2024: A Year in Review – Part I
Another year has come and gone, and with it our area has experienced its share of highs and lows. The Tribune Record Gleaner staff took the time to compile some of the top stories from 2024. Here are some snippets from those stories, from January to June. Pick up a copy of next week’s TRG for the latter half of the year. JANUARY Jan. 3 — Halopka retiring from UW Extension after 50 years in agriculture Over his roughly 50 years in agriculture, Richard Halopka got to experience agriculture from many sides, including crop production, dairy nutrition and manure management. He served as the UWMadison Division of Extension crops and soils educator for Clark County for 15 years and was also a certified crop advisor. He planned to retire in February.
Jan. 10 — Abnormal winter weather presents challenge to winter recreation For the month of December, the winter defied expectations, with the grass still visible even through the first week of January. The unusually dry and warm winter posed an interesting obstacle for anyone whose business is involved in promoting winter recreation.
For a majority of Wisconsin counties, the first month of winter 2023-24 was one of the driest and mildest on record. According to forecaster Todd Shea of the National Weather Service of La Crosse, an El Niño weather pattern over the Pacific Ocean was a large contributor.
The opening of Bruce Mound Winter Sports Area near Neillsville was pushed back multiple times and it ended up never opening last season.
Jan. 31 — Loyal School Board says no to additional sports co-ops The Loyal School Board has decided not to pursue any additional cooperative sports programs between the Loyal and Greenwood school districts, at least for the 2024-25 school year. The board made the much-anticipated decision at a highly-attended meeting Jan. 24 in the high school gym.
Specifically, Loyal board member Harlan Hinkelmann made a motion to “talk to Greenwood, tell them what our thoughts are, and we’ll address it in another year.” Board member Tom Odeen seconded that motion.
The board voted 4-2 to wait a year. Greenwood and Loyal are not co-oped for volleyball, boys and girls basketball, high school baseball, and track and field, so those are the sports the board was considering.
The decision came after the Greenwood board had voted “yes” to co-oping all sports in the 2024-25 school year. FEBRUARY Feb. 7 — Luepke wraps up first season with Cowboys Spencer native Hunter Luepke finished his first season with the Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys finished with a 12-6 record and ended their season with a 48-32 loss to the Green Bay Packers in the NFL Wild Card Round Jan. 14.
Luepke, a rookie fullback, played in all 18 Cowboy games this season. He carried the ball six times for 19 yards, for a 3.2 average and a long of 9. He scored a touchdown, got five first downs and had zero fumbles.
He caught three passes on four targets to pick up 18 yards, a 6-yard average with a long of 12 yards, with 16 yards after catch and a first down. He had three solo tackles and one assist on special teams. Additionally, he returned two kickoffs for 16 yards, with a long of 15.
Feb. 7 — Gorst to become Spencer district administrator Jason Gorst is preparing to take on a larger role within the district as he will step into the position of school district administrator come July. Gorst will fill the role being vacated by Mike Endreas, who plans to retire.
After high school, Gorst attended what was then UW-Marshfield/Wood County, followed by UW-Stevens Point, and earned his bachelor’s degree in broadfield social sciences and history education. He spent the next 10 years teaching social studies at Spencer High School.
He earned his master’s degree in educational leadership from Viterbo University in La Crosse, and served eight years as 6-12 grade principal before becoming district administrator.
Feb. 21 — Hendrickson retires after 47 years on county board Wayne Hendrickson has been recognized for 47 years of service to county government, serving on the Clark County Board of Supervisors since 1976 and acting as board chairman for 29 of those years. He is the supervisor for District 16, which includes the town of Unity and a little less than half of the town of Colby.
Hendrickson was honored at the February county board meeting, receiving plaques from the Wisconsin Counties Association and Wisconsin County Mutual
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Insurance Corporation and words of appreciation from several colleagues. MARCH March 6 — Loyal-Greenwood consolidation survey results shared At the Feb. 28 Loyal School Board meeting, District Administrator Chris Lindner revealed the community survey results for Loyal. In the survey, which went out in both schools’ newsletters in the TRG and was available online, respondents were asked if they supported the consolidation of the Greenwood and Loyal school districts. For the Loyal School District, there were 264 yes votes and 86 no votes, or a 75/25 percent split.
The Greenwood community survey results were similar, with 152 yes votes and 63 no votes, or a 71/29 percent split, as of March 5.
The survey captured a percentage of the electorate, although not as much as a ballot question would. There were 565 votes cast in all. For comparison, there were 1,235 votes cast between the cities of Greenwood and Loyal in the last presidential election, and that is not including the townships which are also a part of the two districts.
March 6 — Greenwood basketball player demonstrates the power of perseverance Greenwood High School senior Andy Mitchell, was born with a severe visual impairment, landed a 3-point basket in Greenwood’s Feb. 16 home game versus Loyal, the last conference game of the season and senior night. Mitchell has 20/100 vision in his good eye and no peripheral vision.
“The best advice I can give is, if you know your weakness, that is your strongest ability. It’s being able to know what you are bad at and what you are good at. And make sure you don’t doubt yourself for too long, because the longer you doubt yourself, the more you’re gonna feel like you can’t do something. You’ll never know if you can or can’t, until you do it,” said Mitchell.
March 6 — Tysen Lindner breaks nearly 30-year-old rebounding record Greenwood High School junior Tysen Lindner broke the school’s rebounding record in the first five minutes of gameplay in the team’s game at home against Elcho on Feb. 20. The previous record was set by Greenwood alumnus Janalee (Rondorf) Knapmiller in 1995, who had 752 rebounds.
March 27 — Gross Ford Spencer closes The Gross Ford Spencer location was closed as of March 19. The sales department was moved temporarily to 608 E. Division St. in Neillsville and the service department to 124 W. Seventh St. in Neillsville, while awaiting construction of a new facility at 508 E. Division St., Neillsville.
“Although we did not want to make this move, we ended up facing the same thing that many small businesses today are facing where we just didn’t have the economies of scale with this small organization to be profitable,” Gross Ford wrote in a Facebook post March 7.
Gross Motors purchased the Jensen Motors property on Clark Street in Spencer in 2017 and operated out of that location for seven years.
March 27 — Spencer infant care center prepares to open The Spencer School District prepared to open its Launch Pad Infant Care Center, for children ages 6 weeks to 3 years of age, with an opening date planned for April 8.
The 3,250-square-foot addition includes a hallway connecting the daycare to the south end of the elementary school, a hallway with cubbies for kids to store their belongings and hooks to hang car seats, an infant room and a toddler room.
Staff planned to start April 2, with trainings and room setup that week. Elizabeth Garton is the program director. New hires were Carsee Neitzel, Kylie Smazal, Alyssia Zvolena, Jennifer Klimpke, Sarah Hoogland and Hannah Reckner. APRIL April 3 — Skating his way to success: Zupanc wraps up Disney career Loyal native Timmy Zupanc has traveled near and far through his three years performing as a professional figure skater. But beyond the sights he’s seen, most meaningful have been the friendships made and the fulfillment of a dream.
Zupanc, who now lives in Minneapolis, just finished his final tour with Disney on Ice, which included the Middle East and several European countries. Before that, he did two North American tours, in which he performed in big cities all over the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Now, he is ready to transition into a coaching career.
April 10 — Loyal School Board agrees to assess sports co-ops on individual basis After originally passing a motion in January to wait a year before approving any additional sports co-ops with Greenwood, the Loyal School Board decided to rescind that motion and pass a new motion stating that each sport would be considered on an individual basis.
The action took place at last Wednesday’s school board meeting.
“We had talked about possibly co-oping for middle school track. In order to do that, we have a motion out there that we ‘talk to Greenwood, tell them what our thoughts are and wait for one more year.’ So we would need to rescind that motion to move forward not only for our middle school track, but I think to show Greenwood that we are moving forward in our partnership, and to make sure that we maintain that partnership,” said District Administrator Chris Lindner.
April 10 — County highway dept. moves into Loyal facility After much planning and a multi-phase construction process, the Clark County Highway Department’s new Loyal facility is being used.
The county budgeted $8,256,390 for upgrades to the Loyal, Neillsville and Owen highway department facilities. The Owen upgrades, including a truck storage shed and wash bay, will make up about $1.3 million of that total; Neillsville upgrades, which included a fuel island and salt storage shed, made up about $500,000; and the rest went to the Loyal facility, with some expenses shared between all three locations. Back in October 2021, the county took out an $8 million loan to pay for the project and was able to procure a low interest rate. The remaining approximately $300,000 came out of the highway department budget.
Work began at Loyal in the fall of 2022, with site work to bring it up to level. In February 2023, the county bid out the project. Footings and foundations were put in in June 2023.
The administrative staff moved into the new building on Jan. 17. The trucks were moved into truck storage in March and the shop got up and running on April 1.
April 17 — Local victim services agency braces for $450K shortfall in state, federal funding The Personal Development Center (PDC) – Orenda Center in Marshfield, which serves victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault, including from Clark County, will experience a roughly $125,000 per year reduction in Department of Children and Families funding starting Jan. 1, 2025.
Another funding stream being slashed is the VOCA (Victims of Crime Act) funding that comes from the U.S. Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime. For many years, PDC has been the recipient of an annual $600,000 VOCA grant. Now, the victim services center expects to receive from $250,000 in VOCA funding at most, or a $350,000 shortfall.
Between the reduction in DCF funding and VOCA funding, PDC is facing a $450,000 loss in annual revenue, at minimum.
“If we’re not able to find ways to make up that loss in revenue, it will likely result in a loss of programming and services, and a reduction of staff,” said PDC Executive Director Renee Schulz.
April 17 — Granton School District rolls out new electric buses In the past few weeks, the Granton Area School District has begun to put its new electric buses into use. The district has five electric buses that will be replacing diesel units on its bus fleet. The district also has two diesel buses that it will keep on its fleet that will be used for longer field trips.
Five buses were delivered to the school district in January as part of the Environmental Protection Agency Clean Bus Rebate Grant program, which the school district qualified for back in the fall of 2022. The Granton Area School District was one of 19 school districts in Wisconsin to qualify for the first round of funding from the program, having received $1,885,000 to purchase the electric buses and related charging equipment.
The electric buses received by Granton were the first electric buses made by the Lion Electric Bus Company in Canada to be imported to Wisconsin for use in the state. MAY May 8 — Community leaders break ground on new Chili fire hall “Very surreal and emotional.”
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That was how Lt. Alex Lendved, service director for the Chili-Fremont Fire and Rescue, described the ground breaking ceremony for the new fire hall/community center building.
On May 6, a group of more than 75 community members, area firefighters, local dignitaries and economic development representatives gathered about a half-mile north of Chili on a plot of land on the east side of Highway Y to celebrate a dream that was finally about to become a reality.
The ground breaking ceremony marked the fulfillment of a project 25 years in the making. The total project cost is $1,571,896. However, the town of Fremont will only have to pay $421,896, as a Community Development Block Grant covers $1 million and an additional $150,000 is being covered through private donations.
The old fire hall does not have adequate space for the vehicles or equipment, or for firefighters to change into their gear, slowing down response times.
May 15 — New Spencer venue offers ‘Exceptional Occasions’ Becky Gorst has big dreams for her new building on the north end of Spencer. Besides housing her insurance business, she also plans to use the building, which she has dubbed “Uptown Plaza,” as an event venue for gatherings large and small. The building, north of Northcentral Technical College, includes the Spectrum Benefit Solutions insurance business, a 5,000-square-foot banquet hall and a smaller meeting space.
May 29 — Tornadoes wreak havoc on central Wisconsin The evening of May 21 brought severe weather across Wisconsin, including to Clark County. The National Weather Service of La Crosse has confirmed five tornadoes in the county that evening, beginning around 7:07 p.m. and lasting until 7:37 p.m., in the areas of Globe, rural Loyal, Atwood and Unity.
The first tornado, an EF1, had estimated peak wind speeds of 105 mph. (Wind speeds must reach at least 90 mph to be classified as an EF1.) It traveled a 16.5-mile path, starting northeast of Humbird near Wildcat Mound and passing to the west of Snyder County Park, through the community of Globe, continuing north of Christie and tracking along Fairground Avenue before losing momentum. Richard and Marge Rohde’s barn and other outbuildings were destroyed in that tornado.
Another tornado, an EF0, touched down just north of Loyal starting at the intersection of Miller Avenue and Spencer Road, and traveling in a northeastern direction for 10 miles, crossing Rock Creek, Century, Capital and Kington roads and eventually tapering out about 3 miles outside of Riplinger. This tornado had estimated peak wind speeds of 85 mph, enough to cause substantial damage, including to the Kirk Haslow farm on Century Road.
Another EF0 twister tracked just to the southeast of the one mentioned in the previous paragraph, this one following a 2.1mile path with estimated peak wind speeds of 80 mph. An attached garage on 153 Road was lifted off its slab, moved a few yards and set back down, crushing the truck underneath in the process.
Two other tornadoes occurred that night, an EF1 near Atwood with an estimated max wind speed of 95 mph and an EF1 in Unity with winds topping out at 105 mph. JUNE June 12 - Brocks carry Loyal’s root beer stand into new era After Randy and Lori Seliskar decided to wrap up their time as owners of Schecky’s Snack Shack in Loyal late last summer, they were looking for someone to take over the business. Thankfully, a couple stepped up to fill in the gap: Greg and Jenni Brock.
The Brocks are longtime residents of Loyal themselves and had the downtown fast food restaurant on their mind. They made an offer in August 2023 and officially bought the property on Jan. 2, 2024. They opened for business May 24.
June 26 — Loyal EMT marks 50th anniversary in organization If there’s one thing Judy Zettler believes is an integral part of the life of an EMT, it’s commitment. She had proven her dedication to volunteering by recently reaching 50 years as a member of the Loyal Emergency Medical Services crew.
Zettler was congratulated for reaching the milestone on June 5, when she was surprised by friends and fellow EMT crew members both past and present at a celebration at Rumor’s Supper Club in downtown Loyal.
