By Katie Teresi

Atimevu Dance and Drum

They consider themselves a family and their shared genetic makeup is instruments. The artists of Atimevu Dance and Drum gather on the shores of Lake Mendota on a serene October morning to play traditional Ghanaian music. Their instruments bind them together, and their sound is their gift to the world. The kpanlogo is a hand-carved drum that can sound like a sharp slap, high crack or thumping bass depending on how it’s hit. The iron gakogui is a simple bell that produces two clear notes, high and low.

The members of Atimevu Dance & Drum. Photo by Brittany Radocha.

Atimevu Dance and Drum is one of many Madison-based bands that bring music from around the world to Wisconsin. Each musician of Atimevu handles one instrument, playing a lively melody or bouncing rhythm. Low thumps of the kpanlogo and dundun drums mix with the cheery songs of chanting voices and the atenteben, a flute. Emmanual Eku, the group’s master drummer, leads the musicians and weaves the separate pulsing beats of the various instruments into a cohesive and happy piece.

To this group, drumming has become a way of life. For some of the musicians who moved to Wisconsin from Ghana, it is part of their history taught to them by family. Other members, some Wisconsin natives, joined Atimevu because of their love for the music.

“I grew up playing drum since I was a little kid, and that’s what I like to do so that’s why I do it all the time.  I mean, I cannot imagine not playing music somehow,” Edi Gbordzi, a member of Atimevu, says. “It has been part of me for my life.  That’s how I see it.”

Xtring Quartet

In 2006, four members of Xtring – Selim Firat, Raquel Paraíso, Enrique Rueda and Francisco López – visited Rueda’s family in Colombia. Independent musicians upon their arrival, Rueda’s father, a talented bandola player, encouraged them to play music together. They haven’t stopped since.

Now, more than five years later, Xtring continues to play traditional Colombian Andean music. The band uses eight string instruments: the bandola, mandolin, violin, tiple, guitar, bass, cavaquinho, and cuatro llanero. That’s 58 strings.

The traditional Colombian music Xtring plays dates to the European waltzes danced in South America in the 1700s. The rich mix of indigenous Latin, African and European sounds is lovely and sophisticated. Each instrument has a particular role: bandolas play the melody, guitars and bass strum the harmony and baselines and the tiple acts as percussion. Xtring diligently merges each instrument’s part together to create pieces that give the listener a unique blend of high-class style and homespun warmth.

Deeply dedicated to music, these artists have welcomed the challenge of playing and arranging this complicated genre.

“It’s the beauty of it, but also it has an interesting rhythm pattern which you don’t necessarily recognize in classical music that actually throws you off quite a bit,” says Firat, a soft-spoken man who opens up when talking about the fundamentals of this genre.  “It takes time to get used to it and learn it, but once you get to learn it, it actually opens a new set of doors for you to expand and you could actually come up with a lot of new ideas and put into it and advance it to some different level. That’s what actually excites me about it.”

“This is not easy to play. It requires a lot of skill, and you need to practice a lot to get it done,” López says. “It is pretty, it’s very pretty, but you are always looking for the challenge.”

In addition to personally growing as a result of playing, Xtring has used the music and their instruments to challenge Wisconsin communities to expand. The group hopes that by performing at festivals, music venues and schools, they can help people learn about the lesser-known aspects of Latino music and culture.

Musically, Xtring breaks the classic profile of a Latin band. For many people the idea of Colombian music brings to mind samba, cha-cha or meringue. Instead, Xtring’s traditional style gives audiences the opportunity to escape pop culture’s Latin dance music. People are often pleasantly surprised by the unexpected style. The members of Xtring also believe their music has the ability to bring different cultures closer together. When people listen to the music, Rueda says, they have the opportunity to connect with a new culture.

“Playing this music here in the States is like placing a seed in people’s minds,” López says of using their music educationally. “If there’s one of them in a class who remembers, we have gained.”

Yid Vicious

It began with a search for a euphonium. Looking to bring more klezmer music to the Midwest, Bob Jacobson, one of the original band members, traveled to thrift shops in 1995 to find the tenor-voiced brass instrument. There a guitar player and the klezmer band Yid Vicious were born.

Yid Vicious plays klezmer music, a traditional celebratory Jewish folk music that originated in Eastern Europe. Beginning mostly with string instruments such as the fiddle and guitar, the genre transformed as musicians were introduced to military brass instruments and American jazz following the immigration wave of the 1920s. Staying quietly in the Jewish community for decades, klezmer surfaced in the 1970s with the revival of folk music. The resurgence, however, was slow to reach the Midwest.

“At one point we could call ourselves ‘Wisconsin’s Premiere Klezmer Group’ because we were the only one,” the band’s ponytailed clarinet and bass clarinet player Greg Smith says.

Although only two of the original members remain, Appleby and Daithi Wolfe, Yid Vicious now stands seven members strong.

The band uses a variety of instruments including vocals, clarinets, saxophones, a fiddle, a French horn, a guitar, an accordion, a tuba and a drum and a theremin, an electronic instrument invented in 1919. This kind of variation, the band says, makes it more intriguing to audiences.

“At some festivals, every act has acoustic guitar, banjo and fiddles,” Kia Karlen, the French horn player, says. “We get up, and we have saxophones and tubas.”

Along with the instrumental variation, Yid Vicious’ unique sound adds to their appeal. The band combines traditional klezmer music from Eastern Europe with its own contemporary spin to create a lively and dramatic folk nature. For Smith, it’s a music anyone can listen to and find interesting.

“I play a lot of regular jazz music, and that’s up in the head,” Smith says. “And to me, klezmer music is the heart.”

The distinctive sounds, assorted instrumentation and danceable nature of bands like Yid Vicious have helped the klezmer culture grow in Wisconsin. Cities like Madison and Milwaukee host a couple klezmer bands, and they are often featured at state jazz and folk festivals.

By Katie Foran-McHale

Venture one block past the charming, whimsical Williamson Street on Madison’s east side and you’ll find a less lively one. With an empty field, dying grass and a view limited to an unsightly building and train tracks, the 1200 block of East Wilson Street is aesthetically jarring.

But tucked away in this block are two renowned designers who traded in their chic studio in Manhattan for a storefront overlooking an ugly white building.

Former New York City designers Rick Shaver and Lee Melahn work at their new storefront in Madison at a desk from their furniture line. A replica of the desk exists at the private residence of Hillary and Bill Clinton. Photo by Evan Benner.

Rick Shaver and Lee Melahn have been featured in The New York Times, House Beautiful, Elle Décor, O at Home, Veranda and New York Spaces, to name a few. You can even find a Shaver Melahn Studios desk and bed in the private residence of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

After nearly 30 years of establishing a stellar reputation in one of the biggest design capitals of the world, the two are just getting their feet wet in a mid-sized Midwestern city.

“We are still the new kids on the block,” Melahn said.

From the East Coast to East Wilson

Shaver and Melahn made names for themselves in New York City but had smaller suburban upbringings. “Lee was born in Madison, I was born in a small town in Georgia,” Shaver said, with a hint of a Southern drawl. “It is not like we grew up on Park Avenue.”

But despite their familiarity with the lifestyle of smaller communities, Shaver and Melahn had concerns about making the switch from the Big Apple to the Badger State.

“When you work in New York, there is a level of sophistication that you get to with every client, even if the client is spending the bare minimum,” Shaver said. “And we didn’t know what to expect here.”

In Manhattan, all the necessities — food, entertainment, supplies for design — were either mere blocks away or easily attainable by a short subway ride. Here, in Madison, car rides slow down their daily lives, as well as their accessibility to supplies. Melahn often has to drive to Chicago — three hours from Madison — for fabric.

Even with a new clientele, Shaver and Melahn still know what they want to accomplish in their designs — individualized attention to achieve personal comfort. “We did not have one style … it is getting to know you, the client, and how you live, and how your family lives, and what your needs are, and design to that,” Shaver said.

And with the shift from the hustle and bustle of the big city to the laid-back feel of a much smaller one, Shaver and Melahn evolved their studio with it, changing their moniker from Shaver Melahn Studios to Pleasant Living. “We wanted a slower lifestyle ourselves because New York was a rat race,” Shaver said.

Big beginnings

Design has always been a passion for both Shaver and Melahn. They each moved to New York City with lofty aspirations and soon found each other.

“It was the ’70s,” Shaver said.

“… Across the dance floor,” Melahn added.

“Leave it at that. The era of Studio 54,” Shaver smiled.

Together they started an industrial show business in 1981, designing visuals for events and sales meetings for large corporations, including Sony, AT&T and Johnson & Johnson.

Melahn earned his undergraduate degree in architecture from the University of Illinois and received a master’s degree in landscape architecture from UW-Madison, but he always had interest in interior design as well. Shaver went back to school in New York to study interior and furniture design and started picking up clients immediately. Together they traveled to conferences around the world, from Arizona to Hawaii to Rome, finding clients along the way. But after Sept. 11, 2001, many corporations stopped flying out their sales forces and remained reliant on video conferencing. “The whole industry sort of died out,” Shaver said.

The storefront's walls are lined with shelves of design books and inspirations. Here Shaver and Melahn display a few of their own plans and designs. Photo by Evan Benner.

With more time and resources available for the two to focus on interior and furniture design, the pair started their own furniture line under the name “Shaver Melahn Studios” and showed at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, which proved to be a surefire spark in their presence as designers.

“The first year, we had a business advisor who said, ‘Give yourself five years, and you’ll get into a showroom, and things will start.’” Shaver said. “We got a showroom the first year, and by the fifth year we had seven or eight.” From there, success was imminent. Shaver was drawing clients from places like Santa Barbara, Florida, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Milwaukee.

After years of prosperity, business took a downturn alongside the economy in 2008. “People were really starting to hold back,” Shaver said. “We’d been talking about downsizing anyway because it was really costing a lot to keep all these showrooms running.” Although they were given the real estate and a sales force, the showrooms weren’t owned by Shaver and Melahn. They had to keep things looking fresh and supply new furniture every time they came up with something new, racking up an annual bill of $40,000 to $60,000 to keep each showroom going.

With the economy tanking, Melahn’s desire to take care of his mother and the couple’s wish to relocate before their daughter started high school, they made the move to Madison after the bank failures of 2008.

By Cailly Morris

Standing waist deep in the frothy water, I stare at the 4-foot wave tumbling toward me. I pause, close my eyes and recite my mantra one more time — push, jump, stand up.

Preparing to surf Sheboygan with Larry "Longboard" Williams. Photo by Evan Benner.

Push.

Jump.

Stand up.

Simple enough. An icy wave forms behind me, barreling toward my back. I take a deep breath and push off with my board, feeling the whoosh of the water graze my side.

Push.

Jump.

Wipeout.

Far from the exotic shores that lure international surfers to ride dangerous and impossible waves, I’m plunged deep into the swirl of Lake Michigan off the coast of Sheboygan, Wis., known as the Malibu of the Midwest. Surfing in Sheboygan is one of the state’s best-hidden secrets and is currently making me wonder — where the hell am I?

As I drive to the Lake Michigan coastline, I feel transported into a world where the sun-bleached, laid-back California surfer meets rugged beer-bellied cheese lover. Seven cars line the edge of the road with worn-in multicolored surfboards jutting from the roofs. Men stand outside each door, stripping down to nothing as they impressively pull up their jet-black wetsuits with ease and run toward the shore.

I envy their wetsuit abilities, as it takes me 10 minutes to get my first leg in the tiny mouse hole of an opening, and another five minutes to realize I’m actually shoving my leg into the armhole. After heaving and thrusting my body into the rest of my unforgiving wetsuit, I ask for help to shove my head through the suffocating hood. Catching my breath, I turn to look at myself in the mirror, and there I am — a bald seal, overheating in my rubbery skin.

For once, the cold air is a blessing.

“We practice safe surf here,” Sheboygan surfing aficionado Larry Williams says as I stand sweating in my body condom. “The Great Lakes are tremendously cold … so make sure that you are properly dressed. You wouldn’t go sled riding in a T-shirt and shorts, so don’t go surfing without a wetsuit.”

Larry is the definition of chill. He embodies the surfer mindset, and it shines through in his passion and admiration for the power of the Great Lakes. At 58, Larry and his twin brother Lee are the David Beckhams of freshwater surfing. Everyone looks to them for direction and inspiration. Growing up with Lake Michigan as their backyard, Larry and Lee were introduced to surfing at a young age.

“With 35 surfers in town, my brother Lee and I were within the top two or three surfers starting right off the bat,” Larry says, his eyes glistening with pride. “It was just something we were born to do.”

Their love affair with the surfing lifestyle is what led the brothers to develop the Dairyland Surf Classic, the premier freshwater surfing competition in the nation.

“It’s a celebration that summer is finally over, but it’s [also] the celebration that our surf season is finally starting up,” Larry says eagerly. I couldn’t have asked for a better surfing master to take me out in the water for the first time.

Heading out to Lake Michigan. Photo by Evan Benner.

Larry is kind enough to lend me his legendary yellow and tan Dewey Weber surfboard, one of the most respected longboard brands in the country. I try to replicate every surf movie in existence by carrying my new companion Dewey over my head. No such luck. I can barely carry him at all, let alone raise him any higher than my waist.

When I enter the water and start walking toward the waves, my nerves finally settle in. The water doesn’t intimidate me — I’m actually a talented swimmer — but for some reason I begin to picture my surfboard knocking me unconscious and freshwater fish eating me alive.

“We’ve never had a reported shark attack, [but] we’ve had plenty of frostbite,” Larry says. That’s reassuring.

As the waves ripple toward me, I recount the past 30 minutes of explanation from my surfing coach on what to do when the wave hits the board: push, jump, stand up. Before entering the water, Larry gives a brief lesson on the anatomy of a wave so I know exactly when to push off from the water. My goal is to get on right when the base of the wave hits the tail end of Dewey, right when I feel him being lifted in the air.

Keeping everything my surfing guru told me in mind, I wait for my first wave.

“Here comes your wave,” Larry shouts. “Get ready!”

As the waves roll toward me, I repeat my surfing mantra again: push, jump, stand up. The wave hits the tail end of Dewey, causing him to rise slightly, and I push off hard and jump onto his center.

Push.

Jump.

Wipeout.

Years of yoga have not prepared me for the balancing skills needed for surfing. My body gains 20 pounds as the wave drags me under the water. Larry informs me I am positioning myself too far back, but before I can think about what I’m doing wrong — crash! Another wave. Dewey and I can’t catch a break.

I learn the importance of having a leash attached from my leg to my legendary friend. I feel like Tom Hanks searching for Wilson in “Castaway” as I rummage through the choppy water searching for Dewey.

By Valerie Klessig

Just days after the nation’s strictest immigration law took effect in Alabama, its state education officials reported some 2,000 Hispanic children absent from public schools. On a warm October afternoon in rural Darlington, Wis., as the autumn sun painted the surrounding cornfields gold, four of the children from Alabama gathered with their parents around a plastic banquet table in the basement of a small Latino church. They spoke urgently in Spanish, occasionally adding English for clarity.

Seven-year-old Emily Velasco is one of three Latino students in her first-grade class. Photo by Valerie Klessig.

They spoke of fear, of random stops to “check papers” and of mixed-status families separated by provisions that would deport parents who were in the United States illegally, even if their young children were citizens.

But they also spoke of hope, describing a vision in which education was the centerpiece, and of moving north to escape repression. For the parents of these four children and the 60 like them whose families have arrived in the last decade, tiny Darlington is the pathway to a dream free of discrimination. And for the town, the arrival of kids and families has breathed new life and new challenges into a school district once in decline.

Darlington is nestled in the heart of Lafayette County in southwestern Wisconsin. The county was home to just 92 Latinos or Hispanics in 2000, a number that has grown to more than 500 a decade later — with about 60 percent residing in Darlington. Downtown, old brick buildings and American flags line the sidewalk. Sprinkled among the storefronts — the pharmacy, the appliance store, the diner — are two Mexican grocery stores and a restaurant.

During the 2001-02 school year, no English Language Learners attended Darlington public schools. Today, 64 of them — nearly all Latino — laugh with their friends in the hallways, cheer loudly at Friday night football games and play on the tire swing before school.

Six-year-old Selene Castro likes to play on the tire swing with her friends. Sporting pigtails and a bubble gum pink T-shirt that matched her Hello Kitty backpack, Castro talked about why she likes going to Darlington Elementary/Middle School.

“Because I get to have three recesses,” she explained in a quiet voice, smiling timidly through an array of long black eyelashes.

Only a few of Castro’s friends understand Spanish, but that’s OK because she speaks English, too, she pointed out proudly. Like many other Latino children in Darlington, Castro began learning English her first day of school when she was 4 years old.

La llegada: The arrival

Darlington has seen a quickly increasing Latino population since 2005, well before the arrival of the newest neighbors from Alabama. In fall 2005, the Darlington Community School District experienced a spike in Latino enrollment and had to start making major adjustments to accommodate non-English-speaking families.

According to Dan Veroff, a UW Extension demographic specialist, employment is the key to understanding this migration. Before 2000, Lafayette County’s population was aging as the younger generation sought opportunities in urban areas. Latino immigrants are now coming to fill the void in the local labor force, he said. Today, many Latino community members work in the local cheese factory or on surrounding dairy farms.

In addition to fueling the economy, the migration of Latino families like Castro’s and those from Alabama has revitalized the school district, whose student head count determines its amount of state aid, and thus, its operating budget.

Kori Hemming started teaching in the district nearly two decades ago. In the last several years, she’s seen how this migration impacts the district. She vividly remembers the first year a Latino student who didn’t speak English joined her class. Hemming, whose children attend the elementary/middle school, said the Latino students are an asset to the schools.

“Our Hispanic kids have saved our school district,” she said.

Seated at a student desk in her Darlington Redbirds pullover, Hemming expanded on this mindset, one shared by the rest of the faculty. Before the arrival of Latino families, the district was experiencing a severe decline in enrollment, she said. The addition of these kids to the schools has helped in terms of funding. Additionally, she said, Latino students have enriched the lives of classmates who have not encountered other cultures.

“They’ve brought so much to our community and to our kids because we didn’t have a lot of differences in diversity and ethnicity,” she said.

Los comienzos: The early stages

According to Michelle Savatski, the principal of Darlington Elementary/Middle School, before fall 2005, the district only had ELLs at the elementary level. This was easier for the district to handle because elementary school teachers are specifically trained in making modifications. Also, younger children learn languages faster, she said.

In fall 2005, two Latino teenagers arrived in Darlington and enrolled in the high school. They knew no English. The district, Savatski said, had to craft a plan.

“It’s a different story when you’re asking 15-year-olds who have no experience speaking English to go into a high school freshman English course or U.S. History course,” Savatski explained, paging through binders containing meticulously kept records.

Hemming remembers wondering how she would find the time to help her first non-English-speaking Latino student. Other teachers had similar uncertainties, she said.

Laughter carries over the playground of Darlington Elementary/Middle School as two first-graders enjoy a break from class. Photo by Samantha Overgaard.

“The teachers felt overwhelmed because they didn’t have the training, they didn’t have the background,” Hemming explained. “They didn’t know how to make accommodations or what accommodations to make.” Eventually, efforts as simple as teaching more visually helped students learn the language.

Rodis Gutierrez Santacruz moved to Darlington in November 2005, joining the first non-English speakers at the high school. His parents chose Darlington because of job opportunities the area offered. Although Gutierrez Santacruz was born in the United States, he went to elementary and middle school in a small town in Michoacán, Mexico. In 2004, he moved with his aunt and uncle to Milwaukee, where he spent his freshman year. Because he attended a school with a primarily Latino and black student body, he arrived in Darlington knowing hardly any English.

“In classes, every time the teacher would say something [to me], I would turn red because I didn’t know anything,” he said in English, speaking quickly with a noticeable accent.

He remembers feeling intimidated and nervous daily because of the language barrier.

Mostly, he remembers walking through the hallways, observing kids conversing in groups and wishing he, too, could participate. He remembers crying after school because he felt as though he had no friends. This longing for camaraderie left him determined to learn English. He worked diligently in classes and worked with the English as a Second Language teacher daily.

Gradually, he formed friendships and felt comfortable participating in class, and he joined the wrestling team senior year. On graduation day in May 2008, he remembers swelling with pride as he curled his fingers around his diploma.

Gutierrez Santacruz is currently enrolled in a two-year degree program in music technology at the Madison Media Institute. His parents, who came to the United States to offer their kids education opportunities they never had, could not be prouder, he said.

By Jamie Stark

Curb asks out-of-staters how to pronounce select words, and then pronounces them in the correct Wisconsin way.

By Jamie Stark

Jessica King walks to the front door of a Winnebago County nursing home on a rainy Packer Sunday. No sign of her Senate lapel pin, she sports a green vest and tennis shoes with her auburn hair pulled back into a short ponytail. She’s driven her white 1999 Oldsmobile from her law office for a Sunday tradition — watching football with her father.

Jessica King won her seat in the State Senate in the August 2011 recall elections. She is pictured in the Wisconsin State Capitol. Photo by Evan Benner.

At 69, Richard King, a Naval veteran, quietly sits in his wheelchair as his daughter arrives to watch the game with him, something he rarely did with her as a child.

“Happy Sunday!” she chimes in long Wisconsin vowels toward two white-haired women in the entryway. She shows little exhaustion from running an upstart campaign to unseat a Wisconsin state senator. Elected in the whirlwind of summer recalls, King, along with Jennifer Shilling, joined the Wisconsin State Senate as one of its newest members in August.

Sitting in the nursing home lounge, Jessica King doesn’t look the part of new legislator or progressive leader. But Jessica King has spent a lifetime defying “typical.”

At just 36 years old, King represents Oshkosh, Fond du Lac and Rosendale, towns where she lived an unstable and uncertain youth, dependent on communities and state services for help. The daughter of two parents with mental health disorders — her mother was schizophrenic and her father, bipolar — she was making adult decisions long before she was legally able to drive.

That independence and sense of purpose carried her from factory job to college to East Coast advocacy and back to Wisconsin to care for her aging parents. Threaded through her journey is a string of responsibility.

Determined to give her neighbors the same fighting chance at success she had, King wants to give back to the communities that helped push her toward the top with social services and education.

“To thrive you really want to make sure you do have opportunities for children, you do have dignity for elderly people, that we are good stewards of our community for future generations and that people have access to a living wage,” King said.

Path to advocacy

Discussing her childhood publicly is a new thing, according to Jef Hall, a friend and Oshkosh City Councilman. When she does, she refers to her upbringing as “humble,” never a hint of complaint in her voice.

King spent time in and out of foster care beginning at age 4. She had to grow up faster than most kids. King was just 15 when she became a ward of the state. She stayed out of foster care and in her high school by moving in with a half-sister she barely knew on a farm in Rosendale.

King thrived on the farm, where she had a pet pig and learned how to use a grain sweep. She began working third shift assembling juice boxes after graduating high school at 17. Her move from factory floor to higher education began with a visit to UW-Oshkosh and a chance meeting with Professor Ken Grieb.

“She came to the university I think not exactly sure where she was heading,” Grieb said. “It was during her university years that she grew and blossomed.”

At UW-Oshkosh, King earned three majors and began a life of leadership in extra-curricular activities. She worked for the U.N. in New York City and studied medieval history in Cambridge, England, on scholarship.

To a woman who had spent her young life bouncing around her future Senate district, college offered snapshots of how people lived outside Wisconsin. King found that “people need an advocate,” a mantra that became her guiding career and political vision.

After law school, King set off to Washington, D.C., to represent patients who had been denied coverage by insurance companies, working as a voice for disadvantaged communities that needed leaders. But she always kept her roots as she moved. “I think people really saw me as an ambassador from Wisconsin.”

Return to her roots

In 2004, King made the decision to move back to Wisconsin — her mother had developed breast cancer and her father had entered the early stages of kidney failure. The transition home gave her new opportunities to lead.

“In Wisconsin, average people really get the opportunity to play a role in their government,” King said.

On paper, she’s a campaign manager’s dream — she has a Wisconsin twang, humble upbringing, experience with government services and grew up in her Senate district.

So after moving home, King pivoted to politics. In 2007 she began advocating for her community vision, winning a seat on the Oshkosh City Council. In 2008 she won the Eleanor Roosevelt award from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, given to a rising female elected official. In 2010 she became deputy mayor of Oshkosh.

“She took the party politics out of it,” Steve Herman, a former Oshkosh city councilman, said of King. “She understands that citizens need to be involved in the process.”

In 2007, King announced her first bid for the state Senate, seeking votes in a district then tilting decidedly Republican. With nearly 84,000 voters, she lost the general election in 2008 to small-business owner Randy Hopper by just 163 votes.

Recall fever struck before Hopper could finish his first term. King ran to unseat her senator after he supported Gov. Scott Walker’s controversial budget repair bill, and in August 2011 she won by 1,250 votes in a slew of recalls that garnered national media attention.

“It’s hard to get a nice person angry,” King said of the thousands of Wisconsinites who worked on recalls. In her eyes, the special elections were the people’s voice saying, “We want to reclaim our stake in government.”

Susan Hoffman, a teacher from Oshkosh, was one of those angry Wisconsinites after the budget bill made changes to collective bargaining rights. During the recall she began volunteering for her neighbor, Jessica King.

Hoffman remembers one particular day of door knocking when King looked exhausted. “It was the one-year anniversary of her mother’s death,” Hoffman said. “But there’s Jess out in the morning, bright and early with everyone, with a big smile on her face because she knew this was important.”

“She was right out there in her tennis shoes,” Hoffman said. “I thought ‘God, I don’t think I could do that.’”

By Katie Foran-McHale

By Kaitlyn Schnell

Every city has its story – a courageous founding, a famous citizen, a popular attraction.

But along Wisconsin’s western border, despite the diverse town narratives, stories are forever linked by the pumping artery that connects them all: the Great River Road.

The Great River Road along the Mississippi River. Photo by Kaitlyn Schnell.

This Mississippi River roadway has a 250-mile section that travels along Wisconsin’s western border, winding through 33 unique river towns. Travelers can follow U.S. Highway 35 for most of the trip and drink in views of the river as they speed through limestone bluffs and wooded areas.

On a crisp, fall Monday, my mom and I packed up the car for a 120-mile day trip from Wyalusing to Fountain City, not quite knowing what to expect from this largely unnoticed Wisconsin tourist destination. I had often forgotten the Mississippi River borders Wisconsin and had never even been to that side of the state before.

My background research uncovered claims that the Great River Road is the best scenic drive in the Midwest, with overlooks, historic markers and locks and dams. I also found it is Wisconsin’s only officially designated National Scenic Byway. The program is a grassroots effort created to help acknowledge, preserve and enhance chosen roads throughout the United States. Two-thirds of the journey was spent cruising past wildlife refuges, parklands or natural areas.

With a Monday to burn and the travel bug in our veins, we drove west to our first stop.

Wyalusing

Population: 370

We rolled into Wyalusing State Park, situated high above the junction of the Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers. I figured it would be like any other campground, with a campsite here and there among the trees, maybe a small lookout over the river.

We parked the car and strolled down a leaf-ridden path in the direction of Point Lookout. Sprawled before me was a panorama, a maze of islands, channels and sloughs. A bridge stretched across the river, the ends disappearing into the auburn-colored forests. I towered above the network of trees and water feeling ashamed of my low expectations. How had I lived in Wisconsin my whole life not knowing this existed?

We continued following the path along the ridge and ran into a couple hiking along the overlook.

“Do you know how far the cave goes in?” the man asked us.

My mom and I looked at each other.

“Cave?” we asked.

“Yeah, Treasure Cave,” he answered, and informed us about a flight of stairs leading to a small cavern for adventurous hikers.

We grasped the opportunity to be a little daring, walked down through a stone arch dubbed “The Keyhole” and climbed the steep wooden staircase to investigate the limestone sanctuary. We were the only ones there, and it felt like a secret that only mom and I knew.

The Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers merge at Wyalusing State Park in Wyalusing, Wis. Photo by Kaitlyn Schnell.

Wyalusing — which means “home of the warrior” in the language of the Munsee-Delaware Native American tribe — includes 2,674 acres of outdoorsman bliss. Visitors can camp, hike, picnic, enjoy scenic overlooks, bird watch, bike, cross-country ski and fish. We only had time for a little hiking and sightseeing but vowed to come back again soon for more.

With our sights set on Prairie du Chien, we loaded up on pamphlets in the visitor’s center before forging northward.

Prairie du Chien

Population: 5,911

I shuffled through the pamphlets I picked up: a Valley Fish & Cheese pamphlet extolling “the finest smoked fish in the world,” a Cycle Southwest Wisconsin pamphlet “featuring 28 bicycle loops throughout Southwest Wisconsin’s Driftless Region” and Shihata’s Orchard pamphlet with an image of the sun shining on a slope of apple trees amid the morning fog.

As the oldest community on the Upper Mississippi opened up before us, I noted the flat city landscape nestled between the surrounding stone hills. The 21^st century had definitely reached the historic neighborhood, with a Culver’s, car dealership, McDonald’s and Hardees.

But modernity couldn’t mar this historical landscape. Case in point: the Mississippi River Sculpture Park. With more than two dozen life-size bronze statues by sculptor Florence Bird, the artwork depicts 12,000 years of human history from a Mastadon Hunter to a Riverboat Captain.

As we caught the last views of Prairie du Chien in the rearview mirror, I gazed at the red barns, silos and rustic homes nestled into the rock hills and pondered the stories behind each one.

I noticed the road ran parallel with not only the river, but also a snaking railroad. The three modes of transportation swerved in chorus past swamps, boat landings and piles of crunchy fallen leaves smelling crisp and earthy. I watched the piles growing taller as more leaves fell to the ground like a soft snow.

Before we reached Lynxville, we took a gander at what was one of five lock-and-dam systems along Wisconsin’s Great River Road. On observation decks at each location, you can see boats passing through the locks at Alma, Fountain City, Trempealeau, Genoa and, of course, just south of Lynxville.

Lynxville

Population: 132

We saw about a minute of Lynxville, including a delicious-looking hot dog stand, reminding us of our grumbling stomachs. We cruised past the village “where the river bends” to see if we could find a nice restaurant overlooking the water. I saw my mom pick up the speed a little, not blaming her.