Day of Announcements 2 (Hour 3)

Live, across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.

Now, for my Lake WSOTA studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.

Well, hey there, Wisconsin.

Good morning.

It is 606 on this Wednesday morning, September 17, 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, or perhaps by app or podcast or website or social media.

However you got here.

Glad you got here.

I got a question for you.

Did you did you notice the change in seasons recently?

Not fall.

No, not no, not the school year.

No, not football.

Campaign season.

We have not one, but two campaign announcements on this program to share with you this morning.

The first one is just a couple of minutes old.

state representative Francesca Hong making it official.

She is a candidate for Wisconsin governor and she will be joining us in the 8 30 half hour to talk about her run.

We will play her introductory video in just a bit.

We had to censor it first if you know anything about Francesca Hong.

She does not pull punches when she speaks.

How about that?

We will also be talking to Karine Hendrickson.

She is a now former childcare provider in the Nuclaris area.

And of course, she has been quite frustrated with the state of politics in our Wisconsin legislature when it comes to looking out for working families.

She made it official on this show that she would have to close up her child care center that it was just no longer something where she didn't want to lose money.

Nobody does want to.

And so she's had to close up her child care center.

And now she's ready for what's next.

And she has an announcement that she's going to be baking on our program this morning as well.

Campaign season for 2026 is definitely underway and we are one of the places where candidates stop on their way to 2026, so we hope you stick around and hear what Francesca Hong and Kareen Hendrickson have to say.

If you can't stick around for everything you can always pod the program head over to Spotify Sign up there or Apple wherever you get your podcast and that way you have us on demand wherever you go also coming up on the program today We have our homeroom segment.

We will be talking to brain Horton from the Wisconsin public education network about what else is happening in the state capital along the lines of education, you know, the state budget's done, but there's all kinds of bills that legislators have been introducing that could affect

the way that your kids get an education.

Some could be helpful, some could be meh, some could be just

downright annoying or nuisance or even harmful to public education, undermining public education.

So, Bryn Horton will talk to us about that in our 7.30, half hour.

And of course, it's Wednesday, so we have no shortage of civic media friends to visit with as well to tell us what's going on.

And in their respective necks of the woods, there's James Kelly reporting from Chippewa Falls.

There's Earl Ingram in Milwaukee, Jimmy Koska in Boscobel looking at sports and news in Southwest Wisconsin.

And Melissa

K from our sister station in Wisconsin Rapids on Parker Olson, producer of this program, what is National Pet Bird Day?

Yeah, we're hoping for a big update on Lelu here.

Yes.

That's fantastic.

Who knew that's

a pet bird day?

That's

so

specific.

If we've learned nothing from our history segment, a daily history lesson is that there is a day for everything.

And I don't even read them all because there's so many of them.

I mean, there could be national night retro bar coaster day as I hold up a coaster that I don't know where we got this back in the 1980s.

But it's

those are cool.

That will go

around.

Got to put your coffee cup on something now and then.

So yeah, it's pet bird day.

There's a there's a day for everything.

Here's what there's not a day for.

Publishers Clearinghouse and the prize patrol, bringing a great big oversized check to your door and promising that you're going to get so many thousands of dollars for life.

So many people have believed this over the years.

The look I'm getting from Parker tells me the prize patrol is not a thing.

Correct?

Right over my head.

Not a clue.

Well, that's because this was run by Publisher Clearinghouse, which is a magazine sales company.

Okay.

When was the last time you subscribed to a magazine?

I'm sorry, let me restate the question.

Have you ever subscribed to a paper magazine that was delivered to you in the mail and that you sat leisurely and flipped through?

Hard no on that

one.

Yeah.

No, because you already have that with you right there.

Here it is.

It's that little phone, that little device that can bring up anything from anywhere.

So basically every magazine is now a website or an app or social media posts.

And so publishers Clearinghouse, which for years was, you know,

The place where you would get your magazine subscriptions.

They'd send you this mail.

I'm explaining this to Parker, but don't don't you're like what's he gonna?

Yes.

Yes, they would send you it's important once a year.

They'd send you this this and big envelope all filled with all kinds of flyers about all the money you could win and all the great deals on magazines you could get TV guide TV guide Newsweek and time and sports illustrated and popular mechanics and then there'd be the sheet with all these stamps on it

each one with a different magazine cover.

And kind of like we talked about with Columbia house with the records, you know, using using the mail was like how you did all this stuff Parker back in the day before there was e mail when it wasn't electronic when it was like a stamp, put it on the card, mail it in you get your discounted sports illustrated just in time for the swimsuit issue.

But you're also entered for the possibility that the price patrol could show up.

And as they took great pains to say, you didn't even have to buy a magazine.

You just had to send the envelope back and you were entered into the sweepstakes.

And then of course, you know, you'd get a knock on your door.

Well, you wouldn't.

It never happened to me.

But, you know, there would be, you know, somebody there with a great big check and TV cameras and balloons and everything else all set to.

give you money, which included sometimes rather than one big check, they would be so much, you know, per life, like $5,000 a month for the rest of your life, which again, it's not that you'd necessarily retire on it.

But that's a pretty nice thing to have along, you

know, people actually win this, or was this just something

they said?

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

Which gets us to today's story.

Publishers Claringhouse is no more.

Oh,

it is.

It has gone bankrupt.

I wonder why.

And now we do know why.

But you know, who else really wonders about this?

All the people who were promised cash for life and are now shocked to find out.

Oh, that promise is being broken.

Yeah.

So the remnants of publishers Clearinghouse went through its bankruptcy process.

And some other company bought it, a company called

ARB and ARB says well we still want like the direct mail part of the company and the online parts of the company but we're not buying the part of the company that's responsible for making payouts.

So that part is still bankrupt and the people who are promised forever checks are not going to get them.

In their chapter 11 filing, publishers Clearinghouse listed at least 10 prize winners among its creditors with the largest unsecured claims, totaling millions of dollars.

One man who won $5,000 a week forever back in 2012, told the New York Times, he knew something was funny when he didn't get his annual check from the company back in January.

So he has had to scramble to pay the bills.

Without the money that he has learned to rely on for the past 13 years And it's running out CNN has a story about somebody who's had to sell all of their all their toys their jet skis and their boats And he said I haven't worked in 10 years.

I have to go to work now and he has no marketable skills

Yeah

to get into the job market.

Well, if he had a bunch of boats, maybe he could start like doing boat tours

do a marina or something, but he's got he's got nothing to gas up the boats with.

So that this all dates back to 1953, when a couple Harold and Lou Esther Mertz and their daughter Joyce formed a business out of their home in Long Island to send direct to consumer mailings that solicited subscribers for a number of magazines and then they would get a little cut of each magazine subscription.

And it grew and it grew and they started doing these contests in 1967 and all throughout the 70s 80s and into the 90s.

I mean, everybody would buy their even if they don't just wanted to renew one magazine or something.

And they'd always hope that maybe this was in the years of course before multi-state lotteries and billion dollar jackpots.

And you just hoped that lightning would strike and you know, Ed McMahon or somebody would be at your door.

to give you the big check and money for life unless people stop buying magazines and we ain't got no more money to pay you with.

I assume that inflation happened quite a bit during the time of them doing this.

Oh, sure.

Yeah.

Did they start with because he said it was like the 50s.

Did they start with like, here's a dollar a week.

Well, they started they started in the 50s.

The contest started in 1967, which tells me that I mean, that was the heyday for magazines.

I mean, everybody had magazine subscriptions and newspaper subscriptions.

And I Oh,

boy, he's behind.

He's looking behind himself.

He's reaching to the floor for our listeners at home.

And now he has something.

I still get a paper copy of the Atlantic, Atlantic Monthly.

Of course, I picked one that has a nuclear explosion.

I was going to say, is

that

a bomb?

Yeah, well, it's marking 80 years of the nuclear era and how scary

it is to have- There wasn't a better one to

grab?

Yeah, to still get it.

Although, by and large, when I see interesting articles from the Atlantic, I'm going to go to their app.

Yeah,

read

it on my phone.

But there was just that part of me.

It's like, you know, I feel like I got to have some and frankly, I do sometimes when we travel or whatnot, it's, you know, when you got to put your phone in airplane mode, it's nice to have that to look at.

But no, people don't anymore.

So yeah, by the 60s, they, they had enough money that they could set up a contest figured interest rates would grow up so their savings would go up so there'd always be something to pay out until it didn't happen anymore from Tony on YouTube.

I used to subscribe to the international version of Newsweek.

Now they don't make any version of a physical magazine.

No, they do not.

You still see them in the bookstores.

If you go to what's its face, Barnes & Noble.

I mean, the racks are full of these magazines.

I don't know who's buying them.

They're very specialty based.

Probably dentist's office.

That's the only place I can think of.

Somebody's got to be buying them, right?

So anyway, I'm sorry if I'm the bearer of bad news for folks, but if you were counting on your publisher's clearinghouse money to keep you going, I might suggest going to get a physical newspaper and looking through the want ads because it's time to find some work.

Let's check some sports now at 618.

Christian Yelich hit home run number 29 and had three RBIs.

All-star pitcher Freddie Peralta struck out 10 over six innings.

He won his national league leading 17th game as the Brewers beat up on the Los Angeles Angels 9-2 last night.

Freddie Peralta looked good.

He allowed one run on just two hits.

He walked only two.

He struck out the side in three different innings.

William Contreras had two RBI's, there were other key swings by Sal Freelick, Caleb Durbin, Andrew Vaughn, and Jackson Churrio.

Brandon Woodruff will get the start in tonight's game two, and you can catch that at, I believe, 6-0-5.

Yes, right there, 6-0-5.

Pre-game of the Brewers versus the Angels on stations across the Civic Radio Network.

I predict another wind Parker.

I think, I think we're looking good.

The magic numbers now it's Cubs one, but the magic number drops to seven.

Is your elbow, does it have a little twinge of wind in it?

a little bit.

Yeah, that's what the bursitis is telling me.

This is this is what we're going to get today.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay, we will talk a bit about monopoly money and inflation and corporate America and what they all have in common coming up next 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 Pac right.

Well, this is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Just about 623 now.

Nice to have you along.

It is 64 degrees here in the Chippewa Valley.

Brittany Merlot will have a state forecast.

Coming up live in just a little while after the seven o'clock news, but she did let us know that the heat is going to be hanging on for one more day.

Chances for rain keep sneaking in and then a big system is going to slide through the state over the weekend and make things a little wetter.

For today partly sunny and warm showers and storms are possible into this evening in western and northern parts of the state High today will be in the low to upper 80 just the 80s overall depending on where in the state you are a southwest wind at 5 to 10 miles an hour Spotty showers and thunderstorms tonight partly cloudy otherwise lows once again near 60 and a light northerly breeze, but it has been just phenomenal The sleeping weather

here lately, but can't can't beat that.

So again, back to the political news of the day, State Representative Francesca Hong will be with us at 835.

But during this hour, she did put out the note officially confirming her candidacy for governor.

If you're not familiar with Francesca Hon, we're going to play some of her campaign introduction video here for you.

We had to first run through and bleep one of the words that she's known for because she tells it like it is.

Actually, let her tell you like it is about her background and why she's decided to run for governor.

Give a listen.

It's so stressful to get by these days, and I know a lot about stress.

I work in restaurants.

I started in this kitchen 15 years ago, and you might recognize what's across the street.

A lot of people in that building don't get why it's so hard to get by right now.

Working hard doesn't mean you can always keep up.

One wrong step can lay you out flat.

This is by design.

I'm State Representative Francesca Hong.

I'm a service worker, community organizer, and a mom.

I work for a living.

Always have, still do.

Five years ago, my community sent me to the Capitol.

The system is rigged.

I'm running for governor to fix it.

For years, we've been told that doing better isn't possible.

Well, let me tell you that all we need to do is fight together.

We can fully fund our public schools and have universal childcare.

We can guarantee paid leave and have cheaper healthcare.

We can fix a rigged system that puts oligarchs over workers and small businesses.

We can do better.

Don't let anyone tell you we can't do this.

We can build a Wisconsin where we share the table.

I'm Francesca Hong and I'm running for governor because I know that together we make better possible.

And there you go that state representative Francesca Hong talking about she worked in a restaurant right across the street from the

state capital and has been a member of the state assembly and a rather outspoken one.

She is clearly going to run, you know, to the left of the rest of the democratic field unapologetically so.

She herself being a chef and a bartender says more bartenders need to be running for office.

Think of Alexandria Cazio Cortez and she is a member of a democratic socialist of America.

She is part of the socialist caucus in the assembly.

who, by the way, includes reps from Milwaukee and from Eau Claire with State Representative Christian Phillips who recently submitted an op-ed that we're going to publish here soon about how we need to get over what Republicans love to seize on the S-word, socialism, and really get back to the heart of what it means for a government that works for the people rather than for corporations.

And so we'll talk to Fran Hong about that coming up at 8.30.

There's also, in talking about corporate America and its hold on the economy, there were several random notes that caught my attention in the past day or two.

There's a lot about the current sluggish economy that we can peg to moves by the White House.

But there's more out there than that.

It's about big business getting bigger.

And this reduces competition.

And competition is the most important factor that keeps prices manageable.

But there are so many things that that show off how as these companies get bigger, we continue to get nickled and dined.

And to the point where it almost makes your paychecks worth about as much as monopoly money and monopoly being the key word, because it's not like any one company has full monopoly control.

But their share of the market is so much bigger when there's that many fewer competitors.

For example, there's a story.

yesterday about how a St.

Louis based grocery chain is going to acquire Wisconsin based festival foods.

And this will include 42 festival foods locations, nine hometown grocers locations.

The company Schnuck out of St.

Louis is a family run company as well.

And as was as was festival and its original roots.

And so that's not to say that by itself, there's something, you know, that's ominous there.

It's just another case as we've seen in the grocery industry of, you know, some of the big companies getting bigger, their buyouts, their acquisitions.

And so despite all the words said yesterday, dedication to hometowns and employment and everything else, it's just something to watch for at a time when grocery prices, you know, don't appear to be going down.

You have XL Energy, which is asking for a rate hike.

We talked about this with Robert Craig from Citizen Action.

Utilities, again, have a near monopoly in their marketplace.

And even when they make a profit, they are always looking to hike the rates a little bit more in that ongoing battle between shareholders or customers.

Who do you serve?

Remember, we talked to Jim Payne up in Superior, the mayor there, about the water utility, the only privately held water utility in the state of Wisconsin, and how maybe

getting it out of private hands and back into the public sector will be better for ratepayers, you know, the actual customers of the water company.

But you even have Ben and Jerry's, which is now part of a big corporation called Unilever.

And where the Jerry of Ben and Jerry's has just announced he's resigning from the company because he's feeling muzzled politically by the company Unilever, their corporate parent.

which makes sense when you've got somebody like Derek Van Orden trying to play big brother in policing the thought and the speech of people all around Wisconsin.

So there's no easy answer for all these things.

Just a random assortment of things to watch for so that you don't continue to get nickled and dimed and have your right to free speech just chipped away bit by bit.

We'll have today's history lesson in just a bit.

You're up north.

Can we talk about One Hit Wonders for just a moment as we kick off today's history lesson on this Wednesday morning, September 17th.

That is the Sanford Townsend Band, Smoke from a Distant Fire, which on this day in 1977 peaked at number nine.

And to this day, almost 50 years later, I'll hear that come on, you know, one of my favorite songs at the time.

It's had a lot of legs ever since.

You can still hear it on classic radio stations.

And you go, that was a really good tune.

How come they never did anything else?

You know, what is it about some bands and some writers and they can just pump things out like crazy?

And then you don't have to go into the whole list of one hit wonders.

No.

But you know, you hear one sometimes you go, I really thought that person or that band was going to be bigger.

Yeah.

And you hear the hit and you go, oh my gosh, that's the only thing I ever heard from them.

Yeah.

There are a couple of times that I've like heard a song that I've really liked.

I'm going to check out this band and I've looked at the band and I'm like, wow, these guys suck.

Why

is this song good?

They got lucky once.

Okay.

All right.

Well, that could be it.

Maybe some maybe some other talented songwriter slipped them a little something and said, here, try this, you know, and they, they, they struck patered on one.

couldn't do it any other time other than that but whatever the reason the Sanford Townsend Band peaked at number nine this day in 1977.

All right I was joking about Ed McFan earlier and by sheer coincidence this is the anniversary of the beginning of the Ed McFan hosted show Star Search.

It made its debut on CBS in 1983 on this day and then later went into syndication.

Here's from 1990.

Here's a little of the intro to Star

Search.

You

know for all the stars that would appear on that show as beginners, how come one of them couldn't stick around and replace that guy as an announcer?

How

did he get that gig anyway?

The show itself was a juggernaut in of course the years prior to the internet where you had things like this as a way to get your big break This is a partial list of names you know

that you may have seen for the very first time on Star Search.

Justin Timberlake, Brittany Spears, Alanis Morissette, Sawyer Brown, Jessica Simpson, Christina Aguilera, Tiffany, Leanne Rhymes, Usher, Shanice Aila, Pitbull, Destiny's Child, comedians Dave Chappelle,

Ray Romano, Brad Garrett, Adam Sandler, Dennis Miller, Bill Engvall, Carlos Mancia, Drew Carey, Steve Odenkirk, Kevin James, Rosie O'Donnell, Norm MacDonald, and Conan O'Brien.

All were on Star Search when they were unknowns looking for their big break.

That show was like it felt like every every talent agent in the business was watching this looking for their next

get.

So American Idol is just jealous that they couldn't be what Star Search was?

Yeah, yeah, to a degree.

But I think they, you know, what they've done in America, well, not so much America, the voice is the other one I was trying to think of is, you know, they've really gone for that niche singing.

But Star Search was like all things, kind of like America's Got Talent.

It was singing, it was comedy.

It

was

anything like that.

But it didn't have like, you know, the, the Simon Cowell kind of, you know, sassy judges kind of thing.

It was just very much a straight rating scale from whatever judges they had or the public, I forget who all voted at different times.

So of course, it was, it was a simpler time.

It was a nicer time.

Whereas the shows now

You know, they got to get complex.

They, they got to get all the, the production value in there and they've got to have conflict and star search was just a plain old fashioned variety contest show talent show.

That was it.

Never heard about

variety shows on here before.

No, we never talked about that at all.

All right.

So let's go back to the music charts on this day in 1955.

This was the number one song.

by Pat Boone.

This isn't the song that I thought you would sigh for.

Oh god, it

just hurts to play it.

This is the sterilized version of the Fats Domino song.

We had talked about it three weeks ago, the Fats Domino version, peaking at number 10.

And then Pat Boone did the cover, and it went to number one.

And so to cleanse our palate,

Here's Fats Domino with the better version.

Now, there

was some good that came out of Pat Boone remaking it and going to number one back in 1955 is that Fats Domino did get a lot of attention and since he wrote it, it earned him substantial royalties.

So that was a nice thing.

Let's move up the timeline to 1968 when the psychedelic soul Anthem from the Fifth Dimension was certified gold with this tune.

This

of course would be the Fifth Dimension's Stone Soul Picnic.

Let's see, what else do we have today?

The United States Constitution was signed at Independence Hall in Philadelphia this day in 1787 bringing the Constitutional Convention to an end.

Birthdays today include the late Junior Bridgeman, the former Milwaukee Bucstar turned billionaire entrepreneur.

He was born this day in 1953.

He passed away this past March at the age of 71.

Quarterback Patrick Mahomes hits the big 3-0 today, 30 years old for Patrick Mahomes, and this is the anniversary of the birth of Hank Williams Sr.

in 1923.

Now to be clear, country music was different cut.

What it is now.

Where you could literally yodel like this and become a star.

On this day in 1983, Vanessa Williams became the first black Miss America.

On this day in 1984, John Wait hit number one with Missing You.

And happy 74th birthday to Fee Waybill of the Tubes, who was born this day in 1950, making him 75 today.

That's another group.

I think the tubes only had like two hits on the charts, and I thought that they'd go a little further, but they did not.

It was a weird music video to see.

Oh, they were all

weird

back then.

I mean, Melissa K is here from WFHR in Wisconsin Ravage.

She'll back me up on that weird music videos, which...

You know... Good morning.

I haven't seen a lot of them, but I think it's funny that Parker thinks they're weird.

Parker thinks they're weird.

Yeah.

That's fair.

I come from a different area.

Can you imagine locking him in a room with MTV for a day and just watching

80s

music videos and then having

him give his tape?

I would love the

commentary.

Oh, it would be.

Part of this music video was a kid sitting on a little cart and a woman in latex, I think, holding him as they went on a ride.

Well, it's a very burlesque type of deal.

My

text clothing then was normal.

It's funny.

There was a lot of things that were normal in the 80s.

We regret now.

Melissa, how are you today?

Oh, I'm good.

How

are you?

I'm very good.

Thanks.

Today

on the National Day calendar, this is National Apple Dumpling Day.

I don't know

if I ever

had Apple dumplings, but I've I've eaten my body weight in apple crisp.

And I'm going to have some more here.

because

my mom made fruit dumplings a lot when I was a kid.

Really?

Okay.

That sounds that sounds good.

But more

importantly, strawberry.

Oh, well, I mean, you you lost me at rhubarb, but you know, strawberry dumplings, that could be fun.

Sure.

More importantly, on the National Day calendar today is National Hat Bird Day.

Congratulations, Lelu and Melissa.

How is Lelou these days?

You know what?

I really think that Lelou is gonna fly again someday because yeah, remember how I told you they flew up to the top of their little box that I made for them?

Well, now they started to fly up to the top of the table, which is next to it, which is twice as high as the box.

Oh, baby steps.

Fly right up there.

Or baby flaps, I guess, as the case may be.

So Lelou the rescue pigeon may

fly

again.

Mayfly.

It determines

stubborn bird.

No, that's a wonderful thing.

That's great.

So yeah, you probably didn't know there was a national pet bird day, so you probably didn't plan to do anything special.

Lelu's

not going to get like a little tiny

cake or something like that.

Rice.

Rice is a cake.

I see what you did there.

Does Lelu like rice

cake?

Do we know?

What?

Does Lelu like rice cake?

Do we know?

Well, Lulu loves rice.

Yeah, okay.

Just rice, that is the thing.

So we'll find out if Lulu likes rice cake.

Well, if it's rice, you know, like kernels formed in a cake, they will love it.

That's true.

Maybe because I would simply, I tell you this, a lot of people like popcorn, but if I offer you a popcorn ball, you're gonna say, get that away from me.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's fair.

Although what do you think about it?

I mean, difficulty.

Yes.

Well, they're like kettle corn, you know, and people like kettle corn.

But then take kettle corn and form it into a ball and then leave it alone for two weeks while it gets good and stale, you know,

yeah.

Yeah, that's not how it's how it's supposed to work at all.

Let's see, I got one more music note to pass along Kanye West went to number one this day in 2005, along with Jamie Foxx.

This is

of course Ray Charles' I Got a Woman.

is being sampled here in the year before in 2004, Jamie Foxx had portrayed Ray Charles in the film, Ray.

He does an amazing Ray Charles.

But we're going to bring that down now because even though I've confirmed this clip 15 different times, you always want to make sure you get the clean

version.

I

genuinely could not believe there was a clean version of this that we found.

I

know.

And you know, the internet being what it is, just because it says clean version.

Yes.

Don't make it on faith.

You listen to that puppy all the way through.

Yes.

The

Internet lies, Pat.

It's been known to happen.

Yeah, it does.

It's not entirely unprecedented, you know.

So trust but verify.

That's

what

that's what we like to do.

So what have you been up to out

there in beautiful central Wisconsin?

Well, we're getting ready for our our upcoming events.

We're involved in the Christmas tree walk this year and guess what guys?

We're decorating our tree like we're pulling all the elements of WFHR and WIRA into it with a agatha chicken head as our tree topper We're gonna have cranberries looping the tree.

I've convinced them I think I've almost convinced them that we need to take like dry corn

corn, you know, like the field corn field corn and break it up into pieces to use as ornaments.

We're going to put CDs with our like information on them as ornaments.

It's going to be so much fun.

I can't wait to do it.

Well,

very interesting.

Yeah.

I mean, it's part of the Southwood County Historical Museum and different organizations can have a tree.

to decorate that then as people walk through the the beautiful mansion that is our museum um and see all of the different trees from the different organizations.

So it's our first year doing that.

That's I mean good for you guys for planning for Christmas now because I mean I'm the kind of guy that it'd be like the week before and I go well I suppose we should do something you know.

Well it takes a while to make a paper mache egg at the chicken head.

I'll bet that it does.

Yeah

there's a

sentencing to the sinkies here today.

Is that your job?

Well, Ashley and I are taking that on.

Okay.

Well, then I completely working

at art night.

There might be wine.

I can't say

that's good.

No, I can say and there should be.

Melissa Kay from 97.5 WFHR and 105 WIRI in Wisconsin Rapids is with us for today's history lesson.

Coming up right after the seven o'clock news, we're going to be talking to Kareen Hendrickson, former childcare provider in the Nuglarus area, who is going to make a campaign announcement coming up in just a few minutes here.

That's followed in our eight o'clock hour by state representative Francesca Hong, newly announced candidate

for Wisconsin Governor.

I'm Pat Crichtlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio

Network.

The Brewers continue their series against the Los Angeles Angels this evening.

Pre-game coverage at 6.05 on several civic media stations around the state.

Also, sign up for our newsletters at UpNorth News.

Head over to UpNorthNewsWI.com.

You can get the Sunday morning newsletter that I put together about the week in politics and the question of the week.

which is all about Ron Johnson and conspiracy theories.

And is it possible to pick just one that we could get him to stop talking about forever and ever and ever or not?

And of course, we've got our new weekday newsletter editor, Ellie, who's getting started with us and has put out the newsletter this morning.

That includes stories about, oops, oops, oops.

hit that page over there Pat.

Where can you find the the peak fall colors in your favorite Wisconsin destinations?

So she talks all about the travel Wisconsin fall color report and also Wisconsin parents are rightly concerned about the cuts Donald Trump and Republicans want to make the head start which is a critical link for vulnerable children.

to get a good education.

Again, sign up for that at upnorthnewswi.com.

Now I can set those notes aside.

Welcome back Melissa Kay as well, along with producer Parker Olson and talk about Melissa and, you know, chapters.

There's different chapters out there and you

know,

one, one, when one, what's the saying when one door closes, another door opens, but until that door opens, it's hell in the hallway.

But now a new door is going to be opening for Melissa.

You know, there's been these periods of joblessness, and you have to make up, you know, the right way to rationalize those times.

Melissa is not going through that.

She's immediately going through the next door, which involves doing much more work with the news department at Civic Media, correct?

That is true.

I'm moving into full time news for Wisconsin Rapids area here, which is part of the transition that

Shaly Pittman our new news director is working to incorporate for all of reporters to just focus on news because there's a lot of news and there's a lot of Time it takes into as you know pat the amount of time it takes for Journalists to do solid good reporting.

That's fact check.

That's you know, I investigated it.

It does take time and effort and resources so

I really appreciate that she is putting in that effort It's a little bittersweet to be leaving shows like yours and the morning show But I am really looking forward to the extra time because there's a lot to dig into just like the solar farm story that's happening here There's so much research I need to do with that the rail The expanded passenger rail story that is coming out of toma area and hopefully through here There's just so much interesting

information that I think is important for our communities to know that's happening here locally.

The more we focus on local and the more we build up and and share and learn about our communities, I think the closer it brings us as a community.

I am so genuinely excited about this because

Civic media again, I'm not an employee of civic media, but I'm like I'm like your your next door neighbor something like that and just and I hang out on your front porch every every morning

There

you go, but I have just so enjoyed watching the growth of this network and the recognition that okay now we've grown these radio stations and we've grown these talk shows but you've now got a news department that is

one of the largest in Wisconsin now.

And, pardon me, geographically, geographically, but I mean, just in terms of you've got bodies everywhere around the state, which a lot of places cannot say.

And so to enable that news department to be doing even more for local news coverage is is a good thing all around.

It's good for the listeners.

It's good for you having more time to work on new stories and

As we say at Civic Media and at Courier Newsroom up North News, I mean, we have been watching local news, especially local newspapers die left and right.

And so any kind of investment in local reporting, that's good for democracy.

That's good for, you know, voter education.

It's just a great thing overall.

And I'm so glad you're doing this.

Yeah, it's good for our state.

It's good for our communities.

I just, I appreciate that people appreciate the local news because anytime I talk about it out in the community, they're like, what?

Really?

I

didn't know.

And they're excited to sign up for the newsletter and they read our stories.

It's really refreshing.

It is.

And so it's going to be great having you work on those things.

And so less people think, well, wait, no more Melissa.

Well, in much the same way that we've got other civic media news folks on now and then to tell us what they're working on, you'll be doing the same thing just not with the same regularity.

But as things come up, we are going to be genuinely excited to have you back here and find out all the things that you're going to be doing.

Mm-hmm, and every once in a while I'll have to drop in with a with a lily update Absolutely, sir Laura at the at our station here in WF HR created a breaking news with pigeon coos, so she'll have

breaking news with pigeon coos You don't see that every day nor hear it every day so

That's outstanding.

Melissa, thank you for doing that.

And thanks for being part of our history lesson for all these Wednesdays.

It's been outstanding.

It's been

years

now.

It has been, hasn't it?

It probably feels like a decade to you, but I'm appreciative.

And that you take us on the journey, first off, telling us there's a thing called rescue pigeons.

the application process and the screening.

I'm so glad you passed the background check.

I mean, now in this day and age,

you might not.

They scrub your social media

posts for everything.

I'm still glad that you weren't robbed.

Because there was a good chapter of that where we thought you were getting scammed and going to get robbed.

Yes.

Yeah.

And we forced to wear it.

I was making nervous.

Forced to wear a pigeon costume instead.

You know, just a terrible, terrible directions that this could have gone in.

And it all went perfectly, you know, and appreciate you coming

along with me on the journey.

You're such a good mama bird.

We appreciate you.

Melissa, thank you so much.

Take care.

So you had everybody in Rapids Forest.

Thank you guys.

All right, you take care of there.

And again, so again, Melissa will be part of Civic Media's news coverage along with the entire rest of the team, for example.

James Kelly will be here two hours from now updating us on the things that he's working on for new stories in Western and Northern Wisconsin.

We'll have Jamie Koska here one hour from now doing the same thing.

And we've got Earl Ingram coming in just after eight o'clock as part of the What's Going On podcast that you can get through Civic Media 2.

We've got Kareen Hendrickson standing by.

We're talking about campaign announcements.

Francesca Hong, new candidate for governor, will be on at 835.

I'm Pat Crightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

you

Live, across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglo powered by Up North News.

Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglo.

Hey, good morning.

Welcome back.

Nice to have you here up north on this September 17th, Wednesday morning, September 17.

Keep that number 17 in mind as we talk to our next guest, Kareen Hendrickson, about the 17th State Senate District.

Details to come right after Brittany's weather.

And then in our next hour at 8.35, we will be talking to State Representative Francesca Hong, who announced this morning that she too will be running for Wisconsin governor.

next year so we have a gubernatorial candidate coming up in our eight o'clock hour and that's not all there's there's also tomorrow we'll be talking with former racine alderman trevor young who has just announced his candidacy for the state senate in the 21st district the seat held since 2010 i believe by republican van wand guard so a lot to cover this week with the the change of seasons not just

you know, back to school, not just fall campaign season as well.

But let's get to the fall part of the season with meteorologist Brittany Merleau, who joins us along with Parker Olson, who's producing things down at Madison Studio A2.

And I did not realize because it's now it's dark at the start of the show here.

So the show was well underway for me to notice it is really foggy up here on Lake Wissota this morning.

Is that something we're seeing all over the place?

Yeah, definitely up north right now.

Dense fog from Eau Claire through Hayward into Ashland and Superior.

That's going to be here for about another hour or two.

Temperatures too right now in the mid 50s to mid 60s across the state.

We're also seeing a few thunderstorms starting right now.

pretty much from Amory through Rice Lake and that could extend towards the Manaqua area too.

We have a front just sitting here over the northern part of the state this morning.

So that's kind of the case as we go through the next day.

This front is going to slowly make its way south through the state and then the system, the low pressure itself will eventually move into the state for the weekend.

So yes.

wet weather ahead and cooler temperatures too.

But not today.

We're still looking very warm across the state, low to mid 80s everywhere.

Some of us will be nearing 90 once again.

It will be a sunny day, especially south into Madison and Milwaukee.

Clouds will be increasing, though, west and north throughout the afternoon.

Drizzle is possible far southwest midday, and then we're looking at more small storms sparking up again this evening, especially northwest.

I'm sorry, northeast in our state.

And then tomorrow, cooler, slightly cooler, especially north, only mid 60s up north, 80s will still be felt down south tomorrow.

Scattered spotty showers are expected kind of statewide, very isolated, very brief and small, but chances for sunshine still hang on into Madison and Milwaukee until the weekend.

That's when that low pressure system arrives.

So

have your

rain and storms on the way.

Conceivably today and tomorrow could mark the last of the mid 80s.

It could.

It

could, unless we get a nice little warm spell in October, which does happen, by the way.

It does.

Even in

November, it's happened.

Yes.

Okay.

So, so shut up, Pat.

Don't get ahead of yourself here.

Good morning from Tigerton writes, Rob, partly cloudy and 59 degrees.

It felt a lot like mid July rather than mid September.

Yesterday was busy mowing lawns in Wittenberg.

To me, this is the first that has been actually

dry, a lot of dry grass that's drying out for the first time since spring.

Today he's got a mowing job in rural Tigerton, a doctor's appointment in Shawno, and he writes no fog in the Tigerton area.

Tony writes that these 80 degree days have been killing me.

It's so hot and I refuse to turn on my air conditioner.

You live on Lake Superior.

You have the world's greatest air conditioner up there Tony.

The Tony also adds it was so foggy I could barely see the turkeys crossing the road unacceptable.

You got to be able to see the turkeys when they're

here up there.

Yes, exactly and Yeah, so that's from from Tony and that's from Rob and we'll have more from Brittany coming up in one hour Brittany.

Thank you so much appreciate it

Thank you.

All right.

Also a note up here from our friends at Motherhood for Good who are saying good morning.

I sense they maybe want to hear more from one of our next guests coming up.

This is a candidate announcement kind of day.

Candidate announcement kind of week.

You had State Senator Keldor Royce getting into the race for governor a couple days ago.

I just mentioned State Representative Francesca Hong also joining the governor's race.

There are state Senate candidates.

One I just told you about in the Racine area and

and now one potentially in the Nucleus area as we welcome in Karine Hendrickson to tell us what she's going to be up to later today, former childcare provider in the Nucleus area.

Karine, good morning.

How are you?

Good morning.

It's still really weird to hear former in front of that.

I completely, it's weird for me to say it and it's not something we necessarily like to dwell on.

But the thing that's prompting your change in what you do on a day-to-day basis

is rooted in in a Wisconsin legislative leadership team that did not ever seem to take everything that you said seriously about just how serious child care and other issues are for Wisconsin families.

And so consequently, what's that meant for you?

What is it that you plan to be doing throughout the day today?

So it means that I guess I have to do it myself.

There you go.

So I am officially running for state senate district 17.

That is the southwestern part of Wisconsin, which we have some really good progressive democratic roots.

And we just need to get back to them.

And a lot of it comes down to the lack of affordability in our daily lives, whether it's groceries, childcare, our property taxes continuing to increase because our state refuses to invest in our public schools appropriately and instead is cutting taxes for the wealthy and keep the powerful in power.

So at 10 30 this morning,

I will be launching at the Nucleus Village Park.

Super excited because in Nucleus it's a tradition to have alporns and there will be alporns there as well.

So I'm hoping that lots of people will join me and support me in my newest adventure.

Those are those big Swiss horns, like, as if everybody's going to get a Ricola lasage or something at this

point.

Maybe that should be my thing.

There you go.

Instead of tossing candy at parades, you're tossing cough drops.

It could be.

Whatever works for you.

Now, let's take care of the elephant in the room, or shall we say the donkey, because we're going to be talking about primaries.

And that 2026 is probably going to be a year unlike

any other in terms of primaries.

You've got an open governor's seat, an open lieutenant governor's seat, an open secretary of state seat, and you've already got three Democratic candidates announced in the third congressional district, and now you have in these state senate districts at least three different state senate districts.

Now there will be primaries as well, and that includes in your district where Representative Jenna Jacobson has also already announced

In this case, let's just bring it down to this particular example in the 17th Senate District.

There is a motivator for multiple Democrats to want to run, and that's because the Republican incumbent, Howard Markline, chairs the Joint Finance Committee.

So, I mean, all the more motivation for Democrats to jump in, right?

Oh, absolutely.

I also find it interesting that so far, Senate 17 is all women, Lisa White is also running, and the CD3, which is Van Ordens, is all women too.

So I feel like there's a little bit of women wanting to make sure that we can take care of our families and our communities and stepping up into this space.

I think it's good there's a primary.

I think we can learn from each other.

I think the voters have a right to choose because we fought for gerrymandering.

So that's part of why there's so many.

also interested.

This seat is now winnable because the lack of gerrymandering in our state, we have fair maps.

But at the same time, you know, have a robust primary because that's the way for the people to decide who they want on their party ticket, I guess you would say.

So I'm looking forward to, you know, getting to know people and proving, you know, that I'm the hardest worker.

I'm the best for the position.

The comments are already coming in including from Tony that says it seems like a great opportunity for new faces and for new ideas as well and Now again, I I'm not looking to make Senator Howard Markline You know the the issue is certainly not the centerpiece of your campaign But the symbolism of a co-chair for joint finance in budgets that cycle after cycle after cycle seem to be out of sync with what

he and others are hearing at all those budget public hearings around the state.

Again, seems to be rather representative of why anybody is running for legislature around Wisconsin this year.

Oh, absolutely.

When you look at the Joint Finance Committee hearings, when you look at the Assembly and Senate hearings in office at the Capitol, they're being told over and over and over again.

This is what we want.

This is what we need.

And then they refuse to do it.

Two years ago, when they did the special session for the workforce, you know, they had 200 people send letters, 100 people show up and speak to the fact that they wanted this special session bill to pass.

And after the hearing, they put an amendment in and completely gutted the whole thing.

And so really,

we need people that are not just going to say they're listening and that they understand there's a problem, but that they care enough to do something about it and are willing to go outside of their box that they put themselves into of their opinions of what's important to, it feels like almost it's what's important to them themselves instead of listening to what their constituents have to say.

Well, I think it's pretty clear talking to Kareem Hendrickson, state Senate candidate in the 17th district, what you're going to be hearing from Republicans and others, because I mean, we've been hearing this for 15 years or more, and it's going to go something like this.

Well,

There she goes again.

Here's another tax and spend liberal and she and Tony Evers and everybody else they just want to tax and they want to spend and you know we're the ones that are holding the line on taxes.

We're the ones that are holding the line on spending and being more fiscally responsible.

You know that's what you're going to hear over and over again so now that I've teed that up what are you going to tell the voters?

So it's more

of an investment.

It's more how do we spend the money that we take in for taxes?

Currently, our state budgets have been to the point where they encourage the people who have the wealthy and the most money to keep as much money as possible to hoard that money.

And meanwhile, the rest of us are working as hard as we can.

And we're not seeing that money.

We were promised with some of these tax credits that job growth would happen, job creation would happen.

We don't need to raise the minimum wage because the employers will do it automatically for us.

And that's not what we're seeing.

What we're seeing is

that are those tax cuts have actually starved our public schools from the resources that they need.

And I'm really worried and people in my area are really worried about this next year with all the referendums that are likely to come or, you know, if they don't pass or schools really, you know, don't want to continue to increase property taxes, what are they going to cut?

The first thing is music and art and, you know, sports and all and musicals and all the things that enrich our children's lives and, you know, make them want to go to school as well and just make them more well rounded individuals.

and then allow our comm that we come together ove out every year here.

I h if we don't have a music p kids who can play those have the fundraisers at, you there will be no music at state is refusing to invest same thing.

We are have a di a huge number of parents who want to work, but they cannot afford and access

war in the field.

Sorry, see I can't do it.

Those

who are remaining in the field of child care are struggling.

Two more just announced their closing that have been open for over 20 years because they can't afford to keep going because they can't charge parents anymore.

They're losing kids.

I'm hearing now of kids at five, six and seven are going home.

We're back to the latch keys of the 1980s and it's just not safe and it's scary and it does not have to be this way.

So again, it isn't tax and spend.

It's invest our money appropriately so that we recoup those loss that we recoup that money and we grow our economy.

we grow our communities and we you know have our kids can come back to the small towns that they're vacating right now because there just isn't anything for them in there.

Yeah and you've definitely made the link not just for childcare to then K-12 education but again to small businesses they're all kinds of employers that are

practically begging the legislature to do something because they're losing too many good workers to this childcare crisis as well.

And they want well educated workers.

So you're going to hear these themes and more from Karine Hendrickson.

Her website is Karine417.com Karina C-O-R-R-I-N-E Karine417.com.

And on all the social media sites, just put in Karine417 as the handle, and you'll get her on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and more.

Karine, thank you so much for taking time to make your announcement with us this morning.

We really appreciate

You should have fun with the horns at the announcement.

And we'll talk again real soon.

Yeah, sounds good.

Thank you so much for having me.

You bet.

Pleasure seeing you.

And best of luck as you move forward.

Again, there are going to be primaries in several races here.

So really keep that August date in mind if you plan to vote Republican or Democrat and get to know the candidates in your local community.

We'll have our homeroom segment coming up in just a bit.

I'm Pat Krightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

you

Remember, you can sign up for our newsletters up North News W I dot com.

Click subscribe up in the top banner and you can subscribe to Sunday mornings with that right.

Well, all about political news of the past week and also our weekday version, which today includes a story on when you can expect peak fall color.

at your favorite Wisconsin destination.

Travel Wisconsin is putting that together, and we have an article about that in the newsletter.

Also an article about Wisconsin parents who are rightly concerned about the cuts that Donald Trump and Republicans want to make to Head Start, which is a critical link for vulnerable children to receive a good education.

Again, that's in our newsletter.

Sign up at UpNorthNewsWI.com.

The Brewers were winners yesterday against the Los Angeles Angels.

Final score was nine to two.

Christian Yelich hit home run number 29.

He had three runs batted in.

Freddie Peralta struck out 10 over six innings.

He won his National League leading 17th game.

Peralta allowed only one run on two hits.

He walked only two.

He struck out the side in three different innings.

Brandon Woodruff will get the start in tonight's game two against the Angels.

Pregame begins at 6.05 on several stations across the Civic Media radio network.

Of course the Packers are back in action this coming Sunday at noon against Cleveland.

You can hear the pregame starting at 10 a.m.

Sunday on some Civic Media stations and the Wisconsin Badgers football team opens the Big Ten part of their schedule.

This Saturday they will be hosting Maryland and again 9 a.m.

for the pregame this Saturday on some of the stations of the Civic Media radio network.

I guess we can tell the story now of Corrine Hendrickson's announcement because she's mentioned a couple of different times how.

She wanted to kind of make it official here first because it was on this show when she was talking about having to close her child care center in Nouglares because of an unresponsive legislature that she said something along the lines of, well, I guess I might just have to run for office.

And as people got to talking about that, she said, well, I did mention it first on your show, we should probably share the final announcement here, the formal announcement.

And I'm very thankful that she followed through and did.

because the the actual announcement will be at 10 10 30 this morning in nuclearis, but it was very kind of her to come share it with us today.

Usually what happens is the announcement comes and then they kind of do the media tour afterwards.

For example, Francesca Hong made it official in the 6am hour that she's running for governor and now she will be joining us just over an hour from now at 8 35 to run for governor.

Some of the reaction is already coming in.

to Karine Hendrickson's run from Adam comment on YouTube as a resident in the 17th district.

I'm so happy to see the excitement to challenge the incumbent.

That would be Republican Howard Markline.

And Karine talked about all the women running for office, three women now in the 17th Senate district, three women running for the Democratic primary in the third congressional district.

And Tony puts up typical lazy men not getting involved.

For example, Pat refusing to run for governor, shake my head.

He says, well, Parker.

I mean, what do I do?

Do I prove him wrong and make my own announcement?

Well, I

mean, if I did, where would I do it?

Would I do it on my own show or would I give somebody else the scoop?

I mean, Todd Alba.

I would probably announce on his

show.

Yeah, because it's not as much of a bang if you do it on your own show.

Right.

I mean, people might think you're just goofing around.

You show up on somebody else's show.

Yeah.

And Todd Alba is a he's a bang.

In fact.

I could take it a step further.

I could announce on all the different shows.

I could announce I'm running for governor on Todd's show.

Then I go on Maggie's show and say, I'm actually running for attorney general because she's an attorney.

So she, she could quiz me on that.

And then the next day I joined Jane and Greg and said, you know, on second thought, secretary of state.

That's it.

So I'll just, it's my loud tour.

What should I run for a tour of radio shows?

That actually could be quite the little, uh, little

should

scam scam.

Tony saying announcements coming threes to so far.

Yeah, quite possibly.

And Eli says Korean's explanation of spending in the right places hits the nail on the head.

It absolutely does when she talks about those investments because it is such a knee jerk thing to hear Republicans go tax and spend tax and spend tax and spend.

And they've lost all credibility on that.

With this most recent bill from Trump, the big bloated boondoggle.

because it's not cutting spending.

It's cutting the things that you're paying your taxes for.

It's cutting healthcare.

It's cutting nutrition programs.

It's cutting farm conservation programs, but it's not saving anything.

This is literally just robbing from the poor and giving to the rich.

And so the whole tax and spend, you know, deficit spending thing, Republicans have absolutely zero credibility anymore.

They had credibility literally for decades in this era of Reaganism.

But

The record proves time and time and time again.

They don't actually save any money.

They cut services, they give tax breaks to the wealthy, but the only times, for example, that the federal budget has been under control has been with Democratic presidents.

They're the ones who are more fiscally responsible because they take our tax dollars and actually put them to use for us.

Look at how this job market has softened so badly, so quickly.

The difference between a Biden administration and a Democratic Congress

that was making investments of our tax dollars into infrastructure and all kinds of other things versus now all we're hearing is cutting and cutting and cutting but we're not saving any money it's just going to be tax cuts for the very well off but I mean what to expect from somebody who

is really only focused on enriching himself and his friends as the president is.

And the last example I'll leave you with is this rumor that TikTok is finally going to have a new buyer and that it won't be a simply Chinese-owned company anymore.

But it looks like the ownership is going to be from people associated with Oracle and other companies who are buddies with Donald Trump, and it's just more consolidation of the media.

It's almost like what happened in Hungary with Victor Orban.

It's kind of the urbanization of the media where the companies are still going to take money from us, but they're going to bring more value to the billionaires who own them because we have that much less competition out in the marketplace.

Our homeroom segment is coming up right after the Midwest Farm Report.

I'm Pat Critello.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Boy, there's a lot going on today.

735, welcome back.

It's a Wednesday morning, September 17th.

We just heard from Kareen Hendrickson announcing her candidacy for state senate.

One hour from now we will be talking to State Representative Francesca Hong all about her run for Wisconsin governor joining a growing field there.

Tomorrow we'll be talking to Trevor Young who is a former Racine alder who has just announced he's running for state senate in the 21st district over in the Racine area and if you can't catch all this live on the radio from six until nine

or social media if you're watching on Facebook or YouTube, then you really ought to get the show by podcast so you can dip in and hear some of the highlights.

So head over to Spotify, sign up to follow the show or Apple wherever you get your podcast, and never miss a moment of what we do.

You can also get connected to all this through the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.

All right, welcome to our homeroom segment that we do every week at this time.

Talk a bit about public education in Wisconsin and the things that impact it.

A lot of those things come from the state capital and not just the state budget, which is all done now, but certainly all the other ways where lawmakers can introduce bills that are helpful or even harmful, as the case may be, depending on what people in

in the Assembly and Senate, think of our public school system and what ought to be done with it.

Somebody's got to track all these things and for the Wisconsin Public Education Network, that would include our friend, Bryn Horton, who joins us for a little update.

Bryn, good morning.

How are you?

Good morning.

I'm good.

How are you?

Very good.

Thanks.

Nice to have you along.

Yeah, there's always there's just always so much beyond the budget that could get done for our schools or to our schools as the as the case may be.

So right now, the fall legislative session is just getting going.

We don't we never really know just how busy or not busy they'll be at any given point.

So there are bills that are going to do some may get a

maybe hearing some may go to the floor of the Assembly or Senate.

Some may just be introduced and not come up at all, but you have to note that they've been introduced because, you know, these are things that conceivably could happen.

So as you're looking beyond the state budget at what the legislature could be considering this fall, what kinds of things are you keeping your eye on?

Yeah, so I think the main thing that we're keeping an eye on, which

I feel like the fall is always a time of hurried introduction of bills because they haven't really done much since the budget passed.

But both sides of the assembly introduced, well, they haven't been formally introduced yet, but gave press conferences on packages of education bills that they're planning to introduce to the legislature.

Soon I would imagine they're getting co-sponsored and so it's interesting to see the the play between both of those sets of packages You want to

run through like the highlights of each package the the Republican package on the Democratic package?

Yeah, and this is fully going off of the the press conference Pres conferences that I've listened to because I haven't seen the bill texts of them yet, but the Democratic side is introducing bills for

healthy school meals for all, which has long been a topic that the Democratic Assembly members have tried to get through in the last couple of sessions.

There is a bill about voucher transparency and having the impact of the...

of those dollars on tax bills.

And then also there is a bill around budget and financing and the things that they're trying to do to balance out the lack of funding that came in the budget.

And then the Republican side, my understanding is there's a bill around math curriculum and changes to math curriculum.

I'm sensing that might have some of the same type of connotations that Act 20 did for reading.

That's the guess that I'm going from that one.

And then a parent's rights bill, which is also a bill that they've tried to get through a couple of times in the past.

And then also some bill around school discipline and teachers being able to do what they need to do to help with student behavior.

Since that seems to be a talking point across the nation of teachers not feeling like they have the ability to do what they need to do to control student behavior.

So those are just some of the things that you might see in the Democratic package of bills, in the Republican package of bills.

You know, looking at some of the things that are on the Wisconsin Education Association Council website and things that they're following, you also see kind of the same

uh shall we say division between the the two parties where one is looking to maybe enhance uh prep time for teachers while another may be seeking to micromanage prep time

for

teachers and as we as we mentioned with Peggy where it's also from we had a couple weeks back I mean some of these bills again they may not go anywhere but

Just the introduction of them is noteworthy.

For example, you know, restricting the kinds of flags that can be displayed in public buildings like schools and in classrooms.

There's always something about, you know, cursive handwriting as well.

And certainly, and then on a slightly broader level, state testing standards.

And so

I

really kind of feel like there's this tug of war, if you will, between micromanaging our educators and giving them the resources and flexibility to teach our kids.

Yeah, it's, I think, interesting in the cross-specs of local control.

And the way that Wisconsin school districts have been created to give school districts and local school boards local control.

And yet they're constantly being given ways that they need to do things, even though that might not be something that works well in their local school district.

And so I think that's a constant look at least is how are we making sure that school boards are being able to

have their local control rights that they that they were given by the by the state statutes.

We also have we talked about this recently it was kind of news to an old guy like me that cell phone bans you know are I guess I just thought they were there and they're not and it's become a hot discussion topic again and I'm sure that I think there's at least one bill dealing with cell phone bans and there will probably be others that you'll have to track in the Capitol as well.

Yeah, and that's an interesting because I believe that the cell phone bills tend to have bipartisan support.

And what I've heard from that is that because there are a lot of school districts that have their own policies.

And what I've heard is that their hope is to in order to pass a bill like that, that school districts then have the ability to be able to say, oh, see, it's not us.

It's the state telling us that we have to do this.

So when there's pushback that they have something to fall back on.

which I guess is a nice way of them thinking that that's good that the state, that we can fall back on the state, but I do think there's still a need of, that there's a reason why we have, that school districts have local control because school districts are so very different from each other across the state.

Yeah.

We're talking to Bryn Horton and she follows for the Wisconsin Public Education Network, the various bills that get introduced at the state capitol that could have an impact on our schools and on your kids' education.

And again, from the Republican side, we see just such a focus on issues that involve such a small percentage of what goes on in society, much less our education.

In this case, I'm referring to various gender restrictions on participation in sports and other activities.

That's another bill I'm assuming Republicans will try to bring up and push, even though they know that Governor Evers would likely veto anything resembling that.

Yes, that's absolutely true.

And I do believe that there is a lot of talk about the fact that the Senate might not possibly go into any more floor sessions the rest of this year.

And so even though, I mean, introductions happen and those bills will definitely get referred to committees and actually have public hearings, which doesn't happen for a lot of bills that could actually.

fix things or help things in the school districts.

It's those dividing bills that get public hearings.

Right they do and I'm sure there will be something there is a bill of course to require English only in schools We talked about the flag display.

There's another bill that would require, you know, the national motto in God We Trust to be displayed in all courtrooms.

Somebody just asked me yesterday like did that law really pass in Texas that requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every classroom?

Yeah, yeah, that's you know, that's a thing and that that which which means it's going to

encourage, you know, some legislator in Wisconsin to try to do the same thing.

So you're right, we're going to hear a lot of what you would call what social issues or wedge bills

or anything

like that.

Those seem to ones that get the public hearings and get some attention.

Yes, absolutely.

And there's never any funding attached to those.

So, you know, we can display the motto in the schools, but it's going to cost the school districts money to have to do all of that stuff.

And so that's the other

part of it too that comes with is we can give us all these things to do and then don't give any money to be able to accomplish those effects.

Yeah, I mean, we just talked about this with Jimmy Koska a couple weeks back when we talked about scoreboards and how I did not know that there still wasn't a shot clock for high school basketball, but that's because every school would have to

uh not every school but many schools we have to replace their scoreboard they don't have the money to replace the scoreboard so if they don't have money to replace the scoreboard they they sure don't have money to be putting up you know religious symbols and and models and things like that in our schools as well

And all of this really comes back to, you know, a central theme of this segment and that is providing our public schools with the resources they need.

That includes the voucher transparency that we've talked about here.

And by the way, the Wisconsin Public Education Network, you know, just this week kicked off a public campaign to increase the transparency of the voucher program so that taxpayers know how much it really costs.

So head over to Wisconsinnetwork.org to learn more.

But Bren, you know, again, it really is what you're what you're hearing from the Democratic side is let's give schools the resources and the tools they need rather than more restrictions.

Yeah, definitely ways to be able to find more funding to be able to help close that funding gap that's going to be left with the budget.

And the main one that I think that I'm really watching on the Republican side is that there is a bill to get rid of the $325 automatic revenue limit increase that the governor got passed into law through his partial line veto and then was upheld.

But there is a bill out there to get rid of that now.

And so that's the kind of thing that