Some Town Somewhere Tour – Hayward, cont. (Hour 2)

On location, it's the Todd Alba Show.

And now, pursuing truth wherever it may lead, here's your host, Todd

Alba.

Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio Network and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.

Good afternoon everybody.

Todd Albaugh here reporting live from beautiful Hayward, Wisconsin on our some town somewhere tour and the town we find ourselves in.

Yes, we've been here during the winter for the Berkey.

We're back during the summer in beautiful downtown Hayward at the lot.

So happy to be here with our colleagues and friends.

Jane Mattenair and Greg Bog of Mattenair on air.

They started this day from 9 to 11 with their great program at this very spot and now we're picking up.

the broadcasting baton and taking it across the finish line until four o'clock.

Hope you join us here on location.

Gonna be a great show, great guests, a little music along the way, not gonna want to miss it.

Our producer and engineer, Mr. Aaron Zommer is as per usual back at the World Headquarters of Civic Media in downtown Madison on State Street.

Mr. Zommer is, how are you?

Doing well.

It's pretty nice here in Madison, but it looks also very nice over there in Hayward.

Yeah, it's it looks cloudier than it is on the stream just because of the the lighting here if you're watching on Facebook Twitter and YouTube if you want to see the visuals check it out there today and Yeah, it's a little overcast, but man, it's perfect whether I got the shorts on I got a Green Bay Packer Polo I got the packer classic hat on because at the end of the day folks as we as our friend Trigview also likes to say We're in Wisconsin.

We're a lot less red hat and blue hat and a lot more green and

So that's where we're celebrating here today.

Just being Wisconsinites up in the beautiful town of Hayward.

Zomers, I got my lefts of chips I bought downtown.

Cinnamon and sweet.

And yes, I went to the fudge shop down here and got some fudge.

I'll bring some back for you.

No nuts for you, by the way.

Yes, thank you.

Very important.

Absolutely.

We'll be trying that.

Big show today at hour two.

Our friends and colleagues, Jay, Matt, Nair, Greg, Bach, are going to join us to wrap up the tour.

Also,

Isaac, one of the guys he goes to University of Wisconsin Superior.

His summer job is running the concession stand and kind of the activities here at the lot.

We're going to talk to him a little bit.

Also, a what's worse addition today for you, a fish addition, crappies or bluegills.

We'll ask you that all important question in our number two.

Also, Chris, I'm going to make, I'm going to make sure I don't mess this up.

Rock to rock to shell rock.

Let's see.

Rockdashle.

All right.

We're going to introduce our guests in a minute.

I've already messed up twice.

Chris Rockdashle, who's the executive director of the Chamber of Commerce here at Hayward, will talk to us about all the great events in the greater Hayward area.

And Mark Lundin of Muskie101, one of our colleagues here on the music side, our sister station here in Hayward is going to be joining us talking a little bit about the pow wow going up here in the going on here in this part of the state.

In addition to the world lumberjack.

championships.

But, uh, zombers, before we introduce our guests, why don't quickly get to this, even though we're on the road.

Yes, folks.

It's free ticket Friday for Milwaukee Brewer's tickets.

Your chance to win four club level seats.

Let's

go.

That's right.

It's time once again for Free Ticket Friday giveaway.

Your chance to win four club level seats for the Milwaukee Brewers game to be named later.

Actually, we're going to name it right now.

Here's the important thing.

You must be able to go on the date I'm going to read.

You cannot exchange them for a different date.

So if you were able to go on Monday, July 28th, it is a 640 in the evening first pitch game against...

the dreaded Chicago Cubs.

Brewers fighting it out in the central division of the National League.

This is for a Monday game, July 28th at 640.

Download the Civic Media app at your Apple or Android device.

Open it up.

The first 11 stations are the ones that this program airs on across the state.

Open up one of those stations in the lower right hand corner.

It says text.

Click on that.

And now I'm going to give you the word, text in this word and you are eligible.

The word for the free ticket Friday, the word is catch.

It is time to catch a ball.

The word is catch.

C is in cat.

A, T is in Todd.

C, H, catch.

The word is catch.

C-A-T-C-H.

Text the word catch right now.

You're eligible.

You're eligible, James.

Absolutely.

Text the word catch right now.

You have until four o'clock this afternoon.

At the end of this program, the computer will randomly select a correct entry and somebody at four o'clock is going to get tickets to go to that brewers game on Monday, July 28th at 6.40 against the Chicago Cubs.

Text the word catch.

C-A-T-C-H right now on the Civic Media app.

And again, make sure you spell it correctly because the computer will not recognize it if you don't.

All right, with all that intro out of the way is time to turn to our first guest here on location in beautiful downtown Hayward.

He is James Nets.

He is the president of the bid board from downtown Hayward bid, which stands, of course, for Business Improvement District.

James, thanks for putting up with our big intro there.

Welcome to the program.

It's OK.

It's thank you for having me.

Well, it's really, really a pleasure.

I don't know if you ordered up this weather.

weather if you did thank you but uh... i love the winter don't get me wrong in the brick of biner is great but we're in short so packer polo is a little bit more comfortable

absolutely and you know it's always a beautiful day in downtown a

right now well

as it is

as a great promoter would say that's that's fantastic uh... james first of all before we get into the bid tell us a little bit about yourself where you grew up and a little bit about your background

i'll give you the short story here uh... born and raised in moaqia was whitefish bay

did a big move from Milwaukee to Ironwood, Michigan, lived up there, ran a family business for years, and then moved to the Twin Cities.

And within a year, I said, okay, I still need my Northwood, so we bought a place up here.

Just north of Hayward in cable, or near cable.

and been here in the Hayward area now for 25 years.

That's amazing.

And how did you own your own business or how did you get involved with bid?

I own my own business.

I have now 15 years over on Second Street over by West Dairy.

I have a photography video and DJ company.

Wow.

In downtown.

I have a gallery that we showcase all of our wildlife and landscape prints and fine art stuff.

Photography and DJ I got to ask because my dad was an educator and a wrestling coach for years, but his side hustle was DJing weddings and the like.

Have you ever been a photographer and the DJ at the same wedding?

I do not.

My background is technology, so audio-visual.

But we have staff that will do the DJ while we're doing either the photography or the video.

So same company, though.

Same company.

Well, that's amazing.

Good for you.

Customers love it because

it's

kind of a one-stop shop, if you will.

Amazing.

Well, that's really, really cool.

So how did you first get involved with bid?

Just kind of got your business got involved, and then you got on the board?

Or how did that

happen?

We normally established the bid in February of 2019, shortly before the right about when the pandemic happened, which was great timing on our part, right?

But shortly before that, we had a lot of change over in downtown Hayward.

And there was some concern in the community about some empty buildings and

you know who's gonna what business is gonna come into town and all that kind of thing and we kind of heard that calling if you will and started looking into you know what we can do as a community and help that out so we started looking into doing the bid and it's kind of you know it's all history from there

Well, it's really been, this is going, I guess, a little over two years now that we've come up here for Civic to cover this.

It's just, it's an amazing downtown.

Jane, Matt, Aaron, Greg, and I, we went shopping, don't worry, we supported the local economy.

Jane's got some beautiful, Paul, if you're listening, please.

It's earrings, beautiful earrings, right, Jane?

Yeah.

They were on sale, she says.

But it's just such a vibrant downtown, everything to River Rain, a great holistic shop that was sponsored for this.

We thank them for that, one of our sponsors.

We went over to the Humane Society Thrift Store, which was really well run and for a great cause.

I mean, you have everything, I guess what I'm trying to say, it's a very diverse shopping experience when you visit downtown Hayward.

Absolutely.

And that's what we really like about our downtown right now is that diversity of and uniqueness of the shops that we have.

You know, we've got Hayward fly fishing company.

So if you're looking into fly fishing, you've got a lot of art, clothing, bars, restaurants.

And, you know, we've seen over probably the last three, four years, especially the growth and our businesses and new blood coming into town is.

well, and expansions are going on.

And right now, we don't, it's tough to find any building for sale.

If they're for sale or hinting that they're gonna be for sale, they don't even go on the market.

They're sold before they go on the market.

So about three minutes before our first break, we'll wrap, we'll finish it up on the other side of that.

Well, let's get going on this a little bit.

I spent a couple of terms on our local city council back in Richland Center, so I kind of get this, but it's been a few years.

So if fresh, others might not be aware at all.

Tax Incremental Finance District is a TIFF.

This is a business improvement district, a bid.

What's the difference and what are the benefits of a bid?

Well, the bid itself is a district, okay, so...

Geographical.

Geographically.

Yep, exactly.

And then the businesses that are within that district...

get a assessed on top of their regular tax to contribute to the bid and the bid uses that money specifically just to market those businesses that are within that district now we do have you know the bid has become more and more popular and we do have

businesses that are outside of that district that are volunteers.

So they're volunteering their funds to the bid for the greater good of downtown Hayward.

If they volunteer their money's there, are they part of that?

Do they get to be part of the part that's marketed and promoted or that's just for the good of it?

They can buy in basically.

Buy in.

Yep, exactly.

They get the same benefits as a business that's within the district itself.

Is it too simplistic to say it's kind of a self-imposed tax and then the

that the pay into that have this board and then they get to decide how the monies are used.

Correct.

Yep, I think it's great because I mean it's saying hey we want to market ourselves or we'll put up a little bit of money but we also gonna say unlike sometimes in straight line government where you pay in and other people get to tell you how to do it.

Right, it's the funds are and we're actually an entity of the city of Hayward.

So the city collects the funds and then we are a public entity obviously.

Our board is 100% volunteer.

We've got some great folks on the board itself.

a lot of energy, a lot of entrepreneurial spirit, and how would I say a lot of positivity about growing our downtown?

I've just seen it in a couple of years and the attitude.

There's something Jane and I were talking about as we were walking around.

People are just, they're friendly here.

They say hello before you do.

We met someone never met her before.

She asked us about us.

We asked about her and she said, welcome to Hayward.

I mean, that's a spirit that I think has to be absolutely an asset for business.

Yep, absolutely.

And it's, and I think that spirit is even growing.

the feedback that we get from a lot of folks that are coming from, you know, out of the area, obviously coming to downtown.

You know, we get tremendous positive feedback from the people that are visiting downtown.

We got to step away ourselves and do a little business as we say it back home.

We're going to come back and speak more with James Nets of the downtown Hayward bid district after this.

We're live on location in beautiful downtown Hayward across the Wisconsin network of civic media.

Stay tuned.

you

Pursuing truth wherever it may lead and having fun doing it.

Welcome back to Tahoe Ball Show on the Civic Media Radio Network.

We're live on location.

Beautiful downtown Hayward, home of our great station WBZH, the buzz of the north on the talk side and Muskie 101.

on the music side.

Some great country hits.

I appreciate you being here.

We're here with along with our friends, our colleagues, Jane McNair, Greg Bach, and Matt Nair on air.

They had a great program this morning and handed us the broadcast baton to take home until four o'clock.

Jane and Greg will be here to finish out our show.

We'll sit, we'll reminisce, we'll pause and reflect on all that has been our tour around the state this year, this, this, this week.

It's been great.

Right now, though, at the, oh, by the way,

I've reminded they put a hot seat here, James.

There's a buzzer on here.

If I don't do the business part, I get zapped.

I'm

glad it's under your chair, not mine.

Sometimes I don't do it just to get zapped.

Anyway, here's the free ticket Friday for your brewer tickets.

Four tickets up for grabs to the beautiful club level seats.

You go up there, it's air conditioned.

There's a concourse.

Jane McNair will bring a popcorn.

It's fantastic.

No, not really.

But she'll be there occasionally.

You'll see her occasionally.

Here, in all seriousness, it's for a game on Monday, July 28th at 6.40 in the evening.

to go to that game on Monday, July 28th, and text the word catch.

C-A-T-C-H.

Catch.

Text the word catch right now to the Civic Media app at four o'clock.

The computer will draw someone to win those tickets.

All right, right now at the desk here in Hayward, James Netze is the president of the bid board of Downtown Hayward, the Business Improvement District.

James, I appreciate you being here so much.

Tell us a little bit about the successes you've seen after you've started.

How long has it been going on?

Since 2019.

That's

right, you told me

that.

Six years.

So what tangible things have you gotten back from your bid members and say, hey, this happened because of this?

Well, and that's a great question, and I appreciate that.

We have a lot of...

How would I say events that we do?

Shamrock Shuffle in March and the spring.

We're doing sounds of summer right now where we have bands and local music playing

on

the corners of Main Street and some of the side streets as well.

And then we just had...

our summer jam, which is our second year that we've done that.

And

I've got to tell you, yeah, it's a it's a busy weekend in, you know, the fourth of July weekend.

But man, we had the streets just packed.

We heard feedback that a lot of stores had record numbers of folks here.

It wasn't that beautiful of a day, but we kept people entertained with food and drink and kids activities and music and that kind of thing.

So

tangibly it's really hard to you know put your finger on it but you know when I walk up and down the streets and I'm seeing all the new businesses and the expansions and the variety of businesses that are coming in and the attitude and the feedback that we're getting not only from the businesses but from the people that are coming to downtown is just I think is growing in positivity.

I've had I got a muck resume so I've had a couple of coffee shops a small business owner

my own, in my opinion, in residency, what your members say.

I know it's a tangible success when I look and see where my revenue spikes up.

Hey, if I got more sales, something's going good.

Right, exactly.

And we are hearing really good things about increased sales, especially in the summer.

I always use the phrase that, and maybe I shouldn't say this, but Hayward, we eat steak in the summer and make soup with the bones in the winter,

right?

It's just kind of, it's a tourist town, winter is winter.

But our summers,

You know, I think most of the business owners in the summer their eyes roll in the back of their head and they just go from Memorial Day to Labor Day and just hold their breath because there's so many.

great people coming to our downtown.

About three minutes left.

You got the Berkey in the winter.

That's of course the big guy.

We're a number of Jack championships now coincides this weekend with the powwow in town.

But there are those are the big things and they're important.

But so much more goes on in Hayward.

Those other 12 months of the year.

Why should people come here?

And more importantly, people are listing the other parts of the state.

Why should they bring their business to Hayward?

That's a great question.

I mean, if you are you talking about

to spend money or make money both okay well and right now uh... the buildings that we have in downtown hayward are pretty full so it's hard to come into town but we have a lot of

buildings that are satellite to Hayward you know Hayward obviously has got all of the trails and lakes and fishing and you know during the summer and all the winter activities that you can do in in the up here as well and our downtown as you had mentioned before the positivity of our business owners saying hello with a smile everybody that comes in I think our customer service of our businesses second to none businesses are

or second to none here.

and that variety.

I mean, I think you can go shopping, you know, even in, you know, Hayward's a fairly small town, but you can shop pretty much all day and see something that you're probably not going to see anywhere else than Hayward.

Totally agree.

I mean, I found I've been Jane shaking her head.

Yes.

I mean, just it's truly impressive town.

I'm not just saying that because we have radio station here.

I travel all over and it's a really great place.

There's a reason why people come back generation after generation after generation.

There's a lot of history there of people coming to Hayward.

one

minute left James what have I not asked you want people to know

boy you know I guess the best thing is if you want to find out more about the downtown Hayward bid we have a website which is downtown Hayward

downtown haywardwi.com We also have a great Facebook presence and Instagram, you know, give us a like on that hit us up on Instagram and keep following what we're doing here and and the growth and all the activities that we're doing in downtown You know, we've got some cool stuff coming up.

We've got the well, you're gonna be talking with Chris later on in the show We've got fall fest coming up and then we've also got the Schwammigan mountain race bike race coming right down Main Street

which is not a

huge

activity.

And then we, the bid itself, we do what we call a sipping shop in the

fall.

All right, well, we'll bring you back with another time to talk about that.

James Nets, president of the bid board here in downtown Hayward.

Thank you so much.

You're part of what makes Wisconsin great.

Thank you, and thanks for having me.

Our pleasure.

Coming up next, why does my colleague, Mark Lundin, always wear Hawaiian shirts?

We'll tell you, don't go anywhere.

Pam Yankee is the farm reports next from Hayward.

you

And I've been losing myself, I've been losing my mind.

And I've been standing in the rain just trying to stay dry.

I was so ashamed to be in this seat till I met a man who was 20 years clean.

He said everybody here felt the same defeat.

Nobody walks through these doors on a winter streak.

Welcome back.

Heyward, Wisconsin.

We are live on location.

Todd Albaugh here with the Todd Albaugh Show.

Well done, Mr. Zombers.

That is off the playlist of our next guest.

You can hear great music like that every morning at our sister's station here in Heyward, Muskie101.

And now the voice of Muskie101.

Mr. Mark Lundin at the desk.

How you doing,

Mark?

Yes,

the famous Remarkable

Morning Show is what we call it.

Say that again.

Remarkable Morning Show.

Remarkable Morning Show.

My jacket here.

Remarkable.

Remarkable.

I'm a little slow.

I'm a little slow.

No problem.

So here's the deal.

Before we get into the talking to Mark here, I went shopping earlier in downtown Hayward.

Went to the scan today.

Even shop got my left sus cinnamon sweet chips.

And then here went to Trembly's.

Trembly's.

shop and got us some dark chocolate sea salt fudge and also some peanut butter and chocolate.

That's a dangerous store to go into.

It's a dangerous store.

And I thought, well, I need someone to test this to tell me if it's any good.

Yeah.

And it was a hard job.

It took a lot of arm twisting by our colleague, Jane McNair, and said, I guess if somebody has to do it.

Has to do it, yeah.

So I'll be here later on in the show.

Jane McNair, Matt Nair, and Greg Bach will be here to tell us exactly how good the fudge is.

I have a great suspicion.

and it's fantastic.

She was speechless.

She was speechless.

She

was eating fudge.

Yeah, absolutely.

By the way, we're right in the middle of free ticket Friday.

Everyone, if you want tickets to the Milwaukee Brewers game at Amfam Field for Monday, July 28th.

This is a big game, folks, at 6.40 in the evening, first pitch against the dreaded evil Chicago Cubs.

Big game is the Cubs and the Brewers trying to fight it out in the National League Central.

You can be there and watch it in person.

July 28th, go to the Civic Media app on your Apple or Android device.

And on the first 11 stations on the Civic Media app, click on it in the lower right hand corner.

It says text, catch, catch, text, the word catch, C-A-T-C-H.

Make sure you.

Exactly like that because the computer if it were up to mark and Jane and I we'd say well We know we would we know what they meant and we give them the benefit out right mark Right, but the darn computer does not have any humility and he's sort of humanity And so it must be spelled correctly the word is catch C-A-T-C-H Text it right now at the end of this show Somebody's gonna win four tickets to that brewers game on Monday, July 28th.

All right enough from business here All right, Mr. Lundin as we say on the show tell us a little bit about yourself where you're

you grew up and how he got into a

radio.

Well, let's see, let's start back in, I was born in, no, we won't go that far back.

Hometown is Forest Lake, Minnesota.

Grew up there through my teen years and then moved to Minneapolis and lived in the Minneapolis suburbs for the past.

50 some years and that's where I came from I got transplanted up here to he word about 12 years ago I was good friends with famous.

I still am good friends with famous Dave Anderson I met him about 25 years ago and we did some video projects together and then I would come up here on vacation out of Minneapolis just about every weekend because he had a cabin for me to stay in and I went to the original famous Dave's and did a lot of work with him there and It was great.

That's so you asked me where these

for wearing these wonderful floral Hawaiian shirts.

So make a story short.

Dave and I were working on a water park in Gurney, Illinois, and it was called Key Lime Cove.

Key Lime Cove, all right.

So guess what the atmosphere was?

It was tropical, right?

So the uniforms for all the workers there were tropical.

We wanted to make sure that when people walked into that door,

they felt like they were in the tropics.

Love it.

And it was a whole attitude thing.

And I started adopting the shirts to that and I thought, that's a good lifestyle to have.

Right?

Why not be on vacation all the time?

Right.

Now, it looks kind of funny when you stick out in the Northwoods with a tropical shirt on and even funnier when you're at the Berke and you have a tropical shirt on.

That's right.

Or if I show up to someone's funeral, it's like, you have a try.

That's all I have.

Tropical shirts.

I even have the newspaper do a story on me because it was like this is really interesting.

They didn't say weird.

That's been an attitude for me.

And now it's a trademark, you know,

it reminds me a little bit former Wisconsin Governor Lee Sherman Dreyfuss started out as the Chancellor at UW-Stevens Point.

And he said, well, I want the students wherever I go to know who the Chancellor is.

So they got a problem.

And so he started wearing that red vest

on campus.

And then we

when he decided to run for governor, he thought, well, it's kind of the same thing though.

They'll know who I am.

And his red vest of governor dressed became his trademark.

And I like him.

These these tropical shirts, too.

It's just your trademark.

Yeah, it is.

People know who we are.

And I love the part about adopting that kind of laid back

island lifestyle.

Yeah.

It's people say, well, you've ever been to the tropics or Hawaii?

I said, no, but I'm there now.

Right.

It's all up here.

100 percent.

You know, and then I started accessorizing.

So I got purple glasses to match.

with that.

I have a purple shirt that my purple pens work with.

I love it.

We're talking about Mark Lundin, the voice of Muskie 101 up here in the Northwoods in beautiful Hayward, Wisconsin.

We're on location here at the lot.

Tell you more about this beautiful.

It's what we're right across the street from our Muskie 101, BZH Studios.

You can see it there in the background.

Throw a rock at it.

Right.

I've slept there before, Mark.

Oh, we came up here to do the burky.

I slept on the little futon.

It sleeps pretty well, to be honest.

Not bad at all.

I have

taken a nap on it.

It's pretty good.

Well, I'm interested, Mark, in this connection you have with, again, folks, this is the, if you go to see famous Dave's ribs, this is the guy.

And he happens to be of, is he full Native American

heritage?

Yes, he

is, yep.

So I think that's just so interesting because my understanding is while you're not Native American, you've become very involved in this community through your work in public radio.

And now with the pow wow up here this weekend, tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah.

Yeah, my connection, again, my previous life, I was at a public radio station here that is owned by LCO.

It's called W.O.J.B.

The tribes up here.

Yeah, the tribes, the tribes that's up here.

And I got involved with them because they were looking for an engineer.

I said, do you know any engineers around here?

It's like, hello, I've been doing it for 40 years.

No, I got regular ears.

Yeah,

that's old joke.

And I started, you know, contracting with them and fixing up some of their radio stuff.

And then when COVID hit, we decided that we're going to take it all digital.

So I went all digital with it and what, anyways, it's been a great seven year run with them.

And I've worked with a lot of natives in that, in that community and got to know their culture, got to know their traditions, some of their ceremonies that participated in.

And that helped me gain their respect.

And so I've been invited to a lot of different things.

I'm a member of their elder association.

Are you?

Which is, you know, it's like, okay, I'm a white guy, but I'm so well accepted into that community.

It's a

high honor.

For those

who don't know, it's a very

high honor.

For a lot of things.

And just, you know, be able to talk to tribal governing board members face to face.

It's like talking to the president or, you know, somebody in Congress because that's the level of that government.

It's right there.

So I've had a great chance to do that.

Dave, again, is full, the Kudare native, his mom is from LCO.

His father is from Oklahoma.

And his mom and dad met when they were in Indian schools.

She was taken away from home and she was shipped down to Oklahoma.

And that's where her and her husband met.

And then they moved back up here when that ended.

And Dave was up here, he was born here with his sister.

and he's been a great cultural, he actually was a tribal governing board member at one time, so.

I just love this connection because one of the greatest parts about working in state government from my former boss, Dale Schultz, he was a part of the member of the state tribal relations.

Because to your point, for those that don't know, Native Americans have their own, they will call it Indian country, but they have their own government because, you know, they have presidents of these tribes.

And so there's a committee for the tribes to work with the state legislature and on things that connect and getting that just

those few years, getting to have some of these meetings on reservations around the state of Wisconsin, listening and hearing this story is so important to Wisconsin history.

I know our colleague Robert Pilot of Native Roots Radio every night here

at

Civic Media.

He does a great job.

But talk, as you put it in your words, as a white guy, I'm a white guy.

But what's kind of been the biggest eye-opener, the thing that you're like, wow, if more Wisconsinites should know this that aren't native?

I guess it's their traditions of the powwows a great cultural experience for people to go to it's it's open to the public they They would love to have non-natives come there because they want to be very educational about their community and their practices their traditions They want to pass this on because there's a lot of myths like you said misunderstandings about who Native Americans are, you know, we grew up Well, I didn't grow up with the black and whites, but the cowboys and Indians and

it's

like it's not like that, right?

They're just they're very awesome people to work with

and to live amongst, I'm not that far from the reservation where I live, but anyways, just being part of their community has, I've earned a lot of respect, plus the history of, that isn't taught in our European history books about the Native Americans and how Europeans came into the country, it's a very sad story.

And it was wrong.

But we're here now.

What do we do with it?

You know, there's there's still that injury From the I was mentioning the schools the native schools where people were forced and that was three generations ago Yeah, and now the fourth generation still hears the stories from their great great grandparents grandparents and It's still an injury, but we're slowly working on that and getting people to say hey, how can we sit at the table and agree and

not have these schisms amongst ourselves.

Yeah, well said.

Talk with Mark Lundina, Muskie101 here up in the Hayward, Wisconsin.

We're live on location at this beautiful, it's clouding up a little bit, but still the rain is holding off.

I think it'll be fine.

Jay Mattner and Greg Bach started us off this morning.

They're going to join us later on in the show.

One of the great parts about working for Civic Mark, in my opinion, is we get to meet all these colleagues across the state.

And the cool thing is now, with the Civic Media app, people are listening and they're like, oh geez, I'd like to listen to this guy, but I don't live in here.

Hey word, the signal's not gonna get that far.

Just download yourself the free Civic Media app, scroll down to the music stations, Muskie101.

What are they gonna hear in the mornings, Mark?

When do you, when do they tune in?

They're gonna hear some, some funny stuff, some crazy stuff.

Again, I call it the Remarkable Morning Show.

I just really talk a lot about weather and what's happening in the community.

I do a lot of community announcements and keep people informed so they know what's going on during that day or later in the week or coming up in the weekend.

And again, we have country music.

I'm starting to get used to it.

I never listened to country music before I started this job almost four months ago.

And yeah, it's been quite a ride.

It's been a fun experience and I'm learning a lot about civic media and how they do radio versus a public radio station.

It's a little more laid back and whatnot.

But we had NPR supporting us and that was nice too.

Yeah.

uh one of my thinking weekday mornings six to ten is when I'm on the air and then we have Katie Cruz she's awesome Katie Katie knows her country music I'll tell you that

no it's absolutely great uh two minutes left here um

Have you worked for NPR through the tribal station there?

Not to get deeply political, but what are your thoughts on these cuts going on out in Washington?

Is that going to affect stations like this here in Wisconsin?

It

could, but it could be two years down the road because most of the monies that have come from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supplies money to these public stations, they're awarded two years out.

So this year they're good.

Next year they're probably going to be pretty good, but I'm questioning the

following year and it could be, you know, with this clawback, they could claw back some of the funds from next year.

And

all of a sudden, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is going to tell W.O.J.B.

Sorry, we can't give you that because it's not there anymore.

It got taken from them.

So it's hard.

It's especially for a small town Native American station.

Although there is a lot of support for that station, it's going to be hard for them.

Well, people can always feel a little better by tuning in to you every morning.

I have.

I think it's great.

Muscovite 101 here in Hayward, Wisconsin.

Mark Lundin.

They're remarkable.

Remarkable.

Remarkable.

Remarkable.

Remarkable.

Remarkable.

Remarkable.

You're fantastic.

You're part of what makes Wisconsin great.

Appreciate you.

Appreciate having you as a colleague as well.

Yeah.

All right.

Thank you.

Mark Lundin.

Thank you so very much.

Come on back and talk about food in the Northwoods.

Don't go anywhere.

It's the All Ball Show on location from Hayward, Wisconsin on the Civic Media.

network.

I mean, fun doing it.

Welcome back to Tahleball Show.

Live on location from Hayward, Wisconsin on the Civic Media Ready Network.

It is eight minutes before the hour of three o'clock and hour number two.

It is a fishy addition, not a nutty addition that was yesterday in butternut.

This is a fishy addition of the, what's worse, crappies or bluegills.

We're gonna talk about that in hour number two.

Find out what your opinion is, crappie or bluegill.

To eat, by the way, not to keep it a fish tank.

Jayne and Greg, Jayne, Matt and Greg Bach are going to be here.

The wonderful Matt and Aaron air program who have been our broadcast friends, companions and colleagues all week long.

We'll wrap up the tour last half hour with them.

Also, Chris Ruckdashle, the executive director of the Hayward Area Chamber of Commerce is going to be here at Isaac from the lot.

is going to be on as well.

Talking about this great space.

So that'll be a lot of fun.

Quickly, here's ours.

Where Jane's going to be on later and talk about the fudge.

These are the left side chips.

There's called cinnamon sweet.

Let's see if they're actually made somewhere else.

Oh, it's from it's from Peterson, Minnesota.

All right, that's fine.

Let's see here.

I've never had chips.

What?

I've never had

left.

Really?

Mmm.

Mmm.

And, uh, wow, as Andy Griffith once said, mmm, mmm.

Good lefts a chip.

Is that what he said?

Well, he's a good cracker for Ritz, but we'll say he said it for a little left.

So, uh, hey, here's something.

Jane and Greg and I and, uh, Darla, our great GM up here at Hayward and Park Vault.

We're walking downtown.

for lunch and one of the cool things you have street performers occasionally and we caught up with with one of them here really great guy 85 years old has a great story we play he played us a song we threw him some caches and guitar we stopped by interview interviewed him for a couple of minutes here's our interview from early this afternoon in downtown hayward

We're here now with a local musician, Douglas Jerry, who we encountered in front of one of the great candy and fudge shops here in Hayward, Wisconsin.

It is a beautiful day here in downtown Hayward.

Douglas, thanks for taking time for us.

Tell us just a little bit about yourself, where you grew up, and how you got to play music.

Well, yes, I grew up in Cumberland, Wisconsin, a 50 mile south of here on a farm.

And I bought a guitar and I started playing when I was 13.

And I played in many bands, and I met a guy from Menominee, Wisconsin, Arnie Olson.

He was a good sweet, and he taught me how to play chords and stuff.

So I enjoy it.

I'm 85 years old, and I live in Cumberland.

But I enjoy playing.

I can't cut grass or mow lawn or shovel snow anymore.

My legs are bad, but I do enjoy the music.

I watch public television.

I love to watch those kids on the orchestra.

They're so playing good in everything.

Well, Douglas, you sound amazing here.

So tell us, have you played a band before?

Or is it just solo?

Or what sort of play have you done in your 85 years?

We have played in bands.

My brother-in-law and I had a band from Rice League.

We call ourselves aristocrats.

We played in Spooner for many, many weeks there at Jack Riverside Inn.

And we played there.

And then a friend from Cumberland at Tavis, Flint, way better guitar player than I was.

We played at the club in Cumberland here just a couple of years ago.

And that was fun.

That was just amazing.

Well, Douglas, so you do this to get some extra money.

You got your guitar case open here.

Hopefully folks put a couple of bills in your case.

Well, that's always good.

I feel like I have accepted Jesus and I feel that he wants me to do whatever I do, do it hardly.

And that's the important part, to do it hardly.

Yeah, absolutely.

Whatever we do, right?

Whatever we do in life, do it heartily.

Well, Jerry, I can't, Douglas Jerry, I can't thank you enough.

We're going to, well, have you play us one?

If you don't mind, we'll put a couple of bills in the, in the jar on our way out here.

So here from the, the streets of Hayward, Wisconsin is Douglas Jerry on his guitar.

Okay.

Here we go.

There you go, Douglas Jerry on the guitar, downtown Hayward.

Douglas, thank you so very much.

Thank you.

Our pleasure, have a wonderful day.

You too, Noah.

That was our interview a few moments ago, about an hour or so ago with Douglas Jerry in downtown Hayward, Wisconsin, 85 years old, Zombers.

And we invited him to come over and play here live on the set.

And he said, you know, I got diabetes.

My legs aren't real good.

My car is right there.

And he called it his lifeline.

He said, I think it just be he was so nice about it.

He said, I got to respectfully decline.

And he said, what about if we record you here?

And I'll throw a couple of bucks in the jar.

And we did that.

And he was so kind to do it.

Terry

Barr says Mac from Max Think Radio says, I love this time on the on the street interview, Terry.

Well, I learned it from Terry, the award Emmy Award winning journalist, by the way.

All right, come on back.

I work to his next.

On location, it's the Todd Alba Show.

And now, pursuing truth wherever it may lead, here's your host, Todd Alba.

A cross with Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio Network.

and streaming worldwide on the 7pedia app.

Good afternoon, everybody live on location of beautiful Hayward, Wisconsin from the lot.

Todd Albaugh, glad to be here in Hayward with you along with our friends, Jay Mattener and Greg Bach, a Mattener on errands.

We've been traveling are some to wear some town tour.

Today's town that we're in is beautiful Hayward, Wisconsin.

Our engineer producer, Mr. Aaron Zommers, back at the World headquarters of Civic Media in downtown Madison.

Zommers, I'll bring you back some fudge.

If I if Jane and

Greg and I don't eat at all, but we'll save you a little bit.

We'll bring you back.

Am I understanding that the fudge shop here trembles all over the world?

They can mail it.

So we'll make sure you get some of your ways onward.

OK, sounds good.

Yeah, I won't blame you if you do eat at all, because it's tasty.

Or I imagine

it

is.

It really is tasty.

We'll be visiting with our colleagues and friends, Jane McNair and Greg Bach later on in this hour.

Also, Isaac, one of the great workers at the lot.

He is currently going to the University of Wisconsin Superior.

This is hometown, home area.

He works here during the summer.

He'll tell us all about this great venue that we're in.

You can play some cornhole and get some great food, some drink.

So Isaac will be along.

We're also going to do our what's worse edition today, the

fish edition, crappies, or bluegills.

We'll discuss the lighter side of things.

But right now, joining us here at the desk in hour number two, he is the executive director of the Hayward Area Chamber of Commerce, and it is Chris.

pardon me and uh... duck dashel what dashel uh... here at the uh... at the desk and uh... chris i'm sorry i murdered your name there but welcome

yeah i actually didn't murder at all no it's just like it looks there uh... thanks so much for having me time i'm glad that you chose a word as a part of the uh... the any town or some town tour uh... hey i'm gonna double down by the way and uh... the fudge uh... you mentioned trampolays wonderful place on our main street a word

We had another wonderful place where you can get candies and fudge.

It's Lynn Marie's Candies.

You've got Lynn Marie's Candies.

Lynn Marie's Candies, all right.

Which I highly, highly recommend.

Okay.

It's just a wonderful place.

That's down there on that first block of Main Street.

And yeah, I think you'd enjoy what she has to offer as well.

If you're looking for that, it's so

sweet.

Absolutely.

Well, we'll eat our way through Hayward.

We're attempting that as we speak.

You know, I got to meet you earlier today.

Hello with Darla our GM up here.

She's great.

She's been helping us put all this together and Darla and Mark and Big G. They've really tried hard.

I think they've done a great job in helping to integrate WBZH our talk station up here and also Muskie101, our country station into this community.

I've been up here twice now for the Birkebinder and seen it in the winter.

This is my first time coming during the summer.

It's just it each season has its own

thing, but boy, you gotta be thrilled with this kind

of a job.

Yeah, you know what?

It's from a, as you can imagine, Hayward...

Tourism, we always say we're a tourism driven economy and that's what I love more than anything about my job.

There's a lot of really cool aspects about being in a chamber of commerce here in Hayward, but one of them and where we devote so much for our time and our resources is towards marketing the area because we benefit and we love our visitors and we need our visitors and that's all year long.

We're sitting here a beautiful summer day right here in the middle of July.

We are as busy as can be.

That's what we like to see, of course.

But we're a year-round destination.

That's very important to us, and we work hard to try to market the area year-round.

Wintertime is a magical place.

I always say summers are beautiful, but boy, our winters are magical up here.

The falls are pretty good, too, with the fall colors.

So we were kind of blessed that way, and to be honest, it makes...

Marketing is never easy per se, but I tell you what we don't have to even think twice about is we don't have to manufacture things or reasons for people to come up here.

We just need to expose people to them because Hayward kind of writes its own book that way.

We've got so many different attractions, so many wonderful businesses.

We're dotted with hundreds of lakes.

Right in this immediate area hundreds of miles of trail systems whether it's ATV biking mountain biking We're blessed with with all that we have here It's one of the reasons because I'm personally not from here myself I did not grow up here, but I was a visitor I was a tourist for 20 years and you know one day decided gosh You know what if I can move I always dreamed of falling in my parents footsteps and retiring in a place like this One day decided gosh, you know what we only live once

If we can move that timetable up, we'd love to do that.

And I was fortunate enough to be able to do that with our Chamber of Commerce and the opportunity there.

So it's a come on, come all.

I think we talk to parties of 10 people all the time and chances are.

everybody is having fun in Hayward.

We're talking with Mark, apart from Chris Rookdash, Executive Director of Hayward Area Chamber of Commerce.

Chris, tell us a little bit about yourself, where you did grow up, and then what you did before you became the Executive Director here at Hayward.

Yeah, you bet.

You know, I personally grew up in a small town, smaller than Hayward, in Northeast Iowa, a town called Postville, and loved it, wouldn't change it for the world.

You know, much, largely a rural farm community, actually.

But my folks actually the genesis of me being here is my folks decided to retire here after visiting we first started coming up as a family on snowmobile trips in the wintertime and You know my dad in particular was driving the bus in terms of gosh Hey would be a wonderful place to retire to and my folks decided to do that So our family has been visiting you know for many many years And it's just what I had just mentioned that eventually I got the the idea of I'd like to retire here and then that

change to I'd like to

you know, to move that timetable up as I could.

So I grew up in a small town, Iowa.

Went to the University of Iowa.

I'm actually a Hawkeye trade, you could say.

Most recently, before coming here, I was very fortunate.

I worked for over nine years at the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

Better known as the NCAA in Indianapolis is where our headquarters were.

Love that job.

What was your role,

if I may ask?

Yeah, the role there.

I was an assistant director there that worked on a lot of different projects.

including working with both females and minorities that were looking to move into athletic director positions and help setting up, essentially it was a training program for them, lining up mentorships for them, helping move them up through the ranks in the world of Intercollegiate Athletics Administration.

That was one amongst a number of things and projects and that kind of thing that really made it a unique place to be, I can tell you that, and loved working there.

The only issue is, you know, working at the NCAA, I couldn't live in Hayward, Wisconsin.

So that's where, as much as I hated to leave there, it was really about coming to a kind of a dream type situation.

Not only being able to move in our family to Hayward, Wisconsin, but, you know, a Chamber of Commerce setting.

I didn't actually have Chamber of Commerce experience before.

this role.

I felt I had a lot of transferable skills that I'd gained from my previous career and work experience and that I think has proven to help me out quite a bit.

One thing that was there from the beginning is a love for Hayward and I think that helps in this kind of role because we get to tell our story every day to people and I always think that

You know, I never want to take for granted or become jaded about all that we have here in Hayward.

And the cool thing is, where I get to work every day in our Hayward Information Center, where our Chamber of Commerce offices are, we get a stream of people in every day that are excited to be here.

They're on vacation.

They're wanting to know the attractions, the restaurants.

Where do I eat?

Where are the fish fries?

Where are the trail systems showing the maps of the area?

So it's this constant reminder.

that wow i get to live in a place where people vacation

And that's actually a pretty cool feeling.

You know, I think as long as we pinch ourselves now and then, um, as long as we do that, we're going to be in good shape and not taking for granted everything we get to have.

It's a super cool thing.

Let's get to a product and some of these events.

Uh, Chris, in fact, off of our YouTube channel right now, we have Ardeth watching us on via YouTube.

She says, is Hayward where the lumberjack log rolling contest is held?

Well, Ardeth, your question is timely, timely indeed, because Chris, not just as it held here.

It's this weekend.

Yeah, man, she really teed that up.

That was perfect timing.

Yeah, it's actually happening as we speak.

I'm looking to head over there a little bit myself.

But it's actually more than just log rolling.

It's the Lumberjack World Championships.

Some may know it, and we like to say the Olympics of the forest.

And there's competitions you're not going to take.

tend to see elsewhere very often.

Literally guys climb into 60, guys end gals climb into 60 90 foot poles and the pole climb.

There is the log rolling.

There's the boom run.

There's a lot of sawing that takes place as you can imagine.

A lot of unique competitions that you're really only going to find

you know this this is the granddaddy this is the lumberjack world championships at our famed hayward lumberjack bowl uh... right out you know right right here in town

other tickets available people are listening across the state they want to come up to hayward might find it tough to get a hotel room i've stayed park falls but they can still attend yeah uh... this

week yeah you should still be able to attend you what where you do want to go as the website just just google lumbar lumberjack world championships lumberjack world championships at com specifically but if you just google lumberjack world championships you'll

find both schedules, you'll find information about the unique competitions that take place, and then also how to...

purchase tickets.

Wow.

And

people can't make it here.

I mean, this is big time.

I mean, ESPN writes in town and they got this on ESPN part time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's kind of where the Lumberjack World Championships, I think from the early beginnings, because we're in the, you know, in the 60 plus year of the Lumberjack World Championships going on here.

So this wasn't just invented yesterday.

Right.

And really from the early, fairly early beginnings, a lot of the bigger media outlets

took note that this is worthy of broadcast, including ESPN.

So that's been pretty darn cool to have that kind of coverage.

It's been good for the championships.

It's been good for Hayward as well.

One of the monikers we do uses, Hayward, Wisconsin is the land of world-class events, because actually Lumberjack World Championships is just one of them for that matter, which lo and behold, actually as we speak to in this same weekend, we've got the LeCoudre

honor the earth powwow going on as well.

That's all through the weekend.

So it's a pretty good chance for folks that are in the area this weekend to take in a couple of really unique and really cool, cool items.

You can certainly call our information center.

We can visit our website.

HaywardAreaChamber.com can help you.

You said it earlier, Todd.

lodging can be scarce on a weekend like this.

There still can be last minute cancellations and things like that.

So I wouldn't tell people to give up or, you know, our

surroundings.

It's a beautiful drive from Park Falls, by the way.

Not me, I'm certainly coming to Hayward first, but if you can't, there are other places that, and it's not a big driving.

Look, traffic ain't real tough up here, you know, even this

time of

year.

Yeah, you know, it's, you know, it can be tough from a relative, relative standpoint, but no, and you know, someone that has lived in a larger urban area, you know what, I'll take our traffic any day.

You know, we can get around.

And it's, it's, I'm constantly reminded when I go to a bigger city of, okay, this is one of the reasons I love Hayward is when I get in a traffic jam.

So no, we, we, we handle it pretty well.

About a minute left.

What have I not after you want people to know?

Um, you know, anybody out there, if you have not visited Hayward, I really would highly encourage you to, to give it a, give it a try at any given point in the year.

We're always very confident.

If we can get people to Hayward, they're going to be back because our numbers tend to bear that out that, um, you know, I was telling you, maybe off.

or earlier too, that you can get a party attend who inevitably will have different interests.

They're probably all gonna have a really good time in Hayward.

That's how things tend to work.

Whether you're an outdoors person, whether you like the shopping, we have such a quaint downtown, really a historic main street here in Hayward that this is such a cool place that we're at right now, the Lotte, which Ariana and Al Johnson have turned literally a parking lot into a park.

So many cool events here.

We've got a summer music series as put on by our downtown business improvement district.

We have a very robust calendar of events on our website.

If you go to haywardareachamber.com, you're going to find activities every day of the week, and many of them.

There you go.

He's a pro-pro.

Chris Ruckdeschel, and the executive director of the Hayward Area Chamber of Commerce.

Thank you, Chris.

Very much.

We appreciate it.

Thanks for letting us be here.

Thank you so much, Todd.

We appreciate it.

Come on back.

We'll learn more about the lot from Isaac on the other side.

We're live in Hayward on the Civic Media Ready Network.

You and me, grown fishin' in the dark, line on our backs and countin' the stars where the cool grass grows.

Down by the river.

Welcome back to the Taddle Ball Show, live on location of beautiful Hayward, Wisconsin, across the state on the Civic Media radio network.

It is a beautiful day to go fishin', a little overcast, but sometimes the fish bite better when it's overcast.

Welcome in everybody.

We're going to be doing a What's Worse, the Croppy Bluegill Edition in just a little while.

So stay tuned for that.

But right now at the desk, we are pleased to welcome someone we just met a while ago.

He works here at the lot.

It's not just a lot.

As we were talking earlier with Chris Ruckdash, the executive director of the chamber, this was in fact

When I came up here the last couple of times in the winter, I parked my truck about where the picnic tables are behind us here because it was a lot.

Now it's the lot.

And joining us to talk about it is Isaac Hansen, one of the great employees here that runs this during the summer.

Isaac, welcome.

Thank you.

How are you doing today?

I'm great.

That's great.

Tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from, and your job here at the lot.

Yeah, so we're from right here in Hayward, Wisconsin.

I work here in the summer.

I just started Memorial Day weekend

and

I love it.

The owners are great and they were generous enough to hire me and I've been enjoying it.

every day.

That's awesome.

And so when you're not working here during the summer on the lot, my understanding is you're a student at the University of Wisconsin Superior.

I am, yes.

I'm studying music education and with a minor in coaching.

Oh really?

I'm also on the

track and field team up there.

So wow.

Yeah.

Good for you.

Well, I went to school at Plattville and so I was on the broadcast team, the student broadcast team.

And whenever we play superior in basketball, that was a long haul for Plattville.

That's a

far away.

But it's a great campus.

I spent some time, you know, several visits for sports activities up there.

It's a great place.

And of course, one of the most well-known alumni in the world.

Yes.

Who?

Arnold Schwarzenegger.

That's right.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is a grad of University of Wisconsin Superior.

How cool

is that?

It's cool.

We have pictures of them.

Do you

really?

Around campus and some of the buildings.

It's really funny.

Have you ever done, have you ever done like a bar bet or something where you're friends like, you know who the most famous alumni of my school is?

Yeah.

Ever bet anybody on that?

I haven't.

I should.

I've never won some money.

I would think so.

I would think so.

What year are you?

It might be going into my fourth year.

Wow,

good for you.

Almost

done.

Almost done.

What do you want to do after that,

then?

Yeah, I don't really have a preference where, but I'm going to look around and find a place to teach probably like middle school, high school band, and then also get in on coaching track and field.

That's amazing.

One of my best teachers in high school is Lauren Jensen.

She marched from Mike LeCrone to Wisconsin-Madison.

She was the first woman to be a snare drummer for LeCrone.

And she was a great band teacher.

So I have a special place in my heart for band and choir teachers.

That's amazing.

Yeah, you're doing a great job there.

So talk a little bit about The Lot.

This is the first year for this.

Is this correct?

Actually, it's been open a little over a year now.

Yeah, we host all sorts of events weekly and all throughout the summer.

We do open mic, trivia nights, cribbage tournaments, bag tournaments, live music almost every weekend.

We rotate different fairly local food trucks for anybody to stop by and grab a bite to eat.

And then, of course, there's the lot.

a nice selection of soda and caffeinated beverages, alcoholic beverages, beer and wine, and then some snacks and treats to munch on.

All right, now, Jane and Greg, where they're earlier, I think they've got something slushy or something like that.

Oh, that was actually the food truck.

Oh, so it was a food truck.

All right.

But they had great things.

But you host food trucks here at the lot.

We do.

Yes.

Well, they thought that was great.

This is a beautiful stage, by the way.

And it's a great spot.

So you have musical acts and things like that to come here.

Yeah.

Yep.

And the stage was actually just built this spring.

So

it's

like brand new.

And yeah.

So we have live music and open mics for.

Anybody who wishes to come in?

Well, you got great plantings around here.

Yeah flowers the landscaping you've got tables You've got you said you got cornhole bags here all kinds of great things at picnic tables So it's a place for families to come you can bring the kids grandparents whoever it they can all just kind of it's a great gathering place

Yeah, that's that was the the whole goal of the place from Ariana and Al Johnson.

They're the owners of this establishment and they also have

a few more places on Main Street actually.

They've rugged roots just opened like a few weeks ago.

Brand new store on Main Street.

Street grass and sage and then restyled as well.

Wow.

Those are busy folks.

They're busy, yeah.

No wonder they're going to have a guy like you run this place, right?

Yeah, exactly.