Transcript
Holding On To Cherished Memories with Ken Szymanski (Hour 2)
The Todd Allbaugh Show · Fri Jul 11, 2025
On location, it's the Todd Alba Show.
And now, pursuing truth wherever it may lead, here's your host, Todd Alba.
We lost control 30 seconds.
We
are live here at at the northern Wisconsin State Fair in Chippewa Falls.
It is six minutes past the hour of two o'clock on this Friday.
T G I F the eleventh.
of July 2025.
It is a great day to be Wisconsinite.
Glad to have you along here live at Chippewa Falls.
Aaron Zommer is a producer engineer back at the old world world headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin and joining me once again for the entire show.
My friend, my colleague here at Civic Media and the host of Mornings with Pat Critello every morning on many of these stations from six until nine.
Mr. Pat Critello.
Are you ready for day two,
Pat?
The hump day camel was not available.
I was happy to fill in.
And instead, you
did this.
I
did it.
We talked to Rusty Volk, the executive director of the State Fair yesterday.
We said, Rusty, I really want to have a live animal on this show.
Can we bring a live animal into this building?
And
folks, he did it.
I came walking in here just a moment ago.
And there was a young lady sitting here with.
a chicken.
Chicken.
It's fantastic.
The the most gentle
I don't, what do you have that chicken knocked up on?
It is
just so still
and.
I know it's a very docile chicken,
a
docile bird.
We should introduce
her guest.
We will in just a second.
Big show today coming up in just a few minutes in the first hour here.
The Washington County Executive and a Republican candidate for governor, Josh Shulman is going to be here on the program stopping by to say hello.
And then at 230 BJ Hollars and Steve Dayton of Fireside Productions talking about their new documentary on Coob.
the National Championships taking place this weekend in Eau Claire.
Out number two then at three o'clock hour a what's worse sunburn or frostbite and then at three twenty our friend and colleague Mike McKay from WCF W105.7 FM will be here to discuss what's going on on the music side of the Chippewa Valley and at three thirty five Ken Samansky teacher and author of the new book featuring Wisconsin, northern Wisconsin State Fair will be here.
So a huge show and and
and.
And...
your
mom.
Oh yeah, mom is here.
She's literally right there.
Yes,
mom, Miss Linda is here once again, our Anthony Anderson version of mom.
She's
taking care of my bucket of cookies that I brought in for y'all.
Yes, thank you.
We're going to talk fair food in hour two.
Look, Pat brought in these beautiful, fair chocolate chip cookies.
We're going to talk about food, fair food as well.
But first, let's start off right away with whatever our exhibitor, exhibitors here and a wonderful person.
She was so kind to come on.
I'm very short notice my sister Heather and I were walking through the small animal bar.
and we saw these great chickens trolling.
And here we have Kaylee High and your recent graduate of Stanley Boyd High School here in the area.
Kaylee, thank you for coming on.
Yeah, no problem.
It's really, really cool.
So I introduced your bird here.
What is her name and what is her...
And what is this?
I mean, I know
it's a hen, but I mean, what's the line of bird?
I don't know.
Yeah.
Okay.
So this is Sue.
She's a Dominique and she's six years old.
Six years.
A Dominique, you call them hens or chicken?
Hens.
Yeah,
it's both.
Dominique Hen and her name is
Sue.
Pat would say it's a very docile bird.
Yeah, she's kind of been everywhere with me.
She was one of my very first chickens I got.
And so yeah, six years strong, she's still
coming.
So does your family farm in the area?
Yeah, we have a farm over in Stanley, Wisconsin.
Dairy or cattle?
We kind of have a little bit of everything.
It used to be a dairy farm.
And then about four years ago, we switched over to beef.
So now my brother shows steers.
Oh, that's super cool.
It would have been a little messy to have a steer
coming up.
We take care of the bull ourselves over here.
Exactly.
We
are just fine.
This is the first chicken.
This could be an emotional support animal coming on a plane.
Yeah, an emotional support chicken.
You were so gentle.
Yeah.
Always?
Yeah, this is her all the time.
Wow.
How old were you when you first did you do this through 4-H?
When you first started,
Shelley?
Yeah, so I started in 4-H and then I showed all six years throughout 4-H and then I joined FFA and started my own poultry team.
But I started in fifth grade and then got my first chicken.
in sixth grade.
Well we were telling this story off the air.
My sister and I had a terrible experience.
We tried to sneak a little chick into my mom's basement and it did not turn out well.
You need to have proper training.
Did your parents kind of show you about small animals growing up or did you learn that through FFA or 4-H?
It was kind of just a learn-as-you-go type thing.
Yeah, we had never had chickens.
My grandma had chickens so she kind of gave us like the starting stuff and then
From there on, it was just me trying to figure out what I was doing.
But you would agree with Pa's mom not trying to raise
a chicken in the basement.
Yeah, no.
You're going
to cardboard out your mom.
No.
OK.
And when you show chickens at a fair, what are the judges looking for?
Yeah, so they're looking for, if they have all their feathers, the brightness of their skin, the younger they are and the better layers they are, the brighter their skin's going to be.
They check the length of their pelvis and their sternum and all those kind of things.
So are measurements involved?
They have to go through
that?
They have to measure them with your fingers and know it from there.
Yeah, pretty much.
I did.
I had no idea, Pat.
And I grew up
in a rural
community in Southwest Wisconsin with county fairs.
I did not know there was this much detail to judge a chicken.
I have to tell you an honest to God story.
My first time coming to the Northern Wisconsin State Fair 30 years ago.
And we're going through the barns and they were judging rabbits at the time.
Have you had any in your family on the
farm back?
Yeah.
Okay.
The judge is talking to the whole crowd about the rabbits and saying all the things about what they're judging on.
And the judge honestly says, now, if it were up to me,
these these rabbits would already be like field dressed and prepared.
Oh my gosh.
So you could see the muscular structure and blah, blah, blah.
And Sherry and I are just horrified.
This is how they judge animals.
Is the is the judge's name Ed Gein?
Yeah.
I mean, what is this?
It's terrible.
I've never heard that.
It was a it was a terrible introduction to animal judging at the fair.
Yeah.
I mean, I get that with the with the cattle, you know, in their auction, they're, you know, they're going to be turned into burger, burger or whatever.
And I do have to admit that today is National Kabob Day and my initial thing to bring into you, but I ate it first.
I'm glad you did it.
It was a chicken kabob.
It was a chicken kabob.
It
could have devastated poor Sue.
It was, yes.
We're talking with Kaylee High here from Staling Point High School.
She is in the small animal division and is showing her hen Sue here.
So my sister Heather and Pat and his wife went to dinner last night and our server was talking about was there a brother or somebody in your family was showing a steer?
Yes.
And it did better than they thought and it was like he had raised this animal for a long time and now we're
bringing in two and the one that they thought for sure was going to be the champion, like had a bad experience, walked funny or whatever that one time.
And then the other one turned out to be reserve champion.
So I mean, you don't.
know until you're in the moment being judged.
You can take your best guess, but yeah, that's about it.
You just have to go for it.
Talk to us a little bit about this.
Yes, you're raising them, and if they do well, then obviously they're not going to be around any longer.
But you become attached to these animals, right?
Yeah, I know last year my brother was glad to see his go.
His was very naughty last year.
But this year, yeah, he was a little upset about it because he had a very sweet one this year.
And this isn't like Miss America.
They don't move up.
There's not a competition in West Alice and then beyond.
Right.
Is this the culmination?
I don't know much about it, but I do know that, like,
It's almost a requirement for them to go to auction unless they don't make wait or if they are sick then you kind of have to take them home and try to sell them there.
You want them to go to auction most of the time because you spend a lot of money trying to get them in a feed and you want to be able to pay it off.
Well Sue, it's been fun.
Well, Sue, it's been here six years.
Yep, so chickens and rabbits don't go.
Oh, okay.
You hear that rabbit
judge?
You were talking a little bit before we went on the air.
My mom, actually.
Mom, Ms.
Lindover there asked a good question about...
There's all sorts of different naturally colored eggs.
How does that happen?
Is it certain breeds of hens?
Yeah, so it's actually, you can buy the breed specifically made for the color egg you want.
So if you want an olive agar, you're going to get some green eggs.
And if you want an Easter agar, you'll get anywhere from pink to blue eggs.
An Easter
agar, that's what we need.
Easter
agar, yes.
How often is it that people start their chicks by getting them from like a neighbor or someone else in the community?
Because one of the
things we heard about when they were talking about postal service cutbacks and things is that there's also the mailing of like
live chicks and things like that.
Yeah, no.
So I've always gotten mine from the mail.
You got your chicks from the mail.
You go play come up from the post office once they get here and you just kind of hope that the post office doesn't lose them.
I can't say much.
My mom works for the post office.
She should be very mad at me.
We love our postal workers.
Yes.
So but yeah, it's pretty often and then there is groups kind of everywhere that you can buy chickens from them too.
A couple more minutes left.
Talk to us a little bit about and I know it's
It's fun.
coming to the fair and that sort of thing.
I've known a lot of people before over the years.
Talk to us a little bit about what you've learned in raising hands in terms of just responsibility and how has it prepared you?
I know you said you go to college next year in Iowa.
How has it prepared you in how you live your life and how you carry yourself?
Yeah, so especially raising chickens, it takes a lot of remembering last time you collected eggs, remembering when you went and fed them.
What did you feed them?
Are you making sure they get the right nutrients?
Are you getting close to fair?
Do you want me to start feeding?
them some extra stuff and so it's kind of just making sure you actually check on your birds and they are one of the easier animals to show so I'm a little lucky there but also kind of going forward I know like compassion like every animal has a different type of personality especially chickens they're all different so you kind of have to figure out how to deal with all that.
I'm sorry did you say what you were going to be studying?
Yeah I'm going for Spanish I want to be a medical interpreter.
How
cool is that?
in Mexico, then say what a chicken says what?
It's P-O-P-O.
P-O-P-O.
Really?
Yeah.
The chickens learn a whole different language
down
there.
Yep.
Yeah.
My friends at El Salvador, when they say, what does a chicken say?
It's quik-a-dee-dee.
That cock-a-doodle-doo.
Yep, I've heard that as
well.
That cock-a-doodle-doo.
So it's a Spanish chicken pat.
Wow, okay.
Is this something you...
What would you do in the future?
I mean, would you want to live in a rural setting, maybe on your own little hobby farm
versus a city?
Yeah, I want to have chickens for the rest of my life.
I can't imagine not having chickens.
That's
super
cool.
That's
super cool.
Well, I just appreciate you coming on so much.
I think that too often, Pat and I talk about that young people spend too much time on screens and things like older people spend too
much time on
screens too.
I'm just always uplifted by young people in 4-H and FFA who are getting out there, I know, as your generation.
It says touch grass,
literally it figuratively.
I just think it's great.
Yeah, no, it's pretty awesome.
I've met some very cool people through 4H and FFA, and I'm very honored to be part of it.
But I have to ask, with Minecraft and the movie, and a lot of kids like to play Minecraft.
I've got both my two oldest grandsons go crazy for Minecraft.
And then we saw the movie.
How often has Sue had to hear the lava chicken song?
Too much.
Yeah.
See,
see, see.
Yeah a lot of chicken jockey I went and brought her to like a fourth grade thing for like FFA it was they got to meet all sorts of animals and I heard it too much.
They throw popcorn at
any point.
Yeah no it wasn't great.
When you saw one of the other was a Henry Rooster I said how about that when you're like no I'm not bringing him over
he's too mean.
She's very food motivated so she thinks all you have is food and she will peck at you so I was like she's not
coming
with it.
Oh, yes, there are.
I mean, I had to be careful bringing in the big bucket of cookies.
Otherwise, he was just going to be pecking away until we fed this guy.
Here's a ridiculous question.
But Sue here, does she lay eggs?
Yeah.
So she's not laying anymore, but she did used to.
She's too old.
She's just kind of, she might lay like one a year, but that's about it.
So chickens go through menopause?
Really?
Yeah, basically.
There's a post-menopause chicken.
My sisters can relate.
There's an art bump over there.
It's a little too enthusiastic, but we understand.
I didn't know that.
That's
great.
Well, it's just been a pleasure.
Kaylee High from Staley Boyd High School.
Thank you for
spending this time with us.
And congrats on graduation.
And best of luck, what university in Iowa?
Oh, University of Northern Iowa down in Cedar
Falls.
It's a great university.
Well, best of luck and everything.
Thank you.
A pleasure.
Welcome back and talk with Josh Shulman on the other side.
You packed quite low and tied with a
live
animal from the northern Wisconsin State Fair live on location.
Never doubt
you.
Come on, pack after
this.
We're having fun doing it.
Welcome back to Tuttleball Show on the Civic Media Ready Network.
We are live on location of beautiful Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin for the order of Wisconsin State Fair along with Pat Crichtlow, host of mornings of Pat Crichtlow every morning across the network on 6 until 9.
Glad to have you along.
Pat, you never know who you're going to run into at the fair.
Well, Heather and I were out trying to find a live animal through
the chicken.
Look who you found.
We ran into a candidate for governor.
That's the great thing about coming to the Northern Wisconsin State Fair.
You can have good food, you can have family fun, and you can meet people that you want to just strike up a conversation with as well.
And that's what we're running for governor or anything.
Legislature is all about.
So Josh Shoman is here, the Washington County executive and first Republican.
announced candidate for governor for 2026.
Welcome.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Good to be up here.
Well,
I appreciate you coming on.
Why don't we just start off with for those that might not know you from Southeast Wisconsin, but tell us a little bit about yourself, where you grew up, what you did, and why you're running for governor.
Yeah, so I'm the Washington County executive.
I was born in Hartford, so Washington County originally, the son of a Lutheran minister.
and a registered nurse.
And my folks moved around a lot when I was a youngster.
And mostly the eastern part of the state, middle school and high school years in Kiwani.
So I'm a graduate of Manitowoc Lutheran High School.
And my wife and I have been married 24 years this year.
And thank you very much.
I'm a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
I was with the Madison Unit, the 147th Blackhawk Unit in Iraq in 2003.
And when I came back, I dedicated the rest of my life to the service and sacrifice of the guys and gals who didn't make it back, either in whole or in part, and reflecting the love of my Lord Jesus, my love and my neighbor.
So that's what put me into public service.
And I've been in municipal administration for 15, almost 20 years and county executive for the last six in Washington County.
So you're looking at the Republican primary right now.
And first of all, thank you for your service.
Thank you.
I had the opportunity
to
work for former congressman Scott Kluge and handle military affairs.
I never served, but I have a great appreciation for our veterans.
So thank you for that.
But when you look at this Republican primary, there's another person who announced a couple days ago here.
I think one of the big things that people are looking at is in this environment, I'm a former Republican for 30 years, as you look at the current iteration,
It seems like a lot of people are saying, well, you are going to, or someone, whoever wins this Republican primary is going to have to have President Trump's endorsement.
Do you feel that?
Do you need President Trump's endorsement to win this
race?
President Trump certainly important.
It is his party.
I mean, he's he's been around for a decade now and changed everything in dynamics and politics in all of America.
But I think this primary in particular is going to come down to one thing and one thing only.
In my lifetime, Republicans have only ever elected two governors, Tommy Thompson and Scott Walker.
Both were young, energetic guys in under 45.
One was the county executive son of a minister.
And so we've got a template that we know works on our side.
And that's what I expect to work this time.
But the bottom line is we haven't had a cannon a long time on our side that really burns a shoe leather, runs into media at county fairs, state fairs.
And I think that's what we need.
Meet people where they're at, have conversations with one another again, stop talking past each other.
There's been way too much of that.
And so that's what I like to see change in this campaign.
Whatever Governor Tony Evers decides, whether to run for a third term or whether to step back, then there will be a very crowded Democratic primary.
That's plain to see.
You will have things to say about the Evers administration and or the Democratic field as it comes up.
But since we only have limited time here, I want to do and I heard this a lot running all the time as well.
They're like, just tell us what you're going to do for me.
So I want to give you that opportunity.
If you are elected, what is it that you want to do?
Yeah, the big thing that I'm focused on is making Wisconsin a place that people are proud to be, not just be from.
And what I mean by that is we've talked about brain drain in the state for feels like a quarter century, most of my life.
Young people leaving the state for other opportunities, never coming back.
And now you're starting to see retirees leaving.
My mom and dad are residents of Wisconsin, but they have a place down in the Fort Myers area.
And I went down and visited this spring.
And like always, all the people from Wisconsin gather and they have the brat fry in all nine yards.
and they're all residents of Florida for six months and one day or more.
They love the sunshine and the zero income tax.
And I think both of those things, we have to work change.
If you look at the demography of the state in the next 25 years, it's kind of scary.
So we've got to retain, retain, retain.
And I think that's going to be my number one
point.
Can I go to the other end of the age spectrum, though?
Retaining our best and brightest are young people so that they don't leave.
That's right.
Can you tell them?
So my big thing with that is, I think the big hurdle for them coming back is, where are they going to live?
housing in Washington County, the average price of a home is about 400,000.
It's demonstrably worse in Dane County, for example, but that is that is a similar average across the state.
I don't know how young people even can think about a 40 and help it now, so I think that's a big issue we've got to tackle.
We have a track record in Washington County and I think we can take it to Madison
state budget passed last week.
Cover Evers signed it into law.
There are people on the right who are saying that Tony Evers are whipped to the Republicans or people on the left saying they got a raw deal out of it.
Where do you stand?
Was this a good budget and it's something you could just.
support or do you think it should have been
better?
Yeah, it's not a good budget.
I don't think anybody's happy.
You know, I heard Greta Neubauer criticizing it saying she wouldn't even have a seat at the table.
I think that's wildly inappropriate.
The fact that legislative leadership and the governor weren't even talking to each other until what was it three, four weeks before the budget needed to be adopted with essentially a fiscal gun to your head with the federal money going away.
So, you know, that's something when I'm governor, you know, I wanted to reach out to Greta and say, listen, we might not agree on much, but you're going to have a seat at the table.
Like we have to be talking to each other.
I think it's one of the big
things that's wrong in America is we just talk past one another.
We don't even have conversations anymore.
So it's good to have conversations and I think that's something that's got to change.
We need leadership.
Anything we have a minute left or so, anything we haven't asked you, and I'd love to have you come back on.
Thanks for doing this.
What have
we
not asked you that you think people in this state need to hear of why you want to be governor?
I think the big thing that people have I've been hearing is the education governor, Governor Evers.
prides himself on being an education governor, and they are very concerned about education long term.
I mean, the declining enrollments really statewide on average, that's a problem.
The way that the funding formula works and has not worked for over 30 years is a problem, and we just keep throwing money.
We're not looking at outcomes, we're not looking at what's best for kids, we're just looking at how do we fund, how do we fund, how do we fund.
On a table even if we disagree and work together to solve that's what I'm going to do when I'm governor It's what I've done as county executive in Washington County
Washington County executive and now Republican gubernatorial candidate Josh Shulman Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by look forward to future conversation with Pat and I and moving forward
sounds good Thanks for
having
me.
Thank you.
Josh shulman.com more information.
Nice to have you up here in Chippewa.
Thank you
Come on back.
We're gonna talk a little B.J.
Hollars and filmmaking and kube after this don't go anywhere It's the title of all show with Pat Crane low live
publication from Chippewa Falls of the Northern Wisconsin State Fair on the Civic Media, Radio Network.
the other Wisconsin State Fair live in Flaw Falls, Wisconsin.
Todd Albault held this interview.
We're going to work along with my guest co-host for the day of the last two days here.
So kind, so gracious.
He usually gets up, or he always gets up.
Better always get up, he said.
at six until nine a.m.
mornings at Pat Crite Low.
Mr. Crite Low is here at the table.
That song is going to be playing, Pat, at some point during the weekend for the U.S.
National Coupe Championship.
It'll clear just down the road from here.
But what a show so far we started off with a live chicken followed by a politician.
What's the rule?
You never let a follow kids or animals and showmen follow.
God, I'd love it if he did it.
But if you're going to, it may as well be followed up then by champions.
Exactly.
Exactly right.
Joining us via StreamYard just down the road because they are busy indeed.
They are from Fireside Productions.
BJ Hollars who has put on the show before talking about the great documentary when Robert Rubber hit the road.
Todd could talk there.
It was world premiere here at the Pablo Center.
We were up here for that and his production partner at Fireside.
Steve Dayton joined us via StreamYard.
BJ and Steve, thanks for coming on.
Thanks for having us.
Thank you for having us.
It's it's really really great number one again if people haven't seen when rubber hit the road It's a great documentary on the closing of the you know, you know, royal tire facility here in in Eau Claire just really quickly Has you got have you guys had more follow-up on that that is the DVD out still or what's the status on that great piece?
Yeah, it's all going great PBS Wisconsin is screening it and streaming it regularly so you can check it out on PBS Wisconsin any second of your day It's also on Amazon and you can pick up the DVD at our website fireside productions.com
Wow, that's great.
If people haven't seen it, I would really encourage it.
A, it's just a great film, number one.
But what a story, you know, Pat, you and I talked about this before of just the resilience of this community up here in Chippewa Falls.
Right, and I'm
absolutely certain that that resilience comes through in this as well.
And I noticed that you got a lot of gratitude for putting this together because it's a part of Eau Claire history that I think people feared was starting to be forgotten.
And you know what it's like to have to go back and try to tell a tale when there's nobody left to tell.
who actually lived it.
And so you've taken advantage of this opportunity.
It's going to be a permanent part of the culture
here.
Did you guys travel around that?
Have you heard similar comments?
Just, hey, thanks for preserving this history.
Yeah, it was a mixture of both.
Thanks for preserving this history and then around the Wisconsin of, you know, maybe I didn't know this story as well, but I also lived this story in some way.
So we kind of kept running into those comments.
Well, you're on to new projects as these things go in the art world.
Tell us about this latest project, what you guys are doing this weekend, and in conjunction with the Kube Championships.
It's a very exciting time in Eau Claire.
Of course, Eau Claire is the North American capital of Kube.
If you're familiar, Kube is a game born in kind of Sweden and these kind of places and it's come to America in part thanks to Eric Anderson and Eau Claire native.
And so all this weekend we will be filming the U.S.
National Kube Championship at the soccer parks here in Eau Claire to try to figure out who will be crowned king.
Our documentary will be called Kings of Kube and basically we spent the last year following four or so teams and a few other folks along
on the way to kind of figure out about this culture and the people and also the competitive spirit of it all.
I think this is fantastic.
We had Ken on the arc and we had Eric on the show yesterday talking about this.
And you know, I didn't know anything about it until you guys know my my sister or brother law.
They got me playing it up here in Eau Claire.
And you know, I think it's great.
There may be other people that might not be into it as much.
But I mean, what makes this a great story?
Yeah, I think the interesting thing about Kube is, you know, we have all played it in the backyard.
And then to go to Eau Claire Kube League and go to the championship and just see how much people are invested in this.
It's a lot of their entire lives.
This is their friend group.
This is their family.
This is what they do on weekends.
They travel many miles to do this.
This is who they are.
So it's ingrained into the people that play it.
And it's the people who heard the interview with Eric yesterday when he talked about the king as one of the pieces, you know, in Coop.
Yeah.
Those are the ones going, oh, I see what they did there.
Yeah, see, you get it.
You
get it.
See, we listened.
Yeah,
absolutely.
In the
shows I'm on, I listen to you.
I have to pay him extra, you know, a beer.
Well, sure.
I just wanted to follow up on
I think again, for some people that might not be from the Chippewa Valley, they might, A, might not know what Kube is, but I think we've all had those.
quirky passions, if I could call Kube a sort of a quirk, whether it's people who are into Czech chess.
I mean, these people are obsessed with chess and will travel all over.
Or, you know, there might be fishing people, for some people, fishing championships, just like, what's that?
But is the through line of a filmmaker for you guys, is it just this unique people, this human instinct, a drive and passion, no matter what the subject is?
For me, it absolutely is.
We're trying to kind of be these flies on the wall for this kind of microculture that people may know something about, but even if you don't know what Cuba is, even if you've never thrown a baton at all, you know what it means to be passionate, to be all in, to be a competitor, to want to win, to want to be the best you can be at something.
And what's so cool about Cuba and all these folks who play tell us this, this is their chance to be the best in the country at something.
And they can be 50 years old.
They can have just started three years ago.
They say, you know, don't have to be in the best shape of our lives.
But if you can do this one thing, if you can play this sport and it's not a game, it is a sport, you should ask them.
You can be the best in the world, or at least the best in the nation.
And it's pretty exciting to watch these folks can practice and train all year round for the opportunity to compete this weekend.
It's part of the attraction, it's obscurity in that it's a niche sport, not a lot of people play it.
And so you almost feel like one of the cool kids who gets to be in this thing that not everybody knows about.
I mean, I think yes.
And what's so cool is this community is very tight knit.
It's weird because last night we went to two Coupe parties and all the competitors there are making pizza, having a great time, kind of throwing batons together.
But in 24 hours from now, it's going to be a whole different ball game.
And these folks who are good friends all year round are going to be staunch competitors against one another.
They always say there's only one reason we're doing this and that's to win.
And so it's really cool to kind of see the bravado that can come out.
It's tricky to be.
friends, but also competitors.
And yet, you know, there's no referee.
They're kind of like doing this on their own.
And so there's a lot of gentlemen sports talk about the whole thing.
And it's really cool to see kind of passions on display, but also the honesty of just doing what's right for the game and for themselves.
We're talking with BJ Hollars and Steve Dayton from Fireside Productions, filmmakers who have done great productions like when Rubber hit the road here and other works as well.
They're working on their latest documentary on the Kube Championships taking place in Eau Claire this weekend.
Guys, maybe this is a premature question.
Maybe you don't know the answer to this yet.
I'm going to ask it anyway.
So we've been very fortunate at this show to kind of become friends with filmmakers Kelly Call and Sean Hannes who did the documentary.
on the Brewers just a bit outside the story of the 1982 Milwaukee Brewers who have been on this show a number of times.
And one of the things that Kelly and Sean have told us is it's not really a film, a documentary about sports.
It's really about a love story between a community and a team, a community who was going through a recession at the time in the early 80s and they needed something to believe in and this team of kind of misfits needed a city to uplift them.
What's the backstory or if you know what was so far?
What's this documentary?
It's not maybe just about Coob, but what's the real story here?
I would say that the story is about community.
It's about people connecting.
It's not the throwing the batons, but waiting to throw and those conversations that you have or in Eric Anderson's case, you know, raising two daughters and.
him being a big part of Coob and them finding love in it too, and those connections there.
So it's more about relationships than anything else.
Very much human interest, yeah.
Let's get past the happy stuff here.
This isn't like any sport.
There's going to be the heels.
There's going to be who's the New York Yankees?
Have
we gotten to the point where there is a team that is just almost unbeatable to the point that people almost either dread
playing them or they want the challenge to knock them off.
And if that's the case, do they get really full of themselves?
Are they humble champions?
Let's get all the gear done right
now.
This
is
where you get us in trouble.
I'm gonna get in big trouble.
I think most would say the greatest of all time, the goat is a guy who teaches in Chippewa.
He's a no-clerk guy named Greg Jockensen.
And this guy has his name on the staff trophy again and again.
Again, he's won multiple national championships, won world championships as well.
I mean, he's incredible.
And I think other teams fear him, you know?
And I think he likes that.
I think he likes the mystique.
And so he's been really generous with us and kind of shown us his full self.
But when he's on the pitch, I mean, he's there to win.
And I think everyone knows it and he doesn't miss a lot.
And it's just when you watch people at that level play this sport, I mean, when we play in the backyard, we hit a couple, we miss a couple.
They don't miss.
It is incredible, the level they are thinking about everything they do.
They call the game Viking chess.
And it's because it's strategic in so many ways, you know.
So watching him play and his whole team wrecking crew, they have one of their team members coming from Belgium.
They're quite the team and wanted to be feared this weekend.
It's called the
wrecking crew.
Yeah, yeah.
See, that's perfect.
That's
appropriate.
There it is.
Is it still?
what you'd call, you know, a street clothes type event or some people starting to, you know, that's good.
Yeah.
Uniforms has
it up.
Uniforms.
Yeah.
Is
there any bling involved in this?
That
one's
the bling.
He wants,
he
wants the birch.
You are going to get so much bling.
Is there a cape at three
points?
There's, so we're also following a team called the Coop Reapers and they may be the best dressed team out there.
They have the
Coop Reapers.
Coop
Reapers.
multiple jerseys.
They have
They have
hats, towels, stickers, postcards, you name it.
They have their own wrapping paper.
They're pretty good
too.
A couple minutes left here, guys.
I want to ask you a filmmaking question because in this new state budget that has passed, you know, bipartisan manner on this part, they just reinstituted.
It was there years and years ago under former Governor Tommy Thompson.
There's a new film office with some tax credits as filmmakers.
Is this does this mean anything?
Is this actually something that would would help you guys make films or is this just all political fluff?
Well, I think we're optimistic.
Nathan Deming is a guy here in town.
He's really helped lead the charge.
Probably the level we're producing films that it probably will have a huge impact right away, but certainly the idea of drawing new industry, new filmmakers to Wisconsin would be enormous.
My brother's a filmmaker out in Denver, and they have some tax credits, and that's why he's there, and that's how they do films, movies there.
Same with Atlanta, same with all the hubs.
So if Wisconsin can get in on that, it has great opportunities for other larger productions, maybe beyond what we're doing right now, but maybe one day we'll get there too.
And it does bring other
filmmakers outside of Wisconsin here and have
them
take a look.
Minnesota Hats had good luck with their film program, their film office.
So I think this is a really exciting time for us.
I think it's only
a rumor, but James Cameron.
as we're doing a sequel to Titanic.
Oh, right here.
I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,
I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,
I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,
I'm like,
I'm
Yeah, there's definitely a story about there's a movie called 100 Beavers and they're looking at making their next feature and with incentives that might be something that can get them to stay in Wisconsin and do that right here.
So little things like that are big wins.
Did we have someone on talking about hundreds of beavers before?
We
did, yes.
And I love that
movie.
I think that's absolutely hundreds of beavers.
What a name and what a great movie.
I mean, yeah, anyway.
So I think it's great for film.
A minute left here, so is there anything we have not asked you about this documentary on coob that you'd like people to know?
Well, what I would say first and foremost is if you're unfamiliar with CUBE, if you just want to check it out, this is the time.
So starting tomorrow at 8 a.m., come out to the soccer park on Hamilton Road, no clear of Wisconsin, or tomorrow or on Sunday to watch the final cage match.
You're going to have a great time.
All right, very good.
I believe Jerry Mathers is going to star in the sequel to hundreds of beavers.
Just a rumor.
Just a rumor.
All right, very good.
B.J.
Hollars and Steve Dayton of Fireside Productions.
Thank you so much, guys.
We really appreciate you.
And we'll be following you every step of the way.
Good luck.
Thanks guys.
See ya.
Thank you so much.
Come on back.
Pat and I are going to talk Northern Wisconsin State Fair after this.
We're live on location in Chippewa Falls on the Pacific media.
Welcome back to the Northern Wisconsin State Fair in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.
We are live on location across the Civic Media Ready Network title ball, along with our co-host, our friend, our colleague, Pat Critello, of Mornings with Pat Critello from every morning from six until nine across most of the stations here on the Civic Media Ready Network.
Coming up at the top of the hour,
at three o'clock, there'll be CBS ABC or James Kelly News, depending upon which station you're listening to, followed by a check of weather.
And then my Mike Clemens was sports.
Edward, come back with hour number two.
What?
You said the James Kelly News?
The James Kelly News.
That's what here we get here at the tap.
on every day in his fantastic.
And speaking of, you never know who's going to stop by the table at the northern Wisconsin, stay fair, none other.
And the flesh.
Our own James Kelly.
Well, to be fair, I was scheduled to be here.
Oh.
And it's so standard.
I didn't know this, but this is
fantastic.
I think it's fantastic.
We appreciate this entirely voluntary appearance you're making here for us, and not a hostage situation in the least.
How you doing, James?
I'm doing great.
I'm really enjoying some Brewer's baseball.
That song just made me think of Old Durham.
Jacob Mizierowski.
Oh
boy.
No, no, no.
For those that haven't listened before, the last time the three of us were together was at Pat's home, a beautiful lake with soda.
We did the show up there.
For those that don't know, James is a New Yorker from Long Island, a Biggie Yankees fan.
And I'm not, I'm not being goofy.
I haven't checked how the Yankees doing.
Oh, they're going through a bit of a rough patch right now.
But the Brewers, they're on fire.
Yeah, the Brewers, they're looking like they might end up winning the NL Central after all.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves here.
We got half a season to go yet.
Two games back now.
A game and a half.
Let's just enjoy the ride.
Well, it's great to see you.
Have you been here last year?
I was.
Yeah.
All right.
Because you've been here, what, over two years now?
Yeah, it's coming up on two years in August.
That's incredible.
So what's your favorite part of the Northern Wisconsin State Fair as a person who grew up in New York?
Well, for me out here, it's who you run into, obviously.
You find a governor candidate here.
And last year, when I was here, I ran into then-Senate candidate, Harry Covde, and got to ask him a couple questions.
Really?
Yeah, just luck of the day.
draw, you see people that you wouldn't normally see out and about out here.
That's
fantastic.
Eddie, what's your favorite fair food,
James Kelly?
Oh, my favorite fair food.
That's a tough one.
We have a Zeppelies back home for their Zeppelies.
Oh, I'm sorry.
What Zeppelies?
They're kind of like cannolis.
Oh, I love a good cannoli.
Yeah.
But those are great.
Those are a fair classic.
Well, when we get done here, Pat brought in some beautiful chocolate
chip here.
They got a bucket of cookies.
It's no cannoli, but you know.
We have cookies for you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're really underwhelmed by that one.
All right.
We lost with what
we got.
What else you got, Todd?
Well, you got this.
We had showman, Josh showman here on this show.
It was very kind of him to stop by.
More than Governor Evers is willing to do in our show.
He goes and talks to Pat, but he won't come on our show.
We put it in writing.
We said, Governor, we'd love to have you come on.
Not a word back.
Well, maybe he'll announce a third term run on your show.
or maybe he'll announce he's not running again on our show.
He'll say, he's doing that, he's doing it on Dan Sheffield.
No, actually it should be the other way around.
If he announces he's running again, he's gonna want Dan Sheffield right there.
100% Yes.
and say something like I'm running for a third term in your face, Schaefer.
Of course, our own Dan Schaefer political editor has written a column saying the governor should not run again.
James, you're following news all the time.
You're following one of the great things about civic media.
We're local community oriented.
Give us the what's the what's the thing that people are talking most about right now in Chippewa Valley in terms of a local news up here.
Well, this week, it really seems like road work.
I'm getting a lot of updates on projects that are coming up, especially in Dunn County.
There's going to be a lot of closures and you got
the Blatnik bridge reconstruction project ready to get underway up in superior.
So that's going to cause some lane closures as well in the next couple of weeks.
So it's a lot of road work right now.
Other than that, we have a emerald dashboard still spreading through the Northwest Wisconsin region and the city of Spooner is looking at some preventative treatment options.
So it could be something interesting to watch if it works, if it's affordable.
James comes on our show every Wednesday at seven or eight 50 to talk about some of the stories he's following.
And one of them this week is the new container park.
Yeah,
with old shipping containers being turned into cool.
What are they going to be turned into?
They're just kind of like vendor spaces.
Yeah, restaurants, kind of like stationary food trucks sort of
really for somebody of my age who grew up reading the boxcar children.
This is like whoever thought we'd be turning boxcars into the urban development of the future.
Well, it's another cool thing about the Chippewa Valley.
industrious, unique things, creative.
Yeah, I think that's pretty cool.
Yeah, the other big topic around here, the Kube Championships.
Yes, we were talking
about that.
Yeah, I will say, last year when they had the Kube Championships, I did a little story about it for the radio.
It happened to run into State Representative Jody Emerson at a press conference later that day.
This isn't a game that we really have a lot of in New York.
I found it in one place, Bryant Park in the city, and it was a ton of fun.
But we called it Cub.
That's just what we pronounced there.
Oh, well, in your Eastern accent.
I suppose.
Yeah, so I called it Cub on the newscast.
A little pause before the press conference.
She's like, by the way, it's Kube.
Kube.
I was like, oh man, I'm never going to hear the end of this.
She didn't chuck a baton at you as she said that?
No, no, no.
It was a friendly reminder.
She knew I was still new around here.
Oh, she threw it at me.
I mean, again, we're friends.
But friends do.
As one does.
Absolutely.
We're dead each other.
Well, this is fantastic.
I appreciate the news about the road work, because I was driving from here back to Eau Claire last night.
I thought the pavement had buckled, because what road were we on?
There actually was I-94, pavement buckling.
It was.
Northwest to Osceo, yeah.
Oh.
We're on the bypass or something like that.
That road work should have wrapped up this morning ish.
Oh, that's good news for us going get a lot of that around
here.
You know, bypass
and
suddenly you just click buckling and things expand.
The roads are kind of the same way around.
That's pavement buckling, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Well, always appreciate you.
People can find you here at the tap and WCFW.
You keep people up to date.
We appreciate that.
Thank you once again for all the hard work and thanks for stopping by.
We always appreciate
it.
Absolutely.
And I'll be here all evening.
Really?
Really?
So people could.
meet you.
Do you ever get like when people meet me and they say, oh, you look different in person.
No, I usually get the oh, now it's I can put a face to the name.
Oh, that's interesting.
You see the tall handsome dude like that.
That's what he hears.
What do we hear?
Oh.
Oh.
But you were on television, Pat.
People knew what you looked
like.
Yeah, but they also thought you're on TV.
You must be, you know, six, six-five.
All right.
Right.
And, you know, make a Tom Brokaw level salary.
Everyone looks taller on TV.
Yes.
You
know.
All right.
Well, James Kelly, our fantastic news person here in Northwestern Wisconsin.
Thank you, James.
Thanks for coming.
Stay tuned next time.
We're going to do some What's Worse.
Also, talking to Ken Samanski and Food with Pat Krightlow and Todd.
Don't go anywhere.
This is the Northern Wisconsin State Fair from Chippewa Falls.
Live on the Civic Beach.
video ready to work.
On location, it's the Todd Alba show.
And now, pursuing truth wherever it may lead, here's your host,
Todd Alba.
afternoon everybody title ball here live on location for the Northern Wisconsin State Fair in the Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin in its Friday.
T G I F the 11th of July 2025.
It is a great day to be Wisconsinite along with her guest cohost, our friend or colleague, the host of mornings with Pat Crite low every morning from six until nine across most of these stations.
The one the only Pat Crite low, but
let's.
Let's be honest.
Yes, I'm just I'm just a you know, a two day stand for you.
I mean, you, I am just the beginning of Todd's excellent adventure on the road across Wisconsin, along with Jane and Greg.
I will be replaced by Jane.
It takes two of them to replace me.
You know,
you're no her key to Hawkeye.
I'll put it that way.
That's inside.
That's inside baseball right there.
But yes, this is
This is the first of our big weeks on the on the road path.
And I appreciate you being here for two days and helping us kick that off.
You're right next week.
Jane Matenair and Greg Baca Matenair on air and I are going to go from Oshkosh to Butternut to Hayward Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
I just imagine the three of you on like the Partridge family bus Trust me.
That's maybe that may be our mode of
transportation.
I've told I've told our audience in the morning You're gonna you're gonna want to stick around not just to hear what's happening in these places where they go put the stories of how they get there Exactly.
I'll look at that.
Hang on here.
What were you able to hold on to that with one hand?
That is 25 pounds of funnel cake.
It looks like
now look here our on-site producer the lovely and talented Heather all-volk lawyer.
Yes, my sister
has gone out and brought Pat and I some fair food.
Heather, what have you got for us?
Hold it close.
We've got a funnel cake for you like fresh.
funnel cake poured in.
It's going to burn your hand and your mouth.
Don't burn your face off.
I'll try not to.
So, thank you.
I
thought
over
here away from all
the electronic equipment.
Yeah, all right.
Front of me.
Sure.
One of the great things about the fair, the whole funnel cake, right?
It is one of my favorites.
It is.
How are you a funnel cake
fan?
Uh, you know, I don't get it very often and I'm looking at all the powdered sugar on there, realizing
I
may not.
God,
we're talking about two other things
here.
Yes, but I mean, it's basically, it's one very long mini donut.
It's just
wrapped around and around and around it and sugar and oil and dough.
What else do you need?
Well, I mean, cheese, but other than that.
It's part of the fair.
Yes.
Yeah.
All right.
Nothing wrong with that.
Nothing wrong about it at all.
All right.
Heather, again, all seriousness, thank you for you and Mike and for helping out because we could not have done this the last two days without you guys.
So thank you.
Mopping up my spilled lemonade yesterday.
And
just the roadie.
Yes, you're more than
that.
Very good one.
We appreciate that.
All right.
Thank you very much, Heather.
We appreciate it.
We will check back in with her a little bit later on.
Pat, we've had such a busy show here.
We have more coming up here in just a bit.
Our colleague Mike McCabe from our sister station up here at WCFW 105.7 FM is going to be along talking about what happens musically here in the Chippewa Valley.
And we're also going to talk with Ken Samansky, great author.
It's going to be here with a new book talking to him.
Pat, we forgot about.
I know you didn't.
this morning on your show, Free Ticket Friday.
I didn't think you forgot.
I thought you were just building up the anticipation.
Oh, we should
have
covered my missteps.
Yeah, let's go with that.
All right.
Time once again for Free Ticket Friday giveaway.
Let's go.
That's right.
It's time for free ticket Friday.
Give away your chance to win for beautiful.
tickets to the Milwaukee Brewers game in our beautiful club level seats.
It's not just their basic seat.
Pat and I have been there before.
They're
beautiful seats, Pat.
Wonderful seats.
In fact, I recently secured tickets to a game in the not-too-distant future.
Very
good.
And I
will be attending.
And you're going to want to be in these
seats.
It's the club level.
If it's a hot day, don't worry.
There's a air-conditioned concourse right behind you.
Bathrooms just for that club level.
They're beautiful seats.
And this is for a game.
Yes this coming Sunday July 13th against the Washington Nationals at 2 10 p.m.
That's the catch You must be able to go to this game on Sunday at 2 10 p.m.
You cannot exchange it for the game So that's the key to that so if if we're ready mr. Zomerance here So you do you download the civic media app folks if you don't have it on your Apple or Android device open it up
First 11 stations are the ones that were on choose the one closest to you click on it on the lower right-hand side It'll say text click on that and now we're going to give you the word of the hour Text the following word on the civic media app to be eligible.
The word is pitch P I T Z H The word is pitch.
Really they gave you that word?
Yes
He is the P, as in
pitch.
He is Paul, I-T-C-H.
That is the word, as a matter of fact, this time.
Text the word pitch right now, and at the end of this hour, a computer will randomly choose someone, and you will win four tickets for this Sunday's game, July 13th, against the Nationals at Amfam Field in Milwaukee at 2-10.
How about that?
Can you do anything before the robot overlords pick one?
Can you help your odds at all?
Can you put like an emoji after the word pitch?
No, don't
do that
because the computer...
Do not do
because you'll have no chance at all.
Can you attach a dollar bill?
No, nothing.
You have to spell it correctly because if it were up to Pat 9, we'd say, well, that's cute.
That's interesting.
And we choose you.
But we are not in charge of computers.
By letting
the robots do it, it's completely random.
Yes, completely random.
Just the word.
And so P-I-T-C-H, text the word pitch right now on the Civic Media app to be eligible for those free Ticket Friday giveaways.
And
you know what?
How about
that?
It's a statewide contest.
Ha ha.
Thank you the attorney the attorneys of the 12th floor will come down on me if I don't even on the road They're listening.
So, uh, yes.
Thank you Zommer's it is a statewide contest and Pat and I are statewide here up here in northern Wisconsin talking about the northern Wisconsin State Fair
Great so far, right?
It's been awesome.
Yes.
I mean come on We you brought a live animal to the start of the show.
That's right barbershop quartet yesterday We have to kick you out of here.
We don't know what you do next We can't fit a marching band in here, but you could pull it off if you
wanted to do it.
There's there's dancers coming up in hour three.
Oh, wait a minute.
We don't have an hour three.
That's right.
It's still just me.
That's right.
As it turns out.
Uh alright.
So now text the word pitch P I T C H to the Civic Media app.
Alright.
We have the business out of the way.
We're going to do two things simultaneously because Todd forgot an hour one about the tickets but uh it is now eleven.
Make it thirteen minutes past the hour of three o'clock.
Time once again for what's worse.
Here we
go.
time once again
for what's worse.
No prize money involved here.
Nothing to give away on this part of it, but we could give away a funnel cake, but it is your chance to be heard across all 11 news talk sports stations in the civic media world.
No better place to advertise than the civic media network.
Go to civicmedia.us to find out how you can be a partner and we would love to have you.
All right, this category today, Pat, timely, timely indeed, there's a little overcast, but it's hot up here, hot up here, but not overly hot.
That time of year, if you're gonna be out on Lake Wissoda, you wanna make sure that you have your sun screen on, but in the winter, Lake Wissoda could get very nippy.
So today's category, what's worse, sunburn.
or frostbite sunburn or frostbite.
Give us a call 855-752-4842-855-752-4842.
You could also text us a response on the old Civic Media app as well if you'd like to do that.
Pat, sunburn, or frostbite.
The thing about Lake Wissota is you could get both if you're ice fishing on a particularly sunny but cold day.
Right?
It could happen.
People
don't think about that.
Actually, I don't know if that could happen.
I should ask Dr. Kratlow when she gets back in here.
Yes, he's lovely, intelligent life.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
No, I think that's true because people in winter, I've known people that gone downhill skiing in particular, higher, like out west, and they come back sunburn.
You're just in the middle of the winter.
And it's because they don't take care of this.
skin in the winter yeah I
mean and I I accidentally gave myself a severe sunburn a couple years back in the
winter
no but that but even even with that I would still say frostbite's worse for me all right
so so Pat is saying that but I'm also
fearing the unknown I've never had frostbite so it just strikes me as something
It strikes me as something out of, what was that Jack London book to build a fire?
You know, absolutely.
I don't want to freeze to death just for the purposes of having a good book.
No, you don't want that.
We have an author coming up with a good book in a bit,
so we'll talk.
Jack London's here?
Yes, Jack London, that's right.
855-752-4842.
855-752-4842.
Let's go to Cam listening in Appleton.
Cam, thanks for calling in on a Friday.
Sunburn or frostbite, what's worse?
Hey guys, thanks for taking my call.
I I would say frostbite and my reason is that I watched a show a long time ago called love death robots and in one of the scenes there's an astronaut that gets stuck out in the middle of space and she doesn't have anything to push her back to her ship so she breaks open her suit and Exposes her arm to get it all frostbitten and frozen and then breaks it off so she could throw it
so she can get back to the ship.
And ever since then
it's... Lord!
Cam, what are you watching?
I was gonna say what's
worse.
Love, Death and Robots is a very
morbid show.
What cams watching I can't take care, but I appreciate the in-depth research there Thank you cam very much.
What words Sun bite or Sun bite Sun burn or frost bite 8 5
5 sorry I got that
visual just I
know it's like a big old Barbie doll you rip the arm off You're beating somebody over the head with it.
It's This one in a different direction
entirely entirely
8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
What's worse, sunburn or frostbite, you could also text us on the old Civic Media app.
Download it for free, your Apple or Android device.
You ever get frostbite?
not where I had to like have medical I've had to get really really red and I've never gotten like the gray stuff like where you get really dangerous is like the frostbite your skin turns gray and you can't feel it all but I've gotten it where you had to like kind of soak hands or toes put it in you don't want to put it in warm water like cool water and you get that tingly so I have had that have you had
that?
I know and that's the thing I would not would not like to do that although I can't imagine why I would end up with any exposed skin out there I'm a you know I'm a baby I'm not like Bud Grant when I'm not like
playing shirtless out there, you know, with Fran Tarkington as your quarterback.
I actually need a jacket on.
Right, right.
Pat's idea of being outside in the winter is, you know, just getting wood to bring in and to burn, right?
Absolutely.
I don't know.
What's mom?
Mom, this.
Oh, very good.
We want to come over and say hi.
We have this a great part about this show.
How are you?
I'm fine.
Thank you.
Absolutely.
Tell folks your name.
What are you doing
here?
Oh, well, I'm Linda Norton, and I'm with the Eau Claire County Dems, and we were just singing over here.
I don't know if you... You were the
ones who were singing.
The singing
was from the Democratic Booth?
On the other side of the building
here?
Yeah, we started our own... After the raging grannies in Madison, we started our own group.
We're called the Sassy Grannies.
The
Sassy...
All right.
I love
that.
This
is a new group and I listen to you every day.
Oh, thank you very much.
Civic media.
Well, how cool is that?
And you listen to Pat, too, I assume.
Yes, I know.
And when we go to our rallies downtown, I wear my civic media shirt and I wear a carry a sign that says 93.5.
Oh my gosh.
That's fantastic.
All I do.
Well, thank you very much for stopping by.
We appreciate
it.
Nice to meet
you.
Nice to meet you as well.
Have a wonderful day.
Thank
you.
All right.
Thank you very much.
Look at that, folks.
You never know who you're going to run to in the northern Wisconsin State Fair.
Come on back and talk to more friends here, including Mike McKay WCFW.
Don't go anywhere.
You're listening to the title ball show live from the northern Wisconsin State Fair in Chippewa Falls on the Civic Media radio network.
Pursuing truth wherever it may lead and having fun doing it.
Welcome back to Toddball Show on the Pacific Media Radio, where we're live on location at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.
Pat has taken a little hike around the, there's a loop here.
He's going to get more food right now.
We're enjoying one of these wonderful funnel cakes right here.
Gonna get to our next guest though in just a minute.
But first of all, I'll do a little clean up on aisle two on our what's worse today, sunburn or frostbite, a couple of collars, a summer suit we have next.
First up, we have Jack from Merrimack.
All right, Jack and Merrimack, thanks for calling in and WMDX in Madison.
Jack, sunburn or frostbite, what's worse?
First of all, you can get
Sunburn, regardless of the temperature, because it's ultraviolet from the sun, and I've climbed mountains all over the world.
You wear sunblock when you're doing the glacier climbing, because that will reflect right off the ice and give you a nasty sunburn if you're not careful.
My personal opinion, after having life guarded for six years professionally,
is sunburn is the worst I'm not having any problem other than in cold weather my nose which has been frostbitten in the mountains.
That does give me some discomfort in the cold but I've actually had to have certain symptoms and skin removed because of the sunburn.
Oh my gosh, well
Jack
that's terrible.
Yeah.
Appreciate the call.
Jack, come up against the clock here today.
Always appreciate your call there.
Thanks, Jack.
Let's go quickly to Angie and Monroe.
Beautiful Green County Angie.
Thanks for calling in sunburner frostbite.
What's worse?
I'm seeing frostbite because frostbite can last forever.
Just like the sunburn apparently, like the other guy was saying, but a few years ago it was like 60 below.
I had to feed a horse out in the barn that was old took forever.
three pairs of socks and and uh winter boots and I'm telling you my toes are still cold and it was painful just painful so I just I I think it's frostbite because of the pain.
Thanks,
Angie.
I really
appreciate the call.
We'll finish up what's worse a little bit later.
But first of all, our colleague here at WCFW 105.7 in the beautiful Chippewa Valley, a legend up here in this area.
And we're so happy to have you at the table.
Mike McKay joins us.
Mike, we'll ask you what's worse, Frostbite or Sunburn?
I've got to go with Frostbite.
It's got to be, because Sunburn is.
you got to use sunscreen.
I mean, that's all there is to it, but frostbite.
I had a cousin of mine actually that had problems with frostbite.
Really?
And it was it does last forever.
Yeah, you don't want to mess with that at all.
Oh, absolutely.
Well, thanks for playing our little stupid, stupid things here on the show.
It's great to be here, Todd.
It's really, really
nice to have you here at the northern Wisconsin State Fair.
It's my second year I came up here last year because quite low.
So you got it up here and my sister, a brother of law, live in Eau Claire, but I've never been here until last year.
So
so many things to do.
Yeah, what year is this more or less for you for the northern
Wisconsin?
Let me see.
I've been in the Chippewa Valley for 30 years, so.
30 yeah,
yeah
every year
and lots of we talked with the rusty bulk yesterday So many changes in upgrades here to make this a real quality event
You know, that's the thing when you if I go back 30 years ago when I first got here the stage was a fourth of the size that it is now You know all the buildings with the farm animals and things were all old and small and they have done some amazing things in rusty
is just an incredible guy.
What a vision he's had over the years.
He's going to be missed.
He's got big.
shoes to fill, but you know, good for him.
He gets to retire and enjoy himself.
So
he's absolutely a great guy.
Tell us a little bit, Mike McKay, about our sister station up here at WCFW 105.7, the FM side, the music side.
We're on the talk side, but WCFW is speaking to legends.
That's a station that people know and appear for generations.
Yeah, the call letters actually the station itself 105.7.
Has been on the air.
I think it's almost 50 years.
Yeah, the original radio station was put on and it was just until a couple of years ago was owned by the original owner He ran it himself out of his home And it was just a it's iconic call letters iconic radio station and to be a part of it
It's been really fun the last year and a half for me and to be part of civic media in this format and 80s and 90s music.
It's really a lot of fun and the stuff that I play is stuff that I actually played when I first got into radio back in the early 80s and I was doing top 40 radio.
So it's full circle for me.
So I love it.
Yeah, it's really
where we're so fortunate to have someone who truly is.
I don't use this lightly alleged in this area, but a radio for so long.
People know your voice.
I know your name.
They trust you.
And to me, that's what civic is so much about.
is having people locally in these communities that folks and listeners can trust.
Yeah and I think that's what it is.
That's what it's all about and that's what I try to be on the air.
Who I am on the air is who I am off the air and I know so many people and businesses and business owners and people in the Chippewa Valley and so it's great when you know a few years ago when my other radio job ended and
I was looking around.
I had a lot of offers to go to other places, but this has been home for us for a long time.
So it was just, you know, let's just stay here and see what happens.
And this opportunity came along and I couldn't be happier.
Really.
We're really pleased to have you.
I'm really honored.
And the great thing is now with the Civic Media app, even if you
don't
live in the Chippewa Valley
area,
you can hear via the Civic Media app.
Just go to 107.4.5.7 WCFW.
You can listen to you every day.
Yeah, it's great.
And we invite people to check out all the stations on Civic Media.
all on that app.
And I like the little microphone button that's on there and it's talk back so you can talk to us if people can send us a voicemail.
So it's great.
And just connecting with the listeners is what it's all about.
It's still fun.
About 30 seconds left.
Anything I haven't asked you want to say?
No, I think other than I did not get the memo that I was supposed to have the big elephant ears here.
I
got plenty of you want to bite.
Look at that.
That's enough for a family.
I mean, that's what it's all.
about so no it's been great I appreciate the time to stop on in here and I know people were we're happy to and excited to see you here too doing your show you're
here tonight at the booth I'm hanging out here for a little while yeah so if you want to stop by today and meet Mike McKay you can do that and we're giving away a great trip to Chula Vista Resort you can sign up for that all kinds of fun Mike McKay thank you so much for being
here great to be here Todd
thanks our pleasure you can listen to him every day at 105.7 FM and on the Civic Media app Mike McKay everybody come on back Pat's gonna come back with
even more food.
I'm going to have to go on white watchers at some point.
And we're all going to visit with our friend Ken Samansky, a local author of the Northern Wisconsin State Fair.
All balls show across Wisconsin.
Butterfly in the sky.
I can go twice as high.
Take a look.
It's in a book.
A reading rain.
show and be civic media ready to work real live on location.
Beautiful Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin at the northern Wisconsin State Fair.
We're going to talk about reading in just a moment.
Zommer's back.
The old world world headquarters down in Madison, Wisconsin, spending the tunes.
We are here at Chippewa Falls along with my cohost last couple of days.
You can hear him every morning on mornings with a conveniently named Pat Crite low.
Pat Crite low every morning from six until I say that because for a long time his show is called something else and I go on.
he was kind enough, he was desperate, you understand?
He had to kill a couple of minutes.
He said, well, would you come on?
And then he introduces me as the conveniently named Todd Allball show.
And now that his name is in this show, I just like to enraze him.
I'm trying to decide if we were really that desperate that we need this all the time.
not actually that desperate.
Okay, all right.
Not racing.
I disagree with that, by the way.
Reading Rainbow.
That's what we play when we have author Laura Bird on.
Oh, do you really?
We'll be on our morning show later this month on the 28th.
Talking about books for the outdoors lovers.
Books
about
the outdoors.
That's fantastic.
I mean, again, one of the things I love when you meet different people is talented folks and authors.
I'm a big believer in books.
I think I
Learn not just school books, but reading other books.
It takes you places sometimes Pat You can't always afford to go to when you're younger.
Yes, exactly although I did see a funny video on on Instagram about Kind of an older person mocking the younger folks who have all these Fluffy TV shows and everything is not non-conflict saying when we grew up with the books We had where the red fern grows red badge of courage old Yeller
I mean, we didn't, we didn't have reading class.
We survived reading class.
I'm
just saying there was
nothing but death and
doom and gloom and all these things.
Have you ever read The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck?
I have not.
One of my favorite all time books.
We died in that one.
I don't want to give it away.
Oh,
okay.
Don't sell the land.
That's the story.
That's the the the
the lesson there.
All right, let's get to our next guest here.
Speaking of authors, he has been on this program.
In fact, last time we did the show up here last summer when we did it with our friend, Jane McNair, Mr. Ken Samansky, who is an author here.
He is also an educator.
Ken, welcome back to the program and welcome to the Northern Wisconsin State Fair.
Hey, thanks.
Great to be back.
It's really, really a pleasure for those that might not have heard the show last year.
Tell folks a little bit about yourself, your background and how you came to be a published author.
All right, I've been a teacher for 30 years.
I teach English, eighth grade English at DeLong Middle School.
I've been writing ever since I was 13.
I sat down with a spiral notebook in my parents kitchen table and wrote a choose your own adventure book.
I was naive enough to think that I could do that.
And that's what I found that I love about middle schoolers is they have that naive confidence.
And you can accomplish a lot as an artist when you've got that naive confidence.
So I've tried to hold on to that.
And I've kept writing my whole life.
And in 2020, I was named the Eau Claire writer-in-residence, which means I'm an ambassador for writer writing and an ambassador for Eau Claire through the act of writing.
So I've published three books.
I've got one coming out next week.
It's called Summertime Souvenirs.
And you talked about the gloom and doom in the books you read.
This is the opposite of that.
This is a feel good book.
Great,
that's great.
What made you choose or the name or the subject matter of summer time souvenirs?
All these books have a summer theme to them.
And why do you buy a souvenir?
It's because you want to remember something about that vacation.
But every souvenir has a story behind it.
And so these stories are things that I want to remember.
So it's like souvenirs in the form of stories.
Wow, I love it.
The book's coming out next week.
Where can they find it?
That'll be at volume one local store.
and maybe a couple other locations around town.
I try to avoid the Amazon and the national sites and really just keep everything with this book local.
Well, I think that's fantastic.
Right now it's in it's in proof form.
Just a whole
bunch of loose pages with one paper clip.
Yep.
That is the only copy that exists.
Really?
Well, but here it
is, ladies and gentlemen, right here at the Old Northern Wisconsin State Fair.
Can I want to leave you enough time because you've been so kind as to give us a sample here live on the air of this new book called Summertime Souvenirs.
Give Ken Samansky a little time here.
He's going to read a portion of this and we'll come back and talk about it.
Here is Mr. Ken Samansky.
All right, this story is called Stop the Ride.
Before the Tilt-A-Whirl unleashes its madness, the announcer offers this reassurance.
If at any time you want to exit the ride, give the two thumbs down signal and the operator will bring the ride to a stop.
Though the ride hasn't even begun, I'm already woozy.
Here at Como town in st.
Paul my seven-year-old son Keegan is not afraid to ride the rides But he is scared to ride them alone.
I'm his only companion So if I don't ride the rides with him, he won't ride at all This will be my fifth ride of the day.
I Have a wobbly history with carnival rides
Even decades later, I can recall the trauma scenes, the octopus at Thorpe's June Dairy Days, the tempest at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair, and the zipper at Spooner Rodeo Days, where I was trapped for an extra cycle due to an unloading oversight.
Simply put, I don't like spinning violently in circles and neither does my stomach.
So far on this day, there were chinks in my armor.
The circular swings, rising and dropping made my legs weak, especially the second time.
The T-Cups, believe it or not, were worse.
Put me on a big budget roller coaster, send me zip lining, bungee jumping or skydiving, all pale in comparison to the spinning brutality of the T-Cups.
We take a break for some cotton candy which helps get the motion sickness aftertaste out of my mouth But I tell Keegan no to many donuts in this land of excess.
I must draw the line somewhere That's when we walk past the tilt the world Dad I want to go on that he says Fearing another june dairy day's incident.
I ask can you go on this one by yourself?
He shakes his head Thinking back my own father didn't go on carnival rides with me
I have a hard time picturing him at an amusement park, actually, unless he's standing there, completely unamused, maybe smoking a cigarette, not gruff, just ready to leave.
Any time now, former farmer, factory worker, and Korean War veteran, this wasn't really his scene.
Dad died eight months after Keegan was born, but for those eight months, he showed his goofier side.
Despite the dementia brought on by Alzheimer's disease, Dad would transform with his new grandson on his lap.
Bring the baby in for a good 15 minutes or sometimes longer.
Dad emerged from the fog, fully alert, engaging, and comical.
We called it the surge.
Dad would carry on with ridiculous facial expressions and hilarious one-way banter, anything for a laugh from his new grandson.
Now seven years later Keegan and I are buckled into the Tilt-A-Whirl and the announcer is giving the two thumbs down speech.
As we get up to speed the ride stays true to its name and we tilt and whirl and whirl and whirl.
I feel awful.
I want to give the sign but I can't do that in front of my son.
He'd never forget the day I stopped the Carnival ride and we walked off in humiliation.
I try to focus on one fixed point for the illusion of stability, but it's impossible when whirling around like this.
I'm in trouble.
Slamming from side to side, I want to give the sign.
Would the operator even see me?
Just a blur inside this spinning dome of doom.
I must give the sign.
I'm going to lose my lunch.
I try to give the sign, but I can no longer lift my arms.
My stomach slogs around like a washing machine, and now the operator cranks it up to the whiplash cycle.
Meanwhile, Keegan howls with joy.
Finally, the ride slows down.
The ride stops.
It feels inevitable.
I'm going to throw up.
I lift the safety bar.
Don't puke on the ride, I tell myself.
Get away from the ride.
I zigzag down the stairs.
Behind me, Keegan yells, let's do that again.
I search for privacy, stagger next to the mini donut stand and drop to my hands and knees.
I worry about what Keegan is thinking, 90 miles from home and the only person he knows is half collapsed on the black top.
I pull a $5 bill from my wallet and hand it to him.
Faking calm I ask, you want some mini donuts?
Here, go get some mini donuts.
He shakes his head, confused and scared.
A young couple walks past, points at me and laughs.
Then I hear a voice Perhaps it is just my pride or paternal instincts or maybe it is my late father The voice says get up.
Don't let him see you like this Like a knock-down boxer trying to prevent the fight from being called off.
I lurched my feet down but not out After a few minutes we sit on a bench and eat mini donuts together
Each bite is a temporary relief from the seasick aftertaste.
On the drive home, my nurse is strawberry smoothie.
We're buckled in, my stomach is still not amused, but we're on cruise control now.
The road curves, dips, and rises again.
I stay focused on the horizon, something far off to keep us steady on the good ride home.
Mr. Ken Samanski from his forthcoming book,
Summertime souvenirs.
Incredible.
Thank you, Ken.
Thank you
story.
Thank you.
I just think that's a so well written and great to hear it read by by the author.
But isn't that the story that could be retold Pat from from million parents or grandparents or or aunts or uncles other kids, whether it was a northern Wisconsin State Fair or or Minnesota
and you don't expect to have a tale of generational differences until you've crossed that line and you're there and you see that it's your kids and now my grandkids and we we didn't do that for our kids.
Yeah, the
way that
Those parents have to do it for their kids, and you realize you have a story that the next generation can't tell.
And now you've put them on paper to share them.
Yeah, and my hope is, is when people hear these, it reminds them of stories that they had with their parents, or things that they've forgotten about.
And then my stories trigger those moments in them, and they're thinking about things they hadn't thought about in a long time, and realizing that they have a lot of valuable memories too, and it doesn't have to be monumental.
moments in life to be important.
It can just be little things.
I mean, to this day, I still know the difference.
I've never smoked a day in my life, but I know the difference between Benson and Hedges and Salem because one grandparent smoked one brand and
the other
did the other.
And that's something that will never leave my head.
Yeah.
Even though I haven't smelled you, they're one of them, thank God, in many, many years.
But again, those are the moments from.
your childhood that you can build a story around?
Yeah, I mean, Ken, you know my sister and brother-in-law, you know, well, and Heather and I are dealing with our dads going through an era of dementia now.
And a lot of these stories, when you realize that, oh, that's not available anymore to be retold, because sometimes you hear your parents or grandparents say these things, 100, it's like, oh, geez.
But then when you can't hear them again, it just puts a different vibe on it.
Yeah, and part of the souvenir, you want to preserve it, you want to hold on to it.
Summer is fleeting and it always goes too fast and life is the same way and this is just an attempt to hold on to some of those best moments and Something that you can look back on and feel good and the reader can feel good too.
Yeah, absolutely
I know there's another story about the northern Wisconsin State Fair is a little longer than what we have time for today But there is a story in there specifically about this event, right?
Right.
It took place four years ago today It just popped up in my Facebook memories.
Yes when my wife and kids accidentally snuck into the blue oyster cold concert and I was stuck in traffic and chip when I was missing it
That's the cowbell.
Right.
They were in there just for one song and it was Don't Fear the Reaver.
Of course it was.
And is it true that the cover of the book has a photo of the Northern Wisconsin State Fair?
Yes, on
my sticker.
You can barely see it.
But we're looking for pictures for the cover and we ended up using one that I took here on my phone.
I just have to photo and it ended up being the perfect cover for the photo.
I really think,
Pat, that again, what Ken is doing here, this embolizes what a lot of
whether or the Wisconsin State Fair is for a lot of people, you create memories here.
Yeah, and it's not static.
It changes as we learned yesterday, you know, from Rusty Volk and little drips and drabs, but over time, you go, wow, there's been so much that's different.
but the memories remain.
And that's the part that it's great to capture and it's great to share.
Absolutely.
We're going to come back and talk a little bit more.
Ken to share one of his great stories, morning announcements make you feel good to end the show.
Pat and I are going to wrap it up another year here at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair.
Don't go anywhere.
It is the towel ball show live from Chifua Falls across Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio
Network.
Welcome back to the Tahleball show live on location here at Chippewa Falls, the northern Wisconsin State Fair on the Civic Media Ready Network.
It takes eight minutes before the hour of four o'clock.
What do they play soccer on?
A pitch.
Oh, look how smooth.
That's an award winning broadcaster right there.
Never
won
an award.
Don't you have it on television?
No, no.
Well, you should.
I will nominate her next year.
All right.
Thank you very appreciate it.
The the word of the hour as Pat alluded to there is pitch P I T C H for those four Milwaukee Brewer's tickets.
You can be eligible for the next seven minutes by texting P I T C H on the Civic Media app for Brewer's tickets up for grabs and our free ticket Friday P.
I. T. C. H. Pitch.
Text the word right now.
Coming up at the top of the hour.
A. B. C. C. B. S. and James Kelly News.
Wouldn't be great if James Kelly did the news
here at the
point.
I
had no idea that you were referring to it as the James Kelly News.
Yes, the James Kelly
News at the top of the hour for some of our listeners here at the Chippewa Valley.
And then it is our weather forecast with Brittany Malau and her team, our great sports reporter, Mike Clemens, talking about those red hot Milwaukee Brewers against the Nationals.
And then the Maggie Dawn Show every afternoon between
four and six, followed by Pete Schwabba and Nightlight.
Right now, Pat Crite Lodi are joined at the desk by author and teacher as well.
Here, Ken Samanski has a brand new book coming out called Summertime Souvenirs coming out this Wednesday.
Well, more on that.
Glad to have you here, Ken.
One of the other great things that you do here, your administrator or just an English teacher.
And you did morning announcements and you put together these inspiration.
things you've read it to us before.
Tell us just quickly about this.
Yeah, so with the morning announcements, the first bell rings and you get the lunch menu and the pledge of allegiance than any other announcements.
And I just tried to add in these one minute stories and they all have to end with the phrase make it a great day and they've got to be about a minute long.
But just things I've noticed about certain staff members that might teach the kids a lesson.
Alright, here's a morning announcement for the afternoon by Ken Samansky.
All right.
During a hot September practice, DeLong soccer players were running sprints across the field, but a few of the boys weren't giving it their all.
Maybe it was the heat and the humidity.
Perhaps it had been a long week.
But after a couple of reminders to hustle, a frustrated coach Chang blew the whistle and gathered the team.
The boys knew what was coming.
We're not running these sprints to punish you, coach Chang said.
It is to condition you for the game.
If we are tied in the fourth quarter, the team that can still run will win.
He let that sink in and continued.
Now if you guys play your hardest and come up short, your coaches have no problem with that.
But if you know you could have tried harder, then you let your team down.
So you can't be practicing how we have to say it half donkey.
Because what do we always say happens in the game when you practice half donkey?
The players grinned and responded in unison.
You play half donkey.
So whether it's sports practice or schoolwork, don't be a donkey.
Instead, be a stallion.
Gallop at full speed and make it a great day.
Ken Samanski,
warning announcements.
I love it, Ken.
It just makes you feel better, right?
positivity.
You always bring positivity to this show.
Thanks for being one of our great educators in our public schools here in the Eau Claire school system.
You guys just do you do Yulman's work.
Appreciate everything you're doing, Ken.
Alright, thank you.
Appreciate being here.
Well, your new book coming out summer times, Souvenirs.
We'll keep plugging that and talking about that.
Welcome back on the show anytime.
Thanks, Ken.
Alright,
thank
you.
Really appreciate it.
Ken Samanski, everybody.
Glad to have him here.
And of course, glad to have our friend and colleague Pat Crite.
What a couple of days, Pat.
It's been fantastic.
Before we run out of time, many thanks to Kaley High, who brought in her chicken soup.
So thanks to Kaley and Sue for coming in.
And her boyfriend, Rudy, as well, was here.
We forgot to call him out.
I feel like you were trying to top Pigeon Quest on our show.
Yeah, I know.
Pigeon's every Wednesday.
You come up with a live chicken.
Well, it's just it's one chicken.
Many thanks also to Josh Showman, the Washington County executive.
candidate for governor for stopping by BJ Hollars and Steve Dayton from Fireside Productions on their new documentary on Coob.
Of course, Ken Samansky, our own James Kelly was here as well.
Thanks to him and our own Mike McKay from WCFW.
And of course, Heather and Mike and Mama Linda for for helping out on the
show.
Still here and has just been going to town on the cookies.
She loves a good cookie.
I know.
Is she a good cookie baker?
She's a fantastic
cookie.
She makes really good chocolate chip cookies.
Her favorite
thing I think they had there.
I like the homemade apple pie in the fall.
Homemade apple pie.
That's great.
Yeah, it's really, really good.
Absolutely.
All right.
Pat, any final reflections here on the northern Wisconsin State fair as we wrap
it up for another year?
If I could, I would shout this fair from the rooftops to everybody.
Like I said yesterday, it's the Goldilocks affairs.
Not too big, not too small.
It is just the perfect thing that you can cover in a full day or come out a couple of days in a row.
I heard, you know, Rusty Volk say yesterday, one of the first things he noticed was that people were only coming for one day, and he wanted people to come back.
And so over the 17 years that he's been running the fair, they've added different attractions, changed things around, and you gotta love that, because you know, we've all been to things where they get comfortable, you know, they get complacent, and they don't update things.
And here they do, but not in such a large way that they lose their character.
And it just makes us such a wonderful community.
It's one of the best parts about being in Wisconsin is when you have people that want to come together, make a fair or an event like that happen.
I mean, when we can even attract high priced major market radio talent like Todd Alba to come to our little fair.
I'm telling you, we're doing something right here.
But none of that's true, especially
the high priced.
But it's just a lot of fun.
Look at all the lights and you cost us a lot.
You are a high dollar.
Oh, you meant
pay.
The LED you ask.
But thank you all seriously.
It was great hanging out with you and your lovely wife, Sherry.
Dr. Krightlow, to me.
It's great to have her along.
Thanks to the family here for doing this, to Rusty Volk, for our entire team at WCFW, and also on 93.5, the tap up here for helping do all of this.
We really appreciate it.
And the Northern Wisconsin State Fair is definitely some in my book, Pat, that makes Wisconsin great.
Oh, without a doubt.
And hey, safe travels next week.
That's gonna be a lot of fun.
Thanks.
Next, we'll be with you next week.
On Monday, you can hear Pat starting at 6 a.m.
from 6 until 9 across the network.
And then, Jane Mattener, Greg Bach and I back on the road Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
We'll see you back at the home world headquarters on Monday.
Whatever you're fighting for, whatever you believe in, keep paying, paying your drum.
Time for a funnel cake, Todd.
Thank you, Pat.
Welcome.
Maggie Don is next.
We'll see you on Monday.
Bye-bye.
From the Civic Media World headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, it's the Todd Alba Show.
And now, pursuing truth wherever it may lead, here's your host, Todd Alba.
This is Aaron, Todd's producer.
Thank you for joining us for this weekend's Best of the Todd Alba Show.
network and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.
Good afternoon, everybody.
I'm Todd Alba, along with our guest host from Mornings at Pat Crite Low.
Mr. Pat Crite Low, we are live on location at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair from Chippewa Falls.
And ladies and gentlemen, to kick us off, here are the Northwoods Quartet.
Hello, neighbor.
I've been working on the railroad all the live long days.
I've been working on the railroad just to pass the time away.
Can't you hear the whistle blowing?
Rise up so early in the morn.
Can't you hear the captain shout?
I've
been working on the railroad cause I'm a railroad man.
I've been working on the railroad just to make those trains go fast as I can.
Can't you hear the whistle?
Man,
I hate getting up.
Can't you hear the captain shouting?
Get to work.
Get to work.
Get to work.
Guess I'll be working on the railroad all day.
Live all day.
Hey, there you go.
Welcome to the northern Wisconsin state.
Fair Patrick, quite low.
That is not what you expected when you heard that hairball was going to be on the main
stage
tonight.
Right,
right.
Well, a little less hairball.
That was amazing.
That was absolutely amazing.
For those watching on the stream, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or the like, you can see we are here at the Pavilion of Building C on the northern Wisconsin State Fairgrounds in Chippewa Falls.
So happy to have Pat with us from Maureen's and Pat Crightlow.
Thanks for making the drive over Lake Wissota, Pat.
Oh, it was practically a walk.
It was wonderful.
Good to be back.
I love Fair
Week.
Me too.
We're going to get to more of the fair.
But first of all, guys, the Northwest Quartet, we just, this is the thing I love most.
going on the road and going to places and Pat has been here for 30 plus years and it said Todd you got to come up here last year was our first year we're back and you guys were singing here right down the down the row and I just asked you guys 20 minutes ago and you said sure first of all introduce yourselves and tell us where you're from.
Okay I'm Tom Arneberg I'm a baritone from about one mile west of here.
I'm Steve Hine I'm the bass and I'm from Chippewa Falls.
I'm Dan Heike, I sing the lead, I'm
from Mandovi.
I'm Randy Liebel, I'm from Eau Claire, and I sing tenor.
Well, you're absolutely fantastic.
So, how long has the Northwest Quartet been in business, and how'd this begin?
Well, we've been in business about nine months now, I think it was.
Yeah, that's it.
Wow.
Yeah.
Is that a while like good or a while bad?
It's a while good.
I mean, it sounds
like you've been doing this a lot longer than nine months, but go ahead.
Well, we've been all in Barbershop for quite a while.
Actually, I think Tom's been in Barbershop for 40, 47 years.
52.
And I'm the baby of the group.
I've only been doing it for about 15 years.
I've been in it for about 48 years.
Dan and I are second generation Barbershoppers.
So kind of grown up with
it.
Wow.
Is it your first time at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair?
Have you been performing here before?
I guess
at
only
9-1.
Steve and
I were in a different group called Chips and we sang this many years, but it's the
first time
for this
quartet.
I'm always fascinated by a great barbershop.
I could listen to it all day.
I
just love harmony of any kind.
You see it now.
Everything from the Eagles and the Beatles and you see it in...
The thing that makes a group work is the harmony.
I mean, anybody can just be a lead singer, but to have everybody... Somebody begs a differ, Pat.
But when you combine that talent, that tremendous lead
singer talent, how am I doing so far?
Good.
This is getting pretty big now.
Yeah, well, the Barnes are right over here.
But you surround it with a group like this, and I mean, this is wonderful.
What a great way to kick things
off.
It really is, guys.
For people that might be listening on WCFW,
tap locally or we go to 11 stations across the state.
People might be coming in this weekend.
Where can they catch you?
Are you just going to be kind of wandering around singing or is there a specific time or spot you're performing?
Well, we are going to be singing again at four o'clock or the, I guess they call it the free.
Okay,
yeah, and we'll be wandering around, but hopefully we won't get lost.
So we will sing when we wander around a little bit as well.
All right.
Well, that's fantastic.
Just today, just today, so people gotta get out here.
Anything else while you have it asked you that you wanna make sure people know about you?
We have a new Facebook page as of yesterday, just Northwood's Quartet on Facebook, so you can find us there.
Northwood's Quartet on Facebook, can you guys hire out for events or concerts or?
Yeah, for a price,
for sure.
When do we get the Facebook page?
I can't thank you enough for stopping by.
Do you have a short one?
A quick one you can leave us with?
Something like that?
All right, here we go.
Here is the one thing, ladies and gentlemen, from the Northern Wisconsin State Fair along with Pact right low.
I'm Todd Albaugh.
Here is the Northwoods
Quartet.
Let me linger in the shelter of the night.
Fields of cattain all around me, voices singing sweet and low.
Or I'm lucky that you found me where the muddy Mississippi waters flow.
Lounge and on the levee, listen to the nightingale way up above.
Let me linger in the shelter of the night.
Let me linger in the shelter.
Absolutely fantastic.
Don't you really feel like the lead singer really carried that one?
You really did.
Thank you guys.
Thank you all very much.
Again, you can find them on Facebook at North Woods Quartet and you can see about four o'clock here at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair and Building.
See, thanks guys.
Really, really appreciate you.
Thank
you very much.
That was, how about that pack quite low?
I mean, we might as well just shut the show.
I was gonna say, I don't know
what you invited me for.
I mean, jeez, I thought I brought a little something to the show.
Of course you do.
Nothing like that.
Wow.
But that's the kind of thing you find when I think that's part of the unexpectedness for those who didn't grow up, of those of us who did not grow up here in North of Highway 29, or haven't been here before.
Last year when I was here with our friend, Trig V. Olson, I was just, maybe I'm embarrassed to say this, but I was a little blown away.
I'm like, wow, this is, as the kids say, legit.
Is that what the kids
say?
I don't know.
That's what Zommer's tells me.
Well, I mean, funny that you say that as I turn to this empty chair next to me.
Trig V, what do you think of?
Oh.
It's his excuse this time.
He was flying in Chicago.
I thought there was a chance he'd surprise us.
I thought there was too.
I thought, especially if he was singing,
if he was one of
the guys, how great would that have been?
Yeah, exactly.
Well, we miss you.
We'll have an extra snow cone on you.
Right?
Exactly.
But
no, I, again, when I moved here 30 years ago, and you know, I'd lived in Eau Claire prior to that, but it never spent, you know, a big chunk of time in Chippewa Falls, much less come to the fair.
And he come to the fair for the first time.
And I remember sharing, I thinking,
This is Shangri-La.
This is great.
This is the best of a modern day Mayberry in the sense of, you know, it's a community that is, you know, Goldilocks size, not too big, not too small.
You got your 15 to 20,000 people here and they come here and it's not stifling by any stretch of the imagination.
And don't get me wrong, I had a great time at Summerfest last weekend in Milwaukee.
There's plenty of small county fairs, but I mean, this one to me is really Goldilocks as much as a fair can be.
I guess so well said because you can you can do the entire thing in a day if you want to but there's also enough things to explore if you want to make two days of it or a weekend of it whatever it might be.
We're going to hopefully within this hour here Rusty Volk the fair director long time fair director.
I believe Pat you said this is technically his last year and then he's going to be holding or handing the reins over to a new person.
But boy what a history that Rusty has had.
You open up this year's fair program and there he is right there in the front page
centerfold right there.
Trustee
Volk, the centerfold.
Yeah, that's great.
But also, we'll be talking to him a little bit in hour number two, a little What's Worst Edition for you about yelling.
How about that?
Speaking of tricking up being here, no.
And Eric Anderson, the director of the U.S.Cube Championship and editor of Kube Nation Magazine.
Pat, last year when our friend and colleague, Jane McNair, and I took the show on the road, we were here.
You stopped by the coffee shop downtown with us, and we talked to some of the folks at Kube.
And this weekend, as if the Northern Wisconsin State Fair wasn't big enough, people could come to the Chippewa Valley, go to Eau Claire to the U.S.
National Championship, Coupe Championship.
And I hear it's a pretty cool thing.
There's a lot of people that they get hooked on this thing.
You know, it's that combination of bowling and horseshoes.
done with wooden blocks.
And I think it's great that you and Jane got to see that.
And I turn again to the empty chair.
Jane, what did you?
Oh, apparently, she's getting ready for next week, but I wasn't apparently Chippewa wasn't good enough this year.
Jane.
She did not set the schedule, but we'll
be not too far away.
We're going to be up in Hayward and Butternut, because the National Lumberjack Championship is going on.
There's a big powwow for a Native American community up there as well.
So we're doing the show up there on Friday in Hayward, Butternut on Thursday at an artisan shop.
And on Wednesday, we are going to be at the EAA Museum there previewing this year's EAA.
So we're all over the state, Patrick.
It sounds like a lot of fun.
Yeah, right.
And good time to have by all.
I can't do that at 6 a.m.
because you're lucky.
Because I offered, I said, I said, well, Pat, I've got all this stuff.
I'm willing to get up early and you could do your show at the fair and you were like, what?
It's just me and the cows, you know?
It's not that they're not fun, but there's a little more activity at two o'clock in the afternoon.
Yeah, just
you.
So I'm so happy and I know it's kind of a lot for you.
You got a lot of other things to do, but it means a lot having you here today and also tomorrow to talk about.
Oh, no, twist my arm.
I have to come to the fair a couple of hours earlier than I otherwise would have.
Sherry will eventually join me in one beer garden or the other.
And, you know, again, it's very social people that you haven't seen for a while.
It's, you know, it's kind of like an
grown up homecoming.
If you will, the people that come back just for Fair Week.
This year, our adult kids can't make it, but in past years, it's been fun to see them come and then see somebody that they weren't expecting to see from way, way back in high school and get to see each other.
So it's just a fantastic place to be able to do that right here on the north end of Chippewa
Falls.
Pat spoke a little bit earlier of some of the music coming here, and hairball is tonight.
That was
not hairball.
No, that was not hairball.
That
was it.
All right.
How much?
If I didn't know about this, I still would have had them rehearse, you know, a hairball tune.
All right.
You know, I mean,
what kind of death metal can you do?
Can you actually name a hairball tune?
I can't.
No, no, no.
I bet Trigby could.
I don't think you know Trigby.
He's a big, he's a big metal fan.
All those all kinds of entertainment.
In terms of music, there's all kinds of great food.
Pat and I are going to be sampling some of this.
Here's the remnants
of the foot-long hot dog I walked in here.
Here's part of the cold pretzel that's left, but you can get your cheese or your frosting on this.
And look at these super-duper lemonades that Pat and I have.
Lemonades is here, strawberry.
How about that?
Do you have a strawberry?
I have regular.
Cheers, Pat.
Hopefully you can stay with us the next couple of hours and be talking a lot about the northern Wisconsin State Fair.
Gonna be talking about Coupe championships.
And maybe who knows, you might throw a little politics in there as well.
Because when Pat and I get together, it's hard not to talk about politics in some way or another.
You
mentioned Hayward, we're gonna talk about that new NASA administrator,
Sean
Duffy.
Yes, yes.
And as a matter of fact,
for those.
Yes, yes, reality TV show star Sean Duffy.
And for those watching on the stream, yes, you can see in the corner there, we're right across from the Republican booth.
And so far, no shots have been fired.
Welcome.
Well, come on back.
It's packed quite low.
Todd Albaul were live in from Chippewa Falls at the northern Wisconsin State Fair.
show live.
A weird remix of that
from the north of Wisconsin State Park.
Farron Chippewa falls along with Pat Crite-Loe.
Warnings of Pat Crite-Loe every morning from six until nine.
Glad to have you along here.
His honor is back home at the World Headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin.
And we are just, hey, I think we'll be joined very shortly by the Farron director, Rusty Volk.
But Pat, already some comments.
One from our colleague and friend, Jane McNair, listening in.
And she's a big fan of Barbershop, number one.
She loved that.
But she said, corn dogs, corn dogs, we want corn dogs.
You almost ate a corn dog,
right?
When I asked for a foot-long hot dog and he handed me this foot-long corn dog, I'm like, no, no, no, no.
I want the thing with the extra onions, because I'm going to be sitting next to Todd here, and I want him to have the full experience.
I appreciate that.
I sent to my daughters as well, because we are not that far away from the Minnesota state fairgrounds.
And of course, we've been there a lot.
And it's a tradition that my grandma started with me as a little kid, was we'd go to the fair really early, about seven.
an AM.
and all the stands were already open, and the best breakfast on the fairgrounds is a foot-long hot dog with fried onions on it.
Wow, that's cool.
I mean, there's something special, so you got to have it here at this fair, too.
Yeah, absolutely.
And again, we're warming up the equipment, because Jane and Greg and I are going to be on the road next week.
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, it'll clear, it'll clear, pardon me.
And Oshkosh, the EAA, and then in Butternut, an artisan shop from the World Championship, Lumberjack Championships, and the Pow Wow up there in Hayward.
So it's going to be a lot of on the road and we cannot.
This is my favorite part of this.
Well, a lot of favorite parts Pat, but I love going on the road.
I love coming up here doing shows with you because I think the more that we can learn about different places of the state.
So when we're up here, you know, people places in Oshkosh or learn something where we're in Oshkosh vice versa.
And that's really the cool thing about being a statewide network is people learn and get taken to places they might not normally know about.
Yeah, I mean, look, I'm not going to say that I'm not going to talk.
about Townies.
There are some people that like never leave Chippewa County or wherever.
I mean, they're just around their hometown.
There's plenty of people that get out and about a little bit more than that.
But whatever the Townie equivalent is of an area code, I need more people in the 715 to go down to the 414.
And I need more people from the 414 to come up to the 715 and stop.
you know, dissonant on the 608.
We have so much to see throughout this state.
That's why I talked up summer fest so much is to let people know if they if they hadn't gone down to Milwaukee for that or Brewer's game or the zoo or whatever, go do that.
And I'm just as adamant with all of our folks in Milwaukee, Madison and elsewhere to again on the weekends, get around the state.
Yeah, there's so much to see on a tank of
gas.
It really is.
And that's why, you know, I think trade, we might have come up with our baby with me.
I don't know.
But what makes Wisconsin great tours?
I mean, we hear about in our
politics so much, everything is wrong.
But I think that one of the great things about traveling on these shows is we discover how much is great about this state and more so the people of this state.
And that's the thing.
I mean, look, we talk about politics a lot because it's important, but it's not all-encompassing.
It's not the be all and end all.
We all have lives to lead.
And our politics would maybe be a little less abrasive if people understood better that, again, the folks over in that part of the state are not the enemy.
They're people that live their lives in a different kind of way compared to the folks up in, you know, superior or wherever.
And so our politics, our news, everything about our culture wars, whatever you call it, always get better with travel.
Always get better when we meet each other, when we hear each other's stories.
There's Rusty now.
I absolutely, absolutely agree.
Rusty Volk is like getting settled in here, do a little off the text line.
Pat was talking about how the half-joking maybe earlier about doing a show with cows.
Alicia watching on YouTube says Pat should totally do a show with cows.
So there you go, Pat.
Marocini could probably set you up if you want to do a cow
show.
They totally would, you know, if it came to that.
Here's the real...
reason Alisha is that I love doing it from my home at 6 a.m.
If I get on the road and go any place at 6 a.m.
and technically it doesn't work, I got no place to go.
There's no studio to run to so you know home is like
You go through all this and set it up in the middle of the day, and if it doesn't work out, you know, we make it The Aaron's Armour Show.
Many thanks.
Thanks for bringing this up.
When I do some of these things, I have my own production crew.
This is real.
My sister and brother-in-law, Heather and Mike Gloy, I try to buy them a dinner, but they're doing this for free.
I could not do these road shows
without them.
You had
another roadie here, though.
And this weekend, we brought Mom up, my own version of Mom, Anthony Edwards' Mom, because we're all going to the Twin Cities tomorrow.
Oh,
nice.
Or on Saturday, probably Saturday.
Mom, have a name?
Linda.
Linda.
Linda.
Ms.
Wallace.
Say hi loud enough for us to hear you here.
She just smiles.
Right.
Right.
So I see where that comes from.
All right.
Mom has always said, I said, why don't you come on the show?
I don't want to be on radio.
Anyway, hey, we got a couple of minutes left here.
We're gonna come back and have a larger discussion But I want to bring on here before the break again if you open up the great program here for the northern Wisconsin State Fair this weekend at Chippewa Falls The cover boy right inside is mr. Rusty vogue the fair director the executive director He was here with us last year rusty.
Thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show this year
Awesome.
I love it.
I love you.
Don't give me a mic is what they say That's a good thing.
No, thanks for being here guys.
This is awesome that you're bringing this
his life from the northern Wisconsin State Fair.
It's fun.
It really is.
And we'll get into a larger discussion because stay through the break here on
the
other side.
But just give us a quick take on this.
How's the fair going so far?
Is set up going well?
The first day here, is it going all right?
I'll be totally honest with you.
This has been the easiest fair to get started that I've had in the last 17 years.
Wow.
I am serious.
I am serious about that.
They're like, hey, if we make it easy on him, he won't go away.
You're going to keep them here.
You had to threaten to leave for them to finally get things done right for you around here,
Russ.
Now you might have a point there.
There are probably some working behind my back that I don't know about.
But it's been going awesome.
When you visit with the North American Midway Carnival, I mean, they were actually ahead of schedule as well.
I think it's great because we've been working together with the Carnival and everybody else for many, many years.
And as we've rebuilt the grounds, we built it for them as well so that it's easy for them to set up.
Yeah.
And then they're rested and they're not scrambling and just it helps for safety and everything.
So, honest to God, this has been the easiest opening that I've had since I've been here.
I love hearing that.
I mean, too.
Me too.
It's so much fun.
We're going to come back and talk more with the executive director of the Northern Wisconsin State Fair, Rusty Volk, also my co-host for the next couple of days, Mr. Pat Crichtlow of Mornings of Pat Crichtlow, if I could talk.
Too much, too much of this great fair food I'm doing on, on.
We'll come back live from Chippewa Falls, Northern Wisconsin.
State Fair Up for this is the All Ball Shell across Wisconsin on the Civic Media Ready Network.
Welcome.
I'm Todd Allball Show.
We are live on location at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair in Chippewa Falls, along with Pat Crightlow, host of Mornings of Pat Crightlow, across the network.
Six until nine.
I'm Todd Allball, here at Zomers.
Mr. Zomers is back at the World Headquarters in Madison.
Happy to be bringing you the Northern Wisconsin State Fair in part here for today and tomorrow.
And Pat, we are joined here at the table by the executive director of the Northern Wisconsin State Fair here at Chippewa Falls, Rusty Volk.
Rusty, again, congratulations on a heck of a run here as the executive director.
How many years as executive director and how many years total have you been involved in the fair?
So this is my 17th fair as the executive director and I've been involved with the fair for 17 years and 8 months.
How's that?
That's pretty darn specific.
I love it.
That's the length that I've been involved in the fair industry.
Yeah,
that's just
incredible.
Talk a little bit if you can.
I know you touched on it before we went to the break there, but you've made so many improvements here at the State Fairgrounds.
In 17 years, what do you find the two or three biggest improvements or differences between when you started and this year's fair?
Are
you going to narrow that down?
Really?
You want me to narrow that down?
And you even came from the morning show just to be with me, right?
Yes, of course.
So the biggest thing really of our accomplishments has to be our agricultural campus.
There's no doubt about it.
When I came on this fairgrounds in September 1 of 2008, it was like, where do I start?
When I look at the barns, I was a farmer, okay?
I farmed it.
1900 acres and melt 100 cows out in North Dakota prior to moving to the Chippewa Falls area.
And I'm going, these barns suck.
They were old.
They were falling down.
They were over 100 years old.
And I started taking pictures of the framing of the old red barn.
And it was like an S that was imploding and some of the understanding that I had.
And I witnessed the first fair.
I just let it happen because you got to witness it to see once before you can make any Comments really as to what's going on and when I witnessed the
culture of showing animals and the intensity of the competition and the amount of fans that were blown on every animal with one transformer pulling all the power and the transformer's glowing red, ready to blow and I'm going, this is what I got myself into.
So it's been a very interesting and fun
transformation, wonderful journey of where we're at.
It's been a joy of going.
So the barns obviously are the biggest thing that needed to be done.
And as long as we're building the barns, it was like let's create an agricultural campus.
Let's create a campus.
So if you'll notice the numbering on the barns and stuff, it's more black and white.
It's basic, like a campus would be.
I could go to college.
So we're setting it up as an educational facility for the youth of tomorrow.
And when I went out to generate revenues for that from the Ken Custors and the Roonies and those elements, I said, that's what we're going to build.
We need to educate.
Educate the youth.
For them to educate the public that don't have a clue of how their food is being produced So that's the biggest thing that's my accomplishment and I'm really proud of that has taken me, you know
15 years of the 17 years I've been here to get there.
You should because again my first time 30 years ago you think wow these barns are so old and they're so quaint and like the next year you're like these barns are so old and then the next year these barns are so old and so dangerous.
And so to have a director come in and identify this and say look we don't have to do it this way just because we've always done it this way.
We've got a generous community that's willing to embrace education and willing to embrace their fairgrounds.
what needed was was a, you know, a leader.
And that's what we found in Rusty.
Absolutely.
We are here live on location at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair in Chippewa Falls.
Todd Albaugh, along with Pat Krightlow, host of Mornings of Pat Krightlow, we're talking with the fair executive director, Rusty Volk.
I think the weather may be a little bit of rain tomorrow, but otherwise looks like pretty nice weather for the weekend.
And I just, you know, my first time here was last year.
My sister and brother-in-law live here in Eau Claire in the area, but.
I would encourage, as we have a statewide show here, anybody that lives in La Crosse, or Green Bay, or Madison that wants to take the weekend, there's things rusty, not just animals, but there's things for the whole family, right?
Absolutely, that's the first thing I changed.
I became a director here, the manager, and the fact that we did surveys, you know, and one of the survey questions, how many days do you attend the fair?
1.2.
The fair's five days long, six days long, almost all week long, and I'm going, thank you.
Thank you.
I know what I need to do.
Yes.
So you change things up.
You have something for two days, then you switch.
You got to come back to see the next thing.
And everything else kind of flows.
You start learning.
You went to, I went to the Institute of Fair Management, which is a national organization going through 32 different courses of study.
Really?
Absolutely.
They've actually got an Institute of Fair Management.
I didn't know that.
From the International Association of Affairs and Exhibits.
It's a national organization that was great.
I said, I don't want to reinvent the wheel.
I want to know what the best practices are and then I want to know what the community wants.
I need to know what the people are going to support.
What do we want to want?
You know what they want?
tractor pulls and dirt shows, live music.
Well, you can't sometimes have live music and tractor pulls in the same venue.
You know, you go through it and say, what are you going to do?
How are you going to go about
it?
You actually travel around like to do a fair that is recognized as one of the best ways or other field trips.
You could say, hey, this is what works.
I want to incorporate this in our fair.
Absolutely.
We have a complete network.
You know, we have our convention, but then we have our district meetings and I can call the major managers of the biggest fairs around and they know me.
My name is there.
What are you doing about wireless?
What are you doing about cashless?
What are you doing about barn cleaning?
How do you go about that?
Connect that.
So get the best of the best information.
Then, once you know what they want, you just meld it and put it together.
So these barns, very industry, they're set up as some of the national things is what we got in there, especially for E. Coli.
Wow.
Right.
Highlight.
How has it changed with fairgrounds often being seen as a one and done?
Just a one off they do the fair and then it just sits there.
And of course here in Chippewa we've got Oktoberfest, Springfest has had some spurts and some other events.
To what degree over your tenure have you watched the fairgrounds become you know closer to a year-round venue?
That's the goal.
That's totally the goal.
With our new barns, the Costa Coliseum, that's the first year-round building we have.
That's the only building.
When I came here, there was no heat.
There was nothing.
In any of these buildings, you sweat.
All the time.
You did.
And it was hot.
This building has air conditioning now.
So this is one of the first buildings we worked with and we worked with the high school because they did their extravaganza.
They would generate over $100,000 in one night for the athletic program.
But it was hot and stuff like that.
Okay, let's put air conditioning.
You pay half I'll pay half.
chairs.
You buy half, I'll be half.
I've always been 50% all the way.
Now everybody can enjoy that.
That's kind of the relationships and the building that you have with everybody around.
So I'm so proud of that Custer Coliseum down there because now we got weddings booked down there and all kinds of stuff.
which is awesome.
It's just going to kill more people.
One of our listeners, Mark Peresak, texts in his listening.
He says, growing up in Douglas County, minutes away from Lake Superior, I'm mildly amused to hear.
Chippewa Falls is the quote unquote northern Wisconsin.
Oh, here we go.
You
know, I have memories of Chippewa Falls where my Aunt Dorothy was secretary for the chief of police there and gave me my brother as a tour of the jail.
She lived just a few blocks away from the.
Falls Bait Company and the trip from Superior to Chippewa entailed going through every little town that 53 now bypasses.
So, I mean, people all over the state have memories of this fair.
Exactly.
So, do you know how it came about?
The Northern Wisconsin State Fair in 1987.
The state of Wisconsin chartered the Northern Wisconsin State Fair and the Central Wisconsin State Fair.
The northern Wisconsin State Fair was set up with 27 counties in the northern part of the state.
In order to have membership, it was state-owned.
In order to be members, you had to be the president and the treasurer of the Ag Associations.
That compiled the membership.
They had bylaws, and I've got books that show that.
The 30s, there was no money.
Right?
Depression.
No money.
There was no funding that went about.
However, at the turn of the century in 1915, I've got records that show this venue was the largest fair in the state of Wisconsin.
Wow.
Because in 1913 I did some studies on it that the aqua fish that states that the northern Wisconsin State Fair set a record attendance on Tuesday of fair week of 20,000 people 1913 that's
amazing
That's amazing So that's how it's growing all this time so the northern Wisconsin it was chartered in northern Wisconsin State Fair because of the representation and we're retaining that
yeah,
so
Is there an association and affiliation with the Wisconsin State Fair?
To what degree are these central and northern?
Are they in any way, are they connected in terms of some of the exhibits or just any of the other structure to it or is it completely separate entity?
Here's news, absolutely not.
The Wisconsin State Fair is funded by the state of Wisconsin.
Central Wisconsin State Fair is private.
Northern Wisconsin State Fair is private.
We're private fairs, but yet we're state fairs because we're district fairs, and that's how we're designated.
So people can come from multiple areas, multiple states.
That's what my follow-up is then, because we see there's animals here, there's show barns, there's things.
So people, they still go from the county fair and then get their entries here at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair or a direct entry to the Northern Wisconsin State Fair.
Great question.
So your county fairs consist of exhibitors of animals just within the county.
That's Dunn County, Chippewa, whatever.
That's 4-H kids, youth kids, FFA kids, other clubs, you have to meet it.
That's up to like 19 once you're out of high school, when you're out of high school.
Then you have the open fair.
So the Northern Wisconsin State Fair hosts the Chippewa County Junior Fair.
And then we clean the barns and we open it up to the open class where you can come from various states and all across the state.
So that's the bigger portion, especially in the dairy portion of it.
Interesting.
Rustyville, a couple of minutes left here.
Is there anything that we have not asked you yet?
You think the people across the state ought to know about the Northern Wisconsin State Fair?
Well, the Northern Wisconsin State Fair is pretty well set up as that little Wisconsin State Fair that has everything that you can have at Wisconsin State Fair.
Only a smaller venue is what it is.
When you consider we have over 100,000 people attend this fair in the city of Chippewa Falls, of what, 15,000 people?
We create a village up here, we create a city.
And it's wonderful, it's clean.
we feel we have the cleanest fairgrounds in the state of Wisconsin.
You're not going to find a cleaner.
It's because of the way we've set it up, the way we clean it.
You know, we have a street sweeper that comes in every morning.
Peggy Lightning Cougal was the first secretary of the Northern Wisconsin State.
Of the Lightning Cougals?
Yeah.
Peggy Lightning Cougal, Jake's wife.
And when they hired me, I says, Peggy, what do we got to do?
He says, we're going to make this look like Disneyland.
Well, it's going to be clean where you don't see anything laying around.
You know, I go behind the scenes of my camera.
I take pictures of the stuff that needs to be fixed.
Yeah.
That's my
job.
That's Peg.
That
is Peg Lannick who trusts me.
Quick question.
Can we bring a kid in here with a small animal like a rabbit or something like that to talk to him?
He wants to bring in a lot of animals.
I want him to bring a rabbit.
I said
there might be rules against that.
There you go.
Before this is done tomorrow, we're going to lie because it's hilarity
when
kids bring
animals
in.
You can do anything you want.
Put your mind to it.
Thank you.
Look at that.
Hey, before we let you go, I want to say thank you.
You're part of what makes Wisconsin great, Rusty Volk.
Oh,
thank you.
And
thank you for all these commitment to kids and families of the North and Wisconsin State Fair.
Thank you.
Greatly appreciate it.
Well, we appreciate it.
Back to our run.
Really appreciate it, Rusty Volk.
We'll come back with more.
Pack quite a little of myself.
We are live on location.
Pat will do a polka from Chippewa Falls.
Have it alive in the Google.
On the Civic Media radio network.
you
From the Pat Krightlow Pavilion on the fairgrounds of the Northern Wisconsin State Fairgrounds in Chippewa Falls, it's the All Ball Shell live on location here at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair.
The aforementioned Mr. Krightlow is sitting next to me here at the table.
For those watching on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and the like, you can see the people passing by behind this Pat.
With an umbrella, apparently we're starting to
rain.
I
don't know, maybe it is.
Oh my goodness gracious.
Well, we got the...
Where's that Brittany Merleau when you need
her?
Right, exactly.
It's
been a little cloudy but you know there's plenty of exhibit buildings.
We've talked about the farm buildings going up and we didn't have enough time to ask Rusty about it but the main stage, the grandstand, I mean the old grandstand was long gone you know for many years and so they came up with a whole new main stage area.
There's just so many additions that have been made here.
And like you said, you don't need just the one glowing red transformer anymore.
There's an entire infrastructure to things like this.
Well, and I think you nailed the pat is that between is not just your
There's nothing wrong with the typical animals and that sort of thing, but it's the entertainment.
There's all kinds of music throughout the day.
It's not just the night show tonight.
There are things going on all during the day.
There's the carnival rides here you might think is typical.
We're in Building C, which, I mean, you can talk about, there's booths here for soft water or politics or home improvement stuff.
I mean, it truly is live entertainment, and I think that's what's so healthy is we get
too much in our screens in my opinion, get out and see the
world a little bit.
And there is commerce involved.
There's little gadgets that we've picked up along the way that you go, I didn't know I needed that.
And sure enough, you do.
And you're not going to get that just surfing the internet or waiting for the right catalog to come in the mailbox.
Sometimes you've got to walk past somebody at a table and go, what is that?
What's your best thing you ever bought at a fair?
Like
commercialized, not
food.
Honestly, a hot tub.
Really that you got it at a fair our first our first fair here 30 years ago We had just bought the house and I'll go ahead and give them a shout swim right out of Eau Claire and Chippewa They had a couple of hot tubs set up and as we're walking past them and we're looking at the prices and we're like
Maybe the house needs a hot tub, right?
And so there was a hot tub.
And now, of course, we were much younger then that you're thinking hot tub.
Now that we're much older, our most recent big purchase was one of those long poles.
You attach the garden hose to it so that you can clean the siding way up at the top.
That's how practical we become.
Young Pat is going, my God, man, what has happened to you?
Have some metamucil.
But you can still enjoy a hot tub.
There's nothing longer than that.
I still do throw the
aches and pains after I've been cleaning the siding.
Yes.
I think I got the state fair in West Alice.
Years ago, I got the hand hammered walk.
the old hand hammer walk.
And I'm not sure.
It was great.
It did.
You could do great walking in it, great cooking.
And I also got one of those, not ginsu nais, but like that where you can, you saw the can and it still cuts tomatoes.
And I've still got that probably 25 years later.
Oh, absolutely.
You, like I said, you have to walk around the buildings just to know what you don't need or what you didn't know that you needed until that very moment.
And then of course there's all the, we talked about the exhibits earlier, all the, you know, the school kids.
have exhibits that are in some of the buildings or some of the arts and crafts.
So there's just a little bit of everything.
There really is.
And again, running through Sunday, right?
Through the 13th here at Chippewa Falls.
You can go online.
It's on Facebook.
It's on Twitter.
Northern Wisconsin State Fair.
And find all the great information.
And how great is Rusty Volk?
I mean, there's just an institution in the community.
Oh, I know.
And I'm sure he's going to hang around after the retirement.
And Brian Mackey will take over as executive director on January.
first and I expect a flawless, seamless transition given his reputation in the community.
And you're only going to see more good things happen as the years go by.
People go, oh, it's such a modern world.
It's all internet and screens and everything else.
This is a chance to unplug all of that and just enjoy the same rides that your parents rode as a kid.
Still safe.
But again, to make that connection, or as they like to say, touch some grass.
There, that's what the kids say.
Touch grass.
This
is where it is.
So you want to be here, especially on day one, when, as they say, the grease is clean and the grass is green.
We're
day one where the
grease is clean and the grass is green.
Yes.
I love that.
Also love our very own Terry Barr who is watching us on YouTube today.
Of course, she does all of our intros and so much more.
The Emmy Award winning journalist Terry Barr watching on YouTube.
She says, my home fair in Shuttle County, longtime 4-H member fairs in Wisconsin are wonderful.
We lived in other states.
I would drag my husband to a fair and it's a very different experience.
And there you go.
Thank you, Terry.
We appreciate that.
But I think she's absolutely right.
There's just something about
fair culture in Wisconsin that brings people together.
And I was really glad that Rusty could tell us more about the district fairs and the lack of a formal affiliation.
But the other reason why you had some of these district fairs is...
The state fairgrounds are a long ways away.
West Alice is a long way from here.
And there's things that people want to exhibit and have judged, but don't want to go all the way down there.
And so you started these district fairs as well.
But even if you just get to your own local county fair, you have much of the same thing.
Everything I talked about with the food and the rides, then the social aspect of it.
I just think we have a really great structure here that between here and the Central Wisconsin Fair in Marshfield, that you can go to places like this and see even more than you could at the county
level.
Absolutely.
In fact, Pat, you know how far away West Alice is from the northern Wisconsin State Fire?
How far?
It's so far that a kid once took a dozen eggs to show at West Alice and ended up with a rooster.
That's how far it is.
It takes us a long way to give you that one.
Terry Barr also, and this is fantastic because my stepmom who lives in Shawna also saw this.
Terry Barr says, I saw Garth Brooks at the Shawna County Fair the year he broke through with friends of those places.
He abided by
contract to play for basically nothing which was cool and so many people.
I wasn't there but my stepmom was and they still talk about that in Chano.
It was just before he broke out and there is Garth Brooks at the Chano County Fair.
Oh that's the thing it's you know there's there's you can see sometimes artists who you know would not have foreigners going to be here Saturday.
But years ago
you wouldn't have seen them here at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair.
But you also see the up and comers and can say I saw them when and we've had that with with some
around here over the years.
It's a great time, hand by all.
So if you're listening to us across Wisconsin and you want to have a great weekend with the family, get on up here to Chippewa Falls.
That's all for this week's Best of the Todd Alba show.
As always, if you want to hear the rest of the week's shows, you can go to civicmedia.us slash shows or anywhere else you get your podcasts.
And as Todd always says, whatever you believe in, whatever you're fighting for, do not give up.
Keep banging your drum.
We'll see you on Monday.
