Welcome everybody to Midday magazine for this Wednesday, July 17th, 2024.
Have your host James here and I'm joined right now by some of my favorite people.
We have Mike Hittner, Luke Conkel with us to talk about the historic point bosses who've done it.
This is coming up on Saturday, July 27th, two to five over at this store point boss.
Guys, thanks a lot for being here.
Yeah, thanks James and everybody out there listening in radio.
Yeah, it's great to be here in studio.
Yeah, it's great to have you in studio, Luke. It really is.
It's good to see you, man. Good to have you with us and I'll put you on the spot.
I mean, ask you my questions first, Luke.
You know me, I'm a writer. I'm a creative.
I love hearing about a little bit of how the sausage is made.
I'm a guy that likes to know that this story that we're doing this year, tempered truths.
Where did the idea for this one come up with, come from and how did it go in the process of making it?
Yeah, so I was just at Pioneer Festival out at the site and looking for some inspiration.
We were, as we were walking around, they had a field blacksmith and they had their,
there are usual blacksmiths there and I sort of jokingly because Ken who sometimes plays our
blacksmith, I said, you know, are you up for another who'd done it this year?
And he thought about it for a second, he said, no.
So, and it's, you know, sort of in a roundabout way, we thought it would be kind of not funny,
because, you know, it's not funny, but entertaining maybe to kill off Sam and bring in a new blacksmith.
Little galosumer. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
So, yeah, the story, it's a little bit out of the chronology of the site because Sam has
been in some stories that take place later, but, you know, this is actually before Wisconsin becomes
a state and so the blacksmiths shows up murdered shortly after taking on an apprentice and so the
sheriff has convinced that the apprentice is the one who'd done it. So it's up to folks to either
confirm what the sheriff suspects or find out if something more suspicious is going on.
Right, and great synopsis, nicely done.
You know, I've been writing since I was 12 and I love writing, but I don't feel like I was truly
challenged as a writer until I started in radio and I copyrighted. And I've always written
this stuff I want to write or things that I think my mom or dad would enjoy or something like that.
That was the first time I was like, no, it's not about you, it's about the plot, you know,
the selling for the advertiser or something along those lines. For you, do you find a fun creative
like this with this where you are? You're not constricted, I don't mean, but you have this or,
okay, well, I want it to be local, I want it to be from the area and all that, working along those
guidelines. Do you find that to be fun? For sure, for sure. Yeah, I mean, it's great to, you know,
pick up on, you know, some sort of historical feature or situation. I mean, in this case, I wanted
it to be set, you know, prior to Wisconsin becoming a state, it's still a territory. Michigan has just
become a state. And, you know, some of the, you know, there's some reference to the early dairy
farmers who are, you know, coming up through Columbia County, that sort of thing. So we're right on
the brink, you know, we're not the dairy state yet. But, yeah, in terms of like, you know, who I'm
writing for, a lot of, I've found over the years that I'm writing more and more for the actors
because they sort of get, you know, attached to their characters and they play them in a certain
way. And so, you know, there's a, there's a couple here that, you know, Mike could probably tell
having read the script that, that they, they've sort of, they've sort of turned the character into
something that I can then sort of play off of. Because I know how they're going to, how they're
going to treat what they read. Yeah, that's, I think that's what a good creative does is work with,
I was actually just talking with Mayor of Mad about that, about the idea of, well, here's,
here's my playbook, do what I tell you, instead of, you have this skill set, I'm going to work my
playbook to fit that skill set. I think it's a little like that, that's interesting. What kind of
research did you do for this? Yeah, so, you know, I did actually more research than I thought I was
going to into the, the, the treaties with the, the Ho Chiang and the Ojibua and the Manamani.
Because, because, like I said, I wanted it to be set, you know, when it was still the Wisconsin
Territory, because that's something we haven't really fully explored yet. But then as I, as I started
doing it, we have this, you know, character A to Turner, who's a wealthy landowner. And then,
when you start talking about land ownership at that period, you, you can't write that story without,
you know, intersecting with all those situations. So, I have a whole timeline here for the actors that,
you know, depending on their character, they might, they might know more or less about it,
because, I mean, even the, even the, I guess we'd compile in years. At the time,
knew, you know, more or less about the situation that the, the federal government and the tribes were.
Yeah, I think James is to interject here. I think that the, that the Wakeleys actually came in after
the Cedar Point. They were waiting for that Cedar Point Treaty to be signed, which was, I think,
September or something of 1836. And so, they came in early in 1837 and June, just because that
treaty was signed. And it gave me access along the river. But really, it was access from like
Wisconsin Rapids to Wasa, not in Accusa to Wasa. So, I think they interpreted the way they wanted
to interpret it. Thank you, Luke. More for you in a moment. Mike, I always like to approach these
as, as if we have new listeners out there and people who have not, are new to the area or something.
When we talk about the historic point bosses who've done it, what do we want to tell people? How,
how do you break this down for them? Well, it's, I think at 14th or 15th one, now,
Rhonda Wetzdon did our first one, I think 2009 or somewhere in that area. And then Luke has taken
over. And basically who done it is kind of a mystery that the audience gets to solve or try to solve
anyway. And probably at least half the time it's a murder mystery. Some other time it's something
that was stolen or lost or something like that. And it's just kind of fun for people to come out.
And most of the people come out and kind of a little bit of groups, whether it's a family group
or a group of ladies that really are into mystery genre or something like that. And they come out
and they're asking questions. And you can see how interested it is because how many times they come
back to certain character because maybe they're getting a little different story from somebody else
what their character has to say. And then they want to put it against that person. And it's not
sort of thing. We run it from two to five. You don't necessarily have to come out of two. But I would
say you want to come out three, you know, three, 15 at the latest. So you can get around everybody
because a lot of times these stories go and then you got to go back and get a clarification from
somebody else. So you want to give yourself at least a good hour, hour and a half and not try to
do it and say, you know, 30, 40 minutes. I think that's accepting and too much trying to figure it
out in that time. But everybody seems to have a great time with it. Luke collects the the ballots
of who they thought were guilty or whatever. And he kind of goes through those just to glean
how or why they thought that person was so. And Luke will even ask those questions after he has
the reveal. Why did you think that person did it or something? I think that's great because
he both learns and we learn as an audience and the beauty of it too is that we don't know who did
it either. So I mean, we're unaware of ourselves as characters who did it. Only Luke knows that
in the reveal. Well, you may have suspicions and that's okay. And we can cast aspersions on
different people as long as we don't already lie about something. Mike, to your point about being
there on time and everything, it took Columbo at least an hour. It's going to be at least a
one more thing. Yeah, but you got to remember. You got to remember Columbo though he gave you the
answer in the beginning. So the audience it was easier. The wonderful, Peter Falk.
I'm curious Mike, how many different locations will people be able to go to or
interview? I think each character has their own space. So I think there's basically 10. I
believe characters. The victim isn't there, of course. He's he's not able to talk. So he's not
there. But there's 10 characters. They're all separate even myself and Mary Wakeley are separate.
I play Robert Wakeley. And we're separated in the house ones and the parlor ones in the kitchen so
that you got individual, you can get individual answers from them. Not as a group like Fred and
Rose Turner. You see them each individually and you can play off each other's stories. What they tell
you because sometimes they don't add up either. Yeah, man. We're speaking with Mike Hittner and
Luke Conco with the store point boss on their who've done it. It's coming up Saturday, July 27th
from two to five over the store point boss at 300 Wakeley Road in Nicosah. I'm curious a question
from both of you guys here. And especially when it comes to the minds I'm talking to because Mike,
you know how much I love that brain of yours and you talking history with you and everything.
And I know you know a lot about these things and Luke, you are an incredible writer and do your
homework on these things. So I can only imagine how much you know up there. But do you find even
after these years of doing this stuff that you're still learning things? Yeah, certainly. If we didn't
learn anything we wouldn't be we wouldn't be open open minded on this sort of thing because we always
learn even from the audience you learn things. You know all the time when even when people come
through their own tours, not necessarily the who done it. Some you'll bring up something and you say
I never thought of that, you know, and you look at a different perspective. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Every time I do research for one of these I find some little nugget that it's surprisingly it'll
fit into the mystery that I think I'm writing. So it's almost like a little confirmation which is nice.
But you know the one that stuck out to me this time is that you know the city of Portage
where the sort of the start of the Fox River and the I can not really middle but that one point
of the Wisconsin River that those those two rivers one connects to the Great Lakes all the way
out to the Atlantic Ocean one connects to the Mississippi all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico
but right here in Wisconsin and not too far from here they those two rivers are about a mile
and a quarter apart and they you know they talk the indigenous people would talk about how it's
2700 paces. It's just a it's an amazing amazing little piece of yeah I think what do you think about
that and and we don't realize like Luke said how close they are and they actually of course built
a canal after a number of years these did portage it of course the name Portage comes from that
used to portage that back and forth but a lot of those people and that's where you know like
Luke was saying the Wisconsin River takes a great turn towards the west and towards the Mississippi
Valley so yeah yeah usually the the thing that I discovered is something about the Wisconsin River
right right appropriately and there's so much to uncover and it sounds like Luke and what in
your answer there a little bit that off sometimes you come into the idea okay I have a story idea
but it adapt you have to adapt and change that as some of the information you find yeah for sure
I might have revealed a little bit yeah maybe too much I get to say I've asked you to question
take a step out yeah Luke when you write these and I know that you were looking for inspiration
you know some somewhat later than you normally have been surprised usually that you're before
you're thinking well I'm going to go this direction or I'm going to talk about a railroad or
something like that do you write these stories kind of front to back and back to front at the same time
yeah I mean I start with I start with the the who done it you know the what the the obviously the
crime or or going on and then you know the the character that I that I that I'm sort of pointed at
um and and this year I mean I I had the I had the uh that I wanted it to be a murder and I knew who
I wanted to have done it um pretty early on um and and some of the motivations um and that sort of
thing um and then you know how that how that came together to be this particular mystery that came
a little bit later but um yeah usually I usually start with you know that sort of premise and then
from there write a write out a sort of reveal at least in like an outline form and then you know
figure out you know what what information each character needs to be able to give out to to
lead us there um you know kind of construct a little weave a little web I guess it's kind of
interesting to James and radio listeners that there's quite a number of people that have come
year to year because they really like really like it and and Lucas noticed those because
Luke will wander around and find out what questions people are asking and what answers they're
getting and stuff like that and he may push them a little different direction maybe because they're
going off board too far or something like that especially later in the day maybe 330 or so
but it's it's kind of interesting how many what I would call veterans that come back year after
year and and they're kind of intrigued by the whole thing and they're following the kind of the
scenario from year to year and whatever and like Luke said this one is probably our earliest one
it's it's before statehood and everything else takes place in the 1840s and before it was state
and and and that's kind of interesting in itself because it reveals new things and probably the
expert on this whole thing with the treaties and everything that's on site is Claude Pacquette
because because he's in native uh he deals with the Native Americans and he can interpret and
stuff like that and help to write some of the treaties and everything with duvet so I think that
puts a little different shine on him or first as usually he's the maybe the scondrol yeah yeah
very interesting um I was curious too uh about the because we I think that especially again as
creatives we take a lot of pride in the work that we do um but things have different layers to them
I imagine doing something like this uh it take it it has it's the pride a little bit stronger
when you're able to do work like this Luke yeah um and you know speaking of pride one of the
one of the aspects is you know at the end once you've read the reveal to see you know how many people
you know actually figured it out you know last year we had these these you know secret codes being
passed around and I don't think anybody actually solved the code but a fair number of people you
know you didn't necessarily need them to solve it and I think they were they were at least on
the right track we got maybe and I think some of them mentioned two or three people and I think
probably hit it with you know with with one of the names they did they didn't narrow down on it but
with the talking with the codes back and forth they hit several the characters that were involved
or could have been involved yeah yeah and so put so part of it is you know it's a it's a success if
you know a handful of people get it right you don't want you know on everybody to you know oh we
we all wrote down the sheriff and oh it was the sheriff you know um but you know and it's
difficult too because you know if you don't so like Mike said we the the actors don't necessarily
know who did it and so you can't put that you know like if you ever do those little mini mysteries
JR quick solve or whatever they were you know there was always like that well I never said what
the murder weapon was you know and so you can't necessarily put those elements in there you have
to construct it in a way that they have to build the web and but one of the things that we've
sort of added this year to maybe to help people you know not go down too many rabbit holes is
a sort of a code phrase that the actors can say is that if they if they proceed their answer with
you ask such interesting questions it's sort of a hint that they don't have to step out a character
but they can reveal to the audience that like this information isn't part of my you know my script
you know so when people ask you know who who's the governor or where are the wakeliest kids
you know the actors haven't out that they can say you know that's not really part of the mystery
but you know that's really smart it not only protects the the story but the actors you know from
maybe improving or saying something they shouldn't or or just putting them in awkward spots that's
it's really cool that you thought of that that's interesting because 14 years to figure out
but we'll see we'll see how it works again Colombo did know he saw me and I made it take some time
it takes time both these things oh speaking of Colombo he just says a little easter egg because
I know you're interested in this sort of thing but we've had a couple of sheriffs a couple of
blacksmiths over the years and the sheriff his his name is Ray Falk but you wouldn't combine
those two at all if you know the character of Ray Falk Mike can we give him people the details
of this event how much it costs when it's taking place yeah it's July 27th at the historic site
which is just south of 73 on County Trung Z and then you'll see our signage there and
just turn there and we have a booth now where we we take your you drive up to it and you can pay
for your entrance and it's a five dollars for adults and two dollars for students and you get
your folder there which gives you a backdrop of of the characters and of the scenario and that
sort of thing and then you go about it go out to solve it and we also have pencils available and
we have a big ballot box that was I think it was a ballot box for the town of Saratoga years ago
but but for whatever reason it seems to work really well for that purpose anyway and we've we've
got some water available on the site we don't you know it's not a it's not a big event so there's
no food or anything like that but we do have water if it looks to be like I'm about an 80 degree
day I guess kind of following similar to what we've had and that sort of thing and everything
everybody's in close proximity all the characters Alice will be in the barn and you know you know
the turners will be in the three bay shed and of course the blacksmiths is where the blacksmith
is the sheriff is in the bunkhouse and Robert Merrier in the house and and Carol Crystal and
and Ada Turner or in the front yard Claude Puckett is of course in the in the traders cabin and
go out and see the traders cabin by the way James the brand new porch on there we just put on
now of course the traders tell us since you put that and the windows don't allow much light to
come in now so we're gonna have to do something about that I guess that's a future thing and so I
think everybody will enjoy it it's it's beautiful to be on the site it's just nice out there you
know you know we were out there yesterday working on a roof and it's just great weather to be out
there and enjoy nature a little bit pretty much easy walking on the site if somebody's got some
handicap issues or some certainly payer admission and drive down you can drive down to the round
about on the on the end of the weekly road and can be a little closer but otherwise everybody
would just enjoy this a little walk through the woods and everything so I think they'll enjoy it
gentlemen just one more thing one thing one to think one to think the actors want to think all the
volunteers Luke all the people that work so hard to make these things happen a big thank you to
all of them and keep in mind that this is how we keep history alive this is how we keep the
historic point boss going is attending these events spreading the word about these events
encourage you to like not only the historic point boss on social media but share those on your
pages you just never know who can see these things that might not know about it otherwise the
historic point boss also has classes available during the school year there are tours there are
so many ways for you to get over there enjoy the land enjoy the history of that beautiful area
over there at the historic point boss yeah and it's interesting too I know last week you had
somebody on from community theater and three of our participants are our community theater people
that's where they come from so I mean we draw from our own people and community theater and some
people outside of it either one of them so yeah if you're interested let Mike know some of our like
you said some of our actors are aging out a little bit yeah yeah you're getting too old for some
of this stuff I'm gonna have to get my throw my hat in the ring yeah I gotta do this you guys
I've been talking I know I've been talking about it and I gotta do I just gotta get over there
and do it I do that's what I gotta do and and I do want to encourage like I'm talking about now
putting into your community support those that support us everybody the historic point boss long
has it's our opportunity to support them and all we gotta do is take in a show that's it and you
can do that in curse always looking for volunteers over there as well you can find out more at
historicpointboss.com historicpointboss.com both of you thank you so much for what you do and we
appreciate you thanks James yeah thanks James we'll talk more about this great event as we get
closer to it but just one last time tempered truths a murder mystery who done it taking place over
the historic point boss at 300 weekly road in the coos of this coming up Saturday July 27th
2 to 5 again find out more at historicpointboss.com well a more midday magazine for you coming up
on the morning show at WFHR
