Hello all, welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report, proudly brought to you by Crockett Sceptic.
Big thank you to them.
We are here on this June 12th, 2025 with some of our favorite people, UW Extension, some
of our favorite people.
One of our favorite people is Kayla.
Kayla Rumbalski is with us right now.
Always enjoy talking with you.
How you been, Kayla?
I've been well, busier than ever, but that's not a bad thing.
Thank you for having me on, James.
Before we dive into some of the topics we wanted to get into, I almost forgot to mention
this in our pre-game.
I signed up for your newsletter today.
Could not have been simpler.
Could not have been simpler.
It took, literally, three or five seconds, like somewhere in between there, and I actually
took a second there and paused, and I was like, whoa, that, that, that's really nice.
It's very cool, and it, it's a great resource, not only for the things that you guys are doing
over at Extension, but just our, our state and, and the way you guys cover the state so
well.
Yeah.
Extension.wisk.edu sign up for that newsletter.
Again, it'll take you three seconds, and then just, just figure out what you're going to do
with the next minute, because it didn't take very long.
And it's a great resource.
I encourage you to sign up for it, everybody.
Speaking of great resources, Kayla, we, you guys just wrapped up one event of ours, one
of a, one part of our Clean Sweep event.
We did.
Yeah, that was, that was a great segue, James.
Thank you.
So a couple of weekends ago, up in Marshfield at the Agricultural Research Station off
of Yellowstone Drive, we hosted a Clean Sweep collection.
So for those listeners that may not be familiar with this program, it's sponsored by DATCAP,
um, at the state level.
And it is a hazardous household hazardous waste disposal program, as well as agricultural
waste disposal.
So as you're cleaning out, you know, pole sheds, barns, places on your property, and you
come across old oil-based paint, maybe old gasoline, you're not, you're not sure how old
it is, you don't know what to do with it.
Clean Sweep is your place.
We will gladly take those, those items that Clean Sweep any pesticides, any agricultural
chemicals.
We take that at Clean Sweep.
It is free of charge for Wood County residents, and we'll let the professionals dispose
of that stuff safely so that it doesn't end up in our waterways and, um, doesn't pose
more harm to, to the environment.
So it's a great program.
And we just wrapped it up in Marshfield, and I have to tell you, James, um, as I was preparing
for this program, typically it's busy, we, it's from eight to noon.
It's usually busy right at eight.
There's a bit of a line.
And then it kind of, uh, tapers off, there's not as much, not as many people coming.
So it was myself in two of my extension colleagues, um, that were scheduled to work that day.
And we, um, in preparation, I said, you know, I'll bring some chairs, I'll bring a table,
I'll bring some cards, we can play some games in our downtime, maybe bring a book if you
want.
I prepared them, and they had never worked this event before.
I prepared them for, um, you know, a bit of a rush in the morning and then some downtime.
We never sat down.
Marshfield showed up in a big way for this event and Rapids as well.
I mean, we had a fair number of folks that drove up from Rapids, um, we served more
than 200, 210, uh, vehicles or households in four hours.
Um, there was a steady line that never died down and that is just fantastic.
I mean, that's more people than I've ever seen show up for this event.
And so it was so, um, it's so good to see that turnout and to see people, um, also being
patient.
I mean, everyone was super nice and kind and they were waiting in line for a long time,
but they were patient and they were, um, laughing with us.
And it was just a really great community event.
Worms the heart.
It's, it's really encouraging to hear.
Uh, I know how much this subject means to me.
I can only imagine how much it must mean for you and so many of your colleagues and people
that are really on the forefront of, uh, you know, trying to get this information out
there, trying to help our water, our earth, uh, you know, just be healthier and our, our
community disposing of these things appropriately.
Um, on the, on the other side of this too, it also shows the need for this and how much
this is needed and how important it is that we do have these events, uh, which is also
I think noteworthy about it.
And, and just where we are now, where I think most people, um, I don't like to say this
as good or bad, but for lack of a better way to put it, that most people want to do the
right thing, want to do the good thing with this stuff.
Uh, it's oftentimes uncertainty or maybe, well, this is what my dad did or my grandpa
did or whatever and stuff and, um, it's important to also the information part of this and being
able to share with people like, Hey, I call up and I don't know what this thing is.
Can I get rid of it there?
And you find out if you can or you can or where the proper place to put that is.
So while that 200, that number is beautiful.
That's awesome to hear.
I also think about all the people throughout the year that you guys help with information
like that.
Yeah.
And we take those phone calls pretty seriously.
Sometimes it causes us to have to do a little bit of digging and sometimes we end up with
conflicting answers, but we really try hard to, um, get back to the collar with the information
about where they can take things from community members to politicians to people at extension.
We've got a lot of people trying to work on that forefront of making our, our, our state
healthier, our state cleaner, our, our ag better, uh, because this also helps our farmers
and adds to our farmers, then the work that they're doing on this front is no worthy
as well.
So just a big thank you to everybody on this one because we're all tired of hearing
about PFAS.
We're all tired of hearing about that stuff.
You really want to get rid of them.
This is one of the ways to do it.
Exactly.
If you're tired of the conversation, there you go.
Right.
It's my, this is, if I give my mother credit on this one, because if I, if I was tired
about my room being a mess, well, Jimmy, clean it, right, this is basically what we're
talking about.
Yeah.
I, just a quick story on the side, um, I laugh frequently one of my first memories of
UWSP.
So I moved to Stevens Point.
That's what brought me to Central Wisconsin.
Now I'm, uh, here in Rapids, um, but I, I moved to Stevens Point for UWSP and I lived
in Conuteson, which is historically like the, you know, the natural resources story.
Yeah.
Um, and here I am, college freshman, you know, nervous as I'll get out and I accidentally
put a, um, can, a, um, soda can in the wrong slot in the recycling center, um, on the,
you know, third floor or whatever of the residence hall.
And I remember there was like a much older, um, I, you know, kind of a big, burly outdoors
man, uh, who was in, in the hallway and saw me do it and said, that's not where that
go.
And I will just never forget that.
Like I think, uh, Central Wisconsin is really has that, um, you know, that pride of, um,
recycling and being environmentally friendly, really embedded in it.
To that point, uh, that, uh, that, in the popularity and, in need of clean sweep, uh, we're
going to be having one here in Rapids in September.
Yes.
Absolutely.
So on September 13th, it's a Saturday at the town of Saratoga town hall, right there
off of 73, um, you can come out from eight to noon and, um, bring any of those unwanted
chemicals with you.
We, we hope to see just as large of a turnout here in Rapids as we saw in Marshfield.
So, um, please, uh, save the date and we'll see you there.
Kila, is there a website or somewhere we can send people if they are curious about
what products they can and can't bring?
Yeah.
So we have some of that listed on our extension website, um, you can find it on the community
development clean sweep page, uh, you can also always just give us a call.
So sometimes, you know, there are these, these oddball items that you're not sure what
to do with.
Give us a call.
We'd be happy to, um, tell you or to track down the answer for you and, um, get that.
So it's 715-841-840 is our phone number.
And we'll get that out there again before we wrap up, um, Kila, I know we wanted to spend
some time talking about the connecting entrepreneur's community's conference, uh, and that's coming
up.
What can you tell us about this?
Yeah.
So this conference has been a big part of my work life the past couple of months, um,
it's kind of funny like any large event, you know, it's like planning for a wedding.
Yeah.
It'll be here before we know it and then it'll all be over.
Um, but next week, Tuesday and Wednesday, we are, um, expecting 200 people from across
the state more than 200, I think we're at like 215 for registration, um, to host a statewide
conference that's really focused on enhancing rural, entrepreneurial, uh, communities and
the services that they provide to small business owners and entrepreneurs in their communities.
So super excited about this.
We have 16 breakout sessions across four different time tracks, uh, so there's really something
for everyone to choose from, um, and it's just going to be a great time, um, yeah, I'm
so excited.
Yeah.
I, I wanted to, because I can, I can feel the passion for me.
I just can tell how much you're enjoying this.
I wanted to let you just have to like go and go and everything.
When it comes to, um, some of the, the people out there listening that maybe I'm just hearing
about this and everything, uh, especially to anybody out there that is thought about getting
into the business world or getting and taking an idea and running with it.
Any of the ways I could word this, um, are they still able to be a part of this?
Are they still able to reach out?
They are.
So registration is still open.
It will be open right up.
I think until day of, um, so you can go to the extension website that you mentioned earlier.
You'll find it there search for connecting entrepreneurial communities conference or CEC.
Um, and this is a great opportunity for, um, for those small business owners, for those
entrepreneurs, for, um, municipality is a local government officials.
If you have a role in your towns, um, planning and zoning department or if you are on town
government, this is a great way to learn more about how you can support entrepreneurs.
And you may think, you know, a lot of smaller communities think, oh, well, we don't have
any entrepreneurs or startup organizations.
And I would encourage you to think otherwise.
Think about the number of small businesses that started in someone's garage or in their
basement and are now really, really successful businesses.
There's a business in Pitzville that sells in the top 0.1% of all Etsy businesses, um,
and they're right here in central Wisconsin.
So think about those folks and how you're engaging them.
They're out there.
And if you think they're not, you're overlooking a really, um, interesting, uh, population
that you could be serving.
Well, um, for one, we've, we're in a state of innovators.
We're in a state of creatives.
Uh, Wisconsin has a wonderful history of adding to the world in different business parts
of the world and everything.
Um, also, uh, I think that when it comes to this work, we've seen a, a, a, well, the migration
has already happened.
Uh, it happened during and after the pandemic of people being tired of a job and wanting
a career or tired of a job or a career and be like, you know, I don't mind making a,
a buck or two less and I'm going to open an Etsy shop.
I'm going to, I'm going to do something along these lines.
The opportunities for businesses and for people, whether we're talking about that or farmers
markets or anything else to sell goods, to sell an idea, whatever it might be, there's
never been more opportunities for people to be able to do this.
You can, I think you can make a strong argument.
There's never been a time in human history.
It's better to start a business.
It's better to really lunch off and do something.
Um, it's also noteworthy, I think, an important dimension that, you know, uh, for every business
to succeed, there's ones that don't.
The ones that don't, um, and talking to people and just, and just knowing a bit about this
world.
I don't know as much as most, but I'd know a bit about it.
Um, it's oftentimes the people that go into it and don't have, they have a great idea,
but they don't have all the information they need.
They don't have their ducks in a row, they don't, they don't know certain things about
it.
Um, I'm, I'm a, I'm a pretty creative guy.
I got quite an imagination.
I need Seth and Melissa and this, this crew around here to help me put this stuff like
the rain it in.
Right.
Yes.
I, nobody wants me running this station by myself and nobody wants that.
We get the top of that list.
Um, it's important to be able to pull information from people to be able to share information.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
The opportunity for that.
Yes.
Yes, that's the beauty of this conference really is that there are so many different sessions
that are focused on a lot of different areas.
So if you are someone who, um, loves your business and you make, I don't know, let's say you
make widgets and that's, that's your thing, right?
Like you're really focused on the production of those, um, but maybe in order to go to that
next level as an entrepreneur, you need more financing.
You don't know quite where to go.
You don't know how to, how to go about that financing piece.
There's a session on, uh, small business financing on entrepreneurial financing.
And if you're a support system, so again, I mentioned those municipalities earlier.
If you're an organization that serves entrepreneurs, um, that financing conversation could be helpful
just to know about what resources are out there.
Um, oftentimes with conferences, it's not necessarily the sessions themselves that we have
great sessions.
It's the people that you meet when you're there.
And in addition to those 16 breakout sessions, we have a lot of opportunity for you, um,
and for conference attendees to be able to network to really get to experience Wisconsin
Rapids, which is something we're really excited about to be able to feature, um, this great
community that we have here, um, and then also just to have fun.
So we're doing things like a rafters game, um, for everyone, yes, it'll be awesome.
Um, we're going out to Rydin and Red.
So you'll have the opportunity to tour a fifth generation, um, women owned, uh, cranberry
marsh and the event, yes, absolutely.
The event space that they've created.
I mean, it's just, it's going to be a lot of fun.
Unfortunately, it looks like, uh, according to the weather, which could change five times
between now and Tuesday, that it's supposed to rain most of the, um, Tuesday, Wednesday.
Uh, but we bought umbrellas for everyone.
So that'll be a conference giveaway.
Yeah, we were thinking ahead, um, and it's a supposed to be nice and hot.
Yeah, that'll, that'll work well.
Yeah, that's right.
Rain and rain and warm weather.
I'm sorry.
I got distracted.
I love the umbrella idea.
That was really good.
That's a really good idea.
And it's fun.
Um, can you, uh, and we don't certainly have to go through every detail if you want, but
do you want to go a little bit more focused on some of these sessions and some of these
things that are going to be available for people?
Absolutely.
Um, so it kicks off on Monday evening, like I said, with a rafters game, um, we've
actually reserved the, um, point craft river, uh, for everyone.
So it'll be a really great time.
And again, one of those awesome opportunities to just network and talk back and forth
with other, um, like-minded people.
And then on, um, Tuesday morning, do you want to shut out, uh,
centergy for, uh, sponsoring?
Thank you.
Thank you.
I would be remiss if I didn't shout out Angel and the team at center D for sponsoring a big
fans of Angel and the team over there.
Shame, I am also a big fan of Angel.
And that, uh, so that's, you know, we're getting a little bit off, off topic.
But, um, I think this is an important, uh, an important point to make and, and you've
brought it up perfectly is that this conference is not being planned in a vacuum, right?
There are so many people, um, friends here in, in the rapids community that have been
part of the conference planning team.
So folks like Angel, who is amazing, I sing her praises everywhere I go.
Um, she's a walking, talking billboard for such a special, she's amazing.
She's, um, my only problem with Angel, she doesn't stop at the studio enough.
Uh, we don't see her in there.
We don't, I'll see, I'll see, I'll see if I can twist her.
Say hi to her for us.
Yeah.
Um, and then, you know, Kyle Kerns, who is the city, um, development, uh, community
development director has been amazing and a huge part of this conference, Stacey and
her team at the chamber have been amazing Meredith and her team at the CVB.
So we're talking about just like the key, um, community players that have really
come together to make this conference a success and to showcase our community.
And, and as long as we're here, uh, you know, we could keep going back and forth with
a couple of more names, probably and everything.
And I hope that people, you know, we, we normalize stuff so easily in society.
It's not anybody's fault.
It's just the way time works.
But how fortunate we are in this area, those names you mentioned, the names we
could mention of people that really represent this area.
Well, care about this area, are fighting for this area to get more attention, more businesses
or any of these things are mayor, what he's doing when that, yes, yes, and he's fighting
this as well.
It's another reason why if you're a business and especially a business that's just starting
out and you're looking for, you know, one of the major things with business and I'm sure
this will be covered in the conference is location, location, location, well, our location
is pretty darn good.
Uh, and you can talk to almost any business owner in this area, whether they're on A street
or over on East Grand or wherever, uh, and, and talk to them about that, how good their
business is doing or how this community supports their own and, and businesses coming here
and stuff.
So, uh, great little side note that we have, the people are really what makes this and,
and they have made, the team has made this the most fun.
So I know that there were folks that I didn't mention by name and it's not intentional.
I don't mean to leave anyone out, but just know that our conference planning team is
a group of superstars.
To anybody we didn't mention, take, uh, take comfort in knowing that Kayla and I are
around two in the morning.
We'll be feeling guilty when it occurs to us so we didn't think of, yes, yes, I promise
I won't send you a text until I, yeah, but I remember that, uh, I was, uh, some other
things.
Yeah.
I am looking at, um, right now, the, uh, tracks.
So we, we've talked a little bit about what this conference will cover.
I think it's important for potential attendees to know kind of what they're getting into.
So those 16 sessions that I, um, told you about cover really four different kind of buckets,
if you will.
One of them is entrepreneurial ecosystems 101.
So that is really a basic introduction to, um, rural entrepreneurism, um, what you need
to know to get started, those details.
There's a session on rethinking rural, innovating for tomorrow's economy.
So this is a really interesting session because, um, in this session or in this, um, track,
for example, there's, there's a breakout on rural tech hubs and looking at central Wisconsin,
uh, even the north was at different rural areas as a place where we can have tech startups
that are really successful, um, and, you know, typically you see those in big cities.
You see them in Madison, Milwaukee, even Silicon Valley out in California, but it doesn't
need to be limited to those locations.
We have a great quality of life right here in central Wisconsin, and we know that others
who have chosen to move here will know that as well.
Why can't we have, um, you know, high tech companies right here in our backyard?
It's a really good idea.
Uh, and in states like Wisconsin need to be on the forefront of that need to be reaching
on need to be, uh, making themselves more and more available for that kind of thing.
Cause a lot of, we're seeing it already.
A lot of these businesses are looking to pick up and move to a different state or just
set up a factory in a different place or something like that.
Uh, that's a great idea too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So rethinking rural, thinking differently about that.
And then there's a session that's all about or a track that's all about local roots big
impact.
So this is talking about what we are doing right here in central Wisconsin.
That's making a difference.
So you can expect that within, um, that track, there's a session on the paper mill and
on the change of industry in Wisconsin rapids, right?
We had a, um, economy that was dominated by one industry when that industry goes away.
What do you do?
How do you come back from that?
Um, and so that, that'll be a really, um, interesting session and, and a good story to
tell.
Um, and then some other of the, some other, um, things that we're doing here in central
Wisconsin, like we have our founders network events that are meeting across our central
Wisconsin cities and, um, giving entrepreneurs a chance to network and learn from one another.
Is this something, uh, we, we need people to register for?
Yes.
Yes.
They do need to register.
So, um, you can't just show up, please, please register a hundred times, um, your registration
includes meals and, um, uh, all the swag that we're giving away.
So it's pretty, it's a hundred and twenty five dollars.
I think that's pretty reasonable, um, given all that comes with the conference.
It's, you know, that I agree.
Uh, I mean, you're, you're, you're getting multiple days of a multiple, not only, uh, days
of great information that they're going to be integral to you starting up your business
and doing this, um, well, also the networking end of it that you can't put a price on, uh,
the, the idea of running into people that you wouldn't normally run into, kind of in conversations,
uh, whether it's information or just a fun conversation that you normally wouldn't have.
That's priceless, uh, right there.
But if I told you that, hey, you know, you do this and it, um, it helps your business.
So you're going to, you're going to spend money and marketing, you're going to spend
money and advertising, you're going to spend money in those things.
This is not any different than that.
This is an investment in your business.
This is an investment in yourself and, and, uh, if I, if I put it, I think you, you think
of it that way, uh, that ain't nothing, that, that ain't nothing, that, that's, uh, yeah,
sign me up.
That sounds like a pretty darn good idea and a pretty good, to be in, just my, me saying
this and everything seems like a steal of a deal.
It really is considering not only the amount of days this is the amount of information,
but again, all the organic stuff that can happen that you just can't put a price on.
That's right.
It's a really fun event.
The event will be going on June 16th through the 18th and, uh, it has multiple locations.
So I'm used to saying the location.
Yes.
No, this one is different.
Hmm.
That's really cool.
Kayla, is, uh, is there anything else you wanted to touch on before Lichka going
on here?
No, I think that's all.
Thank you so much for your time, James.
And thanks for all that you guys do here at the radio.
We really appreciate it.
Back at you.
Say hi to the team for us over there at extension and look forward to talking again
to Rosa.
Sounds wonderful.
Thank you.
Oh, uh, but before we do let you get going, uh, phone number, way people can contact you
if they'd like to.
Yeah.
Um, so you can certainly look up extension wood county, you'll find my contact information
on that page.
715-421-844-0.
And again, extension.wisk.edu is the website.
You can find all the information that Kayla and I and all of our extension friends have
talked about.
Thanks again, Kayla.
Of course.
And thanks to all of you out there for joining us for another edition of WFHR's Rapids
Report.
