Welcome everybody to Midday magazine for this Wednesday October 2nd, 2024.
Have your host James J. Mailov here. We're welcoming into the studio. Our good friend,
Wood County Sheriff Departments, Sean Becker, Sheriff Sean Becker with us.
Sean, good to see you. Great to see you as always.
Thanks for being here, sir. I want to send a big shout out to our friends over at
Wisconsin Rapids Community Media. Being here, we appreciate them, appreciate the work that they do.
Do yourself a favor, go to YouTube, type in your search bar, Wisconsin Rapids Community Media,
and subscribe to the great work they are doing. Sean, I know we got a lot to talk about today.
There's a couple of things that I want to get into with you, but I did want to remind the
audience that today on October 2nd is national coffee with a cop day. So, yeah, I wanted to throw
that out there, just kind of a... Oh, it's my coffee? Yeah, it's a... Oh, Pam, can we...
But definitely what I... I encourage people to have that cup and if anything, it's always a good
opportunity to reach out and say hi and thank our good people out there wearing the badge.
So, appreciate them and appreciate that. I really do. I did not know that, but I did bring
Donaldson for the staff today. Nice, nice. You covered your face. There goes that stereotype,
right? Anyway, is what it is. So, locally, we have an election coming up in November, of course,
that everybody knows about. Wisconsin Rapids voters are going to be having an ordinance brought up
about the ATV-UTV ordinance written about activists for the un-November ballot. I wanted to get into
what this is and some stats about this, too. Now, for me, I don't have necessarily a whole,
like, one way or the other, really pulling on this one, but I have had a number of listeners that
were unfamiliar with what this ordinance is. Yeah, a couple ways I can answer that one, you know,
on a personal level and then on a professional level. So, let's, you know, look at the professional
level first. You know, this is a very popular recreational sport that's been evolving the
last several years. And just speaking on wood counties behalf, you know, a lot of surrounding
counties had been moving forward with opening up, you know, county highways. A lot of townships
were opening up. I think Porge County opened up everything before we did and just looked at the
recreational value of the UTV and ATV, you know, riding. And, you know, the challenges a lot of
counties had is, okay, you don't have a trail system like the snow bill system, you know,
the snow bill trail. So, it's a lot different. Some counties like Jackson County, Clark County,
you know, have county land that connects to, you know, throughout most of their county where you're
not only utilizing the, you know, the roads, your off roads, your on trails. Unfortunately,
wood county, you know, and just like Porge County didn't have many of those opportunities where
you had trails. So, with a lot of pressure from people out in UTV, ATV groups and, you know,
even people that weren't affiliated with the groups that had pushed for, hey, we would like to,
you know, utilize a lot of the county trunks, county highways and then township roads. And
so things started to both. And this is a few years ago and our highway commissioner did a
outstanding job of taking a look at traffic volume in certain areas and was willing to open up
a lot of the county highways and just for UTV and ATV traffic. And there's a pretty good argument
that people that are advocating for more roads be open up whether it's in the city or out in the
county when, you know, you compare it to other vehicles that are out there, you know, motorcycles and
a lot of the UTVs and ATVs are equipped to go the highway speeds and things like that. So things
started to evolve and, you know, wood county started to open up a lot of the county highways,
a lot of the townships were opening up and that continued to build. And then what started to
continue to build from there is you're seeing, you know, cities start to open up. And probably the
biggest one within our county is Marshall. And I believe that was a couple years ago that they
opened up their city streets to ATV and UTV traffic. And then you saw ground rapids, you know,
probably our most populated township within our county. They did the same thing, opened up.
And they did it really, really good too. I thought was a perfect way to approach this was like,
all right, let's do some baby steps. All right, let's take a look at certain areas that we don't
want to be opened up because either the residents in this area don't want it or high traffic
volume. Like, ground rapids looked at county highway Z, county highway W where we had high
traffic count. So those areas weren't open but other parts of township were. So after a few years,
now the, you know, ground rapids, everything's now opened up. So I think you see that trend going
now in a law enforcement perspective, which is a good thing to bring up. What are we seeing now?
Now that most of the counties opened up, ground rapids, March field, Nacusa, Port Edwards,
not a lot of issues. You know, yeah, a tragedy could happen, an accident happened, what it could
happen, you know, in a motor vehicle or, you know, a car or a semi or a motorcycle. You're sharing
the road with a lot of vehicles out there now and it really comes down to the due diligence of
the operator and follow the rules of the road. And what you're seeing, you know, with a lot
of these cities in townships is you can make your ordinances a little bit more restrictive than
the state statutes, if you like, and what, and I completely agree with what ground rapids did,
not just because I'm a resident ground rapids, but the way that they approached it now with the
baby steps of only opening up certain areas, but their ordinance that they have just makes sense.
One, insurance, you have to have insurance, you have to have a valid driver's license and you
can't have an open container. All right. Otherwise, if you go out of the township and those ordinances
are in place, you can do that. Now, so I applauded that effort and if the city of Wisconsin rapids
moves forward in that direction, like I would encourage them to follow, you know, especially
Marshfield, because a very similar size city, take a look at what's going on there,
what, what are their ordinances look like, and then you have a neighbor with town, you know,
town of ground rapids, take a look at what, what their ordinance looks like, what are they dealing
with? I'm just telling you from a law enforcement, you know, perspective, we're not seeing the issues
that we thought we might have, we're not. And like I said, it's a recreational sport that
is growing and it's growing very fast and I think it's a, you know, personally a good thing,
I'll be honest, I have a UTV, my wife and I bought one a couple of years ago and, you know,
we're snowmobiles too and we're getting that heck of a lot more use out of our UTV than the snowmobile,
not that I'm going to throw away snowmobiles. Right, right. You know, for example, you know,
this Friday, my brother-in-law insisted on all they have a UTV and they live in Portage County,
Clover just opened up, I believe it was yesterday and they're going to go on a UTV ride all the way
from Clover up to Tomock. You know, there's a whole route that you can do. So, I mean, you look
at the recreational valley that you have here where you can, okay, utilize some of the county highways,
some of the streets within a city or township and, you know, finding the trails that are off road as well,
a combination of both and here you've got a nice vacation for, I know, weekend to go up and see
the colors. Yeah. Yeah. Where it's obviously moving a little quicker up in the northwards than it is
here. So, you know, professionally, you know, now that Wood County and a lot of our townships have
opened up, we're not seeing that we've had issues. I don't want to say we have some complaints.
We had some unfortunate tragedies, but in comparison to everything else with other motor vehicle
traffic, it doesn't seem to me like it's a huge difference, you know, it's probably even less and,
you know, I'm supporting it on two levels, professionally and personally.
When it comes to anything like this in society and life, I always have a, and I think a lot of us do
this, what are the pluses? What are the minuses? What do we have to gain? What do we have to lose?
And I come at this from a very, you know, Switzerland area. I'm very in the middle of this one.
This one, to be honest, doesn't affect me that much and yet it does affect me quite a bit because
not only am I on the roads, but I'm a taxpayer. And this has an opportunity. Some of the incentives to
this is the idea that it could help a lot of local businesses help out some of our bars.
We've seen this certainly be noteworthy up north where they got hit really hard over the less
winter and they could use all the help they can get. And I don't know anybody that wouldn't be in
favor of that and helping out that area in that way. Now here in such Wisconsin and in the area
we're talking about my, my sole question and I'm generally asking this, this isn't rhetorical,
this isn't one of those gotcha things or anything. I'm generally asking the community this,
have we earned this? Is this something we have earned as a society? Because I see the stats like
everybody else does that one in three, one, one third of ATV fatalities involve alcohol.
Yeah. That 50% of ATV crashes involve alcohol. Yeah. And the idea of putting more vehicles on the road
and more opportunities for that to happen. Now, as you noted and you know this better than I do,
sir, this is not, we're not seeing this in these areas that where this has happened. And maybe in
our areas and our neck of the woods, if you will, we've got a better handle on this and we can pull
not to say we police ourselves in this, but the idea of, hey, we're going to act like adults with
these things. We want to earn this. So we're going to make sure we keep this. But that's,
that's a perfect thing. Yeah, earning it, earning the opportunity. It's a privilege to operate
a motor vehicle, whether it's a motorcycle, you know, a car, truck, whatever that might be. It's,
it's, it's a privilege to do that. It's not your right. And don't, don't rack it for everybody
else. As I mentioned, you will see, you know, whatever the statistics are, you'll see that,
but you'll see that with every motor vehicle, unfortunately. And one thing I do want to point out,
I'm not for like, hey, let's open up every single street in the city of Wisconsin for app. It's
absolutely not. There's still some restrictions out there that the state requires on any state
highway. They have to allow it to open up like the city of Nacusa is opened up, but they meet that
speed limit threshold. And, but I still would not be in favor of a street, you know, being open
crossing it. Okay, that would be fine because you're getting to and from somewhere the expressway,
you know, those busier streets, you know, especially in the beginning, I just would not be in favor of
that. That's why I go back to you. Look at what the marsh field and especially what grind
happens is that that is a perfect opportunity to move forward. That's what I would suggest that the
city does. If this passes, I would move forward with, okay, let's take a route system. And one of
the safest routes that we can have, you know, UTVs, ATVs on, sharing the road with all the other
vehicles out there. Did we earn the right? I believe we have. I mean, it's a, it's a recreational
opportunity that if people can afford it, they should get the opportunity to do it. Not only
didn't you go to restaurants, taverns, but what about the grocery store? You know, it's one thing my
sister-in-law said yesterday, she goes, you know, now I can take our UTV to the grocery store and,
you know, they're empty nesters, so you don't have to have a whole truck full of stuff. Right.
Well, you can go and do that. That's an option and do that. Beyond the fall ride you were talking
about. I might get one just to do that. I mean, it sounded really nice. I'm still coaching
football and I would love to go, but hey, it is what it is, you know, and those opportunities
are out there. And I think that you brought a very good point. Did we earn the right to do this?
And I would say yes. I don't know. I appreciate the conversation as always. And I wanted to
get into another one with you that doesn't involve ATVs, but doesn't involve that beautiful
fall air and fall weather. The we are dealing with the fall community bike ride. River riders,
bike share is a fall community bike ride with our own Wood County Sheriff Sean Becker coming up
at Lake Wiseecho Wednesday, October 16th, week from now, I believe. Ride will start at five.
Let's talk about this a little bit, sir. Yeah, it's Hannah Wendell's, oh boy, she's going to
be mad at me. She's got married. All right, but anyway, Hannah, and I've mentioned before we go
way back, our daughter, I'm sorry, she used to play soccer with my daughter, Caitlin, and she
works for the UW. And she came with retired now, Chief Mel Peterson, Ikea, I got an idea of
just doing a fall or just a community bike ride. And like, yeah, let's do it. And so we've been
out at Lake Wiseecho a few times now and hopefully the weather holds up in perfect time of the year.
So if anybody is around, come on over with your bike or you could run one there. I know they
have a handful of them over at White Sands Beach. That's where we start, and then we do the loop,
and it's a good time. And hopefully the place across the street will have some ice cream,
we can grab some ice cream. Yeah, it's a weekend ride there. Yeah, you can burn some calories and
put some right back in you. There you go. And if you don't have a bike, don't know worries,
River Riders bike shares, a bike school for free that you can rent there that day. Take
advantage of it, get outside as much as we can, enjoy some mother nature, and certainly enjoy the
opportunity to be able to just be on the same page with each other and building bridges and
building community relationships and everything. It's a great opportunity to do that and have some
fun at the same time. River Riders bike share a fall community bike ride coming up with the Wood
County Sheriff Sean Becker. Next Wednesday, October 16th over at Lake Sands Lake Wiseecho
over White Sands Beach. We'll be talking about this more in a morning show and make sure you
get a good turnout for that one, sir. Yeah, that'd be awesome. I'm going to go out and do that and
see everybody. One of the also leave the the floor open to you. What did you have this one to get
into? A couple of things. One kind of disturbing that I wanted to bring up. We had an issue yesterday
come in Derrick Van Orton's office had called us in the morning, and today there was a threat that
was reported to the US Capitol Police over the weekend, and that was never shared with the Wood
County Sheriff's Department, Grand Rapids Police Department, or the Portage County Sheriff's
Department, and this message that was left for Senator Ron Johnson was very, very specific about,
you know, hurting people, and then going after a couple of our local churches here in Wood County,
and the disappointing thing is that the US Capitol Police did not share that information. So once we
got the information from Derrick Van Orton's office and Senator Ron Johnson reported it right away
to the US Capitol Police, they sat on it. But once we got it, we had somebody in custody within
two hours, because the threats that were made towards it doesn't matter what political party it was.
We're very significant, you know, and the violence that has been carried out throughout
our country, especially gun violence, which that what I'm sorry, that's what the threat was.
You got to take action on that immediately, and once we got the information and located where
this individual Robert Arnold, he's over 50 years old, was living in just the calendar area off
of 85th Street. Once we pinpoint where he lives, you know, that information was immediately
shared with Portage County. We worked with them, and this individual is arrested now as
in custody for terrorist threats. A serious situation, but what's very, very disappointing and
upsetting is the US Capitol Police has the information and decides not to share it. And again,
this makes no difference on what party affiliation is, you know, and the information was shared with
both parties once it came in and notified. So how the information came in, the threat came in,
the political candidates or the people that are in the positions right now did exactly what
they're supposed to, but on the federal level, they didn't. And that's upsetting. Again, going back
to what we've been seeing and the violence, the gun violence, and especially, you know, and what's
upsetting to me is not only the party affiliation of who's being threatened, but, you know, you look at
churches, you know, and the information was sat on, and, you know, they had a church service.
You know, and you're talking about shooting up a church, I think that should be probably
immediately shared with us. All right. So there's obviously a difference training of thought
and a communication breakdown, but is that what I can't understand why that would not be passed on.
I'm not asking you to speculate, but I can't understand why you would not pass that on. That
doesn't make any sense. That's a question I can't answer. Yeah. I know what we've done and we proved
that. You know, it doesn't matter the political affiliation. This is public safety. I don't care
what side you're on. We want to keep you safe. Yeah. And we proved that, but here's a breakdown
at the federal level, and it bothers me. You know, but what we could say, though, on how we
react to it, working on a law enforcement local level, you know, we got on right away, and we had
somebody in custody and, you know, the person's in custody and porch county right now, and, you
know, we're looking at even DCI stepped in to help us out, because this wasn't something you just
you blow off. But the partnerships that we have amongst law enforcement really shied, you know.
Well done by you and the team. Appreciate the service. Appreciate the work as always. I hope more
and more individuals out there that are frustrated or in these situations are realizing that you,
the most powerful weapon you have is your vote. That is how you make difference. That is how you
make change. There is no room for this in an adult society. There's no room for this in democracy.
We are a young country. We are teenagers compared to the rest of the world. When you look at Asia,
you look at Europe, you look at Russia, we are still going through the growing pains of democracy.
And in order to make that work, in order to be an example to the rest of the world and show that
this works, what we're doing here, we need to get along. We need to be able to work together.
This does not have any place in that society. At treating each other that way, it does not have
any place in our society. We need to come together on that. We need to work together on that. And
that involves all forms of humanity, including people at the very top who are, it is vital for them
to pass this information on, as well as you and your team doing what you guys did, all of the above.
And honestly, I don't use this word very often, but shaming these individuals that do these things,
because there is no place for that. There is a billion ways to get your voice out there in our days.
Everybody's got a podcast. There's a billion different ways to get out there and have your voice
be heard in an adult manner. This is not it. I appreciate the work done on this one. And I appreciate
you sharing it, too. Yeah, no, I think everybody should know that because it kind of happened yesterday,
and our response was swift and quick, just disappointing that the information wasn't shared as it
should have been immediately. And we could have taken care of it sooner, but thank God.
We didn't have tragedies out there that we're talking about something different.
And we handled it and we're moving forward. Well done. Well done. Thank you.
Got about a minute before we are our first time out of the show. Everything else we wanted to
touch on before we wrap up the first segment. You know the month, the breast cancer awareness.
And I think that in the past we've done a lot of fundraising and you'll see some of our deputies
wearing the pink patches to support people. They're going through a tough time their life and
we've got their back like they have ours. And then the other thing too is a domestic awareness
month. And we can get in that a little bit more, but we've got an opportunity with the Family Center
to do a video for them. We're waiting for a plaque to come. We want to present to them that
we'll have purple patches to support domestic awareness month.
Ah, that's that got me. I didn't know that. That's that's really cool, man. That's very
unique to hear. It's just between us. Just between us.
Joe keeps it secret. He's good. We'll take a quick time out. We'll be back with our friends
from Wisconsin's Rapids Community Media along with the Wood County Sheriff's Department here on
Midday Magazine at 97-5 FM 13-28. I'm WFHR locally grown radio.
Welcome back everybody to Midday Magazine for this Wednesday, October 2nd, 2024.
Have your host James J and we are joined by our good friends from Wood County Sheriff's Department.
We have our friend, Sean Becker with us along with our friends from Wisconsin's Rapids Community
Media as well. A big thank you to them for being here. Sean, always good to see and thanks again
for the time. Yeah, always always love being here. We were talking a little bit about the months
and the highlighting some of the things about the months. And you mentioned the Wisconsin
Rapids Family Center, some work that you're going to be doing with them. Always greatly appreciate
it. And as I mentioned many times on the air, I am a board member of the Family Center.
I support the work that they do very much and look for any opportunity to highlight them and
tip our hat to the work they're doing. Yeah, no, I completely agree with you. And then on the
north end of the county, the PDC Center, it essentially does the same work that the Family Center is
doing for, do a lot of good for many people in the community that need it. But domestic violence,
it's an unfortunate situation that we deal with them periodically in our careers as law enforcement
officers, but highlighting the Family Center and then the options for people that are struggling in.
I'll turn into mental health, you know, because everybody struggles at some point in their life
and looking at avenues to help yourself through a hard situation is the best advice I can give
somebody. There's a lot of resources out in the community, whether it's from Wisconsin or
Rapids or wherever you might be. You know, we all have smartphones. You know, most of us have
the interview, you know, the internet where we can get out there and look for resources when
people are struggling. You don't want to put yourself in a position where you can't make decisions
for yourself, you know, where law enforcement is called. And this is deemed a domestic violence
situation. It's a must arrest situation for law enforcement. We have to do it. And that's to
protect the victims that are out there and people need to understand that. That's why before,
you know, it gets to that point, you know, reach out to the resources that are out there and get
the know them in your community and take advantage of them because everybody struggles, you know,
myself. I mean, it happens. It's okay. Know your resources and utilize them. Don't get into that
situation where we're making choices for you, you know, and you know, even when those situations
unfortunately do happen, you know, that's where we can highlight, you know, all the hard work and
thank you for being part of the board of the family center because that's something that makes
a difference in our community. Yeah. And the work that they're doing over there, any chance to
highlight it, appreciate it and appreciate the you guys being a part of that as well. And our
community, as I should mention, I extend this as well, that this community is incredible the way
that they support these topics in the Hannah Center and some of these other things in town. I'm
really impressed with our community back close to that. What else you got on the docket today?
Oh, back to badge game. Oh, yeah. That's coming up, as I mentioned earlier. I'm coaching again
at Lincoln High School. Love it. Don't love a record. Yeah, that's what I was going to bring about.
I feel bad for the kids. I mean, they're trying and it's just been a tough year, unfortunately.
But they're good kids. And I always appreciate Tony Bill head coach, good friend of mine and
and the history we have, you know, getting to know each other in college and giving me the
chance to to, you know, work with kids. And this is my 10th year already. And it's it's been a lot of
fun, but it's been a again a tough year. And but Tony came up with the idea of having a back to
badge game where it gives the opportunity for the football team to go out and raise some money for
our K9 unit along with Wisconsin Rapids PDs and our games coming up on October 18th.
Yeah. So a couple of weeks and I'll be the last game this season. And we've we've
acted up the last few years. We'll have many of our law enforcement officers there from our
department, Wisconsin Rapids. You know, I like to get our armored vehicle there on display for
people to take a look at and a few squads there. And then it gives us the opportunity to, you know,
hang out with the fans and then the support from the kids is awesome. You know, periodically I'll
if, you know, I get to practice a little late, I'll be in uniform and it's kind of a distraction
to the kids and asking me more questions. I'm like, hey, we'll talk about that. Yeah, but they've
been very, very positive. And I really appreciate what Tony's done, you know, throughout the last
few years. And now it's that a point where the kids will have a different uniform, you know,
not their normal uniform that they have, you know, they wear either home or away. This one will
be a specific uniform that the kids get to keep afterwards and, you know, it's all, you know,
back to badge stuff and it's cool. And something that that we thought of this year and it started
actually in the last year. When Marsfield came down, it was the back to badge game. And I say, let's
give, you know, the football team from Marsfield Senior High escort down, you know,
to kind of amp this up a little bit right away within the county. And they bid on that pretty hard.
So we, along with Marsfield Oscars, came all the way down to the stadium here down to Rapids. And
good game. We lost, unfortunately, six-nothing, but the Marsfield community came bid on that.
And so the school district and the police department. So we had talked about this year about,
okay, you know, how do we want to continue this? Do we want to make that game no matter what
side of the county is on the back to badge game? And that was kind of coming from the Marsfield folks,
you know, the school resource officer, Anthony Klein, you know, and their head football coach,
Ryan Christensen, a superintendent. Everybody is like very supportive. And we already had the
support here in Wisconsin Rapids with, you know, the leadership in the school district. So it's
like what a great opportunity for, for moving forward in the future. Kind of, I don't think it'll
go to the level of the, the river jug game. But this is something that's evolving. I'm really
proud to see that Tony, you know, had started and now you have another community equal size school
within the conference within the county to kind of move forward to have that moving forward as
the back to badge game. Marsfield put their own on last week Friday. And while they had a great showing,
they allowed us to bring our armored vehicle up. Several of our deputies went up there as well.
And our special response team in Marsfields is combined. And we're doing a fundraiser to raise money
for our special response team selling calendar raffles. And so we set up and sold
our calendars there. And while the people are very, very supportive, sold quite a few of them.
And I just got an opportunity to, again, highlight not only our agency, but Marsfield police departments
and Wisconsin Rapids PD brought up a squad as well. So it was really cool. And, and Marsfield just
did a phenomenal job, you know, with their version of this game. Even had a flyover. Oh, wow,
not nice. You know, flyover from life link right after the national anthem. I felt like we're at
Lambo. It was really good. And I didn't know that. You know, we're on the sideline and all of a sudden,
you know, they announced it. And it's just kind of, you know, boy, it was crazy, man. Yeah, man.
And, you know, many of their officers were there, like the coin flip. And then a couple of the
Marsfield, I'm sorry, Rapids PD auxiliary folks that came with the volunteer time went on the field
for the coin toss. And just the way they, the version they did was really cool. And a lot of that
we did, you know, before Tony was doing and having us do, but they, they did a phenomenal job. But
I'm looking forward to seeing this game that kind of evolved into what it is. I was emailing some
of the other officers that were involved and say, hey, you know what? We should design a trophy
that can travel back and forth. You know, I think that would be, you know, with the support that
we're getting from, you know, both communities. I think that would be a great idea to, you know,
put some funding towards. And then you've got a traveling trophy between, you know, both cities,
you know, having, you know, the sheriff's department and then Marshield and Wisconsin's Travis
Police Department, you know, have their names that trophy, you know, maybe the kids want to design it.
And then it travels, you know, back and forth between the schools. It's a great idea. Oh,
going to make that happen. We got some great award builders out here and everything. We'd get
down that. That's a great idea. It is so encouraging to hear this not only for our community
of the Marshield community, our communities in general. Now, certainly noteworthy, the
battle for Wood County, you know, this is a big game and a game that we want to win and all that.
But that being, you know, putting that aside, it speaks to really, for me, what has always,
why I've always loved sports. I love seeing my teams win. But I'm a Chicago fan. I don't see it
very often. I just throw that other. You know, serious this, I think that the thing that I love about
sports is what it brings people together. And we find this commonality. Even when we don't
necessarily root for the same team, we're all rooting for that badge. We're all rooting for these
things. Or the opportunities that sports creates to build bridges and like this, this event does.
It's, yeah, it's fun to see these teams play each other. It's so much more fun to see these
communities come together and showing that, hey, we, you guys do so much for us. Here's an
opportunity for us to show you. We got your back too. We back the badge that we support you. We
support our good officers out there doing the right thing, doing the good work, protecting our
communities. We appreciate it not being the wild west. We, you know, these kind of things matter.
The personalized jersey kind of thing is always a cool idea. That's cool for the kids and stuff.
But this actually brings me back to something that we were just talking about. But we were talking
about it with politicians. And in the idea of regardless of who you're voting for or what political
party, these are human beings. And normalizing and getting back to normalizing, hey, these are
human beings. You and I talk about this a lot when it comes to our officers and how important
that is in our society going forward. Because if we don't do that, who we're going to want to do
these jobs, right? You've got, you've got generations after generations growing up right now and
watching mom and dad or watching, you know, political pundits or anybody shredding these people
and stuff. And there needs to be accountability for all these jobs for every job, my job, your job,
everybody's. But at the same time, we've got to be careful of how we treat each other. And these
keyboard cowards or these people out there that are doing some of those things, you're not helping.
You're not making things any better. If you have something to say, say it like an adult.
Do some, if you have something to say, go to the right source, go to where something can get,
can be done about what you're talking about and handle it like an adult. And remember every single
time when it comes to these politicians or an officer or anybody, they're human beings. And if
we don't treat people like human beings, the only kind of people that are going to want to do these
jobs are people that shouldn't have them, that people that they're doing them for the wrong reasons.
We need good people in these positions. That's how we get them. We get future generations to
want to do these jobs by treating each other right. Again, accountability is always important. Nobody's
saying not having that. But if we don't treat each other right, who are going to want to do these
jobs, we're going to, we're going to take over the mantle. You and I are not getting any younger.
We're not. We're doing what he's saying. We'll talk, we'll talk off there. We'll talk it out.
It's an important one in a great game, a great event. We're looking forward to it, hoping to get a
win off of that one. I won't lie. A little bias on that one. I'll link in the lums around here.
But yeah, we'll see how it goes. Well, like I said, the kids are trying and a bunch of great kids
and great staff. It's frustrating. I know it's very frustrating for especially parents
and having the opportunity to do this for 10 years. I've seen it happen. It's devs and flows.
Sometimes you have a really good team that's working together. These teams are working really
together. And I think they're a good team. It's just unfortunate that we're not getting the wins.
It's frustrating for a community. It's frustrating for a student body and everybody. We'll keep
trying. That's all we can do. Yeah, we'll be keep covering it too around here at playmakers
and then our sports people around here as we keep covering high school sports throughout the
whole season. Where else did you want to go next? A huge thank you on the raffle. The calendar
raffle. I'm wearing a brewer at the day. It was funny last year. I'll help out to announce the
winner in the morning. We do it every day, 830 all the way through October. And some of
us teasing me last year about not wearing a hat or something about because I'm getting a little
light on top. So I'm like, okay, fine. So I kind of threw that out last year. I'm going to wear
hat now because of for whatever reason that might be. So now the theme this year when I
help out, I'll have a different hat on. Today was yesterday was Lincoln High School football.
Today was the brewer hat. Anybody's got ideas? Let me know. Right. I've got a whole month to do
that. But you know, thank you to everybody about tickets. Our sponsors out there that helped out.
And then, you know, the special response team, you know, it's not easy to go out and ask people
for money. But remember, it's expensive to especially have a special response team. And there's
a lot of equipment out there that that we do need to keep them safe. And we appreciate, you know,
them being part of the team. And something I did for many years of my career. And I loved it. You
know, and I really appreciate, you know, them stepping up and being out there for our community
and going out and, you know, asking for donations. So that'll run through the rest of the month
all the way until October 31st. We've got some really cool prizes on there. Not only just by arms,
but this is more of an idea that came from Scott Sager, who retired. He said, hey, why don't we make
an outdoors and raffle and add, you know, chainsaws, firearms, UTVs, lawnmowers, a lot of other
things, a little different than, you know, not, you know, ripping out anybody. This does firearms.
But here's a combination of that draws a lot of interest. So the prizes are decent. But yeah.
So that's going on now. So Tiga, if you bought a ticket every morning for the rest of the month
at 830, we'll be drawing a name and good luck. Where can you get those tickets if they still want to
pick someone? If you want to still buy one, we could sell, sell you a one or as many as you want.
Just contact us the sheriff's farm. We do have a few left overs. So if you want to do that,
you're more than welcome to. Right on. Thank you. Speaking with Sheriff Sean Becker right now,
and Sean, what else you got on the dock? Oh, we had some heroism in our jail recently. I don't
saw our Facebook post. We put on a couple of days ago. Victoria Stemper just got promoted recently
to a sergeant, and she's running on one of our night shifts. And due to the observations of her
team, one of the corrections officers, she was just out doing rounds, kind of noticed something
was off with one of her inmates, then paid attention. And the person was trying to commit suicide.
And that quick interaction, the communication between her team, getting in there,
prevented somebody from getting hurt. Their quick action, and going in there,
taking care of the situation led to this individual, not even have to be transported to the hospital.
We had the person checked out. And they were physically fine, mentally, they weren't. And then,
as we always talked about, the issues that we've been doing the last few years in our jail,
revolving around mental health. And that kicks in, working with crisis and human services.
And then our mental health counselors, she and our jail, stepping in to help this individual
out who's struggling while they're in custody. Everybody was a hero in this situation. And I'm
really proud of Victoria for her leadership and stepping in and doing what the team did to help
prevent a tragedy. Because unfortunately, I hate talking about them, but years ago was happening
in our facility and people were dying and that we needed to be better. You can't,
somebody really has that intent and doesn't show it and give us the opportunity to help them,
it could happen. But I got to say our staff's awesome. And the leadership, the hard work and
doing their job, these are situations that, especially corrections officers, don't get the
appreciation that they deserve. Because here they save somebody's life. You might see an officer
deputy sheriff or another first responder on the community do it. But here, corrections officers
just don't get the recognition that they deserve. And this is something that they really do deserve.
And our society tends to not care about inmates enough. That's just me talking, just me saying
that. And I certainly have some baggage with that in my family and everything and seeing it a lot
in society. But it would be no different if this person saved a citizen walking down the street
and they saw they needed help. This is no different. And it's just as noteworthy and just as important.
I appreciate you bringing up because you're right. We don't hear about these stories enough. We
don't hear about these situations enough. Hopefully, not only does it create some empathy for our workers
in those buildings and everything, but some understanding what that job is like as well.
I totally agree with your heroes. And I appreciate the opportunity to talk about them because it's
kind of fun to brag about. Yeah. Yeah. Because they're part of our team and people stepping up and
going above and beyond and just seeing the changes that we main and the buying with our staff. And
not even with our county board. We talked about this recently because it's budget time and
we're building a new facility and we need to staff and we need to add staff and
with the approach that they've taken, not only moving forward with the build, but the staff.
And okay, we need more staff, but then paint them. Paint them. They got a really good, significant
pay raise and not that long gone. That was on the county board. When we brought up pay, we need to do
something. They didn't walk away from it. They said, okay, we will. We're going to do something
and what's fair and we work through that. I can't brag enough about our county board working
together. You don't see that very often. Yeah. I'm not picking on any other county board or anything,
but we're lucky. You know, here in with county, I really think we are in each people, each person
that was elected into our county board. Whoever they represent should be proud of them.
And appreciate you bringing these different sections of this environment under the
law enforcement umbrella up to us and everything because we don't get another thing we don't get
to talk about nearly enough. And I don't think I'm especially talking to a lot of the community
and people over the years. I don't think people always understand completely what a job is. I've
talked about this with Lance Plymmel and what it is to be a board member or something. And,
you know, you and I even talked about this a difference of being a sheriff and a police officer
and some of the things and where responsibilities are, what is on your plates and all these.
The more we talk about that stuff, hopefully the more common knowledge it becomes.
Right. Got about a minute or two left.
We're going to be quick.
Yeah, well, I can do it there.
Drug take back day, October 26th, that's going to be there will be several drop-off points
throughout the county. Take a look at our Facebook page for that for those locations.
Congrats to corrections of Tina Stegelski. She just got her bachelor's degree.
So looking forward to her moving up in her career.
Huge thank you to Gary Bloom, who finished 14 years of service with the Sheriff's Department.
I can talk about Gary Frowars, but thank you for and he's in part-time employment with us
doing transports and helping us out. But his career just goes back probably five decades in
law enforcement. And, you know, as a veteran as well. Thank you, Gary, for your time with us.
We really appreciate you. And when we got, oh, 2024 Spirit Award from
Councilor Holly Hakes recognized our Wood County Sheriff's Department or actually Wood County
Peer Support team. And they're what they've been doing to help, you know, other first responders
within not only the Sheriff's Department, but dispatch and reaching out to, you know,
other first responders throughout the county. Holly recognized the Councilor that specializes
in helping people that are struggling through their careers as a first responder. Not exclusively
too law enforcement, but, but all of us. And she took it upon herself to recognize our
Peer Support team that KELD endorsed overseas. And I couldn't get them coming there any other day.
So I should give you his address and phone over and say, come on, chicken. What are you?
So that's really what I got left. It's great stuff. I thank you for all that.
Did you say Gary was his name that gentleman? Big shout out to him. Big thank you to him for all
his work and his service and certainly his everything. He's not only to our country, but to this
community and everything. Big thank you and great work today, man. I really appreciate the
conversation as always. Always good talking with you. Thank you for the time, sir. You bet.
I will have Wood County Sheriff Sean Becker in with us next month again. We're looking forward
to it. Want to say a big thank you to our friends at Wisconsin Rapids Community Media. Go to
his YouTube, like and subscribe to what they do and follow them on social media. Support
those that support us by local support, local everybody. We'll be back more midday magazine coming
up for you right here at 97 5 FM 13 20 AM WF HR locally grown radio.
