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Hey, good morning.
Welcome back.
Nice to have you here Up North on a Wednesday morning.
It is December 10th, 2025.
Coming up this week's homeroom segment, we'll be talking about special education funding and a bill being introduced
that would guarantee a level of special education reimbursement to school districts so that they don't have to put so much on the property tax bills.
That's coming up at the bottom of the hour.
First, though, we want to pass along a keyword to you because it is time for our grown-up gift list text-to-win contest.
It is a multi-station, multi-state game with a daily prize of $200.
There are three grand prize winners.
We'll choose from a brand new snowblower, portable air conditioner, stainless steel cookware set.
You can learn all about the prizes by heading over to the website, civicmedia.us.
That's civicmedia.us.
Again, we give you opportunities throughout the course of the day, 7 a.m., 9 a.m., 11 a.m., and then 1, 3, 5, and 7 p.m.
All opportunities for you to win multiple
entries per day, all with different keywords.
One of them is pulled every day for the $200 daily prize.
Everybody's in the running for one of the three grand prizes.
And your keyword for this hour is light L I G H T light L I G H T you have until eight o'clock this morning to text that in and be entered in the civic media grown up gift list text to win contest.
I believe we have a weather report from Tigerton.
Let's see, where did, where did I see?
There's Rob.
Rob says, good morning from Tigerton, cloudy and 23 degrees.
Tigerton got six inches of snow.
I have been out since 1 a.m.
plowing.
He says the last time Tigerton was above freezing was on November 29th.
Yep, that sounds about right and we got about
I'd say six six and a half inches of snow here in Chippewa Falls as well.
Well, let's head down to talk to the oral the Oracle of Economa Walk.
That would be Ellie Bordeaux who puts together the daily newsletter for Up North News.
You can sign up for it at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
Ellie, good morning.
How are you?
I'm great.
How are you guys?
Well, good.
It's good to see you here and find out what you've been working on.
I already
told folks in our last hour.
Today's edition includes a link to my story about the latest court fight over the gerrymandered congressional maps and what happens next in the effort, albeit on a short timetable, to try to make changes to the congressional district boundaries.
So we've got that in today's episode, but there's been a lot that's been covered seasonal.
I got to start with the photos.
Ellie, these photos, I know I raved about them last week.
I'm gonna do it again.
They're so
great.
As you should, the photos are so great.
It's so fun to see every day.
I mean, I get tons of responses from our readers showing us their Wisconsin view and it's so great to see.
And especially now that the holidays are coming up, people have their lights set up, their trees set up.
So we're getting more photos of their holiday lights that they have outside the house.
And that's one of my favorite things.
I love to just drive around and see all the lights that people have set up.
There are some like very extravagant houses.
So
Some of our readers are definitely that way as well, which is great.
And I love to see it.
So it's super awesome.
Well, one of those times when you're all driving around, I see you made it all the way up to Lambo to watch a pack
again.
Yes, I me, my cousin, my boyfriend and some of my cousin's friends were at Lambo on Sunday and.
what a fantastic game that was it was so fun
you picked a good one to go to didn't you all
right yes 100 it was so fun we had such a great time and the the drive back wasn't too bad i mean we got home around like 9 30 which was not bad at all and um
It was a great game, too.
So we had a great time.
It was so fun.
So let me ask about the tickets with somebody in charge of getting them or somebody in your group already has them.
So we actually got very lucky.
They were my uncle's tickets
that
he gave us.
So I got super lucky that I'm super fortunate that I was able to go and got those tickets.
And it was a fantastic game to go to.
So when we were offered the tickets, we were kind of like...
Why would we not go it's Packers Bears you have to you know, it might be but why not?
Well, that's so nice of your uncle I'm trying to make the transition here into your giving guide and what a great gift what a great gift Packers tickets would be but not not everybody has access to that So I'm sure you have some other ideas that you put in in the giving guide
Yes, so our giving guide is our special edition newsletter that came out on Saturday.
And we worked really hard on this.
It's super exciting to see it all come together.
And so we had a bunch of different things we featured in there.
We started out with Faces of Service.
So we talked about some of the ways our readers give back this season.
And so we had a lot of great examples.
Diane B said she builds
built homes.
Andi says she plays music for community members, for volunteers to play music for them, which is super great.
Volunteer gardening, which I think is super awesome to take care of a garden.
And, you know, I think that's a really great way to give back as well.
And of course, donating money to different food pantries, different organizations is a really great way to give back as well.
So it's really awesome to see the ways our readers are giving back.
And we got so many responses, and it was so cool to just see
how many, how many different ways and unique ways there are to give back this season?
Yeah, without a doubt.
And so that's in the newsletter.
And then here on the radio show, we're doing our 12 days of community kindness.
And we will continue that again, in about a half hour, 745 when we will highlight another group around Wisconsin doing good things that would appreciate your support along the way.
And then now that we're past Thanksgiving, we can get back to our locals love series.
And if there's one thing locals love about their home
town if they have this it's a good old-fashioned supper club.
Yes that is very true and we so last week we talked a little bit about some of our even though Thanksgiving is coming gone we talked a little bit about our readers favorite Thanksgiving dishes and we got green bean casserole we got apple turkey stuffing which I thought was really interesting mashed potatoes dressing all those kinds of
you know, your standard Thanksgiving things.
But next week, we want to take a look at supper clubs, which, again, is a big thing in Wisconsin.
We talked about cheese curds, we talked about ice cream shops, now we're going to supper clubs.
And I'm super excited to hear what our readers want.
And I personally don't have a favorite supper club right now, so I'm excited to
expand my horizons and learn more about the different supper clubs around the state and where I can go try, which is great.
It got me thinking that, boy, it's been a long time now since we had Ron Feola on, but he literally wrote the book on Wisconsin supper clubs, the Wisconsin supper club story that I'm holding up here, a great review of the history of supper clubs and how it was more or less a Broadway thing that then made its way to Wisconsin.
And so that was book number one.
Um, book number two is called Wisconsin supper clubs another round with a beautiful picture of an old fashioned there looking out over a lake with some pine trees and I believe he's up to four books now about supper clubs.
So there's, there's no shortage of ways to find out what, what supper clubs are around your part of the state and to start getting out there because I mean they're, they're not making many new supper clubs and some of the old classics have, you know, bit by bit been going out of business.
So.
I mean, I don't want to sound alarmist here, you youngins.
But you got to get to some of these places before they're gone because there's there's such a great dining experience.
Absolutely.
And again, like you said, there's no shortage of them.
So it's it's really great to I'm excited to learn more about the different supper clubs we have.
And obviously, there's more that I can check out even that I get from my readers based on four books about them.
I think that's super awesome.
So.
Yeah, and that's what we're looking to see is that, you know, this one isn't necessarily a competition, you know, who's got the best supper club.
But, but again, just give a shout out to one that you especially like and that you think people should know about and, you know, give them their business and help them continue to thrive because it is just a great experience.
Parker, is there anything in the greater whitewater Metroplex that
You remind you of the supper club experience or do you have to come all the way to Madison to like the tornado room or something like that?
I don't know.
I've never
really
done supper clubs
before.
So
I
will be watching.
We have more than our share and they are wonderful.
Tom and Jackson reminds us about Schomburg's on Lake Emily on the text line.
So thank you for that, Tom.
Appreciate that.
Just look for all the different ways that you can highlight these places and people go, what's the difference between a supper club and a restaurant?
I guess the shorthand would be the experience.
you know, just the experience of it, the different kinds of courses, the way the dinner served, some of the food that's available.
But again, the atmosphere as well, you're not going to find a supper club and something that looks like a 50s diner, you know, it's it's got its own kind of woodsy feel to it.
We've got Rita in La Crosse on the text line, pointing out diggers in La Crosse.
I have not heard of diggers.
I'm, and I've got friends in La Crosse.
I will be
chiding them very soon and saying, where is this diggers?
We got to go.
So look, folks are already jumping on the text line here to do that, as well as sending in the keyword for the text to win contest.
Again, that keyword is light L I G H T. But we love getting your ideas that way or through the comment sections.
But best of all would be to subscribe to the newsletter.
Again, sign up at UpgroundNewsWI.com.
And from there, you can get a look at the questions that Ellie is asking in part of the Locals Love section of the newsletter, not to mention some of the news that we do around the area as well.
Right, yeah.
You're working on things for the rest of the week, I'm sure already.
Yes, we definitely are.
We're going to have some of our giving guide stories up on the site.
We've already got one about winter wellness tips going on, which
is great with all the snow we got, being safe in your vehicle, being safe in your home, checking all those things.
And then we've also got a conservation story that'll be coming up soon about different ways you can give back to conservation efforts around the state, which again is a great way to give back throughout the season.
So it's really awesome.
Well, especially given that the Knowles Nelson stewardship fund is likely to not be funded because of a disagreement in the legislature.
And so there will be groups that deal with land conservation that will be looking for other ways to get support if there is less support coming from the state.
So it's great that we're passing along some of the people that are trying to make sure that this gap is filled, even if politicians don't seem to be interested in it.
But there's
Most certainly no shortage of people that are interested in environmental protection and land conservation in our state.
Right, yeah, absolutely.
And going back to our local love section too, that's another, like you were saying with the supper clubs that some are going out of business, those kinds of things, that's another great way to just highlight the places that are doing a great job and get more people to come try them, those kinds of things.
So even that is just something small, but it's a great way to get involved and give back a little bit.
That's right.
And again, you can read all this in our newsletter.
Sign up for it at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
Click subscribe in the banner on top of the homepage.
Ellie Bordeaux puts together our weekday edition.
Ellie, thank you so much.
Have a great start to the day.
We'll talk to you later.
Sounds good.
Thank you.
All right.
Good to see you.
And of course, Ellie puts that together.
And then on the weekends, I've got a Sunday morning newsletter with more of a focus on
politics that I send out, you can sign up on our website for that as well.
Let's see, Jacqueline and Mosini talks about the Pinewood Supper Club on Half Moon Lake in Mosini.
Gotta add that to my list here.
Let's see, I mentioned that Tom mentioned Schomburg's on Lake Emily, he then followed up with a text that said it's on Highway A, which is north of Highway 33 by about five miles.
And that's the nice thing about some of these places.
I mean, I'm not going to say middle of nowhere, but it's a bit of a trek to find some of these.
And you go, how, how is something this good way out here in this remote part of, you know, my county?
And it's almost like they're trying to keep it a secret, but don't keep it a secret.
by all means share what you support share what you love in your local area and we'd love to pass it along as well here on the radio show and through our newsletter to boot.
Coming up we have our homeroom segment in 15 minutes where we will be talking about special education funding.
We've got Earl Ingram coming up in our next hour and we've got former Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes coming on Friday to talk about his run.
for Wisconsin Governor in 2026.
From the heart of America's Up North, live from Lake Wissota, thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.
I'm Pat Critello from Up North News, and this is the Civic Media Radio
Network.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
Got some college hoops on the radio tonight.
The Wisconsin Badger Men's basketball team will be at Nebraska.
Pregame coverage begins at 7.30 tonight on Civic Media Stations in Wisconsin Rapids, Richland Center, and Ironwood, Michigan.
Then, of course, on Sunday, you've got the Packers Plane at Denver.
3.25 kickoff.
Pregame begins at one o'clock on Civic Media Stations in Richland Falls, Ironwood, Michigan.
Park Falls, Racine, and Watoma head over to civicmedia.us to learn more.
Also head to civicmedia.us to learn more about the grown-up Gifla's text-to-win contest, but in the meantime.
Get on that Civic Media app and text us the word light.
L-I-G-H-T.
Again, light is this hour's keyword.
You have until eight o'clock to send it in, and then there will be another chance coming up in the nine o'clock hour with Jane Mattenair and Greg Bach.
Mattenair on air.
Final three episodes starting today.
Our question of the day is about the new license plate designs that were unveiled yesterday.
I ask, what's your next Wisconsin license plate going to be?
Are you going back to the retro yellow design that they're bringing back here?
There's also going to be a new blackout design just a black plate with white letters Or you're just going to keep what you got and you're not in any rush to switch out your license plate 85575 civic 8557524842 We've also been asking about funny and personalized license plates that you might have seen as well
Let's see.
I wanted to pick up on a comment we got through Facebook about tariffs And it's from Oz here who puts up on Facebook.
Good morning brought my phone to the barn today You said something yesterday that I think needs some clarity
You said Trump is saying that his 12 billion dollar farmer bailout is coming from tariffs, which are paid for entirely by U.S.
consumers.
This is false.
Farmers actually have large gross incomes.
What they also have are very large input costs of which many have been subject to increases due to tariffs.
Uh, and he goes on to say that this number is very significant and that Hans Brighton Moser would be able to, uh, set me straight on this.
Let's see.
Um, he says, farmers produce products that are sold wholesale and therefore are in a unique position where they cannot pass these tariff costs onto the consumers of their products.
Enjoy your show.
Thank you.
Oz, that is, that is an excellent comment and one that I should have been more detailed when I spoke yesterday.
The
Tariffs are entirely paid off by Americans, but I should have said yes, American consumers, American farmers, they are not paid by foreign governments.
And so when Donald Trump continues to say that, he knows it's not true.
He knows it's not true, which is what makes it a lie, just so I can connect those dots for some people, because he knows it's not true.
It is a tax on farmers, on consumers, on businesses.
And so, yes, there is more money coming into the Treasury, but it's through raising your taxes, essentially, through these tariffs.
And now some of that money is going to go to farmers in the form of a bailout.
Farmers don't want a bailout.
Farmers want markets.
they're going through all this work for a reason.
You don't get up as early as you do and work as hard as you do just for you know the fruits of your labor to be rotting in an elevator someplace and you get a check for that.
It's not a sustainable business model and that is what farmers are facing along with of course their own higher costs at the grocery store and elsewhere and now higher health insurance costs because of what
Donald Trump and Republicans have done to prices under the Affordable Care Act.
Scott Fitzgerald, Wisconsin Congressman, also had a unique perspective on what's happening here, looking at his Twitter feed.
He says, Wisconsin farmers have fed America and the world for generations.
President Trump is making sure they get the support they deserve, funded by tariff revenue, not taxpayers.
Thank you, POTUS.
Now, I've worked with Congressman Scott Fitzgerald.
He was the Senate Republican leader when I was in the state Senate.
He's a very smart guy and he knows that none of that's true.
That again, the tariff revenue is brought up by taxpayers.
But you know, when you, when you got to back a president, you got to say some of the things that, you know, if you're, if you were, if there were a gun held to your head, you'd know are not necessarily the case.
Now,
Representative Fitzgerald also had a comment that caught my eye about the competition that's out there for buying Warner Brothers Discovery.
Netflix put in a massive bid recently, but now Paramount is launching their own hostile takeover bid for Warner Brothers.
The president's son-in-law is involved, and there are all kinds of concerns about competition.
And what happens when one behemoth media company swallows up another?
And so I found it interesting that Congressman Fitzgerald wrote that
A recent survey showed 62% of Americans believe the streaming landscape is overcrowded.
They complain of scattered content, overlapping subscriptions, and monthly charges that are now far exceeding a basic cable TV package.
A merger of two streaming services brings all that content under one roof, and consumers may find that model preferable.
Ultimately, this will be a decision our enforcers at the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice need to make, but I think to a meat
say the merger is bad is short-sighted.
And again, this is not typical for Scott Fitzgerald.
Classic Republican and certainly understands that less competition is less good for the consumer.
And this is just a little too cozy to suddenly sound pro-monopoly.
and not be looking out for the best interests of the consumer.
Because yeah, there's this fight over Netflix between Warner Brothers and Paramount, but ultimately the larger issue is this media consolidation.
And when there are fewer competitors and there are fewer reasons to provide good prices and good customer service, we all suffer.
And so it would do us a lot of good if Congressman from Scott Fitzgerald onward
were to, you know, stick more to their philosophical guns and look out for the competition in the marketplace that ultimately is best for the consumer and not worry about which big business is currying favor most with the president of the United States.
We'll talk to representative Angelina Cruz in today's homeroom segment.
Coming up next, I'm Pat Kratlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
We have our homeroom segment coming up in just a sec with two state representatives, Angelina Cruz from Racine, Christian Phelps from Eau Claire.
But first, a little business to attend to a reminder that on Friday morning, we will have former Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes on to talk about his campaign for governor and joining a crowded Democratic primary field.
We might even have a candidate for governor tomorrow as well.
We're still working out the details on that one, so stick around.
And then one other bit of business here, the keyword for our grown up gift list, text to win contest for this hour, is light.
L-I-G-H-T.
So get on that Civic Media app, call up one of the radio stations on there, use the text button and text just the word light, L-I-G-H-T, before eight o'clock.
And you are in the running for a daily prize of $200 and one of three great grand prizes.
Get all the details at civicmedia.us.
All right, in our homeroom segment this week, we're going to be talking about special education and how to pay for it.
And why is it different than paying for other education funding?
What was supposed to happen this year?
What really happened this year?
And how you go about fixing it?
And so we've got two legislators who want to fix all of this and make things right for the kids, for the educators, for the property taxpayers of the district.
So I'm happy to welcome into the program now State Representative Angelina Cruz from Racine and State Representative Christian Phelps from Eau Claire.
Angelina Christian, thank you.
Good morning.
Welcome.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Nice to have you both here.
You're working on a bill that we'll get the details of how it essentially keeps our promise for funding special education in just a sec.
Jump ball here.
Let's go with Angelina first.
Can you explain to us what it is about special education that, you know, where it necessitates or is at least a good idea to have state reimbursement to the local school districts.
Why do we even do that?
Oh, wow.
Okay, that's a big question.
So it has to do with the federal mandate that we deliver special education services to students in local school districts.
And so the idea is that
School districts, it's not a fixed amount.
You can't fully anticipate how much it's going to cost.
It depends upon students, individual education plans, individualized education plans or IEPs.
And so school districts bill the state.
for reimbursement of the
costs.
It's an expensive endeavor, but one, of course, that is absolutely necessary and Representative Phelps, as a result, you know, state leaders some time back said, well, let's reimburse part of that cost so that, you know, not so much of it is put on the property tax bills, but Christian, the way it was initially designed isn't the way that things have gone over the years.
No, exactly.
Just like in so many other
components of the way that we fund or fail to fund education in Wisconsin.
It is a constitutional requirement in Wisconsin that we provide an education, a free and basic education as uniform, as practicable to every kid in the state.
But the details of how that happens are that if the state doesn't carry enough weight, a lot of the weight on fulfilling that constitutional requirement falls on
individual people and their local property taxes.
I think right now with people having gotten some really staggeringly high property tax bills this month, I know certainly here in Eau Claire and I'm hearing from all over my district and around the state on that, we're seeing that while special ed when we started reimbursing it was reimbursed at about 70% of the total cost to every district by the state.
So only a small percentage of it then was levied from local property taxes.
But for the last many years that Republicans have controlled the legislature in Wisconsin, you know, a decade or more, we've been funding less than a third of the cost of special ed in public schools.
And like Angelina said, that doesn't mean that the federal requirement that we provide special ed goes away, nor does it mean that it becomes morally okay not to provide it.
It just means that you as local property taxpayers have to pay the enormous bulk of the rest of what it takes to provide those kids with that education.
And then there is this glaring disparity compared to the reimbursement level that private schools receive through the voucher program, Christian, right?
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, so that's a relatively new in the scheme of things part of education in Wisconsin, but we have this statewide special needs voucher program that is only one decade old.
And even though private and parochial schools, even the ones that take public funds, are not required to even admit students with disabilities.
If they choose to participate in the special needs voucher program, the state will fund 90% or more of their special education costs.
And so our legislature has been telling students in public schools that have disabilities basically that they are worth
you know, less than a third of a student in a private school that has disabilities.
And so there has been this push to, again, address this disparity, bring up the state level in public schools and representative Cruz, there was a percentage that was set in this new state budget.
And then I think we all assumed that's what the reimbursement level was going to be this year.
And then the numbers came out and it was far below that.
What was what was the state budget shooting for and where are we at right now?
Sure.
So the state budget that we just passed
set the amount for reimbursement in public schools at 42% for the 25-26 school year and 45% for the subsequent school year.
And so the school bulletin that just came out from the Department of Public Instruction indicated that the reimbursement rate at least for the 25-26 for this first
portion of the school year would be, it would hit around 35%, which is obviously much less than 42%.
So 42%
wasn't a guarantee then it was.
No.
Okay.
And I think an important distinction too with what Rep Phelps just brought up in terms of the parity or lack thereof between public schools and private schools, private schools are being reimbursed at 90% some sufficient rates, public schools are 42% some certain.
rates, which I can unpack what are the bill that we brought forward addresses in a second.
But some certain simply means that it's a fixed dollar amount.
And once the public school district hits the reimbursement rates of that fixed dollar amount, they're never going to hit the percentage in the legislation.
It's a complicated formula that the fixed dollar amount is based upon, but it won't be 42% ever.
No, no.
And meanwhile, again, in the voucher schools, it is some sufficient and they'll give them whatever they need.
So, Representative Cruz, what does your bill do?
Correct.
So, the bill that I brought forward and as being co-authored, co-sponsored by all Democratic legislators in
in the state capital would change the 42 and 45 percent some certain amounts to some sufficient amounts.
So that school districts, it'll take away the uncertainty of not knowing how to budget for special education for this school year and next school year.
And so it's a band-aid approach, honestly.
I came from the camp that we were not doing enough in the state budget.
for special education to begin with, which is why I voted against the state budget.
But this would go a long way in helping our local school districts to keep the lights on basically.
And so finally, Representative Phelps, I mean, again, it sounds like a bipartisan idea, but there's only going to be a few session days in early 2026.
But is this the kind of thing that has even a chance of passing before the session's out?
I think that you have the same answer to that question that I do, but time will tell.
If people are interested in fiscal responsibility and fulfilling constitutional requirements and moral responsibilities, they will move this bill quickly and send it to the governor's desk.
And at worst, it will reveal that the majority party does not care about those things.
There you go.
State Representative Christian Phelps of Eau Claire, Representative Angelina Cruz of Racine.
Thank you for explaining the background of the issue and your bill.
And hopefully there will be some bipartisan pressure put
Republicans to go along with literally the least they could do to make the payment of special education more equitable around the state.
Thanks to both of you.
Hope you have a great day.
Thank you.
All right.
Let's now turn to our 12 days of community kindness as we sneak up on 744 here on this Wednesday morning, where we have been checking in with various organizations around the state in the spirit of Giving Tuesday.
That would be good for you to support.
And this time around, we are talking to Matt Thompson.
Matt is from the La Crosse Area Veteran Mentor Program.
He's a court coordinator for the La Crosse Area Veterans Court.
Matt Thompson, good morning.
How are you?
Morning, Pat.
How are you doing?
Very good.
Thank you for being here.
Tell us more about the La Crosse Area Veteran Mentor Program and what it does.
So
2010, Judge Tidebierke and several legal professionals around here noticed a lot of veterans interacting with the criminal justice system.
So they got together and put together a nonprofit that will provide basically peer-to-peer mentor support.
So we take
fellow veterans that volunteer to be mentors, and we pair them up with struggling veterans.
You know, preferably we'd like to run and help these folks out before they get in trouble, but where veterans aren't usually too keen on asking for help.
So unfortunately, sometimes it comes down to a little farther down the line, and you know, we're trying to help them rebuild their life at times.
Yeah, so the lacrosse area veterans court has
uh notes here graduated your 42nd veteran through the program uh helping veterans in La Crosse Monroe, Trepolo, Buffalo, Peppin, Vernon, Crawford, Richland, Jackson, Dunn, Barron, Lincoln, Marathon, Wood, Adams, Juno, Kenosha, Washington and Dane counties.
There are a lot of folks that you are helping out here so what is it that uh when people make donations or or offer in other ways to help uh what does that help you do?
So yeah uh since we're a non-profit
and running a veterans court is we're kind of in a weird position that we rely on local contributions and we can do that at our website lavmp.org.
People we always are looking for veterans that are willing to volunteer to be peer mentors and sharing our information and resources you know with those that may possibly need them.
We often come back to the word resources, and we're talking to Matt Thompson from the La Crosse Area Veteran Mentor Program.
Again, learn more at lavmp.org.
And it's that access to resources that veterans need.
And we've talked about this with other groups of people as well.
Sometimes just facilitating, connecting those dots makes all the difference in the world it sounds like.
Absolutely.
And we leverage art.
veterans ability to utilize the VA and the vast number of programs available.
So, yeah, community-based organizations help and, you know, really getting the word out, frankly, because even some veterans are still resistant to the VA.
They got some old, some views of the VA that, you know, aren't helpful for them, but, you know, we try and get them connected to the right people and build
from there.
Sure, because they may have behavioral health problems.
They may have mental health problems.
And again, those problems often don't just go away.
But this is, as you mentioned, through the courts.
And so what's been your estimate of how this has done helping keep veterans out of future legal entanglements?
So as you mentioned, serving your country.
brings about some unique experiences, right?
So the fellow veterans mentoring, you know, that that relationships, it's easier to talk to another veteran about your issues, right?
And so our veterans court team has five veterans on it.
And Judge Mark Huseman is also a veteran and he's the judge for us.
So, you know, what we do these, sorry, when you're struggling is, you know, we're trying to build that foundation so they can come out, you know, with a sober.
and, you know, some work on their mental health has been
done.
Exactly.
Peer-to-peer makes all the difference in the world.
And again, to learn more, lavmp.org, lavmp for the La Crosse Area Veterans Mentor Program.
Matt Thompson, thank you very much for spending some time with us about this today.
Matt, thanks for having
us.
All right, no, our pleasure.
Thanks for all that you do.
Again, lavmp.org is the address.
I'm Pat Krightler from Up North News.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
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Jimmy Koska is here, Civic Media Sports Director on what has been a fairly
slow week for sports, not that anybody's complaining.
We're coming up on the holidays and things like that.
And I didn't realize till you mentioned it off air here that with the Packers playing Denver, we'll get to see an old friend again.
Yeah, we'll get to see Jim Leonard, who's a coach at the Denver Broncos.
So that's pretty cool.
Just it's amazing all the ties that, you know, in the NFL and college, like, it's a small world, right?
I mean, all the, you know,
It seems like every game you go up against somebody who's a former packer, a former, you know, Wisconsin Badger, there's all these ties, you know, Denver brings multiple Wisconsin connections.
You've got Jim, you've got, you've got the, the, the left guard of the century there, uh, from UW whitewater.
You've got, uh, you know, you, you've got so many things that happen in professional sports where there's always going to be some tie in and
obviously for the Packers.
Parker was just beaming when you mentioned whitewater.
Hey,
let the belly loose.
All right.
Quinn Miners is a great guy.
Hey, Thanksgiving was two weeks ago, all right?
I haven't used that line in two weeks.
I think, personally, though, I'm excited to see the matchup because it's another week where the Packers are going to face another top offensive line.
And they're also facing a top seed.
It's a team that keeps scoring relatively low.
And the Packers have been in some of these rock fights already.
So if the Packers do enough to get a win in what will probably be a low scoring game, can they overcome another really good offensive line?
These are some good questions heading into the matchup this week.
And I really feel like that for the Packers with this tough schedule that they've handled thus far.
the back part of the season.
This can be one of the more intriguing tests that they'll have the rest of the way.
Yeah.
And I don't want anybody looking past this game, least of which the Packer players, because I feel like they were guilty of that a little earlier in the season of looking ahead.
And that's how they ended up losing to Carolina.
But I mean, we found out the Bears were as good as we thought they were.
And we managed to eke out a win.
And we got to play them again a week from Saturday in these division games.
And while that sounds exciting and all,
By no means should anybody be taking anything for granted in this game in Denver pregame begins at one o'clock on Sunday kickoff at 325 on stations along the civic media radio network tonight We've got some badger men's college basketball at Nebraska Coverage begins at 730 on stations and rapids Richland Center and Ironwood, Michigan I believe and the badger men have been the real deal so far
Yeah, and so has Nebraska.
Nebraska enters this one without a loss.
So this is going to be another important, I think, test for the men's basketball program at Wisconsin because in the big profile game, the higher profile games they've had so far, they've had their struggles a bit.
So can they get a big 10 win against a team that has started the year just absolutely blazing hot?
And that's going to be for Nebraska kind of a.
Yeah, for them, kind of a, you know, where does this fit with us?
Does this legitimize us anyway?
So they can get the 10 and 0 to start the year.
I think that's incredible.
And that's, you know, that really moves them up if they cannot win over a pretty decent Wisconsin team, which is probably borderline top 25.
It's the top 40 of teams in the country.
You know, there's, I think that checks a big box for them.
So it's a big game tonight.
Jimmy Koskis here, Civic Media Sports Director, who again, as he every week shares the tally of what Civic Media is doing in sports.
And there are 38 different high school or local college sporting events on the air across the network.
Fewer after last night, the weather took care of a few of our matchups last
night.
Yeah, good point.
Yeah,
you know, but we did add a few, you know, there was a few, a few additional games that were picked up.
Some of the games moved to tomorrow night.
Some one moved to today.
In fact, it's rare that you have outside of the Milwaukee area Wednesday night high school sports, but that is happening in Warsaw.
So WXCO has hockey today.
But you just look, yeah, we had over three dozen games scheduled.
I think we're at 41 at one point before we back down.
But this week and next week will be incredibly busy in winter sports and local coverage across the Civic Meeting Network.
And then it really picks up again January through early March, where you have all the sports tournaments happening all at the same time.
This really is for high school sports prime time because.
Wherever you live in the state, it doesn't matter where you are.
On any given night, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and most Saturdays, you don't have to go very far to find a high school game.
It's like four bucks to get in, six bucks to get in.
You're getting yourself a pretty good time, and we're happy to be able to cover dozens of these every week right here at Civic Media.
And you didn't mention Wednesday, and I think that's specifically because everybody stays home to listen to the big high school sports show that Chad Holmes does over at WXCO in Mossaw.
Yeah, I don't know I don't think they get to do that this week with the hockey game moving against
Oh, that's right.
Yes, but you know that that is the reason why we they don't do it on Wednesday night
for sure six o'clock Wednesdays most Wednesdays and you can listen to it through the civic media app But yes, I'm looking at the list.
I mean there's just so many sports you have to be played on your local station And then if you need more of a roundup, there's this program on Saturday mornings called make the call Saturday morning 7 a.m.. That you can listen on the civic media app.
I believe
Parker's already got the lineup, you know, halfway done because he's, he worked so hard to pre-plan these things.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, between Greg Conrad and myself, we do a pretty good job.
Parker's also there, so we have.
Parker's also there.
That's so mean.
Why would I do that?
No.
I mean, you're
not wrong.
No, no, no.
I am
there.
But it's a good recap of the week and this week we'll be focusing in a lot on high school and college sports, especially with some recent NCAA triumphs for Wisconsin schools.
Still got River Falls in the football tournament, Oshkosh National Champs
in volleyball.
Oshkosh National Champs in volleyball, way to go.
And then there's the bucks that have really fallen down the list here because things are just not going well.
Now you've got the Yanis drama in there as well and they've got a bit of a long layoff this week and they're off until
tonight when they will be hosting the Boston Celtics.
Yeah, some folks will watch the game.
Other folks will just talk about Yanis.
Yeah, this week was the Carvel for the NBA Cup, right?
Well, now, yeah, they get to hang out and watch.
But it's good because Yanis is out.
It's fewer games.
They got to play without Yanis.
I think the daily drama we're going to get with that is going to get as old as the Rogers and Farv drama did in past
years.
It's
already kind of to that fever pitch with some of these national reporters.
Yeah,
yeah.
And we're still waiting Notre Dame and all these other teams now say they're not playing in a football bowl game.
We get a few more dropping out.
We can maybe get the Badgers to sneak into one.
What do you think?
I could probably get my high school's uniform on.
Thank you, Jimmy.
Jimmy Koska, Civic Media Sports Director, and we've got Earl Ingram standing by after the news.
I'm Pat Critello from Open North News, and this is the Civic Media Radio Network.
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