Hello world, welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report, probably brought to you by Crockett Sceptic
for this August 4th, 2025.
Have your host, James here.
We're joined by our great friend, Stephanie Hartman, from the Situas Concent Cultural
Center.
Staff, good to see you.
Good to see you too.
Thanks for having me.
Always appreciate hanging out with you and talking about the Cultural Center and the
great events going on over there.
There's so much going on that we will not be able to cover.
Thanks.
Check out the website, culturalcenterarts.org, culturalcenterarts.org, and be sure to follow
them on social media.
More on that later, for right now, Nepgo Lake is getting to celebrate.
There are big traditions, and then there are the biggest of traditions.
And centennial is to me, just, I mean, it doesn't get much bigger than that stuff.
That's right.
It's a huge event for them, and we are involved because they were looking for a not-for-profit
partner to kind of help celebrate Nepgo Lake in the 100 years and all the great things
that happen at Nepgo Lake.
So we are partnering with the Nepgo Lake District, which is the property owners of Nepgo Lake,
and throwing this bash on August 16th from 10 or noon until 5.
And it is to celebrate their history, to celebrate our community.
It's open to the public.
There's been a little confusion, like, oh, it's only for Nepgo Lake property owners.
It is.
It's for everybody.
So come out and celebrate with us.
We have a really fun day planned.
We're going to talk about the details of this, but this will be taking place at the beautiful
Nepgo Lake Shelter right here in Rapids.
This is one of my favorite places.
I love Nepgo Lakes.
Love it over there.
Beautiful.
I've got so many great memories over there.
And if you even have one good memory from being over there, you want to be a part of
this.
You want to be there.
Exactly.
I've lived in so many towns in my life, and there are so few that have something like
a Nepgo Lake, something like that available.
I am sure if you grew up in this area, and it's all you've ever known, just the way human,
being a human being is, way time works and stuff.
We kind of take things for granted sometimes and stuff.
Here's a great opportunity to be able to remind everybody how wonderful this is to have
here.
How long we've had it here.
Yes.
Exactly.
That's pretty cool.
I think a lot of communities that have just the beauty that we have, and we do take it
for granted.
You know, when I have friends come from out of town, they're like, God, this is just really
a beautiful area.
So take this opportunity to come and see Nepgo Lake.
There are things there that I didn't know about as well.
So I'm learning as we go, and I've lived here my whole life.
So you come into Nepgo Lake off of Griffith Avenue and there's a lot of confusion like
I can see it, but how do I get there?
No, yes.
Yeah.
They took me like three or four times going there before I quite got it down.
Exactly.
So you come in off Griffith Avenue, we'll have banners out, we'll have balloons out,
all of those types of things.
But that's how you enter.
There's parking close to the lake as well as we think we'll be parking on the road that
leads down there.
And then music starts at 12.30.
We have southbound.
Oh, it's awesome.
I forget how good they are.
I was at anchor bay yesterday and they were playing.
I'm like, oh, this could be so fun.
It would be really excited.
One of our favorite local bands.
And as a quick side note, so many of the events we've done in the last couple of years,
and especially this summer that are not profit events and you see southbound attached
to it, support them like they support this community, everybody.
Make sure to check out their music and the great things that they're doing.
They're an excellent band.
They are excellent.
Really fun to listen to, get your toes to happen.
You can sing along, although all that good stuff.
And no cover charge for that, none.
No cover charge.
No charge for any part of the event.
Unless you purchase from the food trucks, we're going to have several food trucks.
And then we will have beer and wine tent as well.
And those, we also have raffle baskets.
So of course, you can purchase tickets for that.
We have some really great raffle baskets.
And since I mentioned it, I'll do a quick shout out to our raffle basket donors.
We have Joyce Klassen, Sean and Michelle QSAC.
The volunteers at the Cultural Center put one together, which was really nice of them.
That's cool.
Do Tara Essential Oils by Kim Martin.
Jeff and Vicki Gukenberger donated a wonderful Packers basket.
The value, I think, is over $2,000.
So make sure you get in on that with tickets in an overnight state.
It's worth $2,000 in general.
In Wisconsin, I don't even want to think about that.
Exactly.
Ida Sports Bar and Grill, Norby's Honey, Southwood County Historical Museum, Sportsman's Bar
and Grill, the Home Depot and John and Pegwash House.
And those are the ones we have so far.
I have a feeling we'll have some trickle in yet.
Sure.
We've actually got two full weeks, even though it feels like it's tomorrow.
But we've got some time.
So thanks to all those folks for doing that.
Big, big thank you to them.
And having that involved in an event like this is a mainstay for something.
You know, having a raffle.
And again, all the proceeds for these things that we're talking about, too,
are going to benefit arts and environmental initiatives in our community.
So another great opportunity that nobody does like Central Wisconsin, where we have a good
time for a good cause.
That's right.
That's right.
That's great.
In addition to that, we have an old plain painting event.
So we have some artists signed up who will be painting live on site and be painting the
scenes of Nebco Lake or the bash, whatever they decide to paint.
So it's up to them.
So that'll be fun.
If you are an artist and are interested, you can actually sign up on our website.
We have a little link for you and you can just fill out a form.
Again, no charge.
Just come and enjoy nature and the activities.
What about those artists doing that?
That's incredible.
It's so cool.
It's so cool.
I years ago in teaching improv comedy and stuff, we had a painter come in because they
did a lot of this kind of work and they wanted to get better feel, more comfortable, but
more comfortable interacting with the crowd.
They were fine with doing the painting thing and we were all as artists, you know, we've
been doing this for like 10 years or whatever.
We're like blown away by them.
Like what we do is one thing, what they do with that.
It's incredible.
And to be able to see it is pretty cool.
And I think to be able to, you know, just kind of view them and then go back and look
again and go back and look again as their piece is coming together is just, it's an incredible
thing to watch happen.
I think most of us that love are one of the things that brings us to a piece is the story
or the history of that piece and not just the visual of it.
So yeah, that's a really good, that's a great point by that.
Yeah.
So that will be fun.
We also will have some art activities on site for kids or adults.
We're going to do painting of walking sticks, rock painting and some other things.
So again, free of charge, we ask for a couple donations here and there.
There will be a face painter from three until five.
So the kids will enjoy that or the adults, like I said, either way, and then we will have
a past present and future display of NEPCO Lake.
What it used to look like, what it's currently looking like and what they have plans for
the future.
I can't get enough of those.
Those kind of pictures, those visuals of stuff like that.
When it comes to the artists in that, do we have all the artists we need as far as that
goes?
Because I know there was going to be an air paint, the air paint event that you're talking
about there.
So we got that covered.
We have several artists, but we can take tons, I mean, they can, they can do the whole
shoreline.
Yeah.
So we'll take as many as we can.
So if you're interested, like I said, you can sign up on our website or just give us
a call.
I'm still working with paint by numbers.
So it's going to be a little while, but maybe next year, maybe like maybe the 200th or so.
There you go.
And Stephanie, with all of these things going on, there is all of this.
And all of it is family oriented, is family friendly.
Absolutely.
You want to go down there with your friends?
That's going to be a good time too.
But certainly, this is a real, like the definition of a family event, and it's really cool
to see that.
Yes.
Absolutely.
And this would not be possible without our sponsors.
Our Mr. and Mrs. Howell sponsors, if you're a Gilligan fan, that's got that reference.
I love that.
Is a Spiris Lester Lodge, Naku support, Edward State Bake, and Shill's construction.
And our professor sponsor is the Doc Masters.
Our Gilligan and Skipper sponsors are Jody and Corey Dabson, Krista and Stephen Helland,
Quick Trip, Lake Country Log and Cedar and Anthony and Amy Schellick.
And then our supporters are Mark and Jill Austin, Denise Leder, Deborah Petrix, Walmart,
and then I already mentioned our raffle baskets.
And then a shout out to Encourage Community Foundation.
They made it possible for us to have special t-shirts for volunteers so that they stand
out in the crowd so that everyone will have a reference person.
They'll be able to find someone right away.
That's really smooth.
Or just if something comes up.
So we thank Encourage for that.
Yeah.
Big thank you to all of those sponsors out there.
Everybody putting into this community, we appreciate each one of them.
It's going to be such a great time.
The Nepgo Lake Centennial Bash is coming up August 16th from noon to five over at Nepgo
Lake Shelter.
Make sure to make plans and check this out, bring your lawn chair and sunscreen in the
smile and have some fun.
It's going to be a blast.
We're looking forward to it.
We'll be talking more and more about it as we get closer to it on our morning shows and
some of those places and while I keep you are all day Stephanie, I know how busy you
are.
I did want to mention though before you let we let you go that there was always classes
and other events happening over at the Central Wisconsin Cultural Center that we cannot
encourage you enough to check out.
Absolutely.
We're a little light and August because the Bash is taking quite a bit of time to plan
it.
Yeah.
Understandable.
But we're really looking forward to it.
So we're excited about that.
We have scheduled our spooky thrifted art classes already for September.
So check those out.
Heather's teaching again.
She just has so much fun with it.
She's so great.
It's so great.
Yes.
Big shout out to all these people, individuals, some that have been doing it for years and
some that just starting on a taking time out of their day to teach these classes and
everything.
Great.
Thank you to them.
Yes.
It's great.
A felted vessels class, which basically is a felted vase with Jeannie Weymouth.
We're just nailing down the specifics for that, but that will be coming up as well.
So watch our website.
When you do, you might have my mom a part of that.
She's always been interested by that stuff.
Wow.
I just had her voice pop up.
You get that information.
That's great.
Yeah.
We're just trying to figure out dates and how much time it's going to take.
But Jeannie taught a kids camp this summer.
If you want to see some pictures go on our Facebook, the kids did awesome projects.
They were there four mornings in a row from nine until noon, and it was really fantastic.
So we're going to look to schedule that for next year as well.
It was really fun to hear the kids kind of wrap up camp, but one of the questions was,
you know, if you had a million dollars, what would you do when little girl said, well,
I would give some to my parents because they know how to invest.
And then I would buy all the needle felting supplies in the world because they had done
needle felting.
And that's what needle felting is for this vessel's class as well.
So it'll be for kids or adults, really.
That's awesome.
Yeah, it was.
Thank you for sharing that.
It's going to be smiling about that all morning.
When it comes to these events like the nepco, like Centennial Bash or some of the events
or classes they have at the cultural center, when you bring the kids involved with that
stuff, those are brains are sponges.
They see adults supporting the art, supporting their cultural center.
Things like that.
They are more likely to do it as they get older.
And especially if you're somebody that is worried about them spending too much time with
a tablet or some of those things, kids, if you want to get them busy, give them stuff
to build, give them stuff to create and everything, they will get their hands involved in it.
Yes, it was really fun to watch the kids camp.
I mean, you could hear them the second they got in the door.
They'd sprint from the back door to the classroom.
And what are we doing today?
What are we doing today?
Yeah, nobody had a tablet or a phone or anything.
And they had the best time.
Stephanie, people want to know more about some what we talked about today or reach out to
you guys for any other reasons.
How can they get a hold of you?
Sure.
Our Facebook page is very up to date.
So you can find us on Facebook under Center Wisconsin Cultural Center.
You can go to our website, which is culturalcenterarts.com.
You can always give us a call if you have questions and that 715-421-4598 or you can email
us always as well and that's just CWCC at culturalcenterarts.org.
Always appreciate the time.
Thanks so much for hanging out with us, Stephanie.
Well, thank you for having me.
And thank you, everybody, for joining us for another edition of the Rapids Report brought
to you by Cracket Sceptic here at WFHR.
