invest in a private enterprise.
And that's just not the role of the government in my opinion.
We are talking to State Representative Christian Phelps from Eau Claire, a member of the Assembly Education Committee.
And so you've allowed us to pivot over here to the state budget, which was.
both a bipartisan agreement and also had a bipartisan share of no votes in part for its inadequacies in properly funding education from here.
So this is where your work continues now.
The state budget has been passed.
Legislators will be back for a fall session.
And so talk about what your own priorities are going to be for the fall session, both education and
and if there are other matters that you're working on as well.
Yeah, absolutely.
There's a lot of session left.
I don't know if people are fully aware of the fact that we're gonna be back in Madison having bills introduced, committee hearings, boats, things will be signed, vetoed, passed, failed through next spring.
And that means there's plenty of time for us to...
for me at least and for Democrats in the legislature and for my friends and allies to demonstrate the kind of leadership that we wish we'd been seeing from the beginning of this session and the types of priorities that we want to see moving forward and the types of priorities that we will make a reality if we get a majority.
And that means fixing the school funding formula so that we aren't in a position where a rushed state budget has to negotiate
votes on both sides, like you said, in exchange for measly increases in special education or less than inflationary increases in public education funding.
And I'll remind people less than inflation means a cut in practice.
So your public schools are more stretched than they already are.
Those are the kinds of shenanigans that we get when Republicans are in charge of our public schools.
And if we were in charge, we would
We would adequately pay educators and education support professionals.
We would provide inflationary increases to public education funding.
We would stop wasting your public dollars on private voucher programs that don't produce better outcomes and don't have accountability.
And we're going to be demonstrating that agenda by introducing legislation that...
that would be a responsible use of state resources and the kinds of budgets and policies that we would be putting together.
And not just that, I mean, there are a lot of things that we should be doing in the immediate to stand up to the Trump regime and make sure that we're protecting people from these attacks on due process and immigrants, immigrant communities and perceived immigrant communities.
We should give ourselves permission to imagine a Wisconsin that has fully invested in a welcoming and safe environment for everybody, including public education and health care, housing and food as human rights.
And if they're human rights, we should be making sure that we are providing them to.
everybody that we can.
We are going to be demonstrating that agenda and I would encourage your listeners to invite Republicans to join us in that because our ideas are popular and the only reason that they haven't been enacted yet is partisanship.
And I think that even though we started by talking about the potential for legislation in a new session, you really took it in the direction that's going to keep
you and others busier and that's the messaging of this.
There's still so many people who don't know that nearly a billion dollars of their money a year is going toward the voucher school programs or that they don't have a better record of performance and that there are opportunities for discrimination in voucher schools that you wouldn't see in public schools.
And even though you know this, and I've heard you talk about this repeatedly, I mean, you're gonna have to talk about it that much more.
to get it through to people over the course of the next 13, 14 months.
That's true.
But that's our job.
That's a big part of our job.
And I think that people should also pay attention to which state legislators, which parties, I might add, are engaging in that hard communications work and which ones are not.
The reason that great ideas haven't been enacted is not because there aren't any great ideas coming to the Capitol.
We're bringing our community's ideas with us.
We have introduced legislation that doesn't even get a hearing because the other party is Controlling not just which policies get passed but the entire legislative agenda and people need to understand that that those ideas are on the table and they should be passed
Stay representative Christian Phelps joining us from Eau Claire a member of the Assembly Education Committee Christian good to see as always have a great day
Great to see
you.
Likewise.
Thank you.
A local update is next for many of you.
And then in our final hour here from Wisconsin Rapids, we will be talking to former state representative Katrina Shanklin, helping WFHR celebrate 85 years of local service to the community.
I'm Pat Crichtlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
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Head over to upnorthnewswi.com to do that, including our Sunday morning newsletter and our question of the week.
of what you believe Donald Trump's next job should be when he's done in the Oval Office.
Civic Media's Jimmy Cusco joins me now.
We're going to talk a little bit of news.
We're going to talk a little bit of brewers.
But in other sports, Jimmy, any anything special happening this week for you and others in the sports world?
Anything at all?
Well, you know, I got to hang out with my kids at their flag football games last night.
So I was thinking to myself, you know, it'd be great if high school football was returning anytime.
Oh, wait a minute.
Oh, wait a minute.
Tomorrow.
So tomorrow is the official start of high school football for the first time, both eight and 11 player football kickoff on the same day.
So tomorrow will be the start of high school football for many in the state with Friday, carrying the rest of the game.
So very excited to get underway with that.
And here at Civic Media, we have 10 stations and 12 stations and 10 markets carrying games to start the season.
So it could be more excited to get this thing
going.
sports events are being covered.
across civic media for all of
these games.
So, civic media covered just over 550 local events last year.
So, that's everything from football to volleyball to baseball, basketball, all the things, right?
All the things.
And these are local coverage things.
Like, these are, you know, mostly high school, but a few, you know, like hometown or legion ball, things like that, but mostly high school events.
And with a few more stations being added into the fold and a couple of stations expanding coverage, we're going to easily top
600 local events across our network this year.
Pretty awesome.
600 local events.
That's awesome.
Can you tell me a little bit about eight man football versus 11?
Yeah, literally, it's just three fewer players on the field.
I
got the math part of it.
Yeah, right.
Well, you take two linemen out and one skilled position player out.
The field dimensions are a little shorter.
And really the biggest difference, I think, for anybody watching it is just going to be the fact that there's not a whole lot of zone defense being played.
If you get past
one person, the guy you're supposed to get past, the guy or gal you're supposed to get past.
Chances are you're going to go a long ways.
That's really the biggest difference to the casual observer.
Other than obviously the reduced number of players is that there's not a whole lot of zone in it.
It's a very much a man on man sport.
That's really the biggest difference, I think.
That's why the scoring is up a little bit.
But it is still a pretty fun brand of football to call.
And it is still just like 11 player, you know, physical and fun and all that same time.
It just reminds me, I think I was mentioning the other day watching there's a three on three hockey league now.
And it was on one of those sports channels because again, they've got nothing but time on their hands.
And so there's this three on three hockey league.
And I was saying that while I do enjoy four on four when when when each team's got somebody in the penalty box, and four on four seems to go nice and fast and everything, three on three is just a different beast all together.
And, you know, maybe not necessarily my cup of tea, but clearly this league, you know, has been born and has TV contracts and is moving up.
And so you see these, these variations, like remember for a time when indoor soccer was like all the rage, you know, playing that essentially on a carpeted hockey rink.
And you've got all these different ways that you can try to make sports work.
And in this case, it's making football work for some of these smaller communities I would gather.
Yeah, and it largely is smaller communities of the 80 schools that are in eight player football.
The vast majority of them have an average enrollment under 200.
That's the playoff threshold.
If you have over a 200 enrollment over three years, a rolling enrollment average of over 200 over three years, you actually can't participate in the playoffs in eight player football at Wisconsin.
So it's largely smaller communities.
And in a lot of cases, just an attempt to save having high school football at these places where a co-op may not be feasible.
you know, schools, districts want to maintain their, their own sense of pride, their own traditions, their
own
history, things like that.
So it really has been a boot in Wisconsin.
And there were the big changes this year were making it start the same day as 11.
And also having the championship run up to 32 teams from 16 before where now more teams get into the postseason.
Okay, we're talking to Jimmy Kuska here and you're also covering some new stories for civic media, including a some local legislators.
who are putting forward a proposal, which is timely for back to school time.
Yep.
So right now, you know, in La Crosse, there's a lot that happens, right?
But politically today, there's there's so many things that happen.
It's crazy how much is happening.
But we are focusing on WLCX and by we, I mean me on Senator Brad Paff and Representative Jenna Jacobson.
They have a proposal, legislative proposal going out that they're going to promote today at the state capitol in about two hours from now that would seek to create a sales tax holiday for back to school shopping.
Right now, 17 states have
of this, including Iowa.
And in Iowa, it's a two-day sales tax holiday on clothing or school supplies under $100.
In Wisconsin, they're proposing a three-day sales tax holiday.
And the whole intent is just to make things a little more affordable for families as they get ready for back to school.
They have a lot of figures they cite.
Families spend a little over $100 on average getting people ready for school.
If you have multiple children, obviously it adds up.
So it's an idea just aimed at trying to help.
families and get rid of sales tax, state and local sales taxes on some of those items as people get ready to go back to school.
Yeah, Tony asking on YouTube, why hasn't this happened yet seems wildly popular?
Well, I mean, there are reasons and, you know, that if it ever gets to the floor of the Assembly and Senate, I'm sure that there will be a, you know, a debate on the merits of it one way or the other.
And then finally, of course, we can't let you go as Civic Media Sports Director without talking about the Brewers losing both games of a double header to the Cubs at Wrigley yesterday.
And so I mean, all is lost, right?
I mean, this is this is done.
Here comes the the collapse where
We're going to be in the basement of the National League Central before long, right?
He said somewhat sarcastically.
The Brewers are bad again.
We
suck again.
You know, season's over.
Is it the worst?
I just can't.
Come on, man.
It's two days.
It's one day, two games.
If the Brewers win the next two, they own the tiebreaker over the Cubs.
It's really all you really got to focus on the fact that they have a seven game lead and there's, you know, only what five and a half weeks left of the season.
Brewers are in great shape.
I think Brandon Woodruff said it best.
They're in a really good spot right now.
One day isn't going to derail this whole thing.
But honestly, these next two games tonight and then tomorrow afternoon, they are huge for that tiebreaker standpoint.
So yeah, forget all the rest of the season.
Focus on tonight starting at 630 on stations across the Civic Media Radio Network.
Jimmy Kuska, thank you so much.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
All right.
Have a great day.
And on the other side of the news, talking to another one of our civic media friends, Earl Ingram, and the What's Going On podcast.
I'm Pat Crichtlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
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