Hello all. Welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report. Probably brought to you by Crockett Sceptic for this June 11th, 2025. Have your host James here and we're
welcoming in some great people with us right now. We first off got our friends from Encourage. Linda Schill is sitting in today for that. Linda, thanks so much for being here.
Thank you, James. Good morning.
Thank you so much for joining us. Heather Sears. Well, that feels a little bit of a big title right there on your Heather.
I don't mean to put all that on you, but you do represent the area so darn well. So it's fitting.
As you're being here.
Always good talking with you. I appreciate you guys being here. First off, I want to dive right into the scholarship season and kind of recap that a little bit with you Linda, if you don't mind.
Right. We are at a full wrap finally of our 2025 spring scholarship season. And as most of your listeners are where Kim Shields is our donor services manager who
Wrangles all the cats of our huge scholarship program. We have over 190 scholarship opportunities for graduating seniors and continuing Ed students in the Southwood County area.
Kim is enjoying a well-deserved vacation this week. So I am stepping into really just give you a real quick recap of the scholarship season this year, but also just to tell her if she's listening or watching this podcast a job well done.
She does an amazing job with our donors and with the students. Yeah, we second that.
The opportunities for these kids. So yeah, so this year, as I mentioned, we have over 190 scholarship funds that we manage at the Community Foundation at Encourage.
So from those funds, we awarded 200 scholarships and those totaled $234,000. This is just the spring. So that's really incredible number.
The minimum award is $500 so that that can go a long way for our student that's going to under a technical college or a four-year school. And then the maximum award would be $6,500.
So that absolutely can provide a lot for a student. The average award was over $1,000 this year. So as those funds are continuing to build under the investment and management of Encourage Community Foundation,
we are able to see those awards that were traditionally more in the $250 range. They've now grown to $500 and some of those funds are averaging over $1,000 a year that were able to award. So that's pretty special.
Yeah, that's a beautiful thing right there. Really impressive and incredible and a big shout out to everybody involved with it too. There's a lot of pride they can be taking in that.
And it's one of the best investments we'll ever make. It's helping out the future. It's helping out there. I double-check before the interview. The youth is still the future. I just wanted to double-check it. It's still true.
That's great. That's wonderful to hear. Thank you for that, Linda. Really, really great news.
I also wanted to, if you don't mind, are you done with the scholarship? No.
Because I, if you couldn't tell, I got really excited. It's a great job.
The team rap is the celebration of the future while also wishing a to me, I'll say a local legend around here in wishing them well.
And for other sports show, and we've talked about this quite a bit, Coach Biola is going to be leaving the position.
While we're going to have somebody new and Coach Crenz is going to be coming in. And that's part of what team rap is celebrating the future is about.
Right, exactly. So team Rapids is actually a fund that we manage at Encourage Community Foundation. It was the idea brought forward by Gus Mankuzo, Jay Bemke, and Luke Wyland.
And we were very happy to work with that group who all have, each one of them has a longstanding tradition with WRPS and with not only the football team at Lincoln High School, but with all athletics and clubs activities.
With the school system. So it was their idea that they brought forward to establish an endowment fund that's dedicated to enhancing not just athletic, but educational and personal, personal development opportunities of high school and middle school students in the entire Wisconsin Rapids public school system.
So as much as academics are a huge piece of what our young people should be focusing on, we all know the well-rounded aspect of that is involvement in athletics clubs and other school related activities.
So the team Rapids fund first stemmed as more so a focus on helping the football team, but they quickly realized that for our local students many of them are experiencing barriers to even participating in athletics.
In athletics or clubs and activities after school. So they've since expanded the scope of that fund. Team Rapids is what is called to help kids have access to these opportunities, whether it's transportation, whether it's funding to pay for equipment, uniforms, things like that, whatever it may be.
But really it's their focus to the personal development aspect, accountability, teamwork, leadership, work ethic, perseverance to help shape better tomorrow for our local youth.
So one of the aspects of creating awareness for the team Rapids fund is hosting this event, which is honoring the contributions of Coach Biolo and welcoming in Coach Crenz to a new era of Rapids football.
But it's also an awareness event for team Rapids because donations to the team Rapids fund that's managed by encouraged are then able to be redistributed back to the community to help youth have access to these different opportunities.
So that event is held at the ridges. It's on June 25th. It's freed mission. So you can reach out to us at Encourage. We can get you connected with the event coordinators and help you find out more details about that.
See some familiar names that are going to be a part of this as well as presenters. That is pretty exciting. That's pretty fun.
Absolutely. So Tom Burgesson is a three-star general and central command leader was with the program in 1980. Mark Kromanacher, head football coach of Little Shoot High School was with Lincoln's program in 2005.
And then Vince Beagle, which is of course a very recognizable name in our community, went to the University of Wisconsin and then went on to play in the NFL.
So he was with the Rapids program in 2011. So kind of a all-star studded event in addition to honoring the contributions of the former coach and welcoming the new coach.
So even if you're not a huge football fan, I think just to go and listen to the remarks of some of these speakers.
And I think it will really help generate a lot of community spirit around this team Rapids Fund and about really the ultimate goal of it is helping provide opportunities and more access to the opportunities for our youth.
Exactly. And this is something that we speak to a lot here at the network. How important are the sports and athletics and the arts are in our communities in our schools.
You know Vince is not only a great guest to have on here for many many reasons, but one he is almost one of the prime examples of this.
This is a Rapids kid who you know I wouldn't say broke the odds but broke through with odds even against him and statistically how many kids go from high school to college.
That number and play sports. And then how many go from college to the pros. Vince is one of that small percentage who was able to make it.
But I bet you he could also tell you how important just the schooling and the opportunity was whether he went on to college or the pros with this you know passion, this love is one thing.
But the things that he learned at Lincoln playing sports or being in you know in debate or being in a play or any of this stuff.
That's everyday stuff. That's speaking in front of people. It's working with others. It's cooperation. It's fellowship.
It's so many different layers of things that are much bigger as hard as it is for my sports brain to understand sometimes.
It's much bigger than winning. It's a great opportunity for that along with all the things that you were saying as well Linda.
That's a really nice set of guests. And again this is going on June 25th over at the ridges 2311 Griff Avenue free admission.
It will be a cash bar in appetizers and knowing that all the fun you're going to be having is putting back into the future and into the work that encourages doing.
Absolutely. I mean one thing to add to that you know especially with Vince Beagle and just the Beagle family.
And as I think about any young athlete you're always talking about you're not only representing the name on the back which you know some kids get to have their last name on the back of the jersey.
But you're representing the name on the front which is typically connected to your school or your community.
And the fact that the Beagle family has always put that at the forefront to make sure they're coming back.
And our appreciative of not only the Wisconsin Rapids community but of Lincoln High School and all the leadership involved in the community leaders as well.
Again focus on our youth and what can we do to help?
We'll be talking about this event on our morning show. We'll be hyping it up and making sure that there's a great crowd for that one.
And I'm sure the community will make sure it's a good crowd for that one as well.
I think you lend a appreciate that Heather. I have a couple things for you but before I dive into them I have to actually I have to embarrass you for a second.
I'm sorry but I have to do this because I didn't get to do it after the play.
I got to see Heather in the most recent noises off. Heather you blew me away.
I blew me away. I thought that role like you I'm sure means a lot.
It truly did. It was by far one of my favorite roles to ever play.
You knew the movie. I knew the movie. I thought so.
I was in high school. I told my mom the only person I ever want to play is Mrs. Clackett.
And I got to do that. So thank you to Melissa Kay and other directors that gave me that opportunity.
A few people I would never try to speak for like Carol Burnett.
One of my favorite people that I'm sure one of yours.
I am. I know now you would have made her proud.
It was definitely maker proud. It was the best. It was really good.
Nice work by you and the team. It was really fun.
Thank you so much for a great night. A great event. It was a lot of fun to watch.
It was fun. I know we got work to do. We'll go ahead and dive into that.
I was ever talked to the wife.
But I do want to recap some of the events that have been going on in the Kusan catch up with our friends in the Kusan.
There you had Midwest Fest. Let's talk about that a little bit.
Okay. Well, for Kusan is a nonprofit organization that is basically a few of us got together
and up two years ago as in fact decided we needed to do some community events in Nekusa
because there was some stuff that was lacking in our community.
And we wanted to keep things local.
So we born Nekusa took over Nekusa hometown Christmas,
which the Chamber of Commerce previously ran.
And also Nekusa Easter.
And then walleye days, which is a very prominent nonprofit in Nekusa that's been around for,
oh my gosh, 50 years, I would say, reached out to us and asked if we would help them.
So with those three going on, we're like, hey, why not add one more?
Because we have all this time. We have wonderful committee members.
So we decided we wanted to do something actually kind of based it off.
What encouraged us to do is the community picnic.
But we knew that we couldn't go to that extent because we were brand new.
So we decided we would do the Midwest Fest, which is a free fun activity evening.
Starting at three o'clock on June 21st down at Riverside Park in Nekusa.
Going until nine, thank you to encourage because we have the opportunity to have bouncy houses,
which is something that we really wanted to do for our young kids, you know,
something fun and because of the generous donation from them, we were able to get five of them.
So last year we had one.
So now we have five and it's going from all ages from the littles up until, you know,
mid teens for the bouncy houses.
And thank you to Wisconsin's community theater.
We're having walking, talking characters, so some of their kids are going to dress up with superheroes and princesses and come down and walk amongst the crowd.
And so we're excited about that. We're trying to get all this involvement.
We want to keep it as local as much as possible.
So we have Ben Shetic in his wife, Katie, the heartstrings are coming to play live music from six until nine.
And then we have the Jared Hubbard band music.
They are from three until six.
And then we also have our food trucks.
So we've got about six different food trucks that are coming.
So that's the only thing you'll have to purchase is your food.
We don't, we're not giving that away for free.
But we do have mashed masters.
I'm not sure if anybody's interested in knows what mashed masters is.
I've heard a little bit about that.
There are local brewing organizations.
There are a bunch of guys that get together and brew.
And so they reached out to us and asked if they could come down, have a little bit of a tent,
just table kind of thing and just give away samples.
So we're like, heck yeah, come on down.
You know, where we do have a beer garden that we're doing.
So they're going to come down and do a little bit of samplings and get more people interested in them as well.
And then we also have some really cool exciting games that we've got going on.
We've got mini golf putting game.
We have batting cages.
We have ox throwing.
And cornhole games, of course.
And then we did have the VR edge from over by.
Oh yeah, they reached out to us and asked if they could have their cool little there.
So we've got something for the little.
And we've got something for the older people.
We've got beer.
We've got soda.
We've got food.
We've got live music.
It's going to be a great night.
It's just going to be, and it's free.
Everything is free.
We want to make sure that everybody knows there's nothing you have to pay for except for food and beverages.
So we also have shuttle rides too.
In case for like country sports is donated a couple of UTV ATVs for people that can't walk down to the park from where they park.
So we've got that available too for, you know, for rides that way that people can't make it.
They can still come and enjoy us.
I wanted to compliment right away how it feels like you guys have covered all bases here.
Whether it's, you know, age range of kids or parents or anything like that.
There really is something for everybody and all that.
You also covered all the bases in my questions.
I had like three or four questions you knocked them all out.
I'm just really excited about this.
I don't know if you can tell.
It's not very often we get to offer something free.
You know, there's no cover charges.
You don't have to pay it again.
You come, you go, you come back, you go, you know, whatever you want from three into nine is all yours.
When you mentioned the organization and the purpose of it, some of the history of it and everything.
And the amount of, you know, events that you guys have a year and the idea of adding one on.
And it was a great line.
It was funny, but it was also, and I'm sure I'm not the only person that immediately picked up on.
Oh, they really love this.
They really care about this area.
Like you don't add on to work to do things like this for nothing.
You're doing it because you got to careful.
That's a passion for this.
And that, that we appreciate that.
We appreciate that in this area.
We're so truly blessed with the amazing committee and volunteers that we had.
We started out with three.
We're at nine committee members.
We have volunteers that come in just to help serve food or organize the games.
And things like that.
I mean, Nekusa is so heavily in our businesses.
I mean, you can't even say enough about the businesses as sponsor.
I mean, Dom, Tar, Erko, Goodfellas, Swiftwater, The Spot, Jacobi's.
I mean, you name it.
Everybody in Nekusa has helped make this happen.
And we can't do it without them.
We can't.
I mean, it would not be happening.
It's a really strong point to make too, I think, Heather.
Because the businesses she just mentioned, that's almost all the businesses in Nekusa.
And I say that with love.
I say that with respect and everything.
That that's how much everybody believes in these events.
You're getting literally everybody involved in it.
It brings people back to our community.
I mean, outside of pumpkin fest, this is what we have.
Right.
And this is all year long.
It's not just one month.
It's not just October.
This is throughout the entire year.
We get to bring something back to our town.
Do you have any other plans for other events or anything else coming up this month?
As I say, as I just can imagine, you guys already have your plates full.
Well, I think that you asked.
That James is.
We had a circus reach out to us.
And it's the Cold Pepper Mary Weather Circus.
I'm not very familiar with them.
But we decided that we were going to bite.
And we're going to have them come to Nekusa August 16th.
Wow.
So we're getting some more of that information together.
But it's been a long time since we've had a circus in town.
Yes.
And we're really excited about it.
So I'm still in touch getting all the plans definite.
You know, being depinized.
And hey, I think we're just excited.
We're happy.
Really cool.
So it'll be something in between Midwest, West, and Christmas.
Right.
Right.
So I remember going to the circus when it was hosted at Wooderfield.
Yes.
I remember that.
I remember that.
Yeah.
By the time my family and I got out here, they moved it over to the mall.
The old rabbit mall area and everything.
But I remember still being there.
And two art to you guys are so good.
Bringing this up your memories right there.
Because I think that something like that certainly going to be attended by families and kids and everything.
The biggest thing in going on nowadays is nostalgia.
At any time, anybody, anything nostalgic related people, it's doing well.
Something like that is nostalgia.
I mean, you're going to have people like me go in there just for that.
I'm going to drag my older kids with me and stuff.
That's a fun event.
That's a fun idea.
That's really good.
We're excited.
And you've kind of touched on this a little bit already, Heather.
But so much of this and the funds raised for this are going into Nukusa to help Nukusa to really promote the area and help the area.
And that's where that's a big purpose of the funds raised.
And we did do something this year that we've never done in the past.
Nukusa Wallite is has decided that they wanted to do a scholarship.
So we kind of based it off of what encouraged was offering in.
We put our own scholarship thing together and we were able to present it.
Tulia Thomas from Nukusa High School.
She's a senior, obviously this year.
And so she won a $500 scholarship for the Nukusa Wallite days and whatever field that she's going into, which I think is law.
But we decided we're going to do one for four Nukusa for next year too.
Because we want to give back to the community as much as we possibly can.
It's not about making a profit.
It's about giving it back to the kids.
And you know, like you said, James, they're our future.
So we wanted to stick around and you know that Linda and I were talking about that earlier.
We want to keep them here. We want to keep them local and give them enough stuff to make them stay here.
I've been fortunate to talk to our last three mayors and I've talked to mayors in other areas.
Our senators are congressmen and it's one of the biggest things that they're talking about is how we keep people in town.
How we keep local talent here and everything.
These are some of the ways we do that.
There's no one trick or one fix to any of this.
It's one of those things that as communities, as people, we work together on this stuff and just try to encourage them to want to stay in the area.
And give them incentive and reasons too.
A lot of what we talked about today does that.
And I think having your community have your back in so many of the ways that both of you have touched on today in so many other ways.
I know that that's encouraging to me and to many others out there.
I think that there's a certain pride that comes with that.
Great stuff. Just great stuff today too.
I really do appreciate it. Heather, if people would like to learn more about Ford and Acusa, you guys got a good Facebook page.
We had a great Facebook page. So yeah, just kind of look us up on Facebook at Ford and Acusa.
Otherwise, we do have a website at www.Fornacusa.org.
So all of our information, contact information is on their email.
We are always looking for volunteers.
Yes. The more, the more hands the better everybody.
And I know a lot of people I talk to in the community are looking for volunteer opportunities very often.
There's a great one right there for you.
And I know the kids actually think have to have volunteer hours.
So we write down to a lot of the schools and be like, hey, give us your children.
Yes. Yes. Please.
It's a great, very smart book.
I might have to think about that.
And Linda, as we're wrapping up, we just wanted to remind everybody to learn more about the funds that encourage how they can do that.
Sure. Actually, first I just wanted to congratulate Heather and the Ford and Acusa group.
I don't know if you touched on your tagline for Midwest Fest, but it's a summer civic picnic for the people by the people.
It's a good line. That's good.
That's our motto for Acusa as well as for the people by the people.
Right.
It's a great way to showcase your community.
And I think last time I was on James, we talked about how it's not our communities are blending more and more together.
You know, across like city or municipal lines.
And I love that about the Southwick County area.
And you touched on the community picnic that that encouraged used to offer, which I think was a great way for our organization to tee up.
All of these other communities to take it and run with it.
Or groups like FRM, their music fast coming up at the end of this month too.
All of that is free to attend.
And we're reminiscing, you know, going places when our kids were very little.
And it was expensive to go someplace where you had to pay for your meal, pay for your bounce house, pay for your drinks.
That's the other thing.
So you think that's what you wanted to purchase while you were there.
Right.
So you maybe didn't go because of that cost prohibitive factor to it.
So I just congratulate for Nikusa for coming up with this idea and showcasing the whole Nikusa community for all of us and welcoming us in to participate in that event.
So I hope you have a great turnout.
But yeah, I would mention if you want to be in touch with us at Encourage, give us a call, 715-423-3863.
Set up an appointment is the best way to do it.
Our office hours are Monday through Thursday, 9 to 4.
We're located just across from a hotel meet and sandwiched in between the library and Solaris.
But one last thing that I wanted to include is that we are updating our website.
So it's going to look all new. We're working with a local graphic designer, Katie Swanson.
She's done an amazing job bringing our website to a more current state, I would say.
So you can learn more about what we do at Encourage and how we could help you bring some new ideas to life in the community.
It's fun to hear.
Look us up, August 1st. That'll be ready.
We're looking forward to that. That's great.
And we will be talking about all these events on our morning shows and promoting them as best we can.
And certainly looking forward to talking with you guys in the future about more events and everything.
It's been a lot of fun. Thank you both for joining us today.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And a big thank you to our friends at Crockettceptic for sponsoring their hour.
And all of you, the best listeners and radio for joining us here at WFHR's Rapids Report.
Thank you.
