Welcome, everybody, to Midday Magazine for this Wednesday, March 12, 2025.
Have your host, James here.
We're joined right now by our friends from Encourage.
First off, I want to introduce them, Kim Shields, us with us.
Donor Service Manager, Kim, always good to see you.
Great to see you.
Kim, you brought in the new friend.
I did.
We have Linda's show with us.
Encourage his new co-director, Linda. Thanks for being here.
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
It's great to meet you. Great to have you in here.
We appreciate the time.
And Kim, I wanted to just certainly give a moment here, though, to let Linda introduce herself
to the audience, to the community.
Sure, sure.
So it's somewhat of a welcome back to Encourage for those that have known the Encourage team
for quite some time.
I actually just left Encourage eight years ago.
So I was employed there from 2007 through 2017 and held a few different roles.
But right before I left, I was cutting my teeth at that time in the area of Donor Services
under the expertise of Mary Warts, who many in our community would recognize that name.
She's the best in the business.
Absolutely.
So I was very lucky to learn from her and in 2017 had the opportunity to take what I learned
to my alma mater, which is the Assumption Catholic School System.
So I took on a role there in the advancement arena as well, Donor Relations working with
the strong alumni base of that school system.
And in my time there was able to see my three daughters graduate on the same stage that
I did many, many, many years earlier, so amazing.
That was really a great connection for me.
And then in 2022, stepped a little bit outside of my comfort zone and took a role with
Monk Botanical Gardens of Wasa, which many, many people in our community are not even
aware that Monk Botanical Gardens exists.
So here's a little plug for the gardens.
Encourage all the listeners to head up there and visit the gardens.
It's really beautiful and a unique place.
It's such a cool place and it's not that far from here and everything.
It's right over there.
It's such an ease and it's such worth the trip.
It's a great place.
That's a great reference.
Yeah, absolutely.
So Betsy and I had coffee a few months ago and it was as if she was speaking to my heart
just come back to your hometown and rejoin the team at Encourage and I feel really lucky
to be connecting with the residents again, exploring the possibilities of how philanthropy
and the creative ideas of our awesome residents can be put to work to address needs in our
community and to explore new ideas to make this an even better place to live.
So I have to be back.
It is great to have you back a part of the team, a part of the town and a part of our
community and all that.
That's fantastic.
And thank you for sharing that, Linda.
Appreciate it.
Great to meet you.
Great to hear that.
Kim, I did want to take a moment to get a little bit of an update on scholarships and
get people an update on that.
Sure.
So scholarship review is in full swing right now.
So it's a very exciting time and a very busy time.
So I know that a lot of the listeners kind of like to have a quick status update.
So in process, stay tuned.
We're still on schedule, which is great.
So planning for awards to be made in May.
So not too far away.
Just around the corner.
I mean, I did want to share kind of an update on some of the grants that we've made recently.
So if people are following our social media accounts, either on Facebook or Instagram,
I did note, includes some information about all the distributions that we had made.
And these were from those designated funds that I talked about last time where donors
have a passion for specific organization or an interest area.
And so nearly $252,000 in grants were awarded to organizations throughout our community.
So it's such an incredible impact that these donors have in foresight to be able to support
those organizations on their work long term, which is wonderful.
So just a quick shout out for that.
When we're talking about residents and their great ideas, we had the Beer and Firefighters
Association interested in purchasing a rescue boat.
We had provided a matching grant, and I just received word today that the match was met.
So I don't need to make a point for call out to receive send-in donations, which is
awesome.
And then River Writers' Bikeshare, which is a wonderful program in our community.
We had actually started or a part of the incubation for that program.
So it's great to see it still in action.
And a $2,500 grant was recently awarded for that.
And then when we're looking at our guests with us on air today, we're so excited that
our What If Brutal Ferria Progress Fund Committee had awarded a grant to support the Wisconsin
Prairie Chicken Festival.
Thank you for that.
We're so pleased to be able to support.
And that was in the amount of $2500, and we had actually supported that in the beginning
as well.
There was a grant back in 2009 and 2010.
So it's so wonderful to see this in action.
Before we dive into this and get into it with Casey and Elizabeth here in a second, I
do want to remind everybody if you have questions about those scholarships, these grants, any
of these conversations we're having with Lyndon Kim, reach out to the gang.
They want to answer those questions.
There are no silly questions.
There are no things.
Well, do they have a grant for this?
They might.
They got a lot of grants out there, but I'm even surprised by that, and I've been working
with Kim for years.
And there's ones that I didn't know about.
So can I encourage you enough to reach out to the gang over and encourage and find out
how they can help you achieve these things and continue stuff.
And similar to what they, I imagine, a Casey, Elizabeth that many people might have done
back in the day with the Prairie Chicken Festival.
And that's what we're going to focus on right now.
We've got Casey Martin, Elizabeth Whale in the Winthus.
Elizabeth, I say they're right, Whale.
All right.
All right.
First time meet.
I want to make sure to get there right.
I just, real quickly, before we dive into the conversation with you to talk about the
Wisconsin Prairie Chicken Festival coming up.
I want to thank both of you and all the other members of this organization.
I came to this community and everything, not knowing anything about Prairie Chickens.
I didn't know that was a thing.
I honestly didn't.
It's really a rare thing.
It is.
And that's all the more reason Casey, why this group and this organization is so important.
Keeping things like this, you know, it's great because first off, they're fun.
They're cool.
They're interesting.
They sound cool.
But they're also an integral part of Wisconsin history.
They're a part of the tapestry of this state.
And it's a great thing to be able to keep this around.
So let's get into this a little bit.
And if you guys don't mind, I love to rewind.
I like to give people origin stories.
We haven't gotten to talk in a while.
So can we get a little bit of the backstory of the festival and how it originated?
Well, it started actually at the Hammerstrom property.
I was president of the Wisconsin Center for the Book,
which is affiliated with the Library of Congress.
And we were looking for book outreach ideas.
And I said, let's do a publisher's author artist event at the property.
Because Fraun had authored over 11 books, some in foreign languages,
and really made science accessible to people that weren't necessarily considering them self-scientific.
And one of her abilities was to speak, not only candidly, but creatively.
And her writing was the same way.
In Elizabeth and I were talking prior to a sitting down here,
about her sense of humor.
In all of her books, the humor brings through.
So anyway, I started a book event down there.
And out of that book artist's event, a gathering that included nature organizations,
as well as the authors and publishers.
The next year, Sharon Schwab and a group of people said, let's do a festival.
And let's do it about the bird.
So we're coming up on the, I put over 20 years in the museum exhibit that we'll talk about later.
But anyway, so it started in technically 2006.
And it's evolved, and we've gone through numerous central Wisconsin locations.
We've utilized everything from Nebco Lake to Paul J. Olson, Wayne Avista Marsh.
Community Theater was involved one year.
I mean, we've really cross promoted all of that.
I'm going to have a book at the museum that, to the best of my ability,
could acknowledge that 20-year history.
Individuals yourself has included Carl Hilke's included,
because Carl was a huge supporter.
We have a little memory box of him and Dan O'Connell, who we lost this last year.
And Dan and Sharon really continue the spearheading and the leadership of this.
So Dan was a huge loss.
However, Tracy Arnold, his cohort in crime and in nature works,
has really stepped up to the plate.
Elizabeth's going to talk more about what Tracy's been adding to the festival.
So over 20 years, we've done all sorts of children's activities, bird tours,
bird viewing opportunities.
And when I said rare bird before,
the Timpanucas Cupidopanadas is one of Wisconsin's rare birds.
And people came literally, internationally, for these viewing opportunities.
They are select.
I believe they're filled for this year.
I'm not sure.
No, good news.
If you've never done it, I did not do it while Fran was living.
However, the year after she passed, I went out with the science teacher from Plainfield,
Tom Whaley, and sat in a blind and got some picks and saw the dance it done.
It's, if you can do it, do it.
You have to get up early, but it's worth it.
So worth it.
Like a good sunrise, it's worth it.
Like a good sunrise.
So this year we're culminating two with more things.
We moved the event to the errands event barn for the big, the main festival day on Saturday,
April 12th.
But prior to that, we're working with McMillan Library for a movie called The Need to Grow
on their Monday series.
They always work with us to put in some kind of eco or egg, eco-friendly film.
So The Need to Grow is airing on Monday the 7th.
We have an author coming in on the 11th, Nikki Callio.
Nikki won an award for one of the articles she wrote about Fran from the Wasa Daily Herald
back in 1998.
She's continued her writing life and actually did a book through UWSP's Cornerstone book
project called Finding the Bones.
So Nikki's going to be our featured speaker back at McMillan.
In the middle is the museum exhibit and then we have the festival activities on Saturday.
It is.
There's so much.
First, just taking a step in appreciating the growth and evolution of this great festival
and where it started, where it's come.
So many people over the years helping that happen.
I do want to thank you for including Carl.
That means a lot to us around here.
We really appreciate that.
Carl would be very mad at me though, Casey.
I am not complimented you on your hat yet.
That is an amazing hat.
That is a fantastic hat.
And yeah, I see that, I see that, yeah, you got the right there.
The bird pin.
The bird pin I say is the good.
The bird pin is from Bird City.
So if they are selling pins of the purée chicken, that you can adorn your own hat with.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
And to appreciate the many, many years and everything you've put into this case, I really
do appreciate that.
Well, and back to encourage about a year or a couple of years after front had passed,
I started.
They had at the time of build a fund.
So with $250, I started a build a fund that was called the Hammerstrom Fund for writing.
And it was because they were nature writers, that's kind of the direction of the fund.
Well, we were able to grow that through the help of some of the Hammerstrom family members,
as well as many individuals.
I mean, it took a long time.
It took, I think, 20 years to get it up to a point where we could use the money.
But now what we do is underwrite that nature writer that comes into the festival every
year and some other nature related aspect.
Yes, we've had great nature writers come in in the past and stuff.
As a side note, I do want to encourage anybody who hasn't, no pun intended, I do it every
time you join this company.
I do want to tell people, if you ever read about Fram and you can, not only a trailblazer
on this particular industry, but just in science in general.
I think it gets lost on some people sometimes.
And the way that women just did not have an opportunity to be represented in science for
so long.
And she was one of the integral people that really showed not only that women belong in science
in every industry, but the idea of being able to do something that's so integral today
and in something you touched on KC about being able to break things down to where even
I can understand it or something.
I bring Neil DeGrasse Tyson or Bill Nye, these kind of people that could talk about a
black hole and make it so we can all understand it.
She was like that.
She was way ahead of that.
Exactly.
And what we've done, too, is we purchased her daughter, Elva Hammerstrom-Paulson.
Was it, is still a renowned illustrator in her own right and a nature illustrator?
She has a website under, or on Facebook, you can find her at ElvaPaulson, P-A-U-L-S-O-N,
but she, after fronted past, collected stories and photos from friends and family and put
them into an edition called Hammerstrom Stories, recollections of the life of Hammy and
Fran Hammerstrom.
And in here is such a hoot to see how people remembered them in the legacy and all that
they did.
It's illustrated on the cover by Fran's granddaughter, Lita Judge, who is a successful children's
book author illustrator, on the East Coast.
Well those books, Elva's books, Lita's books, Fran's books are all going to be in a case
for people to see at the museum, along with some of the articles about her being that
Grand Dom and one of Wisconsin's best.
That's awesome.
Yeah, so we're going to sell the books at the museum for the month of April.
We're splitting the proceeds, so $10 goes to the museum and $10 goes to the chick fest.
That's awesome.
Thank you for that case.
You appreciate it, Elizabeth.
We haven't gotten to make you work.
I mean, talk to you yet.
Elizabeth, thank you for joining us.
It's great to meet you.
Thank you.
Real quick, before we dive into the dates of the event and the location and everything,
how did you get involved with this?
Actually, I'm part of Clean Green Action and I am part of the Wisconsin Rapids Bird
City and so I was helping out with them out at the chick fest and then, of course, I had
to do a blind and let me tell you, that was the most amazing experience.
I mean, to be out there in the morning, in the dark, with strangers, wait a minute.
That might have been a different experience when I was doing it anyway.
It was to have that booming happen and you feel that the percussion before you see anything
and it just goes through you and you're like, what's this?
And then the light starts to rise and you see them out on the lack and they're jumping
and strutting and dancing and it was an amazing, and I'm a naturalist and heart and so that
was my first taste of it and so it's like, well, yeah, so let me know what I can do
to help last year.
I helped with the grassland bus tour, which we still have openings for on that Saturday
morning.
If you're not quite ready to get up at four in the morning and be out there on those
days, so we still have openings for that and then we also added, because I'm, you know,
a die-hard, we added some extra days on Thursday and Friday out at Paul J. Olsen for some more
blinds to be open, so it gives people a little bit more opportunities.
So we do have openings still out at Paul J. Olsen and it'd be amazing.
What are the dates of the fest and where is it going to be located?
Yeah, so we pretty much are meeting on the festival day that is the 12th on at Aaron's
event barn.
Do I need the address?
34, 34, 71, county, sea, and Steven's point.
Yeah, yeah, and they're so gracious to us and they're, you know, it's kind of a connection
with the farmers of milk, milk creek, watershed, and so we have breakfast, oh yeah, yeah, don't
forget the breakfast that we've catered.
So breakfast, we have speakers, we have exhibitors, we have, you know, different environmental
groups coming.
It's going to really be an interesting silent auction.
Oh, and the cast rolls.
Oh, the cast rolls are going to be there and that's nice.
Goose.
Goose to the cast roll, yeah, yeah, so that's great.
It's going to be a really fun event and while all of this is really amazing, maybe you
have taken this event in before, if you have, then you don't need me to tell you, there
are no reruns with this event every of every time is very unique, very different.
So if it's been a while or you have taken it in before, it can not encourage you enough
to.
And this is not one of those things that you can recreate on your laptop.
You can pull up, there's lots of great footage of prairie chickens and those things that
you can look up and see.
This is one of those ones that you are, you to experience what we're talking about here
to feel what we're talking about here, you got to be there, you got to be there in person
to really take it in.
And there's new elements every year.
Yeah, this year we're actually, Tracy Arnold has really helped us out.
She has organized this wonderful event on Tuesday, April 8th.
It's going to be at the Southwood County Rec Center and it's going to be booming Bob,
the greater prairie chicken mascot in costume and kind of think Big Bird's Wild Cousin there.
And he's meeting booming Bob is something.
And so he'll be out there with numerous friends for a meet and greet on the ice.
So it'll be a free skate opportunity, friends in attendance will include Smoky Bear, Rosco
Raffter, Mid-States Grit, The Cougar and Wisconsin Rapids, Visitor Bureau cranberry guy.
So if you've ever wanted some photo ops, this is going to be big.
So are they all on the ice?
There may be a few that are skating, that's Tracy's department.
I would watch from the side.
You got to show up to fight up, you got to show up today.
Yeah, you're right.
And that's from six until eight.
And we're also trying to have the Rudolph Rock painted.
Cool.
Wow, great idea.
Tracy Arnold came up with that new and artist.
I believe why we got an art instructor and he's going to brave the elements and get
out.
That's awesome.
We have to wrap up, unfortunately, because I can talk to you guys for another hour or so.
But I do want to remind everybody that you can find out more about this.
Be a part of the group and certainly take in this amazing festival.
The Wisconsin Prairie Chicken Festival coming up.
Be sure to find out more about it.
Make plans at wispraerychickens.org.
Be sure to follow them on social media as well.
Sign up for the newsletter.
Keep up the date and all this great stuff and we'll be promoting it on our morning shows and
getting sure that you guys got a great turnout for this one.
And the entire month of April, visit the Southwood County Historical Museum.
And just I think you'll find a lot to discover in there.
Oh, yeah.
Exit it.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
And Kim, if you don't mind, I did want to remind everybody as well to learn more about
plans that encourage by visiting encouragecf.org, encouragecf.org to donate,
visit the website and click give or better yet call and make an appointment to visit them in person
at 478 East Grand Avenue.
Their office hours are nine to four Monday through Thursday.
Reach out and impact this community more than you ever could have dreamed with their
encourage.
We appreciate you all so much.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you for the time, everybody.
We appreciate it.
And we'll be back with more Midday Magazine coming up right here at 975 FM 1320 AM.
WFHR, we are locally grown radio.
