CURB PULSE 2022
Curb is produced and published every fall by a class of students in the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Through passions, hardships and discoveries, “Pulse” explores the heartbeat of what drives the human experience and propels the people of Wisconsin forward.
Curb is produced and published every fall by a class of students in the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Through passions, hardships and discoveries, “Pulse” explores the heartbeat of what drives the human experience and propels the people of Wisconsin forward.
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WATER CITY
Milwaukee pioneers
a freshwater future
RESCUE AND RELEASE
Injured wildlife get a second chance
TURN IT UP
Track the rise of electronic dance music
Chefs adapt to challenging era for restaurants
By Design Team
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TRAVEL ON
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CURB PULSE 2022
2 Letter from the editor
3 Products you just can’t beat
4 Perfect places to raise your pulse
5 Spots to visit this winter/Born near you
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SURVIVE Embrace the spirit of endurance
6 Prairie protectors
9
10
13
16
18
21
Incorporating the unincorporated
Return to the wild
Band-Aid on a bigger wound
Unhoused and unprotected
At the helm
The education exodus
STRIVE Experience difficult realities
24
26
28
29
32
34
37
39
42
Warm your heART
King of vintage
Things I learned about Wisconsin
Our living history
The best place to raise a family?
A new narrative
No meat? No problem.
Homegrown
“A love and a legacy”
THRIVE Celebrate feats and successes
44
47
49
51
52
55
56
58
Plant a seed
Surf’s up, Sheboygan
Beyond the books
Meet IronMANDI
A draw to the Driftless
Cricket and community
Beat by beat
Heart to heart
On the cover: Three friends enjoy a sunny October day as bikers
pass by on Oak Leaf Trail in downtown Milwaukee. Photography
by Perri Moran.
LETTER FROM
THE EDITOR
Every minute of our lives, our pulse is constantly
fluctuating. Whether we are standing up or lying down,
moving around or sitting still, stressed or relaxed, our
heart rate is constantly changing — just like our lives. Scientists
say that our heart rate adapts to our body’s need for energy
throughout the day, just as we as a society adapt to the changes
life throws at us.
To say the last two years have been hard is an understatement.
We have lived through one of the worst pandemics forcing us
into an international shutdown while facing an increasingly
polarized political environment that has further divided our
country. The situation has forced our society to revamp and
reevaluate the way we live.
Through all of the hardships, we often find ourselves asking:
What does it truly mean to be alive? While for some it might
mean living every day to the fullest and striving to become an
elevated version of themselves, for others it means doing what
has to be done to make it through to the next day.
This year, the Curb team took the “Pulse” of Wisconsin.
We dug into what drives the heart that beats and propels us
forward. In this issue, we explore the passions, hardships and
discoveries that shape the people of Wisconsin.
We traverse the state through stories of how both people
and businesses have fought to survive these difficult years,
what they have done to continue to thrive and how they
strive for greatness, bettering themselves and the surrounding
community. It’s only up from here.
All the best,
Brooke Messaye
Editor In Chief
There’s more to love!
Visit us at curbonline.com
Curb is published through generous alumni donations and
administered by the UW Foundation and in partnership with
Royle Printing in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.
©Copyright 2022 Curb Magazine
Editorial
Brooke Messaye, Editor In Chief
Gina Musso, Managing Editor
Erin Gretzinger, Lead Writer
Christy Klein, Lead Writer
Erin McGroarty, Lead Writer
Charlie Hildebrand, Copy Editor
Allyson Fergot, Copy Editor
Zehra Topbas, Copy Editor
Business
Ann Kerr, Business Director
Emily Rohloff, PR Director
Jake Rome, PR Director
Samantha Benish, Marketing Representative
Jamie Randall, Marketing Representative
Robin Robinson, Engagement Director
Design
Zoe Bendoff, Art Director
Anica Graney, Production Editor
Annabella Rosciglione, Production Associate
Thomas Hill, Production Associate
Perri Moran, Photo Editor
Online
Nicole Herzog, Online Director
Mason Braasch, Online Producer
Matt Blaustein, Multimedia Editor
Braden Ross, Multimedia Editor
Stacy Forster, Publisher
Unless otherwise noted, all photos are
attributed to Perri Moran
PRODUCTS YOU JUST
CAN’T BEAT
By Zoe Bendoff
We all have things that
make us tick and fill our
hearts with joy. Curb Pulse
is all about diving into
the lives of the people of
Wisconsin to find out what
drives their experience in
the state. Here are some
items to help you fuel the
things that excite you.
Whether you’re an avid
music lover, a health nut,
a connection seeker or
simply enjoy the thrill of
a racing heart rate, these
products are sure to match
your rhythm.
For the ones who
just can’t stop the beat
Happy Face Throw Pillow
Bluetooth Speaker
urbanoutfitters.com
Listen to your favorite jams
with quality sound technology
from the comfort of your
favorite spot in your home with
this multifunctional pillow and
Bluetooth speaker.
Game That Song
amazon.com
Test your knowledge of your
friends’ and family’s favorite
beats and build connections as
you groove to the rhythm.
JBL Tune Wireless On-Ear
Headphones 510BT
target.com
These lightweight, wireless
headphones featuring JBL’s
Pure Bass Sound make for
an elevated music experience
whether you’re getting your
blood pumping or relaxing.
For the thrill seekers
Meta Quest 2: Advanced
All-In-One Virtual Reality
Headset - 128GB
target.com
Skydive, walk the plank or get
in a bar fight from your living
room with this virtual reality
headset guaranteed to make
your heart race.
“The Woman in the Window”
by A.J. Finn
amazon.com
Anna Fox, who is suffering
from agoraphobia after a car
accident, thinks she witnessed
a murder in her neighbor’s
apartment. This psychological
thriller will keep you on the
edge of your seat.
For the heart healthy
Avocado
target.com
Incorporating just two servings
of avocado in your weekly
diet can lower your risk for
cardiovascular disease and
heart attacks.
BlendJet 2 16 oz.
Portable Blender
bedbathandbeyond.com
Whether you throw in hearthealthy
leafy greens, fresh fruits
or vegetables, this portable
blender makes the perfect
pulse, even on the go.
For those curious about
what makes others tick
We’re Not Really Strangers
target.com
Take your relationships to new
depths and challenge your
assumptions with this thoughtprovoking
conversation game.
“I Never Thought of It That
Way: How to Have Fearlessly
Curious Conversations in
Dangerously Divided Times”
by Mónica Guzmán
amazon.com
Guzmán’s book teaches us we
can find common ground to
connect from the heart, even
during the most polarized times.
PULSE 3
Perfect Places to
Raise Your PULSE!
If you answered mostly As:
Wisconsin Northwoods
Find out where your next Wisconsin thrill should be!
By Allyson Fergot
1. How do you feel about the outdoors?
A.
Nothing’s better B. I like it, but indoor C. Eh, not for me
than fresh air
plumbing is nice
2. How much money are you comfortable spending on a trip?
A.
Honestly, I need to B. I have to buy some C. I’m treating myself!
save money
souvenirs
3. Do you like roller coasters?
A.
B. C.
They’re alright I LOVE THEM! I get motion
sickness
The Northwoods offer an opportunity to disconnect
from technology and reconnect with nature. Night
fishing, waterfall chasing or snowmobiling are sure
ways to get your blood pumping.
If you chose mostly Bs:
The Wisconsin Dells
4. How do you feel about crowds of people?
A.
Solitude is my
sanctuary
B. I can live with them C.
5. Who are you taking on this trip?
A.
B. C.
Me, myself and I Looking for some
family fun
6. What would you rather do?
A.
I like getting lost in
the crowd
Just my S.O. and
Fish for a musky B. Go on a ghost tour C. See a live band
me
The “Water Park Capital of the World” has a little bit
of something for everyone. Tall roller coasters and
water slides will keep an adrenaline junkie satisfied.
If those aren’t your thing, magic shows, haunted
houses or riding in one of the Wisconsin Ducks will
give you the excitement you seek.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY ANICA GRANEY
7. How do you prefer to spend your weekends?
A.
B. C.
Hiking People watching at
the farmers’ market
Exploring museums
If you chose mostly Cs:
Milwaukee
8. What are you packing for the trip?
A.
The book on my
nightstand
B. A camera C.
Headphones
9. You feel your best in...
A.
B. C.
Athleisure Tee and blue jeans Anything that says
10. Why do you want to travel?
A.
To escape day-today
B. To have as much C.
stress
fun as
possible
“fashion”
To explore the city
I’m visiting
Between great food and cool museums, Milwaukee
is a great place to visit if you’re looking for a thrill.
Don’t forget to listen to some live music or visit the
Milwaukee County Zoo while you’re there. Being
around the buzz of Wisconsin’s biggest city will
make you feel alive.
4 CURB
BORN
NEAR
YOU
By Ann Kerr
Wisconsin’s economy thrives on the
inventions founded here. Many places
that you pass by every day have been
the birthplace of groundbreaking new
technologies.
Snowmobile
In 1924, Carl Eliason created the
blueprint for the first snowmobile.
In the Northwoods of Wisconsin,
Eliason was in a garage behind
his general store in Sayner when
he thought of the idea of a motor
toboggan. This
idea sparked the
invention of the
snowmobile.
American Girl Doll
Pleasant Rowland developed the
concept for American Girl dolls in
1986. The dolls were created to help
teach girls important
moments in history and
aspects of girlhood, and
each was built with her
own unique story. The
dolls were manufactured
in the Madison suburb
of Middleton by The
Pleasant Company.
Typewriter
Christopher Latham Sholes worked
as an apprentice for a printer, but
after four years, he quit to join his
brothers who published a newspaper
in Green Bay. In 1864, Sholes saw the
initial patents for a writing machine
and decided to see if he could do
something similar. In 1868, Scholes
was granted his initial patent for
his “letter-printing machine” in
Milwaukee, and in
the following years,
he was granted two
more patents.
3 SPOTS TO
VISIT THIS
WINTER
By Nicole Herzog
As the days become shorter and the temperature drops, finding activities to keep
busy can be a challenging task. Though Wisconsin is often known for its summer spots,
there are a wide variety of both popular and hidden gems throughout the Badger state
that offer ideal winter activities for all ages. Grab a hat and gloves, and start exploring!
Take a Day Trip to Copper Falls
State Park
Snowshoe, hike and ski your way through
the picturesque scenery of Copper Falls
State Park. Located in Mellen in northern
Wisconsin, the park contains more than 15
miles of winter trails. Experience mystical
frozen waterfalls and snow-covered views
in this real-life winter wonderland. Whether
you prefer an active adventure or a serene
day trip, Copper Falls is the perfect winter
destination to add to your itinerary.
Even in the
bitter cold,
these dreamy
destinations
thrive with
possibilities
Explore the Apostle Island Ice Caves
While the Apostle Islands feature
beautiful scenery in the warmer months,
the mainland ice caves at the Apostle
Islands in northwestern Wisconsin are also
a breathtaking sight in the winter. When
Lake Superior freezes over, the sea caves
are laden with icicle formations. This is
an ideal destination for winter sightseeing
as the magnificent landscape can serve as
an exciting opportunity for photos and an
appreciation of nature.
Engage Your Senses at the Milwaukee Winter Farmers Market
Farmers’ markets are not just a summer activity — from freshly baked goods to satisfying
soups, the Milwaukee Winter Farmers Market offers delicious treats for all to enjoy
this winter. Visitors can support local vendors while tasting the best seasonal goods in
Wisconsin. This is also a great place to purchase holiday gifts, such as jarred spices, jams
and artisanal oils. While your heart (and stomach) may be full afterward, a break from the
freezing cold temperatures at this indoor farmers’ market will keep your body satisfied this
winter season.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY ANICA GRANEY
PULSE 5
PRAIRIE PROTECTORS
Wisconsinites bring the past into the future by restoring native prairies
By Allyson Fergot
On the edge of a neighborhood
park in La Crosse sits a dense
prairie. Its tall, browning
plants stand in stark contrast to the
freshly mowed, dark-green grass that
surrounds the park. It’s a clear line
between careful control and self-sufficient
freedom.
When you approach the boundary
between the manicured lawn and the
native landscape, you realize how
thick the prairie is. Thatch from the
plants conceals the ground, making
the soil something you can only
imagine. The winding yellow-green
grasses 10 yards from the border
block your view to the other side.
The prairie is only four acres from
one end to the other, but you could
easily get lost in the thicket.
There’s a soft but constant buzz
in this ecosystem alive with various
insects and birds. The purple, yellow
and white flowers visible to an outsider
are dotted with the few remaining
pollinators. It’s autumn now.
Soon the sound will dull, the flowers
will lose their color and the birds will
migrate south.
This prairie, a sanctuary for wildlife
and virtually impenetrable by
humans, was not here 15 years ago.
It was brought into existence in the
late 2000s by a group of amateur
conservationists who were interested
in bringing Wisconsin’s native landscape
into the future.
Before European settlement, prairies
were an essential tool for the
well-being of Wisconsin’s habitants.
The prairies’ ability to create nutrient-rich
soil led Europeans to convert
them into agricultural land.
When Europeans first settled in Wisconsin,
prairies took up 2.1 million
acres. Today, less than 10,000 acres
of native prairie remain. In their
place stand houses and farmland,
shopping centers and schools, and
miles and miles of interstate. This
modernization left prairies as one
of the most decimated landscapes in
the U.S.
Now, some Wisconsinites have discovered
a passion for restoring Wisconsin
prairies.
“It’s progress and whatnot, but I
think you have to have a good imagination
to think back prior to European
movement here ... to see the native
grasses and plants and trees,” says
Gregg Erickson, one of the amateur
conservationists that reconstructed
the prairie by the park.
Erickson, now retired, used to
work as a science teacher at Central
High School in La Crosse. About 15
years ago, Erickson wrote a grant for
seeds to grow a prairie containing
native plants where he could take his
students for educational purposes.
Erickson’s friends, including my
dad, helped him prepare the land,
plant seeds and burn away weeds in
order to establish the new prairie.
Now, whenever I walk through my
neighborhood or play volleyball in
the park with my little sister, I get to
see a sliver of what Wisconsin used
to look like.
Since restoring the prairie in my
neighborhood, Erickson has reconstructed
more prairies, including one
in his backyard. A prairie brings with
it a whole ecosystem, and Erickson
says there has been a clear change in
the wildlife behind his house.
The author’s father
helped restore this
prairie in La Crosse
in 2020.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALLYSON FERGOT
“Turkeys love to eat grasshoppers,
and because we have so many grasshoppers
around, there’s turkeys all
over the place laying their nests in
our grasses,” he says.
Jack Buswell, an attorney in Sparta,
a half hour east of La Crosse, first
got involved in prairie restoration
and management in 1997 when he
took over his family farm.
“The real reason I did prairie restoration
was to create upland habitat
for birds such as pheasants and
quail,” Buswell says.
Prairie restoration is not for the
faint of heart, though. The preparation
process and continuous weed
removal can be tedious, and it can
take years before the first native
plants sprout. A prairie requires little
maintenance once established,
except for a routine cleansing every
few years to clear dead plants and
any invasive weeds that have sneaked
into the area.
One of the best ways to effectively
get rid of weeds is through one of
Earth’s most feared elements: fire.
There are other ways to maintain
a prairie, like spot treating weeds
using herbicides or by mowing, but
Neil Diboll, president and owner of
Prairie Nursery in Westfield, in the
central part of the state, says fire is
the best method.
Although starting out can seem
overwhelming, conservationists
agree the benefits associated with restoring
a prairie outweigh the initial
investment of time and money. Not
only do restored prairies add natural
beauty to a landscape and create
habitat for pollinators and endangered
species, they’re also a crucial
component to fight climate change
and mitigate its effects.
Prairies can store carbon deep into
the earth because their root system
stretches multiple feet into the soil.
This makes prairies incredible carbon
sinks, which means they absorb
more carbon than they release.
The soil structure and root system
of prairies also absorb water quickly.
This water absorption mitigates the
effects of flooding.
Because of habitat creation, envi-
ronmental impacts and sheer beauty,
people working in prairie restoration
have noticed an increased
interest toward it.
“I think things have really been
picking up momentum and picking
up steam... in the areas of prairie
conservation, protection and management,”
says Armund Bartz, a conservation
biologist at the Wisconsin
Department of Natural Resources.
The DNR has partnered with
private landowners to restore and
manage properties. Darcy Kind,
a private lands biologist with the
Wisconsin DNR, focuses on restoration
and management to benefit
at-risk species. Since she started
working on the program in 2005,
there has been a steady increase in
people looking to restore prairies.
“Some people feel like they need
to create this habitat because they
really want to see monarch butterflies,”
Kind says. “Then some people
know the history of the property,
know that they once had a prairie
on their property, so they’re trying
to get it back.”
Other groups across Wisconsin
are working toward improving the
status of prairies in the state. The
Grasslands 2.0 project is educating
farmers on how agricultural land
can be converted into future grasslands
and native prairies, which can
be grazed by cattle; much like how
Wisconsin’s native prairies were
once grazed by bison.
Despite the steady increase in interest,
Bartz is hoping more people
across the state become involved in
prairie restoration. “It’s an underdog
habitat that really needs help,”
he says. “Prairies are a part of our
history, part of our culture, a link to
the past and a potential resource for
the future.”
This prairie in La
Crosse is starting
to die as winter
approaches. The
plants will be back
in bloom by
summertime.
8 CURB
INCORPORATING THE
UNINCORPORATED
The peaks and valleys of an unincorporated community
By Ann Kerr
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANN KERR
The morning fog
covers rush hour
on Reiner Road in
the unincorporated
community of Burke.
“That’s an opportunity that
wouldn’t be available if it
were a larger community
because it’d be such a higher
population.”
It is not uncommon for one to be
curious about the in-between.
The homes, farms and playgrounds
that we see in a passing blur
as we zoom by on the county highways
and interstates.
For much of Wisconsin, these are
unincorporated towns and communities.
They’re tucked in between
cornfields quilting central Wisconsin,
resting below a series of lakes
and filling the sprawling root of the
peninsula. These places narrate the
story of the state’s rich history.
In Wisconsin, there are 1,246 unincorporated
towns spanning all 72
counties. These towns provide fundamental
services to about 95% of
Wisconsin’s geography and 30% of
its population.
Even though these communities
don’t have typical municipal governance,
they have a heartbeat of their
own that means something to the
people who live there, and they are
fiercely loyal as a result.
For Steven Berg and Lisa Rubrich,
the unincorporated town of Burke
offers residents the quieter, smaller
community feeling they were looking
for. Burke — sandwiched between
Madison and its largest suburb,
Sun Prairie — was founded in
1851 after its separation from the
nearby commuity of Windsor.
Burke quickly became a popular
layover spot for travelers as early
settler Horace Lawrence established
The Prairie House, a hotel located
on the road from Burke to Portage.
While The Prairie House no longer
exists, Burke is still a common
travel pit stop. Many people take
advantage of the gas stations located
along the interstate in Burke.
“It’s kind of a funny thing that
people stop here on their way to
somewhere else,” Berg says.
Rubrich has lived in Burke since
2003 and now serves as a supervisor
on the town board.
She initially moved to Burke because
her kids could be bused to
nearby schools. In addition, the lot
sizes were large and she could pay for
and manage her own well and septic
systems, making her yearly taxes
lower. The town was also quiet and
neighborly.
Berg moved to Burke in 2004 to be
closer to his job in Madison. Since
living there, he’s served on four different
commissions, as well as the
town board.
“That’s an opportunity that
wouldn’t be available if it were a larger
community because it’d be such a
higher population,” he says.
Changes for Burke
In 2036, Burke is slated to be annexed
by the surrounding towns of
Madison, DeForest and Sun Prairie.
Berg explained that Burke’s bigger
neighbors could annex any land they
wanted as long as it was adjacent to
their own borders.
In 2004, the people of Burke
worked with lawyers to create a
boundary agreement between these
three municipalities to allow the
town to remain unincorporated.
While this agreement freed Burke
to prosper for the last 18 years, its
expiration date is set for 2036, when
Burke expects to be taken over by
Madison, DeForest and Sun Prairie.
Rubrich wants people to remember
Burke for the same reasons she
moved there — a welcoming and
friendly community that has operated
smoothly on its own and served
its people well.
Rubrich believes that the annexation
of Burke will change its personality
“from a quiet hamlet to a
quite different style of community,”
she says. “We want to leave a legacy
for people who are going to get annexed
so that they remember that ...
Burke was Burke at some point.”
SURVIVE 9
RETURN TO THE WILD
The heartache and joy of the people who nurse Wisconsin’s
wildlife back to health
By Emily Rohloff
In January 1992, a single call forever
changed the lives of, Yvonne
Wallace Blane and her husband,
Steve Blane, co-founders of Fellow
Mortals Wildlife Hospital.
In the days after that first call,
around 150 sick Canada geese would
be brought to Yvonne and Steve to
be treated. There was no facility —
only two bedrooms, a living room, a
kitchen, a basement and a porch in
their little log cabin home located in
the southeastern town of Delevan.
Neither Steve, Yvonne nor their
team knew what was wrong with
the geese or if they could treat them.
Fellow Mortals’ experiences treating
wildlife involved dealing with
fractures, head trauma, orphaning,
starvation and dehydration, but
never this.
Today, 31 years later, Fellow Mortals
Wildlife Hospital is in a new location
near Delavan, in Lake Geneva,
and takes in about 2,000 injured
or orphaned wildlife patients annually
at no charge. Yvonne and Steve,
along with their team, have become
the heartbeat of wildlife care, providing
a place full of second chances for
Wisconsin wildlife.
The nonprofit’s 52 acres and
10,000-square-foot facility includes
The owl, Darby,
a permanent
resident of Fellow
Mortals Wildlife
Hospital, rests
on a perch at the
rehabilitation
facility.
10 CURB
a state-of-the-art hospital, heated indoor
habitats, large flights, a critical
care wing and isolation wards.
Fellow Mortals relies entirely on
donations. The organization receives
some of their funding through a
monthly donation program called
Team Hope. Here, members can
choose to donate anywhere from $1
to $500 a month. Donors for this
program also receive quarterly email
updates on how their donations are
being used to provide direct care to
injured and orphaned wildlife.
When tending to the sick geese
in 1992, the Blanes sent the geese to
be tested by the staff at the National
Wildlife Center in Madison, who
confirmed the geese were contaminated
with lead poisoning.
Yvonne, Steve and their team began
treating the geese through lavages,
which is the removal of lead from
the gizzard. They also called for help
from local and state federal agencies,
such as the Wisconsin Department
of Natural Resources and the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service.
Yvonne, still heartsick about the
event, remembers dreading each
morning having to walk in the cold
over to the holding areas to collect
the dead bodies of the geese and
bring those dying inside her house
for warmth.
The geese in critical condition
stayed in Yvonne and Steve’s small
kitchen and living room to keep
warm. The other geese were kept in
kennels, set up hastily in their backyard,
tarped against the bitter cold
and wind with bedded straw and
heat lamps.
Today, it is the memory of the 74th
bird, who acted as a totem during
that horrible time, that stays with
the Fellow Mortals’ staff. To the Fellow
Mortals’ team he represented
all of the birds who were rescued,
fought to survive, and lived or died.
The team was able to release him on
Easter Sunday of that year, and with
him, release the horror of those few
months. The state and federal agencies’
belief in the Fellow Mortals’
staff and their assistance with personnel,
advice, caging and evidence
collection is what is helping make
their effort a success.
The cause of the sickness was not
dealt with until several years later, in
October 1996, when the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency began
removing more than 28,000 tons of
contaminated soils and sediments
from the site where the Canada
geese, and hundreds of other wildlife,
had been exposed.
It was the worst case of lead poisoning
in southeastern Wisconsin’s
history, and it was the first time the
EPA ever got involved in a case that
resulted solely in the loss of nonhuman
life.
“I think we had about 300 animals
maybe that year,” Yvonne says. “Our
numbers pretty much doubled overnight.
That was really the turning
point I think for us where we knew,
or we realized, we had to make a decision.”
And make a decision they did.
Gail Buhl, program coordinator
for the Partners for Wildlife at the
Raptor Center in Minneapolis, says
Yvonne and Steve have brought high
standards to the field of wildlife rehabilitation
in Wisconsin by creating
Fellow Mortals Wildlife Hospital.
“They have the best practices in
mind all the time. Yvonne and Steve
working together to design buildings,
caging, or whatever it is, is
magic to watch,” Buhl says. “And that
partnership is what really built Fellow
Mortals.”
Their most positive experiences
are the ones where the staff of Fellow
Mortals can see the animals’ care
come full circle.
“They heal very quickly and they
have a great will to live,” says Dr. Scot
Hodkiewicz, a volunteer veterinarian
at Fellow Mortals. “The goal of
all these animals is to be able to get
released.”
Last October, a goose was dropped
off at the Fellow Mortals facility. She
had been shot, had a broken leg and
could not stand because of the tissue
damage from the pellet embedded in
her foot. However, she fought and
fought, and she refused to give up.
The goose accepted the care of the
Fellow Mortals staff and eventually
made a full recovery. The team
was able to release her back into the
“It means a lot to us that one life
is saved, because it’s a life.”
wild, an emotional moment for all
the staff.
“She gets out and she walks up to
the water, she spreads her wings really
big, she does a little tail feather
wiggle, and she’s so happy,” says Jessica
Nass, an advanced wildlife rehabilitator
and biologist at Fellow Mortals.
“Those are the little gems that
keep us positive and keep us feeling
like we are doing the right thing.”
The Wisconsin public also appreciates
the effort and education provided
by the nonprofit.
Nass recounts how in September
2022 a gentleman brought in an owl
to the Fellow Mortals facility after
he’d been watching it sit on a log for
a long time. The man was nervous
to help, but Nass and other Fellow
Mortals’ staff talked to him on the
Yvonne Wallace
Blane, co-founder
of the Fellow
Mortals Wildlife
Hospital (second
from left) and
the core team of
caretakers and
specialists at
Fellow Mortals
Wildlife Hospital.
phone and guided him through the
process of how to safely capture and
bring the owl into the hospital.
The man, upon bringing in the
owl, explained to the staff that he
had recently lost his wife, who was
an avid lover of owls. He believes the
owl is her spiritual animal and his
wife was trying to reach him.
“We, as humans, have the capability
to interject ourselves into these
things and do the right thing,” Nass
says. “It means a lot to us that one
life is saved, because it’s a life.”
The respect for wildlife and all living
things propelled the idea of Fellow
Mortals to flourish.
Its foundation dates back to when
Yvonne and her husband managed
a mobile home park. As Yvonne
was mowing the lawn one day, she
accidentally ran over a nest of baby
rabbits. Yvonne, upset and unsure
of what to do, called several animal
hospitals, but none of them had a
solution to help besides advising her
to let nature take its course.
Unsatisfied with this answer,
Yvonne and her husband took the
baby rabbits into their home and
cared for them, nurturing them back
to health and then releasing them
back into the wild.
“For me, it is mostly a matter of
respect, appreciation and a feeling
of duty that these other species that
share our space are being impacted
by human activities every single
day,” Yvonne says. “They have no
one to speak for them. They have
no one to help them. They have nowhere
to go. And so that’s really why
we’re still here today.”
Fellow Mortals’ impact continues
to grow. She and her husband want
to convert Fellow Mortals’ 52 acres
of land into a permanent home for
wildlife that can no longer be released
back into the wild.
They envision having local community,
school and church groups
come into a controlled environment
and letting them interact with and
learn about the different wildlife of
Wisconsin, while making sure the
animals still have privacy and space
to retreat.
The team at Fellow Mortals Wild-
life Hospital is passionate and committed
to helping the wildlife of Wisconsin,
no matter the condition, size
or species that comes to them.
“We really do run on faith and
hope,” Yvonne says. “I sometimes say
one promise, one purpose, one life at
a time.”
An array of wildife
can be found at
Fellow Mortals
Wildlife Hospital,
including this
baby squirrel who
is a current Fellow
Mortals resident.
BAND-AID ON A
BIGGER WOUND
Debt forgiveness plan would provide relief but falls short
of addressing the heart of the student loan crisis
By Erin Gretzinger
ILLUSTRATION BY ZOE BENDOFF
The first time Emerson
Boettcher cried about the
cost of college, she was only
in sixth grade.
It was the height of the Great Recession.
Then, her mother started to
lose her vision — and eventually her
job. As her family’s finances tightened
under the strain of unemployment,
the dreaded question arose in
Boettcher’s mind.
“I remember so clearly: That
message is just like, ‘You need to go
to college to get a job,’” Boettcher
says. “And at the [same] time, I was
just being told no to new basketball
shoes; being told no to go to the
movies; being told no to like literally
any normal child experiences.
“And I was like, ‘Well, I’m having
an abnormal life because of money.
What if it doesn’t change, and I can’t
go to college like everyone around
me,’” she says.
But there was one thing that
Boettcher’s younger self didn’t yet
understand about paying for college:
“Obviously, I didn’t know what the
heck a loan was when I was 11.”
Boettcher, now a 24-year-old high
school teacher in Minneapolis, says
she feels like she is in a “pretty decent
boat” compared to others with
student loan debt — with about
$25,000 still remaining.
“This is defining the rest of your
life,” Boettcher says of her student
loans. “Not just the next four years,
but also the next eight, and then,
therefore, the rest of your life.”
There is a beacon of hope for the
thousands of Wisconsinites — like
Boettcher — with debt. In August,
the Biden administration announced
a plan to provide loan forgiveness of
up to $20,000. The proposal could
cancel the debt of almost half the
nation’s borrowers, including more
than 300,000 eligible in the state.
But the road to debt relief remains
unclear as borrowers are stuck indefinitely
waiting to see if Biden’s
plan will withstand legal challenges.
Amid this period of uncertainty, experts
have pointed out a blind spot
in Biden’s plan: the danger of a onetime
debt “jubilee.”
SURVIVE 13
Regardless of whether Biden’s plan
comes to fruition, experts and borrowers
will continue to grapple with
how to combat the student loan crisis
at its sources to sustainably address
debt for borrowers today — and the
next generation.
How We Got Here
According to UW–Madison’s Student
Success Through Applied Research
Lab, an estimated 715,800
Wisconsin residents have federal
student loan debt, which represents
about one-fourth of the state’s labor
force. Wisconsin borrowers owe
$23.1 billion, putting the average
balance at about $32,230 per person.
Cliff Robb, a UW–Madison expert
in college student financial behavior,
says the number of borrowers and
the amount students borrow has increased
in the last decade. Accounting
for inflation, tuition at public
four-year institutions has more than
doubled since the early 1990s.
According to Helen Faith, a student
loan expert who works as UW–
Madison’s director of student financial
aid, the university’s tuition costs
over 22 times more than it did five
decades ago.
“When you talk to folks who maybe
went to college quite a while ago
... [they] will say, ‘Well, you know,
when I went to school, we just
worked part-time and we covered
our costs,’ and I think oftentimes
there’s a failure to realize that the
cost of education has gone up substantially,”
Faith says.
Federal programs like the Pell
Grant — a means-based award that
doesn’t need to be repaid — were
designed to help make college more
affordable. But Robb and Faith say
those support systems have not kept
up with predictable rising costs. The
Pell Grant, for example, used to
cover nearly 80% of tuition at public
four-year universities. Today, it is
worth one-third of its original value.
The result: Students take on more
debt than previous generations.
Boettcher’s concerns about paying
for college never faded after her
epiphany in sixth grade. Despite being
admitted to Georgetown University
in Washington, D.C., Boettcher
14 CURB
instead left her northeastern Wisconsin
hometown of Two Rivers
to attend UW–Madison and save
some money with in-state tuition.
During college, she worked 20 to
40 hours a week and spent her spare
time on scholarship applications.
After graduation, Boettcher joined
an AmeriCorps program, a nonprofit
that provides service-year opportunities,
in part because of grant
assistance that offers some student
loan forgiveness.
Following a similar path to
Boettcher, fellow UW–Madison
graduate Justine Mischka worked
for AmeriCorps to help pay off part
of her student loan debt. Still, she
is unsure of when she will get out
of debt.
“I work at a nonprofit, and we’re
all 20-somethings with college
debt,” Mischka says. “None of us
have any sort of short-sighted goals
of paying off our student loans.”
Significant at the Margins
Robb and Faith note that the average
borrower can successfully pay
off their student loan debt since
college degrees often lead to higher-paying
jobs. However, one-third
of all borrowers don’t actually finish
college. Other issues, such as massive
interest accumulation or certain
aggressive loan packages, can
further hinder borrowers.
“It’s not like every person is in
a bad situation because of student
loan debt,” Robb says. “It’s more at
the margins, but it’s still significant
at the margins.”
Complicating the process, Robb
says young people don’t always understand
the magnitude of debt.
This was certainly the case for
Mischka, a Whitewater native, located
in southeastern Wisconsin.
In high school, as Miscka worked
for pocket change at Rocky Rococo
and her single mother provided the
necessities, even college application
fees felt daunting to her.
So when she got her financial aid
back and saw she qualified for loans
and grants, a 17-year-old Mischka
jumped at the chance.
Despite receiving the Pell Grant,
Mischka, now 25, still has about
UW–Madison graduate Emerson
Boettcher (right), who has over
$20,000 in student loan debt, worked
between 20 to 40 hours a week during
college to help assauge her concerns
about debt after college.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRYCE RICHTER/UW–MADISON
Our photo
caption would
go here in
Avenir Heavy!!
Wisconsin native Justine Mischka
(left) moved to Washington after her
graduation from UW–Madison for an
AmeriCorps job. She has about $35,000
left in student loan debt and joined
AmeriCorps to help offset her debt
through its grant program.
PHOTOGRAPHY PROVIDED BY JUSTINE MISCHKA
$35,000 left in debt. She wouldn’t
have done anything differently, but
she wished she knew more when she
said “yes” to loans.
“It’s just like this one button on a
website that you click, and then they
put money in your bank account,”
she says.
Promises and Shortcomings
For Faith, a debt forgiveness policy
must balance precise targeting
and easy implementation. Biden’s
plan, she thinks, accomplished both
of those feats.
Considering people who struggle
the most with debt borrow less than
$10,000, Faith says that number is
addressed by offering relief of up to
$10,000 for non-Pell Grant recipients.
The boosted forgiveness of up
to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients
also provides means-based relief.
But debt relief today doesn’t account
for the big-picture problems in
the student loan system — or future
borrowers’ inheritance of it.
“A one-time forgiveness — it is
problematic,” Faith says. “It’s hard
for me to imagine a situation in
which that could happen again.”
Robb says a one-time relief could
also create perverse incentives —
leaving people waiting for more debt
forgiveness or causing them to take
out more loans in hopes of additional
debt cancellation.
For borrowers like Mischka and
Boettcher — who both received Pell
Grants — Biden’s plan would be a
game changer. Mischka would have
her debt at least cut in half.
Under Biden’s plan, Boettcher
would be debt-free. But if it gets axed,
she would have to “rethink teaching
entirely” — whether she could afford
to do what she loves. Despite benefiting
from the forgiveness, Boettcher
recognizes the long-term solution is
not simple. All she has to do is think
about her students to realize that.
“I look at my students now as they
are prepping for college, and while I
have this really amazing blessing, it’s
like kids are still getting themselves
into debt that they don’t know how
to pay off.
“When’s the next solution? Is the
next solution just another big forgiveness?”
Boettcher says. “When
are we going to really get to the economic
part of what’s causing this
trouble in our system?”
What’s Next?
The answer to Boettcher’s question
is, unsurpisingly, complicated.
Faith admits it is not a perfect
analogy, but she asks people to think
about the student debt crisis as a
health care situation.
“We can stop the bleeding, but if
we still have this wound, we need
to figure out better ways to address
emergency care and preventative
care,” she says. “If we can do more
on the front end to be more preventative,
then we can reduce the need
for emergency care.”
For Faith, this means making student
aid more straightforward and
reducing the amount that people
borrow. Medicine number one, Faith
says: increasing the value of the Pell
Grant to help students better cover
college costs.
Robb says making community
college free would pave the way for
people to start at cheaper two-year
schools and transition into higher-cost
institutions later — decreasing
students’ overall debt.
Additional means-based grant
programs could also help minimize
debt. For example, under the recently
implemented Bucky’s Tuition
Promise at UW–Madison, both
Boettcher and Mischka would have
graduated debt-free.
As the nation wrestles with the
best ways to address student debt,
borrowers hold their breath, waiting
for Biden’s promise of relief.
But until her balance is down to
zero, debt will remain on Boettcher’s
mind and in her actions — like picking
out a birthday gift for her 2-yearold
nephew.
“I’m setting up a college investment
fund for him,” she says with a
chuckle. “I’m not giving him toys.”
SURVIVE 15
UNHOUSED AND
UNPROTECTED
The fight for a Homeless Bill of Rights
persists in Wisconsin
By Braden Ross
Ulysses Williams, member of the Madison Wisconsin Homeless Union, is one of the leaders pushing
for a Madison Homeless Bill of Rights.
Ulysses Williams takes a puff
of his cigarette before he
begins to speak.
“I was born and raised in the inner
city of Milwaukee,” he says. “I
left and came here, was middle class
for 27 years, and then I got divorced
and everything went downhill.”
We’re sitting at a picnic table in
front of the house where he’s been
living for the last seven years. But
before this place, Williams was living
on the streets of Madison.
“I was homeless. That was 2011,”
he says. “I stayed homeless for 14
months, got a place and then, like
usual, I lost my job. Back out on
the street again, and that was 15
months out on the streets.”
Williams knows firsthand the
hardships of being unhoused. It
was those experiences that led him
toward working on a solution that
he hopes will make life better for
those who are experiencing homelessness.
It’s an idea that would give
people who already have very little
an extra bump, a step beyond mere
survival to a place where they are
protected and even given a chance
to get ahead.
In May, Williams introduced
a Homeless Bill of Rights to the
City-County Homeless Issues Committee,
a local government body
made up of Dane County supervisors,
Madison alders and people
tied to the area’s homeless community.
The document lists nine rights
he hopes to protect, including the
right to use and move freely in public
spaces, the right to vote, a reasonable
expectation of privacy of
personal property, and the right to
pray, meditate or practice religion
in public spaces, among others.
The idea of a Homeless Bill of
Rights is not unique to Madison or
Williams; it’s something that activists
across the country have championed
for years. In drafting his
own Homeless Bill of Rights, Williams
drew inspiration from legislation
that has been passed in other
cities and states. The proposal was
recommended by the City-County
Homeless Issues Committee and
16 CURB
Williams says it’s under consideration
by the Dane County Board of
Supervisors.
“The original goal for a lot of
them was to protect people from
being criminally punished for trying
to survive in public spaces,” says
Eric Tars, legal director at the National
Homelessness Law Center.
In 2012, Rhode Island became
the first state to pass a Homeless
Bill of Rights, followed by Illinois
and Connecticut. Other states like
California and Oregon have passed
more specific homeless rights legislation.
In 2021, U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, a
Democrat from Missouri, introduced
the Unhoused Bill of Rights,
the first ever federal resolution for
homeless rights. If passed, the bill
would signify a federal commitment
to solving the issue of homelessness.
Tars says these policies are a step
in the right direction, but many had
most of the stronger protections
stripped out of them during the legislative
process.
Homeless Bills of Rights are designed
to protect people experiencing
homeless from discrimination
based on housing status, something
Williams says is common.
“America unfortunately has
a history of discrimination,” he
says. “Firstly Indians, then African
Americans, then Jewish and Irish.
They do have that history, and right
now, it’s homelessness.”
He says he’s witnessed and experienced
discrimination due to housing
status many times, from seeing
people being denied service at
businesses to being removed from
certain street corners. On one occasion,
Williams says he was handing
out water on State Street when
he saw a police officer clear out an
entire group after seeing one person
drinking alcohol.
“The police officer came up and
of course he poured it out and started
talking to them about, ‘Hey you
guys come down here, you start
fights down here, how about you
guys start moving it out of here?’”
Williams says.
He says he specifically included
No. 8 on the list, the right to engage
in lawful self-employment, because
of discrimination he says he and
others faced while trying to make
some extra cash by collecting and
recycling aluminum cans.
“The city made an ordinance that
you cannot take it out of any trash
containers,” Williams says. “Then
all of a sudden, the recycling places,
you cannot walk up and bring cans.
You gotta be in a car, which, boom,
it’s no longer possible to do.”
The other and perhaps more dire
goal of a Homeless Bills of Rights is
to eliminate the criminalization of
homelessness by getting rid of laws
against illegal camping and panhandling,
among other things. In
Dane County, an average of 13% of
the annual bookings into the Dane
County Jail are people who are presumed
to be homeless.
“We all sleep, we all eat, we all go
to the bathroom, we all enjoy being
able to shelter ourselves when it’s
too hot or too cold outside,” Tars
says. “But those activities that all
of us take for granted can become
criminal acts if they’re done outside
in some places.”
Offenses that begin with a fine
can land someone who can’t afford
to pay them in jail, which then becomes
a barrier to finding housing
and a job. On top of that, jail time
can trigger mental health issues.
“Even long after you might have
been arrested, these fines and fees
can follow you and make it impossible
for you to get housing or stay
housed for potentially years after,”
Tars says.
Pearl Foster, a volunteer, advocate
and member of the Madison
Wisconsin Homeless Union, also
recognizes the harm in criminalization
and says even small steps are
impactful.
“We need as many things to protect
our homeless population as
we can,” Foster says. “So if that’s a
Homeless Bill of Rights plus homelessness
as a protected class and
any other laws such as overturning
some of the ones that already criminalize
homelessness. We just need it
all out there.”
Advocates agree that these policies
are not working to solve the issue
and hope that a Homeless Bill of
Rights will both provide protections
and push policymakers to rethink
how they approach homelessness.
“The hope is that by creating this
new floor of rights, that the solutions
that communities will turn to
will be actual constructive solutions
that work for everybody, rather
than just allowing public officials to
push the problem out of the public
view for their own convenience,”
Tars says.
Ulysses Williams and
Garrett Olson set up
their Homeless Union
stand at the farmers’
market in Madison to
hand out free coffee
and hot chocolate as a
thank you to those who
sign their petition for
the Madison Homeless
Bill of Rights.
SURVIVE 17
AT THE HELM
Wisconsin leads the nation into the future of fresh water
By Christy Klein
Originally “Mekonsing” or
“River Running Through a
Red Place” the state is named
for the Wisconsin River that cuts
through the center of our state.
Our wetlands are abundant and
our rivers run deep. Wisconsin holds
more than 15,000 lakes while its rivers
and streams cover more than 84,000
miles of terrain. To the east, Lake
Michigan holds over one quadrillion
gallons of water. Lake Superior’s three
quadrillion gallons — the deepest and
largest of the Great Lakes — sits to
the north, while the Mississippi River
follows the southwestern border.
As climate change, contamination
and population continue to endanger
the global fresh water supply, Wisconsin’s
freshwater becomes increasingly
valuable. Places with fresh
water will flourish as climate change
shifts weather patterns and droughts
become more common.
The state’s forward-thinking, centuries-long
connection to water
has led Wisconsin to emerge as an
unexpected leader in the fight for
survival in the national water crisis.
Leaders across Wisconsin are moving
forward to keep the state at the
forefront of water technology for
decades to come.
Much of that work is happening
in Milwaukee, located on Lake
Michigan at the confluence of three
rivers: the Milwaukee, Menomonee
and Kinnickinnic. “Minwaking,”
the Potawatomi word for “gathering
place by the water,” brought Native
Americans to the area due to its rich
land and location. The city’s proximity
to water drew in water-intensive
industries like brewing, tanneries,
meatpacking and transportation —
all of which drove water innovation
in the 1800s.
Water Drives Innovation
Now, the city is home to more than
150 water-related companies like A.O.
Smith, Badger Meter and Pentair;
The Water Council; and the country’s
only School of Freshwater Sciences at
UW–Milwaukee.
The Water Council, a nonprofit organization
in downtown Milwaukee,
is dedicated to freshwater innovation
and water stewardship.
In 2009, the same year the organi-
Milwaukee’s
Lakefront Walk
follows along
the shoreline of
Lake Michigan.
Approximately 1.6
million Wisconsin
residents get their
water from the
Great Lakes Basin.
18 CURB
zation incorporated into a nonprofit,
the United Nations designated Milwaukee
a U.N. Global Compact City
— one of 13 cities in the world at the
time selected for its concentration in
a topic related to global health and
development. The Water Council establishes
a network of water industry
go-getters by connecting businesses,
utilities, government and innovators
to bring water users into the future.
“It goes back 150 to 160 years ago,”
says Dean Amhaus, president and
CEO of The Water Council. “The
breweries came in because of the
access to the water, to the rivers, to
the grains and the farms, and those
breweries needed companies to help
them process water ... It really goes
back to producing beer.”
Studying Fresh Water
The UW–Milwaukee School of
Freshwater Sciences found its home
here for a similar reason: Milwaukee’s
long-standing connection to
water. Originally founded in 1966 as
the Center for Great Lakes Studies,
it is the only school in the entire
country dedicated to the study of
fresh water.
“Milwaukee has really been a force
in research for a while and in education
and outreach on the Great Lakes,”
says Rebecca Klaper, interim dean of
the School of Freshwater Sciences.
The School of Freshwater Sciences
has been a source of groundbreaking
research in fresh water. Its program
in Great Lakes Aquaculture research
specializes in urban aquaculture. As agriculture
in the west becomes increasingly
endangered, the development of
urban aquaponics has the potential
to play a significant role in a new and
expanding food revolution.
The school’s Great Lakes Genomics
Center is internationally known
for its expertise in using genomics to
address pollution concerns in fresh
water. Their research consists of measuring
ecosystem health, identifying
invasive species, sequencing coronavirus
strains in wastewater and more.
While Milwaukee has built a reputation
in the water industry, Wisconsin
itself can stand alone as a
giant in fresh water. According to
Todd Ambs, former deputy secretary
at the Wisconsin Department
of Natural Resources, Wisconsin has
1,110 miles of Great Lakes shoreline
and 5.3 million acres of wetlands.
We have enough groundwater that
if it were laid evenly over the state, it
would be 100 feet deep.
Manage The Flow
For Ambs, what sets Wisconsin
apart in water is our ability to manage
it effectively.
“We’ve got some leaders in terms
of how water management is done,”
Ambs says, pointing to the Madison
Metropolitan Sewer Districts, Green
Bay’s wastewater treatment system
and Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewer
District’s work with both wastewater
and habitat preservation and restoration.
“People that do this work for
a living will look to Milwaukee for
some of the leading technology and
efforts that are underway nationally.”
Ambs led negotiations for the state
as the eight Great Lakes states created
the Great Lakes Compact, which
bars any large-scale water diversions
outside the Great Lakes basin. With
Congress’s approval, former President
George W. Bush signed it into
law in 2008.
Shaili Pfeiffer, staff specialist at the
DNR Bureau of Drinking Water and
Groundwater Water Use Section,
explains the heavy-handed policy as
a means of water management.
“You can’t manage water if you
don’t know what the water is that
you have, and you don’t know who
is using it,” Pfeiffer says. “So you
need to know who’s using it, what
they’re using it for and then how
much they’re using.”
In Wisconsin, however, water protection
policy has been commonplace
throughout its history.
The state enacted the nation’s first
shoreland protection law in 1965
and tackled the issue of pollution
from lawns and farm fields in 1977,
filling a gap in the 1972 Clean Water
Act. In 1983, by achieving secondary
treatment for all wastewater facilities
in the state, Wisconsin was the first
to meet the Clean Water Act’s interim
goal for wastewater standards.
Becoming Water Stewards
To keep waterways clean and accessible,
water stewardship and water
policy are critical. Dedication to free
and public access to waterways is
woven into the state constitution,
declaring that all navigable waters are
“common highways and forever free”
to be held in public trust.
Wisconsin’s reputation for water
innovation and stewardship has
primed the state as a leader in the future
of water. At The Water Council,
the two go hand-in-hand.
Matt Howard, The Water Council’s
vice president for water stewardship,
stewardship means determining
what needs attention, implementing
the technology and then using the
technology purposefully.
“We want to start working with
businesses on the internal operation
SURVIVE 19
... ‘So what are the best practices
for operating a facility?” Howard
says. “Then go out and find the right
technology and right innovations to
help you address those challenges or
opportunities that we’re facing.”
One of the challenges that the
country faces is the water shortage
in the West. As a result of a 20-year
drought the Colorado River is drying
up, putting seven states, 29 federally
recognized tribes and northern Mexico
all at risk of losing drinking water
and electricity.
Howard points to the Colorado River
Compact, an agreement settled
between the seven states and various
tribes regarding water allocation, as the
beginning of the end. While there have
been technology implementations like
smart meters and dams, the American
West has grown overly reliant upon
innovation but ignored stewardship.
“If you don’t marry any of that
with practice, you get yourself in a
situation that they’re in right now,”
Howard says.
There are several movements
stirring in the West in response to
the drought and water scarcity, but
Wisconsin will likely have a hand in
leading the country as a whole into a
freshwater future. With Wisconsin’s
leadership in pioneering water policies
for centuries, The Water Council has
had its eye on the West for some time.
“It’s around the quantity, but it’s
also the quality of water,” Amhaus
says. “So those companies [out West]
have been doing that, and they will
continue to do that as well. And we
see ourselves as a solution provider.”
“People that do this work for a
living will look to Milwaukee for
some of the leading technology
and efforts that are underway
nationally.”
THE EDUCATION
EXODUS
Wisconsin educators speak up about why
they’re leaving the classroom
By Perri Moran
Debra Conway,
a school
psychologist
at Vel Phillips
Memorial High
School, isn’t
planning on
leaving. But
several of her
colleagues have
considered it.
The day starts for teacher Sally
Watson before the sun rises.
In the dark winters of Wisconsin,
it can be hard to rise before
the sun, but this is what Watson’s
been doing for 24 years. She’s used to
it. She arrives at the high school over
an hour before her students arrive to
get organized for her day.
Watson teaches five classes a day.
The remaining hours of her time at
school are spent adjusting lesson
plans, attending meetings and calling
parents whose kids are struggling.
By the end of the school day,
she’s tired from wrangling ninth
graders, who she often thinks act
more like elementary schoolers
than high schoolers.
She leaves school around 4 p.m.
and spends the next two hours working
from home: planning lessons,
grading, reading and responding
to emails. She spends from 6 p.m.
to 8 p.m. with her young children,
and once they’re in bed, she spends
about two more hours working.
The next morning, the cycle repeats.
She’s thinking about quitting.
Watson, who asked for anonymity
because she’s not allowed to
speak publicly about her role, is not
alone. Teachers across Wisconsin
are in difficult positions and are
faced with hard decisions — they’re
trying to endure and persist in the
profession, but each day, the challenges
seem harder to withstand.
Many have already left their careers
in education behind, contributing
to the growing teacher shortage.
Teachers Support Students,
Who Supports Teachers?
Teachers have always been valued
community members, appreciated
for their role of educating the next
generation. Today, their roles have
expanded, but the respect and support
that was once provided by their
communities has all but vanished.
Thomas Burkhalter, superintendent
of Viroqua Area Schools, has
seen this trend over his time in education.
At one point, teachers were
revered in their communities and
thanked often for their work, Burkhalter
says. Now, he says things
have completely shifted.
SURVIVE 21
Many parents and other community
members feel emboldened
to criticize teachers and teaching
methods. Public school board
meetings often give a platform to
community members who are angry
with teachers.
“Some of the other things that are
said at those meetings are just hurtful,”
says Amy Menzel, who was an
English teacher at Waukesha West
High School. Menzel, along with
many colleagues, left Waukesha
public schools after the 2021-2022
school year. “They say that they demand
respect in those [meetings],
but I don’t see enforcement of that,”
Menzel says.
Many politicians haven’t been
supportive either. For several weeks
in February 2011, thousands of
teachers protested the budget repair
bill at the state Capitol building in
Madison. Act 10 became law not
long after the protests. When Act
10 was passed, teachers and other
public sector employees lost much
of their ability to collectively bargain.
Teachers are still affected by
it today.
Additionally, gerrymandering in
the state has made change nearly
impossible when it comes to electing
politicians who prioritize school
funding, according to Watson.
“We have not properly funded
public education,” Watson says.
“We’ve kept things static even
though inflation has gone up.”
Teachers, Counselors
and Babysitters
With lack of funding for education
comes lack of resources in
schools. Teachers are often left to
pick up the slack.
At Vel Phillips Memorial High
School in Madison, school psychologist
Debra Conway frequently sees
student needs that require more resources
than the school has to offer.
To her, that’s the biggest challenge
of working in a comprehensive urban
high school.
“It can be a mental health need, it
can be an academic need, it can be a
social-emotional need, it could be a
feeding need, it could be a housing
need, it could be a clothing need,”
22 CURB
Conway says. The lack of resources
doesn’t stop teachers from trying,
though. It can be exhausting, but
many teachers really care — enough
to take work home and continue
trying to meet student needs. Watson
does this almost daily.
“That’s what I’ve been doing for
two years,” Watson says, “and that’s
becoming unsustainable.”
Conway agrees. “It’s hard because
you want to be the be-all-end-all for
“We’re expected to
provide for those
needs and it can be
overwhelming and
hard to do.”
everybody, but you can’t,” she says.
Teachers, like students, are experiencing
their own mental health
crises. Working more than 40 hours
a week in an environment where
teenagers are screaming at you and
throwing things — yes, really, ask
Watson — is draining, and no one
allows teachers the time to recharge.
In fact, teachers say they have less
time than ever these days. The time
they don’t spend with students is
also monopolized by administrative
tasks, such as filling out forms or
creating online lessons.
“My struggle with it is that it’s always
a little more, a little more, a little
more,” Menzel says. “Now we’re
at the point that it’s overwhelming.”
The Autonomy Paradox
While teachers are being given
more responsibilities in their classrooms,
at the same time they are
being stripped of their autonomy.
Not only are books being pulled
from the curriculum and libraries,
but some districts have gone as far
as to require teachers to take down
any signage in their classrooms that
could be deemed “political.”
At Menzel’s former school, staff
were told to remove pride flags from
their walls. According to Menzel,
many teachers took issue with that
request, including herself.
“I think it emboldened students
to say things that were hateful,”
Menzel says. “It put a lot of students’
safety in jeopardy, perceived
or otherwise.”
Even in more progressive districts
like the one in which Watson
works, teachers are seeing a trend
of identity being politicized.
“Books and things being pulled
are often books that deal with issues
of equity, whether it’s LGBTQ+
identity or racial identity or religious
questioning,” Watson says.
Kids are already having these conversations
about race and gender,
and Menzel says it’s her job to help
them do it in more effective ways so
that they feel seen and heard.
“I don’t think we get better at
talking about tough subjects by
not talking about tough subjects,”
Menzel says.
The Solution
What does a community do when
teachers are leaving? The consensus
is simple: Trust teachers again.
It can be hard to trust even a
qualified individual when everyone
feels like they’re an expert.
“I think we’re one of the most
unique fields because everybody
went to school, so everybody thinks
they know how it should be done,”
Burkhalter says.
What the criticism of teachers is
doing, Burkhalter says, is downplaying
the amount of training, effort
and time that professionals in
schools have gone through.
“Districts don’t trust teachers,”
Watson says. “School boards, families,
voters don’t trust teachers.”
Menzel speaks similarly about
trust. “There’s a lack of trust in what
[teachers] have dedicated their lives
for,” Menzel says.
Even Conway, a school psychologist,
says “It’s hard, and it’s real. It’s
hard not to take it personally.”
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WARM YOUR
HEART
Take shelter and find warmth in
Wisconsin’s winter art scene
By Jamie Randall
There’s something about art
that makes you feel warm
and enlightened — even
when it’s 8 degrees below zero.
Art can be viewed from anywhere
by anyone. It propels the human experience
by telling a story in many
forms, leaving us with perspective,
appreciating what we knew before
and what we just learned.
“Art is a wonderful educational
tool that aids in the understanding
of ourselves and the world around
us. Art provides the viewer with new
perspectives on life and new ways
of thinking and seeing. It serves as
a jumping-off point for inspiration
and new ideas. Art enriches and enhances
the soul,” says Avery Pelekoudas,
Warehouse Art Museum programming
coordinator.
Exhibitions around Wisconsin
offer various pieces that can be enjoyed
this winter.
Olbrich Botanical Gardens
Olbrich Botanical Gardens, located
on the north shore of Madison’s
Lake Monona, includes 16 acres
of outdoor display gardens and a
10,000-square-foot conservatory. It
also features year-round art exhibits.
Olbrich’s annual Holiday Express,
Flower & Model Train Show will be
open from Dec. 3 to Dec. 31. The exhibit
is unique as it involves special
designs with plants and a new theme
every year — this year’s embodying
carnival. In addition, the exhibit creates
tradition, welcoming back families
and visitors.
“It’s a great place for anybody
to just get away and relax, whether
it’s from school, work or other life
stresses,” says Missy Jeanne, Olbrich
Gardens’ special projects manager.
“We see familiar faces all the time
of people enjoying [our] classes and
workshops for all ages. Some are
more art based, some are based on
plant biology, it’s just kind of endless,
all the different ways that you
can learn and engage.”
A barber chair with leather and gold
plating on display at the Madison
Museum of Contemporary Art is part
of Faisal Abdu’Allah’s exhibition called
“Dark Matter.”
Madison Museum of
Contemporary Art
The Madison Museum of Contemporary
Art, known as MMoCA and
located in downtown Madison, displays
the work of a variety of artists
and professors from UW-Madison.
MMoCA has an exhibition of pieces
from UW–Madison professor Faisal
Abdu’Allah known as “Dark Matter.”
It portrays cultural representation
and shows Abdu’Allah’s most celebrated
works.
Along with “Dark Matter,” which
will be on exhibit until April 2, 2023,
art by Wendy Red Star, an Apsáalooke
(Crow) contemporary artist,
made its way to the museum on Nov.
12. Red Star’s work offers accounts
of American history that rectify the
frequently flawed narratives about
Native American people.
“It’s really about starting conversations
and having more meaningful
conversations with children that
may not know how to approach the
conversation of the histories that are
missing in our textbooks, but this is
a supplement that will give kids that
moment with their families,” Brungardt
says.
Lake Geneva Winterfest
In the winter, Lake Geneva hosts
the annual Winterfest, which runs
from Feb.1 to Feb. 5.
“[There is] a lot of community
pride in hosting this event,” says
Deanna Goodwin, vice president
of marketing, communications and
development for VISIT Lake Geneva.
“It’s so incredible. The crowds of
people that come here and how happy
everybody is when they’re here.
It’s a lot of work leading up to it, but
it’s fun work.”
For nearly three decades, Lake
Geneva’s Winterfest has hosted the
annual U.S. National Snow Sculpting
Championship. Fifteen teams of
three people from around the U.S.
participate in three days of craft,
where they create 10-foot sculptures
along the lakeshore. After sculpting,
the final result is an art gallery of
lakefront sculptures for the community
to enjoy.
“Winterfest is so larger-than-life
when it happens. And to see so many
smiling faces and kids in awe of how
big these sculptures are because you
get up really close to them,” Goodwin
says. “You’re just within a couple feet
of them actually working and doing
the sculptures. And then when you
see it all said and done in the detail,
in the artwork, it’s just phenomenal.”
Warehouse Art Museum
The Warehouse Art Museum,
called WAM, opened its doors in
2018. Located in a historic warehouse
in the Menomonee Valley, the
mostly woman-run museum showcases
three to five exhibits every year.
The artwork on display is all from
the private collection of the co-owners
and co-directors of WAM, Jan
Serr and John Shannon.
“They have been collecting for
about 40 years or so, and that’s essentially
why they created WAM, was to
display their collection because they
had so much work sitting around,”
says the museum’s programming coordinator
Avery Pelekoudas.
From Jan. 13 to March 31, WAM
will showcase art by Ruth Grotenrath,
a Milwaukee local.
“It’s gonna be super bright, colorful,
fun ... we like to do that for
the harsh gray Wisconsin winters,”
Pelekoudas says. “So having a fun,
colorful show during that time is
always nice. Yeah, that’s one of the
main draws for the exhibition during
the winter.”
Abdu’Allah’s exhibit
portrays different
African American
haircut styles.
STRIVE 25
KING OF
VINTAGE
Singlestitch brings clothes
from the past to State
Street
By Jake Rome
The difference between authentic
and imitation vintage
clothes depends on one
thing: the stitching.
A single stitch at the hem and
shoulder was the standard up until
the mid to late ’90s, while a double
stitch is the standard of today. It
should be no surprise that Singlestitch
in Madison is the top shop for
authentic looks of the past.
Mitch Hammes, also known as
Single-Stitch Mitch, is the 22-yearold
from a small town right outside
of La Crosse on a mission to redefine
how we shop and dress. Hammes
opened Singlestitch in Madison in
2021, and it already sticks out from
the rest.
Sales and hard work made
Hammes successful, but his passion
for recycled fashion and community
is what has made him Madison’s king
of vintage.
Vintage wear and secondhand
shopping have exploded in the past
10 years.
“Whether it’s skateboard culture,
sports culture or any of that ... it kind
of all just stems from vintage,” says
Joel Bergquist, manager and creative
consultant at August, another State
Street shop.
Another factor in the appeal of
secondhand pieces is their individuality.
Many vintage items or clothing
lines are either discontinued or are
limited-release pieces. To many, this
drastically raises the value of a piece.
This is the background to Hammes’
success. He has been thrifting since
he was a little kid, when his grandma
would take him to garage sales on
Fridays and Saturdays.
Hammes is certainly the guy to
rule over Madison’s vintage-wear
market, but the timing is what made
it work. The market wouldn’t have
been ready for his passion just five
years ago.
After high school, Hammes started
selling clothes at garage sales. He
says he had to “lug probably 800 to
1,000 pieces of clothing up and down
a flight of stairs, plus all the clothing
racks. And it got to the point where I
was like, ‘It was either a storage unit
or a store.”
Hammes chose the store.
A small space in La Crosse, on a
remote street with just a gym next to
it, was home to his very first storefront,
Lax Vintage, which did not
match the ornate, hyper-detailed
layout of Singlestitch.
“When we opened we had plastic
hangers, Walmart clothing racks,”
he says. “Racks would fall down and
break. It wasn’t a pretty sight at all,
but it just worked.”
This is funny because Singlestitch’s
design has incredible attention to
detail. Every inch of the store, floor
to ceiling, is covered in colorful vintage
trinkets, hats, shoes, T-shirts,
jackets, pants, beanies, vinyls, magazines,
VHS tapes, overalls, sweaters,
toys, banners, coats, video games
and more. To a vintage lover, it is an
adult candy shop.
Every rack that lines the walls and
middle of the store is color coded
and organized by garment. Above
every rack is seemingly a collector’s
item from the 1980s to the early
2000s, and just about anything you
see in the store is for sale — if the
price is right.
Hammes’ attention to every detail
and to the curation of a timeless experience
keeps people coming back.
Though Singlestitch is an upgrade
from Lax Vintage, people will go
Mitch Hammes,
owner of the
Madison vintagewear
shop
Singlestitch, sits
atop his throne
of unreleased
inventory. His
neatly organized
basement storage
is home to nearly
double the
amount of items
on display up in
the store.
26 CURB
wherever Hammes is. Grace Paar,
a senior at UW–Madison, is one of
the few who have been to both storefronts.
Even with the plastic hangers
and Walmart racks, Paar says,
“People that were in there were very
trendy ... and I was like, I need to
dress nice to go in there.”
Hammes sets the tone wherever
he is. Instead of creating competition
between other stores in Madison, he
made professional companions. Take
Supra Sneakers, a “hypebeast” store
selling high-end, street footwear just
three doors down from Singlestitch
as an example.
Jason Foss, who runs the store,
says he and Hammes are friendly
with each other and share ideas for
their customers.
“We bounce off each other a lot,”
Foss says. “A lot of times people look
for shoes, [and] whenever they don’t
like some of our shirts, we send them
over there.”
The two even talked about setting
up a side-by-side shop in a new place.
Hammes does not only show
compassion to his competitors, but
his customers as well. His goal is to
break away from the hierarchy of the
producer over the consumer found
in traditional retailer spaces.
“If you’re talking to somebody else
who’s behind a counter, they will always
be up on a podium,” Hammes
says. But, “when you can sit down
with somebody on the same couch
and talk ... it’s totally different.”
This philosophy goes into
Hammes’ plans for future expansion.
Singlestitch is closing a deal on a second
shop in La Crosse and Hammes
hopes to upsize his Madison location.
While expansion is necessary
for Hammes’ incredible amount of
inventory, he also wants to do it in
order to provide a comfortable space
for the community.
Another feature that would accompany
expansion would be a space for
styling, which interests Hammes.
“Once I get to realize what people
are collecting, what people are into,
then I can kind of like go out and
purchase items for them that I probably
normally wouldn’t have picked
up,” Hammes says.
Hammes and Singlestitch are already
thriving after just one year,
and it seems the passion and care
he feeds into his business will only
make this success more sustainable.
His work is for the community, just
as much as it is inspired by it.
“That’s why I do this, still, to this
day. I do this to see other people,”
Hammes says. “That’s probably
my style ... It’s just stuff that I see
throughout the day, it’s just seeing
how people dress and trying to put
my own twist on it.”
STRIVE 27
4 THINGS I HEARD ABOUT
WISCONSIN BEFORE I MOVED HERE
By Brooke Messaye
Being from California and choosing to come across the country to Wisconsin for college means I am constantly
being questioned about why I chose UW–Madison. After spending the last three and a half years in
Wisconsin, I have fallen in love with this state and proudly respond to all the typical questions.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY ZOE BENDOFF
“What’s in Wisconsin?”
When I first thought of Wisconsin, I can admit my mind went to the typical country view of an expansive field with a
red barn, like what you see on the side of a milk carton. While there is plenty of that, Wisconsin is so much more. With
Madison’s four major lakes and a vast number of state parks, such as Devil’s Lake, the views are amazing. The Wisconsin
Dells is also the “Water Park Capital of the World.” And let’s not forget that Milwaukee is a huge city with tons of
opportunities and experiences at the tip of your fingers.
“You must love cheese.”
Yes, yes I do, and being in the cheese state has both expanded my cheese palate and provided me opportunities to do
some really cool things, like milk a cow at Hinchley’s Dairy Farm. After living in Wisconsin, my favorite food is now
fried cheese curds. That’s something anyone who visits must try. I am a proud cheesehead — and yes, I do own that
cheese hat.
“UW–Madison, you must be a partier.”
Ranked as one of the top five party schools, I can admit that UW–Madison students definitely “get lit,” but they also
know how to pick themselves up and show out in the classroom. Drinking is a part of the culture in Wisconsin, so of
course that carries over to the university. But just as we rank well on the party scale, we also rank well academically as
the No. 10 public school in the nation, according to U.S. News.
“Go Bucks/Packers!”
As a huge sports fan, Wisconsin sports always hype me up. With the recent success of the Bucks as the 2021 NBA
champions, the notoriety of the Packers with the most NFL championships in the league and the Badgers as a POWER-
HOUSE for college volleyball, it is no surprise that people who may not know much about
Wisconsin immediately think about sports.
PAST TO
PRESENT
Wisconsin remains
inseparable from
its dark past
By Robin Robinson
ILLUSTRATION BY ANICA GRANEY
My first encounter with
race was at the age of six
years old while attending
elementary school in the Milwaukee
Public Schools system.
Sitting in my kindergarten classroom,
I watched a group of girls
rush towards a pile of dolls during
playtime. After all the dolls were
taken and the only Black doll was
left in the corner, I walked over to
grab the doll and asked one of the
girls if I could play.
She said no; that the Black doll
was on timeout because she was being
bad just like me. The only thing
was, I had never been on timeout
before, and I was not bad.
The pulse of Wisconsin is traced
with the controversial history of race
relations that have been skewed by
the lack of documentation and misinformation
across the state. Black
Wisconsinites have been at the forefront
of racial injustice, segregation
and voting discrimination since the
mid-1800s and continue to address
these matters through resistance.
To really understand this past
and how it will affect our future, I
set out to find where the pulse of
history in Wisconsin for marginalized
individuals truly comes from.
My journey began at the Wisconsin
Historical Society in an interview
with Lee Grady, the senior reference
archivist.
Grady’s work in the archives includes
providing access to legislative
papers, photographs, business
documents and personal, government
and public records from people
with local to elite status that
dates back to when the state was
established in 1848.
“We’ve tended to do a better job
of documenting underrepresented
communities and people of color,
and it’s been better and better as
time goes on, but we were not very
good at it for the first 120 years of
our history as an organization,”
Grady says.
Over its nearly 175 years, Wisconsin
history has been told from a
narrow white male perspective.
“Most of the records are the perspectives
of missionaries of government
officials, French fur traders
and not from Indigenous peoples
themselves,” Grady says.
Grady shared the story of Ezekiel
Gillespie, an African American man
who attempted to register to vote in
Milwaukee in 1865 and was denied
the right to vote by county officials.
He challenged the courts under the
provisions of the constitution and
won a state Supreme Court case allowing
Black men in Wisconsin to
vote in 1866.
Sifting and Reckoning
UW–Madison’s Public History
Project opened its exhibit “Sifting
& Reckoning: UW–Madison’s History
of Exclusion and Resistance”
on Sept. 12, 2022, at the Chazen
Museum of Art.
The exhibition recognizes generations
of students at UW–Madison
STRIVE 29
who have been involved in movements
on campus and addresses the
university’s history of racism and
exclusion of its minority students.
Kacie Lucchini Butcher, the director
of the Public History Project,
explains how engaging with the
university’s history impacts her and
everyone residing in Wisconsin.
“It’s gonna be really important
for us as a university and a campus
community to think not only about
the role that these histories play in
Wisconsin, but really in our community,
where we live, how we’re
going to make sure that we don’t
repeat these histories in the future,”
Lucchini Butcher says.
The exhibition spans over 175
years of history in Wisconsin and
highlights hundreds of stories of
struggle and resistance at the university
and in the Madison community.
Through archival material,
photos and oral histories, the exhibit
showcases what students of color
have been going through at the university
from the past to the present.
Standing in the exhibition surrounded
by the university’s dark
past of discrimination and racism, I
felt displaced in my identity of what
it truly meant to be a Badger.
As my peers gathered around the
exhibit, exposure of generations of
injustice in UW Housing, athletics,
Greek life and student engagement
reflected years of students at odds
with the university and its policies.
“Madison believes itself to be the
mecca of Wisconsin, in that the folk
in Madison think they’re so woke
and so educated and they know everything
there is to know about racism,
but I think this will show them
that they have a lot more learning
to do,” says Grace Ruo, a native of
St. Louis and First Wave Scholar at
UW–Madison.
Discovery in Milwaukee
The next stop on my hometown
and discovery tour was Milwaukee
— one of the most segregated metro
areas in the United States in 2022
and my hometown.
As a result of redlining and housing
discrimination residents live in
separate sides of the city divided by
30 CURB
race, class and violence hazard.
My grandmother Geraldine Nevels,
a Milwaukee native since 1967,
moved to the city during the Great
Migration. She was the first person I
spoke with about her entrance into
what many call “old Milwaukee.”
“My first encounter coming to
Milwaukee was the riots in 1967. So
I was terrified. I got on the Greyhound
bus,” Nevels says. “So I got
as far as Chicago, and they wouldn’t
let me go any further because they
were under martial law at that time.”
On July 30, 1967, violence erupted
around the country, including
the Milwaukee riots in response
“I see women
and men who
go against the
grain, who are not
acceptors of racism
and fight to make a
difference.”
to restrictive housing laws and unequal
treatment.
Milwaukee’s history of voting
prevention, segregation tactics and
control management have caused
the resistance of Black Wisconsinites.
An example of resistance can
be seen through the investments
made by many members of the
community for the development of
fair and equal housing.
Clayborn Benson, a historian and
the executive director of the Wisconsin
Black Historical Society, explained
how Bernice Lindsay, Ardie
Clark Halyard and Vel Phillips led
initiatives to challenge the housing
discrimination faced by Black Milwaukee
residents.
Benson recalls the story of the
miscalculation of the referendum
vote that denied African Americans
the right to vote in Wisconsin.
“They cheated on the calculation
of the 1849 vote,” Benson says. “We
had the right to vote from 1849 to
when the Supreme Court said you
can vote in 1866.”
After over a decade of being denied
suffrage as a result of what
historians argue was an intentional
miscalculation of votes from state
legislative officials, African Americans
living in Wisconsin officially
received the right to vote in 1866.
Today, not much has changed in
Milwaukee. According to members
of the community, residents of the
city are still facing housing discrimination,
voting prevention, redlining
tactics and segregation from the
neighboring areas.
“I don’t need to tell you that we’re
still living in this segregation bubble
right now,” Benson says. “Go
outside and look at the neighborhoods.
Look at the buildings, look
at housing, and you can go to the
white community like Shorewood
... Look at those communities and
look at development and growth.
You can see the difference.”
The disenfranchisement of African
Americans across the state
of Wisconsin has led to the unfair
treatment of residents.
“I see women and men who go
against the grain, who are not acceptors
of racism and fight to make
a difference. People who don’t accept
‘no,’ who rise above that curtain
of racism and make a difference
in our community,” Benson says.
By the end of this journey, I found
that without the people who are
dedicated to making a difference
in their communities, Black voices
and history in Wisconsin would be
silenced forever.
The pulse of this state has been
deeply aligned with the fight and
resistance of Wisconsin’s dark past
of exclusion by the marginalized
groups of people of color across the
entire state.
FROM THE CURB
Things I saw traveling across Wisconsin
Photography by Perri Moran
#2
#3
#1
#4 #5 #6
1. Family Farm, near Darien. Nov. 4, 2022. 2. Abandoned Firework Stand, Albion. Nov. 16, 2022. 3. Abandoned Farmhouse, near
#7
Emerald Grove. Nov. 16, 2022. 4. Antique Store, Emerald Grove. Nov. 16, 2022. 5. Abandoned Barn, near Emerald Grove. Nov. 16, 2022.
6. Tana’s Family Restaurant, Delavan. Nov. 4, 2022. 7. Hay Bales, near Emerald Grove. Nov. 16, 2022.
THE BEST PLACE TO RAISE
Even as one of the best places in the nation to raise a family,
Wisconsin still has ground to cover
By Brooke Messaye
Houses similar in architecture
line the streets like a
town straight out of a dystopian
novel. The smells of a fresh
meal fill every crevice of the houses
as the chatter and laughter from
family, friends and neighbors echo
from wall to wall. Cars parked in the
driveways gather dust, as bikes are
sprawled across the front yard.
As you drive through Madison’s
Marshall Park neighborhood, three
minutes away from the house-lined
street is a park with a view from the
swings that overlook the water as the
sun sets and the orange-yellow rays
disappear into the distance. Across
town in the Greenbush neighborhood,
an elementary school is just
blocks from a hospital.
Without having to leave the comforts
of your neighborhood, it all
seems right at your fingertips.
This is Madison, Wisconsin.
Madison is the Best – Officially
In 2022, WalletHub ranked Madison
the ninth best city to raise a family
in the U.S., based on the criteria of
cost of family fun, health and safety,
education and child care, affordability
and socioeconomics.
But seeing how Madison measures
up reveals some hard truths about
the community. In areas where studies
are more likely to reveal gaps depending
on race and socioeconomic
status, such as the quality of education,
affordability of child care and
underemployment, Madison didn’t
fare as well.
Milwaukee sees a similar pattern
when it comes to measuring the
quality of life, and it adds up to a
Wisconsin paradox: While the state
may be a great place for some families,
others, especially those who are
Black, see real differences in how life
is lived here.
Really, there are two Wisconsins.
This idea stems from the work of
Sue Robinson, School of Journalism
and Mass Communication professor
at UW–Madison. Robinson wrote
a book in 2018 called “Networked
News, Racial Divides: How Power
and Privilege Shape Public Discourse
in Progressive Communities.”
In this book, she discussed the
idea of “two Madisons.” While she
raises her family in a neighborhood
where there are a plethora of resources,
Robinson recognizes her whiteness
and privilege and acknowledges
that just a few blocks away, the situation
may look different.
“There is another Madison, and in
this one, all of these metrics that are
so rosy for people who have white
skin instead show huge disparities
for Black and Brown people because
of basic opportunity debts, because
these systems were not built for them
to succeed — from graduation rates
to the school-to-prison pipeline to
access to affordable health care to
well-paying jobs,” Robinson says.
The Schools and the Views
Michelle Hellrood has spent her
entire life living in Madison, so
choosing to raise her two kids here
was a no-brainer.
“I love the Madison community
and everything it has to offer ... from
... the Geology Museum and [the]
Chazen and just walking around
campus,” Hellrood says.
Madison’s activities and school
systems were a draw for Hellrood
and her husband. Working in child
care, she recognizes the lack of
high-quality services, but as kids enter
the school system, it improves.
32 CURB
A FAMILY?
“There is another Madison, and in this one, all
of these metrics that are so rosy for people
who have white skin instead show huge
disparities for Black and Brown people because
of basic opportunity debts, because these
systems were not built for them to succeed.”
ILLUSTRATION BY ZOE BENDOFF
“I am a product of the Madison
Metropolitan School District and
UW–Madison, both my kids are,”
Hellrood says. “I was super happy
with my children’s experiences in
both elementary, middle and high
school here.”
Darcy Burke, mother of three girls
and lifelong Wisconsin resident,
feels the same way about education
in Madison.
“I would say our kids did really,
really well with all of their opportunities
in Madison schools,” Burke
says. “I would say that we had really
positive educational experiences
learning-wise and enjoyment-wise.”
Burke’s fondest childhood memories
stem from her summer days at
the Memorial Union Terrace with
her sister and family, and a large reason
why she chose to raise her family
in Wisconsin is because of the proximity
to her family.
“Having that community that
I know and grew up with here in
Wisconsin just sort of lent itself to
bringing our kids up in Wisconsin
and having that community neighborhood,”
she says.
But Not For Everyone
Jada Young, a 21-year-old Black
UW–Madison student from Milwaukee,
looks back at her childhood and
says she would “absolutely never”
raise a child in Wisconsin.
“There are the high rates of segregation
in Milwaukee, and there are a
lot of issues [there] that affect Black
people,” Young says. “I would not
want to raise Black children in an
environment where they don’t have
the resources to succeed.”
When she thinks back on her
childhood, the memory that always
comes up is the look of fear in her
sister’s eyes as they dove to lay on the
floor to hide from gunshots outside
of their duplex.
“They have a large amount of
gun violence days in Milwaukee and
plenty of other issues that I had to
endure, and it would make me a terrible
parent to make my kids live it as
well,” she says.
Marcellus Lawrence, a 20-yearold
Black UW–Madison student
who grew up in Milwaukee, echoed
Young’s feelings of not wanting to
raise a family in a city with such a
prominent racial divide and segregation,
even going so far as to refer to
his hometown as “Killwaukee.”
In order for him to live a shielded
life at a young age and to academically
thrive, his parents had to outsource
his education.
“I felt like my worldview was always
protected, so I never got a really
accurate representation of what
it was like early on,” Lawrence says.
“After attending private and Catholic
schools, in some sense I was
removed from the ins and outs of
what was happening on the street,
but I then went to school in a public
setting during high school and I got
to see like what the world was really
like from a totally different standpoint,
and that is a community that I
just wouldn’t put kids in.”
STRIVE 33
A NEW NARRATIVE
He spent 17 years behind bars — now, he’s determined to help
those still inside prepare for release
By Erin McGroarty
Shannon Ross is
executive director
of the Milwaukeebased
nonprofit,
The Community,
which focuses
on providing
information and
resources to those
in prison and
about to leave
incarceration. Ross
spent 17 years
in prison and
was released in
September 2020.
Some say time freezes when you
go to prison. That the age you
are when you go in lingers in a
way when you get out.
Those close to Shannon Ross describe
him as possessing the wisdom
of an old man, but the drive of a
19-year-old.
That was the age Ross was when
he began a 17-year prison sentence
for a homicide conviction.
While inside, Ross read piles of
books, completed his undergraduate
degree in business administration
and began a newsletter for other incarcerated
people that would later
become the successful reentry nonprofit
he runs today.
“My time in prison was just a lot of
focusing on my future and staying in
society,” Ross says.
Ross’ determination was born of a
resilience and passion he describes
as core to his personality as a whole;
a “natural personality” for which he
credits his family.
The smooth reentry Ross experienced
is not the case for many leaving
the prison system, and society’s
narrative of negativity and fear surrounding
formerly incarcerated people
only adds to the barriers they face
upon reentry.
Ross was released from prison just
over two years ago. Now, he’s pushing
for the change he sees as vital in
the ways society responds to people
with criminal records.
Origins and Belonging
Ross grew up in a part of North
Milwaukee he jokingly describes
as “hood adjacent.” On the corner
block of North and 47th, he remembers
a good childhood, as the only
child in a loving family.
But, coming from a biracial background
and growing up in a largely
Black neighborhood, Ross recalls
getting made fun of a lot as a child.
“When I shave and I don’t have
any facial hair, I look very young.
And so especially when I was younger,
and that was the case, I would get
a lot of comments about being gay
and a lot of jokes about that,” Ross
says. “Growing up in the neighborhood
where I already was very fair
skinned, I would get the white comments
and the gay comments in a
Black neighborhood, in a very hyper-masculine
culture.”
The bullying contributed to Ross
feeling a lack of belonging.
“I don’t think I’ve ever really felt
a sense of belonging anywhere, but
I’m very happy about that now because
it allows me to belong everywhere,”
he says.
Ross was imprisoned at nine different
facilities across the Wisconsin
Correctional System throughout his
17-year sentence.
The first six years, he was incarcerated
at Dodge Correctional Institution
in Waupun, about an hour from
Milwaukee and still close enough for
family to visit. Ross saw his parents
nearly every week during this time.
He was later transferred to Stanley
Correctional Institution in Chippewa
County. This prison was much
further away, and his parents weren’t
able to travel the 250 miles more
than once a year.
At that point, Ross had fostered a
bond with his parents that could last
the mileage and saw the time as a
chance to focus on his goals.
Laser Focus
While at Stanley, Ross completed
distance education courses from
UW–Platteville, which his cellmate,
Jeremy Taylor, told him about.
These courses contributed to Ross
earning his undergraduate degree
from Adams State University while
incarcerated at Oakhill Correctional
Institution in 2017.
“He was driven and focused in all
aspects of his life, even sports,” Taylor
says. “Which is one of the reasons
why I think we got along so well, because
we understood each other.”
Taylor, also originally from Milwaukee,
now runs a machine shop in
Florida — a dream he built while in
prison alongside Ross.
When the two weren’t doing
schoolwork or playing basketball together,
they were making plans for
what they would accomplish upon
their release.
“He had plans that he would
bounce off me with regard to The
Community, and I’d bounce ideas off
of him,” Taylor says.
BARRIERS TO
REENTRY
27%
of formerly
incarcerated
people experience
unemployment,
compared to the
2020 COVID-19
unemployment peak of
nearly 15% among the
general public.
~2%
of formerly
incarcerated
people experience
homelessness. This
rate is 10 times that of
the general public.
25%
of formerly
incarcerated people do
not have a high school
diploma or GED.
STRIVE 35
The Correcting the
Narrative campaign,
launched after Ross
was released from
prison in 2020, is
made up of a series
of video interviews
with formerly
incarcerated people
who share stories of
success and resilience
after release.
The Community
Ross began The Community —
now a successful nonprofit aimed at
easing the reentry process and providing
resources for those recently
released from prison — as a newsletter
while he was still in prison.
He wanted a way to share information
he was gathering on reentry
with other incarcerated people.
“People were confused about a lot
of myths that exist in prison,” Ross
says. “I would readily go out of my
way to share resources and get information
for people. It just seemed like
a natural progression.”
The first issue was shared in December
2014 with the help of Ross’
mother, who previously worked in
the newspaper world, along with a
man Ross had met in prison who has
since been released, was working in
a copy shop, and could help with design
and printing.
Ross produced the newsletter from
within prison for six more years prior
to his release. The two-year anniversary
of his release from prison fell
the day after we spoke.
When Ross was released in September
2020, the newsletter had
8,000 readers. It is now widely read
across the Wisconsin Prison System
and accessed by thousands of other
incarcerated people across the country,
Ross says.
36 CURB
Correcting the Narrative
Another important aspect of Ross’
work and The Community centers
around a campaign called Correcting
the Narrative, made up of a series of
video interviews with formerly incarcerated
people sharing their stories of
triumph, struggle and success.
“It’s simply showcasing the successes,
humanity and agency of people
with criminal records, to focus
on that storytelling so people with
records can know their own empowerment,”
Ross says. “But also for
people that don’t understand this
demographic, so that they can then
also have a different view – a more
accurate view – of this demographic.
So the whole story, the correct story,
is known.”
Kaleigh Atkinson does the film
work for the campaign. Atkinson
met Ross about six months after his
release while she was producing a
podcast with her partner who was
incarcerated in the state of Oregon.
Atkinson remembers feeling an instant
connecting with Ross.
“I think it’s imperative what he’s
doing,” Atkinson says.
Atkinson began this work while
her partner was still incarcerated,
and she described the sense of community
she felt finding other people
who had been impacted, personally
or vicariously, by incarceration.
A Wasteful System
Ross has dedicated his life to helping
those who are still in prison prepare
for the day they get out. This
work is crucial in Ross’ mind, particularly
because, as he sees it, the prison
system itself only widens the gap
between those incarcerated and the
rest of society.
“It’s made people rich who are already
rich. It has made individuals
that are in different parts of society
and are already separated by things
like class and race and religion even
more separated,” Ross says.
The system, as it is currently run,
preys on a thirst for punishment of
those who have wronged us that is
inherent to human nature. That isn’t
a solution, though, Ross says.
For Ross, bringing about meaningful
change in the way incarceration
is approached in this country
will have to come from within.
“The system is absolutely a failure
in pretty much every single way
you can think of, but it also is very
logical and human in the way it was
developed and why it continues to
exist,” Ross says. “And we need to acknowledge
that if we’re really going
to address it instead of just thinking
that it’s some evil people out there
that are running it, because it’s us.
It’s not other people that are running
the system.”
PHOTO PROVIDED BY SHANNON ROSS
NO MEAT?
NO PROBLEM.
Wisconsin chefs create innovative
offerings for plant-based diets
By Zehra Topbas
Crab cakes made from hearts
of palm and chickpeas. A
succulent “turkey” roulade
made from seitan and soy. A banh mi
inspired sandwich with lemongrass
ginger grilled tofu.
These are a few of the ways chefs
in Wisconsin have created delectable
vegan, vegetarian and plant-based
dishes that live up to their more “traditional”
counterparts.
While we have long accepted the
notion that the energy we need to
survive must be acquired through
something with a heartbeat — cheese
from cows or eggs from chickens,
for example, chefs and individuals
have begun to push back. There are
so many alternatives without a pulse
that give us the nutrients and protein
we need to move forward.
Even in a state known for being
one of the nation’s leading dairy
producers, Wisconsin has grown in
its number of plant-based and vegan
restaurants. While some people
choose to make the transition to a
plant-based diet due to ethical concerns,
others make the switch for
health concerns.
Through innovative techniques
and unlikely combinations, chefs
across the state prove that a plantbased
diet doesn’t have to be boring.
From the Source
Arielle Hawthorne felt alone and
isolated when she first took the dive
in a plant-based diet. In her journey
to be more intentional about the
food she was putting in her body, she
discovered the difficulty of finding
places that catered to her diet.
“What I noticed was there were
not a lot of options for people who
don’t eat meat and dairy when you
are out and about,” Hawthorne says.
In 2019, Hawthorne decided to
start a food truck that would eventually
grow to become what is now
Twisted Plants, a full-fledged, plantbased
restaurant located on the East
Side of Milwaukee and in Cudahy, a
suburb of Milwaukee.
“It was really important for my
food to still be flavorful,” she says.
Jordan Short has worked as a chef
for 28 years and has been an executive
chef for 16 of those years. In his
almost eight years as executive chef
and two years as general manager
at Cafe Manna in Brookfield, a Milwaukee
suburb, one thing has kept
him constantly inspired: tradition.
“When I go into creating menu
items or specialties ... I know what
sells,” Short says. “Just real typical
items. I just make them vegan.”
Carrie Richardson from Heartland
Farm Sanctuary in the Madison
suburb of Verona began her journey
toward a plant-based diet early on.
“Living plant-based was an ethical
choice,” she says. “I valued animal
life, and I realized I had a choice in
whether or not to contribute to animal
suffering in this way.”
The Choice to Change
While ethics and principle are a
concern for some, others turn to veganism
for health reasons.
Hawthorne gave up meat in 2017
and dairy in 2018 when she learned
that much of what she ate increased
her chances of health complications.
“Upon doing some research [and]
watching a few documentaries, I discovered
that a lot of what I was eating
was not good for my body, and
it was increasing my chances for diseases,
such as heart disease and diabetes,”
Hawthorne says.
Robin Kasch, the founder and
owner of Cafe Manna, struggled with
health issues and opened the cafe in
hopes of helping others in the area
with similar problems. She wanted
to provide a food establishment that
would be free of potentially harmful
ingredients.
Kanwal Singh has always struggled
with gluten intolerance, and the
Kitchari — a mixture of rice, lentils
and curry leaves tossed together in
Indian spices to make a warm soup
— at Bombay Sweets is one of her goto
staples.
“It’s a blend of protein and carbs
together and that makes it a healthy
option,” she says. “You don’t feel any
bloating. It’s very easy to digest.”
But it’s all about balance — and
Richardson would have to agree.
“It’s not so much about physical
health for me. It’s completely possible
to eat an unhealthy plant-based
diet,” she says. “I guess the biggest
difference for me is feeling that my
lifestyle and food choices became
something bigger. I made this decision
on a personal level and found
myself part of a movement.”
Green Owl Cafe
in Madison is one
of many plantbased
restaurants
throughout the state
that seeks to support
the growing number
of Wisconsinites
adopting primarily
plant-based diets.
STRIVE 37
Farm
Two cows at Hinchley’s Dairy Farm
stand alongside each other. To farmer
Tina Hinchley, these cows are more
than just animals — they’re family.
FORWARD
Wisconsin is home to 64,000 farms, but it’s
more than just America’s Dairyland. Novel
technologies and sustainable developments
allow the state’s farms to cultivate family
and community alongside their yields. Pulse
dives into the past, present and future of
agriculture across the state.
Cranberry bogs
are flooded during
harvest season to
help farmers like
Rochelle Biegel
Hoffman, (right)
a fifth-generation
cranberry farmer
and owner of
Rooted In Red, pick
the berries more
efficiently.
HOMEGROWN
Wisconsin cranberry growers follow in
their families’ footsteps
By Charlie Hildebrand
Amber Bristow remembers
the moment she decided to
work on her family’s cranberry
farm.
With a degree in sports management
and a job working for a minor
league baseball team in Iowa, Bristow
thought she knew the career
path she wanted to take. But every
time she left her family’s cranberry
farm in Warrens — a village in the
western part of Wisconsin — to drive
back to Iowa, Bristow would break
down in tears.
Something about her family’s operation
kept drawing her back.
“Why am I doing this? Why am I
putting myself through this when I
could just stay here and not have to
cry every time I go back?” Bristow
recalls asking herself years ago.
At this pivotal life moment, Bristow
decided to return to her roots.
For nearly five years now, Bristow
has worked alongside her family as
a fifth-generation cranberry grower.
Bristow’s decision to follow in her
family’s footsteps is not unusual in
Wisconsin’s cranberry industry. Wisconsin
is home to numerous multigenerational
cranberry farms, some
of which are more than 120 years
old. Despite being overshadowed by
other industries in the agricultural
sectors, these multigenerational
cranberry growers continue to blossom
year after year.
The Harvesting Process
Wisconsin is the leading producer
of the country’s cranberries, having
surpassed its main competitor, Massachusetts,
nearly three decades ago.
The industry produces more than
60% of the country’s cranberries annually.
Tom Lochner, the executive
director of the Wisconsin State Cranberry
Growers Association, believes
the industry’s success is tied to the
state’s Indigenous history of harvesting
cranberries.
“They used them for food, they
used them for dye, they believed
they had medicinal qualities that
they could use them for. They used
them as trade items,” Lochner says.
“They grew here in the wild, and
they evolved over eons to the climate
in Wisconsin and to the environment
that cranberries grow in.”
Cranberries grow on low shrubs
and vines and are perennial crops,
meaning they have a lifespan longer
than two years. Amaya Atucha,
an associate professor at UW–Madison’s
Department of Horticulture
and a fruit crop extension specialist
with the UW–Madison Division of
Extension, says cranberry plants are
often over 100 years old.
“That’s very different from other
crops that we grow here in Wisconsin,
like corn. You plant [corn] every
year, it germinates, you harvest it
and the plant dies,” Atucha says.
Cranberry vines break out of their
dormancy period in the spring when
temperatures rise. The vines typically
bloom in June, signaling bees
to begin pollination. The berries
grow throughout the summer and
are ready to be harvested when they
turn red.
Atucha says the change in color is
caused by dropping temperatures —
the only indication that harvest season
is beginning.
“What is really important for
cranberry production is the color of
the berries, because most of the fruit
is going to go for processing,” Atucha
says. “They have to be completely
red because that is what the consumer
wants.”
Cranberry vines are submerged in
water, where equipment removes the
berries from their vines. Once the
berries are detached, growers use a
pump to lift them out of the water.
The berries are then transported to
receiving stations and are typically
turned into cranberry juice, dried
cranberries or health supplements.
Why Family Farms Persist
Lochner believes that Wisconsin’s
cranberry growing success is in part
due to the state’s existing agriculture
industry. The state already maintains
the infrastructure and the expertise
to grow crops, which is reflected in
the abundance of multigenerational
cranberry farms.
Rochelle Biegel Hoffman, a
fifth-generation cranberry grower,
believes the state’s sandy glacial deposits
created the perfect natural
ecology for native and agricultural
cranberry cultivation.
“You can’t just grow a cranberry
farm anywhere,” Hoffman says. “You
have to have the right soil, you have
to have access to water. There are
a lot of variables that have to be in
place before a cranberry farm can
successfully grow.”
Hoffman says there “hasn’t been
an overabundance or an underabundance
of cranberry farms,” an aspect
she believes has contributed to farms
being successfully passed on from
generation to generation.
Hoffman now owns Rooted In
Red, her family’s farm in Wisconsin
“You can’t just grow
a cranberry farm
anywhere.”
Rapids in the central part of the state.
She says her family’s history in the
industry started as an accident.
Around the turn of the 20th century,
Hoffman’s great-grandfather
Charles Dempze began growing
cranberries as a farmhand when he
was 12. Dempze worked his way up
to become the farm’s manager before
owning it entirely. Dempze’s son,
Gordon, began managing a second
cranberry farm, Dempze Cranberry
Co., when he returned from World
War II. Today, Rooted in Red rests
on the land that is Gordon’s legacy.
“It provides a really great life to
grow up on and is a special, very
generational style industry, which
is kind of unique,” Hoffman says.
“When it comes to farming, there is
a lot of farming that is generational,
but cranberry is a particularly generational
farm.”
Bristow’s farm — Russell Rezin
& Son — was founded by her greatgreat-great-grandfather
in 1918. Bristow’s
father married into the family
business and, despite having no
farming experience, learned how to
grow cranberries solely by working
alongside family members.
40 CURB
PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHARLIE HILDEBRAND
“You can’t really go to school to
learn how to grow cranberries. It’s
secondhand learning. You’re learning
from others and learning as you
go along the way,” Bristow says.
Despite working on the farm as a
child, Bristow’s parents did not pressure
her to stay after high school and
encouraged her to find her own path.
It took going to college and working
other jobs for Bristow to return to
the farm.
“It’s truly a crop that, once you get
to know and understand it, it’s just so
fascinating that it’s hard to be pulled
away from,” Bristow says.
Looking Into the Future
Although Wisconsin’s cranberry
farms are rooted deeply in tradition,
growers are making room for innovation.
Collaboration between growers
and UW–Madison researchers
allows farms to maximize the efficiency
and sustainability of their
harvests. Atucha works with the Wisconsin
State Cranberry Growers Association
to determine what aspects
of harvesting need to be researched.
Hoffman recognizes how valuable
the researchers are when it comes to
developing methods to sustainably
grow crops. The collaboration allowed
Hoffman to implement precision
farming, a method to produce
more cranberries with a smaller
footprint. Rooted In Red recently
started using sensors on the farm to
determine whether irrigation is necessary
on a given day, allowing the
farm to conserve water.
By pursuing a doctoral degree in
education sustainability, Hoffman
hopes to learn how to improve the
sustainability of cranberry production
throughout the industry.
Hoffman is already making
plans for her children to become
sixth-generation cranberry growers.
Rooted In Red’s family ownership
allowed her kids to become involved
at a young age: her 11- and 12-yearold
daughters participate in the farm
and help horticulture scientists perform
nutrient and pest assessments
in the summer.
“My goal as a parent is to keep the
business as healthy as it possibly can
be,” Hoffman says. “So if my kids decide
and choose that they would like
to be cranberry farmers in the future,
they are able to do that.”
Rooted in Red: Generation by Generation
Generations One & Two
Charles Dempze (left)
and son Gordon
PHOTOS PROVIDED BY ROCHELLE BIEGEL HOFFMAN
Generations Two & Three
Gordon Dempze (middle)
and sons Jim (left)
and Gary (right)
Generations Three & Four
Jim Dempze and family,
including daughter
Jamie Biegel (right)
Generations Four & Five
Jamie Biegel’s family,
including daughter Rochelle
Biegel Hoffman (middle)
STRIVE 41
A LOVE AND A
LEGACY
One small dairy farm persists despite
challenges
By Nicole Herzog
Hinchley’s Dairy
Farm’s milk is sent
to Salisbury Creamery
and to the Kraft
plant in Beaver Dam
to make Philadelphia
cream cheese.
Stashed away in a quaint barn
on Hinchley’s Dairy Farm,
Tina Hinchley collects dozens
of maps. From national maps to ones
that solely feature the state of Wisconsin,
each colorful diagram is littered
with markings. Notes in black
Sharpie point to the hometowns of
the hundreds of people who have
traveled from all over the U.S. to visit
the family-owned dairy farm located
in Cambridge.
The number of markings becomes
noticeably smaller after 2020. The
onset of the COVID-19 pandemic
forced the Hinchley family to rethink
the operations of their business,
located about 25 minutes east
of downtown Madison.
“When COVID hit, all of that
stopped, just like with everybody
else,” Hinchley says. “It’s scary not
being able to pay your bills and not
knowing what COVID was going to
bring with having no school reservations
and everybody isolated.”
COVID-19 is the latest in a series
of challenges to Wisconsin’s dairy industry,
once the state’s lifeblood but
now threatened by worker shortages
and high production costs. To make
ends meet, the current generation of
dairy farmers consistently updates
technology and diversifies their
services to keep their smaller-sized
farms alive for future generations.
Changes to the Industry
The inability to host farm tours
is not the only issue that has affected
dairy farms in recent years. For
farms of all sizes, other factors, such
as a widespread labor shortage and
the overall cost of dairy production,
causes challenges for farmers,
according to Mark Stephenson, the
director of dairy policy analysis at
UW–Madison.
When Hinchley’s husband began
farming in the 1980s, milk was
priced at $18 per 100 weight (or
11.6 gallons of milk), she says. In
2020, the Hinchleys’ milk was priced
at $9.40 — or half the price for the
same amount of milk. Hinchley says
the family had to dispose of 25% of
their milk during the pandemic.
“So at that time, it was very stressful
on all of us because, you know,
we’ve got all these cows,” Hinchley
says. “They’re producing all this
milk. Eventually, what we ended up
doing is selling some cows, because
it’s just heart-wrenching to see your
hard work go down the drain.”
The labor shortage left many larger-sized
farms with fewer employees,
Stephenson says. Among smaller-sized
farms, challenges related to
workers leaving to pursue careers in
other industries in addition to fewer
people living in rural communities
poses a challenge to the dairy industry,
according to Shelly Mayer, the
executive director of the Professional
Dairy Producers of Wisconsin.
Keeping it in the Family
Hinchley says their family has
tried to instill in their daughter a
desire to pursue dairy farming while
also keeping their technology updated.
For instance, the family now uses
robotic milking machines, which automatically
milk dairy cattle without
using human labor, and rumination
collars, which monitor cow health
through sensors.
Their daughter recently graduated
from UW–Madison with a degree
in dairy science, which has helped
improve the conditions and technological
aspects of their farm. She now
serves as the sixth-generation dairy
farmer in the family.
“If you’re a family farm and you
want your kids to stay, you have to
keep going on and progressing forward,”
Hinchley says. “You have to
get the new equipment, and you
have to stay up to date on the technology.
If you don’t do that, there’s
nothing really for your kids to come
to. As it is right now, the margins for
farming are very, very tight.”
Despite the fact that many small
dairy farms have shut down due to
these challenges, milk production in
the state is higher than ever — due to
a larger trend of consolidation in the
dairy industry, where larger farms
acquire the land of smaller farms
that can no longer sustain themselves,
Stephenson says.
“The United States had close to
3.5 million dairy farmers back in
the 1930s,” Stephenson says. “And
today we’ve got less than 30,000. So
that consolidation is just a continuous
strong trend. But our farms are
getting bigger. We’re producing more
milk than we ever have.”
According to Stephenson, while
consolidation may cause controversy
among operators of small farms, it
isn’t necessarily a bad thing in terms
of the overall success of the industry
and the economy.
The fact that Wisconsin is home to
both larger- and smaller-sized dairy
farms is a reason why the dairy industry
has been so successful in the
state, according to Mayer.
“Wisconsin has remained a major
world player and where the world
turns to for dairy because we have
such a diversity of dairy farms and
we have a critical mass of different
types of dairy farms,” Mayer says.
Mayer, who also runs a smaller-sized
dairy farm in southeast Wisconsin,
says she sees the abundance
of large dairy farms in the state as an
opportunity to increase the quality
of her dairy products.
“As long as I have larger dairy
farms in my area, there may be competition
for some resources, but as
long as there’s larger dairy farms in
the area, there’ll still be a milk truck
that’s in my area that’s willing to pick
up my milk. There will still be a dairy
nutritionist — the best, not just any
dairy nutritionist — but a really good
one because there’s other farms likely
that are bigger than mine so that
I don’t have to compromise just because
we run a more boutique dairy.
I don’t have to give up anything for
that either. That quality is quality regardless
of size,” Mayer says.
Striving to Continue
Hinchley says the passion and
love for both their animals and consumers
allow them to keep their
farm going, despite the significant
challenges they have faced.
“It’s the passion that we have for
these animals, and it’s the love of
dairy,” Hinchley says. “Knowing that
STRIVE 43
what we’re doing makes a difference
to be able to provide healthy, nutritious
milk to families is almost life
and it’s living our dreams.”
To keep their business alive, the
Hinchleys have started to diversify
their products by growing crops
such as corn and soybeans. They also
began pasteurizing their own milk
during the pandemic.
“Even though our milk price was
down and we had to dispose of 25%
of our milk during COVID, it did
come back. Consumers showed us
that they love dairy,” Hinchley says.
Hinchley says they are slowly regaining
visitors to their farm, as they
have scheduled more family tours
and school visits for the fall.
In some ways, the closures of other
small farms in the area have also
allowed the Hinchley’s farm to succeed.
When nearby farms permanently
closed down, the Hinchley’s
were able to purchase and acquire
their land.
Mayer says their ability to think
of new ways to diversify their farm
is one way they keep their smaller-sized
farm going.
“My greatest competition needs
to be my own ability to be able to
be nimble and flexible and creative
and seek new ways of doing
things,” Mayer says. “Our family
focuses on doing the best that we
can do, not being bigger than our
neighbor, but being better than
what we were the year before.”
Hinchley says she hopes to see
smaller farms continue to persevere
as they have worked hard to
serve the state and future generations
of farmers.
“It’s a love and a legacy,” Hinchley
says. “Making sure that we’re
doing the best job we can so that
future generations can do better.”
PLANT A
SEED
Urban farms encourage
new opportunities for
growing community,
fresh produce
By Gina Musso
What started as a $300 investment in shelves,
trays and seeds to use nutrients and grow
plants in a spare bedroom ultimately transformed
into a community space and urban farm, now
growing 19 tons of produce annually in Madison.
SuperCharge! Foods on Madison’s East Side is one of
the many urban farming initiatives in the area working
to propel efforts toward urban agriculture while developing
community and promoting new sustainable farming
practices.
SuperCharge!’s farming efforts started in 2009 when
owner P.T. Bjerke and his partner wanted to explore their
passion for nutrient-dense yet “holistic” foods.
“We started to think, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to not only
be able to produce food that is good for giving the nutrition
that you need, but it could also feed your psychological
self, your spiritual self, your emotional self,’”
Bjerke says. “Those types of things — the entire person
— the holistic approach to it.”
The farming initiative started as a grow space in
Bjerke’s spare room and expanded into his attic before
he eventually tore down his garage and built a greenhouse
in his backyard. In 2015, he seized an opportunity
to revamp the then-retail and tattoo shop where Super-
Charge! now thrives.
“I strongly believe in community,” Bjerke says. “That’s
why I originally got into this was the idea that we could
actually nourish all levels of our community right from
our own back door.”
P.T. Bjerke, the owner
of SuperCharge!
Foods, maintains
the 700-foot grow
room that cultivates
sunflowers, pea
shoots, wheatgrass,
radish varieties,
broccoli, kale, and
a variety of other
plants and herbs.
SuperCharge! Today
Today, SuperCharge! operates a
nearly 700-square-foot grow room
that cultivates sunflowers, pea
shoots, wheatgrass, radish varieties,
broccoli, kale, and various other
plants and herbs.
“The food that we grow here — the
microgreens — are actually, many of
them, a complete food, so sunflowers
and pea shoots are what we started
growing,” Bjerke says. “Within a
few months, we were growing wheatgrass
as well, and those are three of
the most nutrient dense plants that
you can ingest.”
SuperCharge!’s aims are not only
focused on cultivating holistically
nutritional produce, but also on cultivating
a community that reflects
the neighborhood in Madison.
The goal was to create a space
where people from all walks of life
could have accessibe and affordable
produce in a place where the community
comes together, Bjerke says.
Campus Urban Farming
Across town, young farmers are
working on ways to engage a different
Madison demographic in the
community of urban farming — the
UW–Madison campus community.
F.H. King: Students for Sustainable
Agriculture, a student organization
that supports tower gardens
on campus, aims to provide access to
fresh vegetables and herbs grown inside
two of the campus dining halls,
“We want to be
able to have this
food — this type of
food be accessible
and affordable for
everyone.”
including Gordon’s Dining and
Event Center and Four Lakes Market
at Dejope Residence Hall.
“One of our big mantras is connecting
food, land and the community,”
says Eren Wolf, a UW–
Madison senior who is serving as
co-director of the student organization’s
urban agriculture initiative this
year with fellow senior Marion McKinney.
“We do that by sharing food
with students, obviously, but also
working to bring them to the land,
if possible, to get involved in the system
in a more personal way.”
The tower gardens, which reach
just under 7 feet tall and 3 feet wide,
use a water tank with nutrients that
filter through the tower to mimic the
growing conditions normally provided
to plants through soil.
“The appeal of a tower garden is
that you’re using less space, you’re
optimizing with that vertical build,
and it also doesn’t require any soil,”
Wolf says.
McKinney and Wolf maintain the
tower gardens, which support the
growth of lettuce, edible flowers and
bok choy.
“The goal is for people and students
to go and clip them and eat
them ... If you clip them, more shoots
will sprout and will continue to
grow,” McKinney says. “So that’s actually
a healthier way for the plants
to grow.”
McKinney and Wolf are grateful
that groups in Madison facilitate
conversations surrounding urban
agriculture and bring in community
members who do not have access to
large-scale farming efforts.
“Even in Madison, there’s a good
amount of food deserts in the area,”
McKinney says. “So I think urban
agriculture has a huge role in our local
community, and I’d love for this
passion that a lot of people have for it
to expand and to populate throughout
the community.”
Ultimately, McKinney and Wolf
are motivated by the excitement and
energy moving sustainable and urban
agriculture efforts forward.
“I hope that this inspires people
to look for ways they can have weird
stuff growing in their kitchen,” Wolf
says. “That would be great.”
WISCONSIN’S
URBAN
FARMS
Madison:
SuperCharge! Foods
SuperCharge! cultivates
sunflowers, wheatgrass,
pea shoots, radish varieties,
broccoli, kale and other plants
in its nearly 700-square-foot
grow room.
Ripon: Ernessi Farms
Ernessi Farms in Ripon — just
southwest of Oshkosh —
harvests basil, microgreens,
mushrooms and cat grass
using hydroponics. Its aim is
to grow produce without soil
while maximizing their nutrients.
Milwaukee: Hundred Acre
Hundred Acre combats food
insecurity by growing a variety
of greens and vegetables in its
5,000-square-foot controlled
growing environment.
Kenosha: Square Roots
Urban Grower
Kenosha’s Square Roots farm
has the ability to grow over
2.4 million packages of
produce each year. The
farm produces herbs and
salad mixes.
River Falls: Kairos
Indoor Agriculture
Kairos Indoor Agriculture in River
Falls uses 44 vertical growing
systems to grow leafy greens
and herbs.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY ANICA GRANEY
46 CURB
PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHARLIE HILDEBRAND
SURF’S UP,
SHEBOYGAN
Great Lakes offer refuge for surfers
far from the coast
By Annabella Rosciglione
F
reezing cold air, warm waters
and just the right winds coming
from the north or south,
combined with a small city that juts
out into Lake Michigan.
It’s the perfect recipe for Great
Lakes surfing.
Welcome to Sheboygan, Wisconsin,
the “Malibu of the Midwest,”
a term coined by Larry Williams,
who was one of the first to bring
mainstream surfing to the area.
Since the late 1960s, Sheboygan
has grown into a small but notable
surfing community. Despite the
cold air temperatures, the best time
to surf the area is in the fall and
winter months with popular spots
like North Point, which includes a
bend known as “The Elbow.”
Sheboygan surfers thrive, even in
below freezing temperatures, riding
the waves ignites their adrenaline
response and gives them a sense of
being alive.
How It All got Started
The Williams twins, Larry and
Lee, got their surfing start in the
1960s. Growing up two blocks away
from Lake Michigan, they spent every
season near the water and eventually
grew curious enough to try
surfing for themselves.
Larry and Lee now have widespread
recognition, not only in
town, but among other surfers for
their influence on the Sheboygan
surfing community. The Williams
brothers have been featured in
books like “Some Like it Cold,” and
documentaries like “Unsalted” and
“Step into Liquid.”
The Future of Sheboygan Surfing
John Vallo, a 21-year-old from the
Sheboygan area, first heard of surfing
in Sheboygan from the 2007 animated
movie, “Surf’s Up.”
Chicken Joe, a character based on
Larry Williams, proudly announces
in the film that he learned to surf in
the Midwest.
“In Sheboygan when I was first
out there, everyone was just excited
to meet me and wanting to help
me out,” Vallo says. “It’s kind of a
combination of the Midwest being
super friendly and also, just like
[surfing’s] not a big thing, but also
the more people that get into it, the
cooler that is.”
Sheboygan: A Surfing Community
EOS Surf Shop, located in downtown
Sheboygan, has been one of
Wisconsin’s primary surf shops
since 2004. Offering lessons, wintertime
equipment and community
support, the shop is a crutch for
many surfers in the area.
“There’s always some of us out
there willing to give you some tips
or whatever, but he’s got to do it,”
says Mike Miller, owner of EOS
Surf Shop. “You’ve got to be ready
for it. And like I said, you gotta be
a little bit more committed to be a
lake surfer.”
There is an uplifting community
surrounding surfing in Sheboygan
— unlike the coasts where surfing
in the ocean can feel competitive.
“[Great Lakes surfers] are the
friendliest surfers on the planet,
and I’ve been told that many, many,
many times,” Larry Williams says.
The Weather Center Cafe — a surfthemed
coffee shop in Sheboygan — is a
popular spot in the surfing community.
THRIVE 47
WE MAKE IT HAPPEN
YOU MAKE IT HOME.
Chefs adapt to challenging era for restaurants
By Design Team
shorewest.com
Let Wisconsin’s Largest Home Seller TM ,
find the perfect home for you.
©Shorewest, REALTORS ® EHO | EOE 2022
BEYOND THE BOOKS
Wisconsin’s libraries provide patrons with accessible
resources and a sense of community
By Mason Braasch
It’s loud. It’s noisy. And it’s exciting.
It’s the library.
Meadowridge Library, which is
within walking distance from Akira
Toki Middle School, is home to after-school
programs, gaming computers
and rooms for socializing.
For many kids in the surrounding
community, it’s the best place to be
after school.
On Fridays, the kids who completed
their reading goal for the week are
rewarded with a Get Down party,
where they can play video games and
use virtual reality equipment. They
also receive a warm meal.
As the library supervisor, Yesianne
Ramirez-Madera watches the library
come alive each afternoon. As the
socializing room fills with conversation
and board game competitions,
and the computers are powered up
by tweens, Meadowridge Library
becomes a hub for community and
youth engagement.
“They feel loved and cared for, and
we want to create that kind of environment
for them,” Ramirez-Madera
says. “The majority of the staff
knows the names of our kiddos
here, and we know their troubles
and worries.”
Meadowridge Library’s impact
on the community is not an exception
— it’s the standard for libraries
in Wisconsin. Across the state,
libraries support the people in
their communities by helping them
overcome obstacles without barriers.
From resources in housing and
health care, to refugee and immigrant
services and creative learning
programs for court-involved teens,
the services libraries offer go well
beyond books to provide accessible
resources and a thriving sense of
connection in their communities.
“I think that the library is one
of the last places that people can
go and feel welcome and feel like
they’re not being judged for going,”
says Kristin Wick, the director of
public services at the Madison Public
Library. “I also think there are a
lot of people that come to the library
just because they’re kind of isolated.
So, whether it’s giving someone
the right book at the right time or
just being that personal connection,
I think there’s a lot of different ways
that we can impact the community.”
Within the Madison Public Library
system, a variety of services
focus on different issues within the
community. The We Read/Nosotros
Leemos program aims to foster a
love for reading in all ages, and the
Dream Bus, a mobile library where
visitors can apply for library cards
and check out books, supports this
love of reading by making the library
and its books more accessible.
Meet at The Bubbler
Beyond books, the Madison Public
Library engages its community
through services such as the Teen
Bubbler Program, which aims to
support “teens who struggle in the
traditional classroom or identify as
non-learners” by connecting them to
local artists and experts.
The Making Justice program,
which is part of The Bubbler, con-
Along with a diverse
selection of books,
Meadowridge
Library has
computers, games
and other activities
for kids and teens
to use. The library
also offers unique
resources for all
ages, including
health care
assistance and
mental wellness
workshops.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MASON BRAASCH
THRIVE 49
nects at-risk and court-involved
teens with an artist-in-residence,
and fosters relationships while giving
them opportunities to create projects
such as video game design, podcasts
and classroom mixtapes.
The program also holds weekly
workshops at the Dane County Juvenile
Shelter Home, a temporary
living facility for juveniles awaiting
court activity, where students can focus
on a project led by an artist while
connecting with program leaders.
Jesse Vieau, a teen services librarian
and project manager for the program,
says the goal of these workshops
is to encourage conversation
and connection.
“[The students] are focusing on
some project that can be completed
in an hour and a half, while we’re all
focused on conversation and building
them up and learning about the
past without bringing out trauma,
but also addressing it when it comes
up,” he says. “It’s the best day of the
week because every little win is bigger
than the big losses.”
50 CURB
Breaking Down Walls
In Milwaukee, the public library
system has made a significant effort
to provide resources for refugees and
immigrants. At the English Reading
Hour and English Conversation
Hour, which are held virtually
once a week through the Milwaukee
Public Library system, participants
can practice reading and speaking
English in a free, safe environment.
At the library’s job literacy class,
non-English speakers can acquire
cultural knowledge and job vocabulary
that will help them be successful
in their job search.
Eric Johnson, a librarian and program
coordinator of adult literacy
and refugee services at the Milwaukee
Public Library, says these services
are a response to the increasing
requests for education in English as a
second language. Through community
outreach, Johnson has grown
the program, which teaches English
and other skills to speakers of other
languages including French, Arabic
and Rohingya.
“The foundation of what we do
here at MPL for refugee and immigrant
services is breaking down
walls and going into the community,”
Johnson says. “The focus has to
be going out to where people are and
not just assuming they’ll come in
these doors.”
Creating Connections
Outreach has been an essential
part of Libby Richter’s job as well.
As the first library social worker in
Wisconsin, Richter, who works at
the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library
in Eau Claire, has worked with
library staff in order to make them
more trauma informed by teaching
them how to recognize signs of trauma
and respond accordingly. In turn,
she has been able to take library services
one step further.
“I could stand outside the library
all I wanted to with a sign that said
there’s a social worker here, but unless
someone’s actually catching a
person in a moment of distress and
letting them know about these services,
then that’s just another person
that they’re gonna have to wait and
see,” Richter says.
At her library, Richter provides
free and confidential social work services
and referrals for issues such as
mental health, substance abuse and
parenting. However, she says the
number one issue that she helps people
with is housing.
“It’s how to navigate a system
where you have a very low income
and all of the rent is extremely high
and people are being discriminated
against because of records or lack of
history or credit or whatever else is
going on and how to move through
that,” Richter says.
In other areas of the library, Richter
is looking to fill in gaps and meet
the needs of the community. One
way she’s doing this is by expanding
the tangible resources that the
library can provide. In an effort to
expand what she calls the “Library
of Things,” Richter and the L.E. Phillips
Memorial Public Library have
created kits that community members
can check out to explore new
resources that go beyond books.
“Let’s not just think of libraries
as books and DVDs and things
like that. It’s wellness, it’s getting to
explore new things,” Richter says.
“These kits can be things like robots,
but they can also be things like
a meditation kit or a kit of sensory
items ... It’s just all about reimagining
what services we can have here, and
that is the community’s living room,
right? It’s a place to live, it’s a place to
connect, have fun and grow.”
The “Library of Things” concept
is present at Meadowridge Library
as well, where a seed library encourages
community members to grow
native prairie plants at home, and
a large selection of diapers in every
size are available for those in need to
take home.
“Libraries are powerful,” Ramirez-
Madera says. “They’re just a vital
place in the community that enhances
the quality of life overall, and
also they can be fun. It is a place that
if you need information on how to
have fun, just come to the library!
We’ll help you with that.”
CURB
IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY
MEET IRONMANDI
Mandi Jacquinot
runs an average of
seven miles a day,
logging 50 miles a
week. A sunny day
on the Rountree
Branch Trail in
Platteville gave her
a break from her
usual treadmill runs.
How a triathlete balances
life and training
By Anica Graney
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANICA GRANEY
After two decades of continuous
workouts, three kids
and running a business
with her husband, Mandi Jacquinot
knows something about time management
and motivation.
“I’m almost always doing something
I probably have some difficulty
relaxing. It’s not my forte,” Mandi
says as she works toward her goal
of completing a marathon in every
state and making it to the Kona
Ironman World Championships.
To most, Mandi is a superwoman.
To Mandi, she’s just a regular
person making time for the things
she loves most. Exercising, in any
amount she has time for, is what
makes her feel alive.
She picked up jogging while in
college, but soon found herself
wanting to complete a marathon,
which she did at age 23. “After that,
I tried to do a marathon a year,”
Mandi says.
Mandi’s husband, Joe, is also a
marathon runner, and their love
for endurance and extreme fitness
is something they’ve been able to
share over their 17-year-long marriage.
The couple moved to southwestern
Platteville in 2009, where
they started a dental practice and
had their second child all in the
same week. A team in marriage
and business, Joe works on people’s
teeth while Mandi runs the practice
behind the scenes.
Mandi, wanting a challenge outside
of marathons, competed in her
first half Ironman in 2011. She then
spent the next few years competing
in half Ironmans and marathons
across the country.
Then, in 2014, Mandi hit a busy
point in her life. Her family was living
with Joe’s parents as they built
a new house, and she became pregnant
with her youngest, but that
wasn’t going to stop her. She went
on to train for her first full Ironman
while pregnant and competed in it
just months after giving birth.
“That turned out to be a great
race,” Mandi says. She attributes her
success to how well she trained for
it. “I would get babysitters, and I
would just work out the whole time,
like a five-hour bike followed by an
hour run.”
Mandi thinks of herself as the Energizer
Bunny. “For me, I’m built for
doing this type of racing, where it’s
just long and steady,” Mandi says,
but she acknowledges this extreme
hobby of hers is time consuming
with an already busy schedule. “I
just know myself, and I know that I
need to work out every day to make
me feel happy.”
Mandi prioritizes taking care of
her three kids and running the dental
practice with Joe but says we all
need to make time in our lives for
the things that bring us joy.
“If I can’t make an hour out of the
day for myself, something’s wrong,”
Mandi says. For her, exercising is
what relaxes her. Joe often coaxes
Mandi into a run when it looks like
she’s getting stressed out.
“What’s interesting, and maybe
most inspirational, is her positive
attitude all the time,” Joe says. “I feel
like when I work out too much, I hit
gravity. And when she doesn’t get a
workout in, she’s crabby.”
Mandi hopes to pass her motivation
and work ethic to her kids by
leading by example. She also stresses
that what she’s doing isn’t special.
“I think people don’t always understand
what they’re capable of
doing. I’m just a normal person
with three kids and a job,” Mandi
says. “If I can do it, you can do it.”
THRIVE 51
A DRAW
TO THE
DRIFTLESS
Local businesses pull visitors to
the unique Wisconsin region
By Samantha Benish
Nearly 10,000 years ago, the
southwestern corner of Wisconsin
went untouched by
glaciers. In turn came its recognizable
name: the Driftless Area.
Its distinctive terrain is filled with
carved bluffs, rolling hills and numerous
river valleys across more
than 24,000 square miles. However,
the real story of the Driftless Area
can be told by the people who live
there. Locals contribute to their
small communities with remarkable
drive, creating prosperous
businesses in the heart of their
homeland. Understanding their
endurance unravels the true heartbeat
of an often forgotten area of
the state. It explores the raw, human
narrative of the perseverance and
sentiment that locals have for the
place they call home.
52 CURB
Pier 4 Cafe
Nestled beneath the bluffs in the
Upper Mississippi River Basin, Pier
4 Cafe sits quietly along the river
in Alma. The bright red building
is hard to miss. It was exactly this
charm that drew Elizabeth Walker
to Pier 4 Cafe. She, along with her
husband and two daughters, decided
to purchase the restaurant in
April 2020 — in the middle of the
coronavirus pandemic.
“We’re like, let’s take the plunge!”
Walker says. “It was trial and error
the first year and you know, it’s
been really well. The hardest part,
of course, is your staffing.”
The town of nearly 700 is located
on the Great River Road which
draws in tourists from around the
country who come to see its breathtaking
views of the Mississippi River
Valley. The town is most popular
in the summer months, which
leaves locals to struggle when the
tourists disappear.
“We’re going on our third winter,
and people still don’t know
that we’re open all winter,” Walker
says. “It’s blood, sweat and tears,
and you just hope and pray that
your locals will support you.”
Despite its slight population,
Walker has learned throughout the
years just how resilient her community
is. Supporting the small
businesses in Alma is what keeps it
alive, she says.
“The locals, they understand,”
she says. “You know, tourists come
in and they don’t care what a cup
of coffee or a steak dinner costs.
But the locals are the ones that
we’re trying to keep the costs low
enough so they will come.”
That vibrant spirit and support is
what keeps Alma on the map.
“How many times do you get to
sit at a table and have a train drive
by?” Walker says. “They thrive and
love that like they’re little kids. Everybody
just loves coming to Alma
because everybody is so nice.”
Erschen’s Florist
For the past 52 years, Janet Erschen
dedicated her life to what she
loves most: her family, her hometown
and flowers.
In 1970, Janet and her husband,
John, started Erschen’s Florist after
one of their daughters expressed interest
in the craft. They began the
small business in the basement of
their family home, with eight children
to fill the space.
The business quickly expanded
into a larger commercial space in
the heart of their hometown. Work
began to pick up, and although Erschen
was overjoyed, she struggled.
“When we first opened, people
just did not pay their bills. Then I
had all the kids at home,” Erschen
says. “It was a hard time. On my
breaks, I would go in the bathrooms
and say a novena. Just so people
would pay their bills.”
Days were filled with hard work
and long hours. Erschen and her
husband had a small staff but mainly
relied on one another to get
through each day, sometimes delivering
the flowers themselves.
Despite numerous hardships,
Erschen’s Florist prevailed and has
It’s hard to miss
Pier 4 Cafe’s
distinct red flair,
which captures
travelers’
attention as they
travel down the
Wisconsin Great
River Road.
DRIFTLESS
101
170 miles of scenery, eats
and finds in the Driftless
ALMA
This scenic river town is stocked with a variety of
activities to enjoy all year long. Stroll down Main Street
to enjoy 16 galleries and shops as well as a number of
area museums. The Great Alma Fishing Float hosts
fishing lovers from early spring to Halloween weekend,
and Buena Vista Park has incredible views of the
Mississippi River Valley.
LA CROSSE
This bustling city is filled with spectacular views of the
Mississippi River, including the signature sight on top
of Grandad Bluff. The downtown district is filled with
regional culinary delights and an active nightlife.
ILLLUSTRATION BY ANNABELLA ROSCIGLIONE/PHOTOGRAPHY BY SAMANTHA BENISH
DICKEYVILLE
Located 10 miles from Dubuque, Iowa, Dickeyville is
set in the rolling hills of America’s Dairyland. Mustsee
area attractions include the famous Dickeyville
Grotto, a beautiful structure filled with stone, motor
and bright-colored objects collected from all over
the world.
PLATTEVILLE
Platteville is nestled in Grant County along U.S.
Highway 151. Local biking and hiking trails are open
year round to the public, and the community market
supports local businesses in both the summer and
winter seasons. Be sure to stop at the world’s largest
“M” — an iconic symbol of the mining tradition and
history of the town.
KIELER
The community of Kieler can be described in three
words: small but mighty! Looking for the “best pizza
in downtown Kieler”? Head to locally owned Gooch’s
Greenhouse. Across the road you’ll find Jamestown
Park, which has a number of playgrounds and softball
fields for people of all ages to enjoy. Head to the Kieler
Mall for a bite to eat and meet the neighbors from
right down the street.
THRIVE 53
brought decades of joy to Grant
County. Erschen’s daughter and
her husband now own and operate
the company, including a second
shop located in Platteville. However,
81-year-old Erschen continues
to work weekends in the original
Dickeyville shop.
“It’s a fun and joyous vocation,”
Erschen says. “Working with flowers...
you make people happy.”
Lavon Heinricy, a part-time
worker at Erschen’s, has dealt with
an array of emotions that come
with working in the profession.
“You might get someone walking
in here one day that’s just overjoyed
because they just got a new
grandbaby,” he says. “Then the next
day you’ll have a husband coming
in, and he wants flowers for his wife
because his wife is fighting cancer.”
“My husband used to tell me all
the time, ‘This should have not
been a flower shop. It should have
been a guidance, counseling service
for people,’” Erschen says.
Going on its fifth decade, Erschen’s
Florist is a true testament to
the value of hard work, sacrifice and
hope. The shop represents more to
the community than a place to simply
purchase fresh flowers — it’s a
place to connect and remember
what matters most.
“This morning, the first customer
I had said, ‘I am so grateful that you
are still here,’” Erschen says. “They
appreciate us here yet.”
Wisconsin Clothing Company
Corey Kaiser always knew he
loved the state of Wisconsin. Growing
up in Kieler, an unincorporated
town in the far southwestern corner
of the state, he learned to appreciate
the unique features of his
hometown — from the simplicity of
privacy to the comfort of knowing
everyone in town.
In his final year at UW-Platteville,
Kaiser discovered that he wasn’t the
only one who felt this way: People
loved Wisconsin, and they wanted
to show it.
“I just knew that there was a market
for people that for one, love the
state as much as I do and that didn’t
want to break the bank trying to
buy clothes for them and their family,”
Kaiser says.
Kaiser began the608 in 2018 and
rebranded to Wisconsin Clothing
Company in 2021. The brand creates
high-quality clothing that is
tailored to telling the unique story
“You want people to
wear it and be proud
to be a part of the
small community that
we have.”
of Wisconsin — from its unincorporated
villages to its largest cities.
“People are going to talk about
it if they have nice clothes,” Kaiser
says. “You want people to wear
it and be proud to be a part of the
small community that we have.”
Through trial and error, Kaiser
exponentially grew Wisconsin
Clothing Company’s reach. Social
media has played an extensive role,
with its total number of followers
surpassing 50,000 across TikTok,
Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
“You know, it’s like a puzzle. It’s
like, you finally figure out where the
last piece goes, so it’s definitely been
a journey,” Kaiser says.
Running a small business isn’t
easy, and Kaiser finds himself doing
most of the work behind the scenes.
However, when situations become
stressful or difficult, he remembers
the reason why he started in the first
place: to show his love and appreciation
of his hometown.
“When we first started, they’re
the ones who were buying the
clothes and just supporting what
I’m trying to do,” he says. “Without
that, we’d probably be done.”
“I always feel like it’s crazy that
people give it such a bad rap, like if
people don’t leave their town where
they grew up. Some people don’t
have to. Some people kind of find
what they need and what they want
right in their hometown.”
ILLUSTRATION BY THOMAS HILL
CRICKET AND
COMMUNITY
Madison takes a crack at cricket
By Thomas Hill
On a sunlit fall day in Fitchburg’s
Gunflint Trail Park,
upward of two dozen athletes
stand in two distinct, tight-knit
huddles discussing final preparations
for their championship game.
As the clock strikes 12:10 p.m.,
both teams break from their huddles
and take to the field. Or, more
correctly, one team takes to the
field. The other sends only two batsmen
to the center of the pitch, each
wielding wide, flat wooden bats.
The Madison Cricket Association
final is about to begin.
“Cricket is everything for us,” says
Dax Patel, a batsman for Patidar 11.
Patidar 11 is one of the two teams
competing in this season’s final. Patel
chats and explains both the game
of cricket and how Madison’s cricket
community operates.
“We grew up together, and we
used to meet up here and there and
play,” Patel says. “They spread the
word around like, ‘Hey, there’s a
cricket game going on’ They come
to watch, and if they’re interested
they obviously join the different
teams here.”
While Patel speaks casually about
the team coming together, what he
fails to properly emphasize is how
committed he and his teammates
are to the game. While a majority of
Patidar 11’s roster comes from the
Madison area, many commute each
weekend from of Iowa to compete
in the Madison Cricket Association.
“So me, the player who’s bowling
right now, the guy who was just
able to [stop] the ball from hitting
the four. That one — the one in
the back? We are coming together
from Iowa, three hours away,” Patel
says.
While for most it’s hard to imagine
traveling upward of three
hours to attend or even play in a
recreational sportting event, for
members of the Madison Cricket
Association, it’s more or less the
norm. Patel talks about another
team, composed mostly of hotel
owners who travel more than four
hours on weekends just to play in
the league.
Community drives this loyalty
and commitment to what is a recreational
sport for its players.
“Cricket brings you huge circles
[of friends],” says Akash Shakunala,
who came to the U.S. to obtain
his masters degree at Rutgers University
in New Jersey 10 years ago.
“They bring all the families together,
so even [outside] of cricket
we have gatherings. All the wives
or partners of players are friends
now, the kids are friends now. It
becomes a huge community.”
This sense of community and
relationship seems to be the overwhelming
theme of the day. Recreational
sports may offer residents
a chance to stay in shape, make a
few friends and play a sport they
enjoy — but for this community of
cricketers, it’s about much more.
Cricket not only provides them a
sport, but it gives them a community
away from home.
THRIVE 55
BEAT BY BEAT
EDM is at the heart of a musical renaissance
By Matthew Blaustein
A
genre born out of the doldrums
of the dying days of
disco, electronic dance music
emerged in the Badger State in the
1990s. In October 1992, more than
1,000 music fans were arrested at a
rave in Milwaukee’s Historic Third
Ward, thrusting the music scene into
a negative limelight.
With Wisconsin media pushing
the narrative of a genre hampered
by drug use and unsafe venues, electronic
music was forced to find its
way underground.
Not anymore.
Electronic music became one of
the largest genres in the state, bringing
head-numbing bass, blissful treble
melodies and bright lights to venues.
However, more important than
the music itself is the community it
brings along with it — a shared spirit
championing inclusivity and innovation.
The culture of EDM in Wisconsin
is on the pulse of something
greater than it could have ever imagined
— a cultural renaissance.
A Family Affair
For Josh Hietpas, a DJ and talent
booker at The LED Room in Appleton,
the world of electronic music
is a family affair. As the son of two
wedding DJs, Josh remembers when
his parents first exposed him to electronic
music nearly a quarter of a
century ago.
“Back in like 1997, [my dad] used
to cruise us around,” he says. “He
would get off work at 12 o’clock, and
we would cruise around Appleton.”
Those late night drives introduced
Hietpas to EDM and now, 25 years
later, he hits the decks regularly. He
performs under the stage name DJ
YARSH, and is often joined by the
very man who first got him interested
in the genre — his father.
“He’s been going to shows with me
now since 2011,” Hieptas says. “He
went to my first EDM show with me,
not as a guardian or like a supervisor
or anything. He’s like, ‘I want to go.’
And so it was right around when we
first started DJing [together].”
Dry Nights and New Discoveries
A prior fan of the genre because of
his discovery of artists such as deadmau5,
Porter Robinson and Skrillex
on iTunes, Ross Rautmann saw an
advertisement for the Playstation
video game DJ Hero and immediately
bought it. As he started to play
through the stages, his intrigue in the
genre grew.
From that day forward, he was
hooked, determined to make a path
for himself within the genre.
“I wanted to start making my own
music, so I began to teach myself
through YouTube tutorials,” he says.
“I’ve been going steady ever since!”
After attending his first concert
in Milwaukee, Rautmann was determined
to perform live. That determination
would end up paying
off sooner rather than later, through
his concept of “dry nights” (shows
without alcohol that are accessible
to individuals of all ages) emerging
as a recurring show in the Appleton
music scene.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MOISES PEREZ
56 CURB
“Me and a few close friends made
up a DJ trio and began throwing teen
dry nights at a local nightclub in Appleton
while we were in high school,”
Rautmann says.
A Venue for Up-and-Comers
When Riley Gasiorowski first
attended a show at Segredo (now
Liquid) almost a decade ago in Madison,
the standard show format was
far different than it is now.
“The space was operating a little
bit more as a dance club,” he says.
“It’d be one [little-known] DJ all
night, and folks would come out to
party and dance. We weren’t doing
nearly as many big shows.”
At the time, Gasiorowski was a
UW–Madison sophomore working
as a show technician at the venue.
“As we tried to pivot more towards
... a hard ticket room, we wanted
to focus less on being a dance club
and more on being a proper music
venue, even though we do focus and
specialize in EDM,” he says.
Since the pivot, Liquid has become
a huge hit in southern Wisconsin.
Liquid’s true strong suit, however,
is not the large acts that have performed
on its stage or its status as a
leader of the EDM scene. Instead, its
success is due to its impact on young
DJs. Through its DJ Summit series,
Liquid has given independent upand-coming
DJs a platform to showcase
their skills.
Break The Walls Down
After going to Electric Forest,
Claire DeRosa knew she was destined
to run the decks on her own,
and taught herself how to DJ.
By the end of 2019, DeRosa became
the president of the Society of
Professional Disc Jockeys, the resident
DJ club at UW–Madison. She
became a regular at local Madison
venues, performing under the stage
name Clur. Now a four-year veteran
of the EDM club scene, DeRosa sees
the good and bad that EDM offers.
As a female artist in a male-dom-
inated genre, DeRosa has faced numerous
sexist stereotypes since her
debut, with a good amount of said
biases present during the gig-booking
phase throughout both Wisconsin
and Illinois.
“Often I see women getting
booked for tokenist gigs like ‘Pussy
Riot’ or a ‘Fight for Our Rights: Roe
v. Wade’ gig when those same venues
won’t book them as openers for big
headliners,” she says.
However, DeRosa does foresee a
way to break down these sexist walls
— and it starts with the next generation
of talent.
“If you have resources available
to help women learn how to use
these softwares and tools, there will
hopefully be more women taking up
DJing,” DeRosa says.
DJ Mercury
(Hunter Glassford)
and Foster City
(Matt Blaustein,
Curb Multimedia
Producer) perform
for the crowd at
Liquid in Madison.
THRIVE 57
HEART TO HEART
Denmark sisters transcend heart disease, grow families
By Zoe Shannon Bendoff McManus
Our photo
caption would
go here in
Avenir Heavy!!
In June, Steffi Thiem found out
she is pregnant with her fourth
child, a baby girl due in March.
There was once a time when
Thiem and her younger sister, Cassi
Oshefsky, thought they may never
have children at all.
These two women would not
be where they are today without
life-changing care from creative doctors
who strive to keep their patients’
hearts in good hands.
A Pulsing Discovery
Fourteen years ago, Thiem, then
17 and living in the family’s hometown
of Luxemberg, near Green
Bay, went to the doctor for what she
thought would be a normal checkup.
There, her doctor discovered that
she had the same heart defect her
younger sister, Oshefsky, was diagnosed
with when she was born.
“I always felt really bad for [Cassi]
because she had to go to all these
checkups and worry about overdoing
it in sports and stuff, and it honestly
never crossed my mind that it
could happen to me,” Thiem says.
This heart condition is called
a bicuspid aortic valve. A typical
aortic valve is meant to have three
leaflets, which Thiem compares to
the Mercedes-Benz emblem. Thiem
and Oshefksy instead have a genetic
condition where two of those three
leaflets are fused. Because the heart
is forced to work extra hard, those
affected run the risk of their valve
becoming too tight or too leaky.
The condition impacted the sisters’
lives in completely different
ways, but they agree that it fostered
their special bond.
Regaining Their Rhythm
Four years after Thiem’s diagnosis,
she went in for a routine visit with
her cardiologist who noticed that her
valve looked enlarged. Thiem found
out she would need valve-replacement
surgery just two weeks later.
“It was a shock that you would go
in for these checkups every year and
you never thought you were gonna
be told you had to have the surgery,
so it was very overwhelming and
scary,” Thiem says.
Oshefsky remembers Thiem’s
strength, which helped Oshefsky get
through her own procedure shortly
after that.
“When [Steffi was diagnosed], she
had such a short period of time that
she thought about it before getting
the surgery, whereas I had a full 18
years of going to all those appoint-
Steffi Thiem,
featured here with
her family, and
her younger sister,
Cassi Oshefsky,
share a heart
condition that could
have prevented
them from having
children, but
doctors at Froedtert
& Medical College
of Wisconsin helped
them treat it.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY STACY DEGRAVE/SMALL TOWN SNAPSHOTS BY STACY
58 CURB
ments and meeting with the cardiologist,”
Oshefsky says.
Oshefsky says it took time before
the reality set in that she would eventually
need surgery — a procedure
that inspired her career as a licensed
practical nurse.
The sisters made the difficult decision
to replace their bicuspid aortic
valves with mechanical ones rather
than the alternative: pig valves that
often need replacement within 5-to-
10 years.
“At that time, it was like 2008 ...
they didn’t know if you could even
have kids with the mechanical valve,”
Thiem says. “ ... it was so emotional
trying to decide what to do because a
pig valve doesn’t last forever.”
But at 21 years old, having children
still felt a long way off.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANN JAMES/ANN JAMES PHOTOGRAPHY
Carrying a Tiny Heart
The sisters once believed they
may never safely have kids, but that
changed five years ago when Oshefsky
found out she was pregnant with
her oldest daughter, Aubrey.
Oshefsky’s doctor referred her to
the Froedtert & Medical College of
Wisconsin Heart Disease in Pregnancy
Program in Milwaukee, co-directed
by heart specialist Dr. Scott
Cohen and maternal fetal medicine
specialist Dr. Meredith Cruz.
Cohen says they designed the program
in 2016 knowing women born
with congenital heart disease are
living into childbearing years, and
heart disease may put them at risk
during pregnancy. Before the program
started, he says he remembers
a handful of times when patients’
and their mothers’ jaws dropped at
the news that they could safely carry
out pregnancy with the right care.
“It takes us talking as a group in
the same room to come up with a
comprehensive delivery plan to keep
these patients safe,” Cruz says.
Two months after Oshefsky found
out that she was pregnant, Thiem
also discovered she was expecting
her first child, beginning the sisters’
shared, ongoing journey with Froedtert.
Both sisters developed a close
relationship with their team of doctors
amid unknowns and nerves.
“Each time [we deliver with
Froedtert], it’s gotten a little less
nerve-wracking and scary ... I mean
it’s still childbirth and anything can
happen, but it’s nice to know what
we’re in for going [to Froedtert],”
Thiem says. “A lot of times when I go
down there, and my sister as well, we
have a lot of the same nurses which
is really fun to know someone who
remembers your name.”
Oshefsky says Cruz keeps up a
strong relationship with her family
and reaches out often.
“It’s super rewarding to work with
patients like Cassi and Steffi because
they come back to us with all of their
future pregnancies, so you know
they trust us, and it’s super rewarding
to be part of that journey with
them — to be able to have children
and keep them safe at the same time,”
Cruz says.
Because Oshefsky and Thiem’s
condition is genetic, Cohen says
his team conducted fetal echocardiograms
on each of their babies at
around 20 weeks. Although bicuspid
aortic valves are the most common
type of congenital heart disease, he
says they are extremely hard to catch
before babies are born.
Thiem says the moment she found
out her son Cole had the same heart
condition is one she will never forget.
She felt connected with her mother
who has supported the sisters every
step of the way.
“I’m happy I can be there for
[Cole] because I’ve been through it
all,” Thiem says. “I feel like I have a
really special bond with him.”
Miracle-like Motherhood
Today, the sisters don’t just share a
congenital heart defect, but they also
share the experience of motherhood.
Their first daughters were born two
months apart, and each sister had
two more children while Steffi awaits
her fourth’s arrival.
Thiem says the sisters’ experience
watching their children grow up together
is indescribable. Their bond
grows through a mutual understanding
of what it is like to have anxieties
about their hearts as they care for
their children.
Thiem says she is eternally grateful
for the doctors and staff at Froedtert
who helped her and Oshefsky get
to where they are today. She cannot
imagine her life without their beautiful,
growing family.
“It’s almost shocking that we’re
having a fourth child, but we have
so much trust in the doctors and the
team at Froedtert,” Thiem says. “I’m
not scared.”
Cassi Oshefsky and
her husband, Lucas,
are grateful for the
care she received
from Froedtert &
Medical College of
Wisconsin, which
has allowed them to
have a family.
THRIVE 59
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WHERE
ROOTS
EDUCATION
BOTH
AND
PROVIDES
Beets: UW Carrot, Onion, and Table Beet Breeding Lab, Department of Horticulture. Beats: UW Dancers, Dance Department.
WINGS.
CAN’T STOP A BADGER
CURB
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