Jan. 2: Morgan Slaight, 27, and Jaxon Slaight, 6, are shot and killed in what the Grant County Sheriff’s Office later calls a murder–suicide in Montfort. Joseph Slaight, 8, is also shot in the head but survives.
Jan. 5: New state Sen. Howard Marklein (R–Spring Green) and Rep. Todd Novak (R–Dodgeville) are sworn in in the State Capitol in Madison.
Jan. 6: Harleigh Anne Koppen, daughter of Ashley Gillette and Jerry Koppen of Fennimore, is the first baby of 2015 born at Southwest Health in Platteville.
Jan. 7: Four people — Lafayette County District Attorney Kate Findley, attorney Gayle Jebbia, Darlington attorney Duane Jorgenson and public defender Guy Taylor — file for the Lafayette County Circuit Court judgeship being vacated by the retiring Circuit Judge William Johnston. Eight people file for the three Platteville School Board seats. Three people file for the at-large Platteville Common Council seat. Every Town of Platteville elected position except one is contested.
Jan. 9: A status conference for James Kruger, 38, who faces 15 Grant County charges in connection with a September 2013 incident, ends abruptly when Kruger interrupts others speaking in court. Kruger was challenging the report claiming he wasn’t competent to stand trial and should be required to continue taking medication.
Jan. 12: A formal complaint is filed against Town of Platteville board chair Dale Hood and Sups. Rich Lange and Dan Smith for violation of the state Open Meetings Law over accusations the town board improperly discussed a proposed rezoning during a special board meeting the previous August.
Jan. 12: The Platteville School Board votes to schedule a $15 million referendum on a proposed $16.6 million building project. The plan includes moving to Westview Elementary School first grade, from Neal Wilkins Early Learning Center, and fourth grade, from Platteville Middle School.
Jan. 13: The Grant County Sheriff’s Office announces that convicted sex offender David J. Pettit will be released from custody to live in the Town of Platteville. Pettit was charged with first-degree sexual assault with use of a dangerous weapon and four counts of second-degree sexual assault with use of force in 1987, and was committed in 1999 after the state filed a Sexually Violent Person Petition.
Jan. 13: The Platteville Common Council approves a contract with Russ Stratton Buses to operate the shuttle portion of Platteville Public Transportation, the combined bus and taxi service.
Jan. 14: The state Building Commission approves renovation projects at UW–Platteville’s Dobson Hall and Melcher Hall.
Jan. 15: Platteville ranked tied for seventh in Talent Tribune’s comparison of the best Midwest places to start a small business.
Jan. 16: The Grant County Sheriff’s Office announces that Morgan Slaight fired the shots that killed her son, Jaxon, Jan. 2. Slaight also shot herself, and died Jan. 13. The shooting occurred one day after Morgan Slaight was released from emergency detention at Winnebago Mental Health Institution Jan. 1.
Jan. 16: The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service introduces a proposed rule to ban logging within one-fourth mile of a known, occupied Northern Long-Eared Bat hibernation site. The proposed rule could affect 278 forested acres in Grant County, and 695 forested acres in Iowa County.
Jan. 20: The Grant County Board votes to move ahead on a two-year strategic plan, including studying creating a county administrator position.
Jan. 21: At two informational meetings, changes to the proposed Platteville Library Block project are announced. The $16 million project doesn’t include the entire block, because First English Lutheran Church refused to sell its parking lot. The new plan moves the Neighborhood Health Partners clinic to the current library site, and eliminates proposed apartments and retail space, and reduces parking.
Jan. 28: Platteville Middle School is announced as one of eight Wisconsin schools nominated for the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program.
Jan. 29: Timmy Lansing Johnson Jr., 26, Dubuque, is sentenced to 50 years in prison and 15 years extended supervision on first-degree reckless homicide, armed robbery with use of force, and kidnapping charges in connection with the death of Merle Forbes, 79, Platteville, June 12, 2014. Six La Crosse County charges are dismissed but read into the record.
Jan. 31: Property tax mil rates drop 5.84 percent in Iowa County, 4.36 percent in Lafayette County, and 2.8 percent in Grant County.
Feb. 2: UW–Platteville faces millions of dollars in spending cuts for its 2015–16 academic year at the same time the proposed 2015–17 state budget includes a proposed $300 million UW System funding cut.
Feb. 4: Platteville Public Schools ranks 18th among the state’s more than 400 school districts in an online comparison by Niche.
Feb. 4: Brandy Marie Smithey, 32, rural South Wayne, faces an attempted first-degree intentional homicide charge and three other felony charges after an altercation with what was described as a “non-firearm weapon” that caused “serious, life-threatening injuries.” The alleged victim, Theodore Anthony Bauer III, 37, South Wayne, faces a second-degree recklessly endangering safety charge for allegedly pulling a gun on his ex-wife the previous March.
Feb. 9: Platteville Public Schools may have to cut $300,000 from its 2015–16 budget if the proposed 2015–17 state budget’s K–12 education funding cut becomes law.
Feb. 10: The Platteville Common Council approves the job description for the city manager position, which includes a desire for a “strong background in budgeting/finance, long range strategic planning, [and] intergovernmental relationships, especially developing and maintaining community relationships.”
Feb. 11: A petition drive is under way to deny parole for Gregory A. Coulthard, who was convicted of first-degree intentional homicide in 1990 for shooting to death Grant County Deputy Sheriff Tom Reuter.
Feb. 14: Former UW–Platteville men’s basketball coach Bo Ryan is named a finalist for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Feb. 14: Platteville High School junior Saafia Masoom wins the American Legion Oratorical Contest at Ripon College, shortly after winning the Wisconsin VFW Voice of Democracy national Audio-Essay contest. The two contest wins earn her a trip to Indianapolis and to Washington to compete in the Legion and VFW national contests.
Feb. 17: Tom Nall and Angie Donovan finish first and second in the three-way primary for the Platteville Common Council at-large seat being vacated by retiring Ald. Dick Bonin. Platteville School Board incumbents Steve Obershaw and Eric Fatzinger will face four challengers for three School Board seats. Darlington attorney Duane Jorgenson and Lafayette County District Attorney Kate Findley finish first and second in the race to replace Lafayette County Circuit Judge William Johnston.
Feb. 23: A man crashed into a SUV, then crashed into a Muscoda police car before eluding authorities following to his home outside Muscoda. Wayne A. Ferguson, 48, turns himself in to authorities one day later.
Feb. 27: The Platteville Journal receives nine awards, including three first-place awards and second place in the General Excellence category, in the Wisconsin Newspaper Association Better Newspaper Contest. Journal publisher John Ingebritsen is elected third vice president of the WNA.
Feb. 27: The annual Platteville Regional Chamber Art Virtue Awards honor the UW–Platteville Pioneer Academic Center for Community Engagement, the UWP Delta Sigma Phi Fraternity, Wisconsin Badger Camp, Mike Myers, Jaime Collins, the UW–Platteville Pioneer Farm, Bruce and Caroline Kroll and Dick and Judy Adams of Culver’s, and Paul Budden.
Feb. 28: The first PHS Scholarship Fund It Takes a Village fundraiser and auction raises almost $30,000 for the fund.
March 3: UW–Platteville begins the “Race in America: Can We Talk About It?” series.
March 5: Platteville and Dickeyville firefighters and the Grant County hazmat team are sent to Galena for a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train derailment.
March 9: The Platteville School Board names Lisa Finnegan, former Platteville Middle School principal, to replace Don Shaw as principal at Westview Elementary School after Shaw’s retirement at the end of the school year. The School Board also votes to shift school bus providers, replacing Stratton Buses of Cuba City with Warco Transportation of Bloomington starting in the 2015–16 school year.
March 10: The Platteville Common Council sends a proposal by at-large Ald. Mike Denn to ban pit bull dogs in the city to the city’s Freudenreich Animal Care Trust Fund Committee. The proposal comes several months after an attack by a dog believed to be a pit bull on a dog that lived next door.
March 18: A human resources consulting firm ranks UW–Platteville at the top of UW System schools and in the national top 10- for salary return on tuition investment.
March 19: 34 candidates apply for the vacant Platteville city manager position.
March 20: Zachary Lee Shawano, 26, Crandon, dies in a head-on crash with a dump truck on Iowa County G south of Rewey.
March 24: Six Rivers Conference superintendents vote 8–5 to dissolve the Benton/Shullsburg co-op girls basketball team.
March 24: The Platteville Common Council votes to approve the Library Block project except for the South Chestnut Street and West Main Street sides of the project, over concerns of how the project’s design fits between two city historic districts.
March 28: The University of Wisconsin, coached by former UW–Platteville coach Bo Ryan, defeats Arizona 85–78 to earn the Badgers’ second consecutive men’s basketball Final Four berth.
March 30: The City of Platteville Freudenreich Animal Care Trust Fund Committee votes unanimously to oppose the proposed pit bull ban. One online petition opposing the pit bull ban is signed by 57,812 people.
April 1: Ground is broken for the Moving Platteville Outdoors Rountree Branch Trial lighting and paving project.
April 2: Six weeks after a report of an armed robbery on Fox Ridge Road in Platteville, an armed robbery is reported in a Main Street apartment. In both cases, three masked men, one armed with a handgun, were reported to have entered the residence.
April 6: After giving Kentucky its first loss of the season in the national semifinal, Wisconsin loses to Duke 68–63 in the NCAA men’s basketball championship game.
April 7: The $15 million Platteville Public Schools building referendum passes 1,487–723. Tom Nall is elected to the Platteville Common Council at-large seat to replace retiring Ald. Dick Bonin. Incumbents Steve Obershaw and Eric Fatzinger and challenger Colleen McCabe are elected to the Platteville School Board. Tom Weigel defeats Town of Platteville chairman Dale Hood, while town Sups. Rich Lange and Dan Smith and town clerk Jim Lory were reelected. Darlington attorney Duane Jorgenson is elected to replace retiring Lafayette County Circuit Judge William Johnston.
April 9: The state Parole Commission announces it denied the parole application of Gregory A. Coulthard on his 1990 first-degree intentional homicide conviction for shooting to death Grant County Deputy Sheriff Tom Reuter.
April 9: Platteville High School music students leave for four days in Nashville.
April 14: The Platteville Common Council approves the revised design of the West Main Street and South Chestnut Street portions of the Library Block project. The council also votes to purchase the former Pioneer Ford Sales properties at East Pine Street and South Water Street, with plans to apply for a Community Development Block Grant to pay for demolition and site cleanup.
April 14: The proposed pit bull ban — and any other changes to City of Platteville animal ordinances — dies when a 4–2 vote defeats a proposal to study other communities’ vicious dog ordinances.
April 15: UW–Platteville announces $3.7 million in cuts from its 2015–16 budget to address the budget’s structural deficit and prepare for expected state aid cuts in the 2015–17 budget.
April 16: The NAMM Foundation names Platteville one of 12 school districts in Wisconsin to be one of the Best Communities for Music Education in the U.S.
April 22: The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association votes against dueling proposals to change how high school enrollments are determined for postseason divisions. The proposal to implement a “success factor” that could push schools that get to state up a division is not voted on. Proposals to multiply private high school enrollments by 1.65 fails, as does a proposal to reduce school enrollments by 40 percent of their free- or reduced-lunch percentages.
April 24: The City of Platteville holds a public forum for the four finalists for Platteville city manager — City of Oshkosh organizational development manager Brian Chapman, Edina, Minn., assistant city manager Karen Kurt, New Glarus village administrator Nicholas Owen, and Mauston city administrator Nathan Thiel.
April 27: The Platteville School Board hires Sheboygan teacher Kyle Craig for a new high school math position. Craig, formerly an assistant football coach at PHS, is later named the varsity head coach, replacing Scott Statz, who resigned the head coaching position to become an assistant in the program. The School Board also approved staff benefits increases that include more dental insurance coverage, and expands the number of personal days staff can take.
April 27: Platteville police Sgt. Terry Terpstra is named Cuba City police chief.
April 30: The Platteville Common Council approves the developer agreement for the Library Block project 3½ hours before its deadline. The agreement includes a target date of July 1 or “such other date” to begin construction and a target completion date of May 30, 2016.
May 1: A new community partnership, UNITE, kicks off an effort to reduce heart attacks in the Platteville area with the 100 Mile Challenge, a series of walks approximately every 10 days through Aug. 8.
May 2: The first Platteville Derby Day is held, featuring a parade with horses and country singer Dylan Scott.
May 3: The Belmont Lions club celebrates its 60th anniversary.
May 4: The Platteville Common Council unanimously votes to hire Edina, Minn., assistant city manager Karen Kurt to replace Larry Bierke as city manager.
May 8: Karen Garrison of the Town of Lamont gets a surprise early Mother’s Day present — a visit from country singer Garth Brooks and ABC-TV’s “Good Morning America.”
May 10: Sts. Andrew–Thomas School in Potosi celebrates its 50th anniversary.
May 13: A letter in The Journal signed by four Platteville-area 4-H clubs announces they will not be selling concessions at the 2015 Platteville Dairy Days because of the ticket system for purchasing food, instituted at the 2014 Dairy Days.
May 13: The annual Grant County Law Enforcement Memorial ceremony includes the presentation of memorial badges to the family of Deputy Sheriff Tom Reuter, who wsa shot to death while on duty in March 1990.
May 16: Platteville Public Transportation begins its new summer bus schedule.
May 17: The Platteville Chorale celebrates its 40th anniversary with a concert at First English Lutheran Church.
May 19: Four days after Grant County Sup. Larry Wolf resigns because he was moving out of his district, the County Board chooses Lancaster resident Mike Lieurance to replace Wolf.
May 20: The Department of Natural Resources announces that white nose syndrome, first found in bats that hibernated in a cave near Potosi, has now spread to Lafayette and Iowa counties.
May 23: Rev. Monte Robinson of St. Philomena Catholic Church in Belmont celebrates the 40th anniversary of his ordination.
May 26: The Platteville Common Council approves 5–2 the transfer of Platteville EMS to Southwest Health.
June 2: The Platteville Dairy Days board votes to return to cash payments for food, coupled with food vendors’ paying for their booths in advance.
June 6: Belmont’s Tucker Wedig wins the state Division 3 shot put and discus titles, and Platteville’s Ryan Weber wins the Division 2 discus title at the WIAA track and field championships in La Crosse.
June 8: The Platteville School Board chooses Plunkett Raysich Architects of Milwaukee to design the $16.6 million Platteville Public Schools renovation projects.
June 12: The UW–Platteville Heartland Festival begins, possibly for the last time, given UW–Platteville funding issues.
June 14: The first Habitat for Humanity house in Platteville, the 11th in Grant County, is dedicated.
June 14: Dr. Robert J. Snyder of Platteville sings as a member of The New American Chorus, which performs with Christian singer Steven Curtis Chapman, in the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
June 18: Philanthropist Helen Stoneman Brodbeck, 95, dies at Epione Pavilion in Cuba City.
June 19: Larry D. Kallembach, 58, Platteville, pleads to the final set of charges in four counties for alleged thefts by forgery, then files an intent to appeal his sentence.
June 22: One year and six days after two tornadoes hit Platteville, far more extensive damage occurs from severe thunderstorms with winds beyond 70 mph in southern Grant County. More than 300 homes are estimated to be damaged.
June 23: The Platteville Common Council changes the city’s alcohol sale ordinances to match state law when beer and liquor can legally be sold. City ordinances had banned beer sales before 8 a.m., when state law allows beer to be sold after 6 a.m. Beer sales end at midnight. Liquor sales are allowed between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m.
June 26: Montchevré–Betin of Belmont gets the highest score for its blueberry vanilla goat cheese at the Wisconsin State Fair cheese and butter contest. Montchevré co-founder and cheesemaker Jean Rossard was later named grand master cheesemaker of the year at the State Fair.
June 29: Former UW–Platteville men’s basketball coach Bo Ryan announces that the 2015–16 season will be his last at Wisconsin. Ryan endorses his lead assistant, Cobb native and Iowa–Grant and UW–Platteville graduate Greg Gard, as his replacement.
June 29: Southwest Health purchases the former Davis Duehr Dean Eye Care Clinic at on the hospital campus, changing its name to The Eye Center at Southwest Health.
June 30: Mary Kay Logemann retires as Platteville Public Schools’ district nurse, having received the Wisconsin Association of School Nurses 2015 Katheryn Etter School Nurse of the Year Award. Logemann is a native of Monroe, where Etter was her school nurse.
July 1: Southwest Wisconsin Technical College president Jason Wood replaces retiring president Duane Ford.
July 4: A state Legislature Joint Finance Committee proposal to alter the state’s Open Records Law to allow legislators to shield communications with constituents, staffers and others from Open Records requests is removed from the 2015–17 state budget. State Sen. Howard Marklein (R–Spring Green) voted for the “omnibus 999” motion that included the proposal, but said he opposed the proposal.
July 5: Bryle Morgan, 2, Waterloo, Iowa, dies at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, one day after she drowned in the Mississippi River west-northwest of Potosi. She was found under a boat moored on an island, where her family had gone; her life preserver had been taken off for a group photo.
July 5: A barn on Hill Road in the Town of Smelser is destroyed by fire.
July 7: Grant County K-9 Officer A-Rod is euthanized after an incident where he attacked his handler, Deputy Jay Fitzgerald, causing injuries. A-Rod had been part of the Sheriff’s Office for 3½ years
July 10: Devonte Shamar Arms, 22, Platteville, makes his first court appearance on two counts of party to burglary — building or dwelling and seven counts of party to armed robbery with threat of force. Two other suspects in connection with robberies on Division Street Feb. 11 and Fox Ridge Road Feb. 12 remain at large.
July 11: Sidney L. Yera Jr., 18, Milwaukee, drowns in the swimming area of Lake Joy Campground.
July 12: Gov. Scott Walker signs the state’s 2015–17 budget into law. The budget passed the state Assembly even though Reps. Travis Tranel (R–Cuba City) and Todd Novak (R–Dodgeville) voted against it.
July 12: Catholic churches in Darlington, Elk Grove, Seymour, Calamine and Truman are officially merged into the Congregation of Our Lady of Fatima. The five churches keep their names and Mass schedules.
July 16: Vincent Thomas Gard, son of Amy and Jeff Gard of Platteville, is the 2000th birth for Southwest Health Dr. Kevin Carr.
July 16: CenturyLink announces that it will be selling Prism TV and 1 gigabit-per-second Internet service. As part of the system upgrade CenturyLink announces it will discontinue its old Internet and cable TV network, including the CenturyLink TeleVideo service.
July 16: A man impersonating a police officer pulls over a woman on U.S. 151 around 11:55 p.m. The dark-colored SUV had a red and blue dash light, driven by a man in his 40s wearing a black T-shirt. The man pulled over a woman, asked her if she knew why she was stopped, then asked her to leave her car because of an equipment violation. When the woman asked the man for ID, he drove off to heading north.
July 17: Former Journal columnist Pearl Swiggum, 101, dies. Swiggum wrote for the Journal, other Southwest Wisconsin newspapers and the Wisconsin State Journal for more than 20 years, after getting her start at the Crawford County Independent in 1958.
July 20: Jared Winkers, 17, is killed in an accidental shooting at his family’s Town of Cassville home. He and six friends were shooting at targets when a gun accidentally discharged.
July 22: With clearing of the Platteville Library Block scheduled for later in 2015, two organizations on the block still don’t have new homes — the dance studio and the Southwest Wisconsin Community Action Program Neighborhood Health Partners clinic. The clinic needs a space that meets federal codes for medical facilities, but only until it moves into the current library building.
July 25–26: Platteville Boy Scouts Max Frommelt and Jonah Barnet get Eagle Scout awards.
July 28: The Platteville Common Council approves a grant and loan for a low-income-housing project at the former WSWW radio station site on North Fourth Street, and extends the city loan for the Bayley Building — on which its owners owe $291,000 of the $320,000 loan made in 2007 — to August 2017. The council also reverses a vote from March 24, requiring that the new McDonald’s on Progressive Parkway build sidewalks on Progressive Parkway, Commercial Drive and East Business 151. The next-door Sherwin–Williams Paint Store had sought a waiver of the city’s sidewalk ordinances, but while McDonald’s waiver request was approved, Sherwin–Williams’ request was denied.
July 29: UW–Platteville Chancellor Dennis Shields says his university is “a little more than halfway” toward budget cuts and revenue increases to meet its $8.5 million in deficits — a $5 million structural deficit and $3.5 million in 2015–17 state budget cuts.
July 31: Platteville High School girls basketball and softball coach Jim Lawinger informs players and their parents in an email that PHS decided to not have him continue as coach of the teams. Lawinger’s departure is the second for PHS in the past school year, after volleyball coach Yvette Updike was terminated after the team’s first trip to the state tournament in 20 years.
Aug. 3: Dr. Brian Sachs, a former Southwest Health physician, opens Platte Medical, a clinic where patients pay monthly membership fees to get $50 house calls, and discounted prescriptions, lab tests and X-rays. The clinic takes no insurance.
Aug. 4: Lafayette County Deputy Sheriff Michael Gorham arrives in Dubuque two days after he began a bicycle ride from Milwaukee to honor Army Sgt. Jakob Roelli of Darlington and Staff Sgt. Jesse Grindey of Hazel Green, who died in Afghanistan in 2011 and 2012.
Aug. 5: Milio’s Sandwiches moves from 90 E. Mineral St., the Parnell Building, to the southeast corner of Business 151 and Wisconsin 80/81 (Water Street). The Parnell Building formerly was a stop on the Galena-to-Madison stagecoach line.
Aug. 10: Ground is broken on the 39-acre expansion of the Platteville Industry Park. The park will have more than 50 acres of available land, with lots from smaller than 2 acres to 22 acres.
Aug. 10: Former Platteville High School coach Jim Lawinger tells the School Board that he was not retained as girls basketball and softball coach because he didn’t fit “the Platteville Philosophy,” which appears to include two Platteville Public Schools policies, “Interscholastic Athletics,” and “Staff Ethics.”
Aug. 11: The Platteville Common Council expands the city’s financial commitment to the Rountree Branch Trail project from $200,000, approved in 2014, to $285,000, using 2016 city funds. Six days later, the committee decides to go ahead with the trail project despite being about $14,000 short of its $1.676 million goal.
Aug. 12: Adam Alexander of Potosi writes about his recovery from head injuries he suffered in the Army in Afghanistan three years ago.
Aug. 13: Two months after UW–Madison men’s basketball coach Bo Ryan announces his retirement after the 2015–16 season, Ryan says at a charity golf event in the Appleton area that he may not retire after the season.
Aug. 15: David G. Friese, 61, Muscoda, kills himself with a shotgun, ending a domestic incident in which his girlfriend said he beat her with an aluminum bat.
Aug. 19: The Vernon County Sheriff’s Office releases a facial reconstruction photo of a woman who was found dead west of Westby May 4, 1984, in an effort to solve a 31-year-old cold case.
Aug. 24: Newsweek magazine’s America’s Top High Schools 2015 ranks Platteville High School second in the state in the annual ranking of the U.S.’ top 500 high schools based on college readiness, graduation rate, and percentage of college-bound students. PHS ranked highest in the state on Newsweek’s Beating the Odds list, for schools that helping low-income students score at or above the average on state assessments.
Aug. 25: The City of Platteville estimates adding sidewalks on Business 151 would cost $2.75 million, assuming the city received no funding assistance from the state.
Aug. 26: The Grant County Courthouse is rededicated after its $2.2 million reconstruction project. The reconstruction project fixes problems created by the late 1990s courthouse addition that caused water damage inside the walls.
Aug. 27: The annual all-campus convocation kicks off UW–Platteville’s sesquicentennial celebration, culminating in the university’s 150th birthday party scheduled for Oct. 15, 2016.
Aug. 31: The McDonald’s at 250 W. Business 151, the first McDonald’s in Grant County, closes.
Aug. 31: Four teenagers and a 55-year-old are hospitalized in Lancaster for reactions to synthetic marijuana.
Sept. 1: The Move to Amend Platteville group begins circulating petitions for a referendum on overturning U.S. Supreme Court decisions on political campaign financing.
Sept. 3: The new McDonald’s at 1775 Progressive Parkway in Platteville opens. Jim Schneller, who sold owner Glenn Karpinske the land, gets the first Big Mac made on the new grill.
Sept. 3: HyPro International announces it is closing its Whitewater facility Nov. 2, leaving it with six manufacturing facilities, including at 1000 Phillips Dr. in Platteville.
Sept. 9: Platteville golfer Josh Udelhofen announces he is going to Florida this winter with the eventual goal of qualifying for the PGA tour.
Sept. 9: Daniel Smyth, 57, Soldiers Grove, is injured and arrested for drunk driving after his milk truck tips over and crashes at Adams Street and Lancaster Street in Platteville.
Sept. 9: Tyron Henry, 20, is arrested by U.S. Marshals on a Georgia murder warrant. Henry is wanted in connections with the shooting death of Michael Anthony Johnson, 50, Savannah, Ga., July 10.
Sept. 11: The football field at Iowa–Grant High School is named Coach Crull Field for hall of fame Iowa–Grant football coach Garry Crull.
Sept. 12–13: UW–Platteville hosts the first National Collegiate Parkour Competition in the world.
Sept. 13: James Spencer Thomas, 22, Platteville, dies when his bicycle is hit by a pickup truck on East Business 151 and Phillips Road. The driver, Tyler P. Sullivan of Platteville, is given traffic citations, but is not charged because of factors that contributed to the crash, including “lack of adequate lighting and reflective material” on Thomas and his bicycle, the truck’s and bicycle’s deviating from their lanes of traffic, and “inattention” on the part of both Thomas and Sullivan.
Sept. 14: UW–Platteville Chancellor Dennis Shields is a finalist for the presidency of Chicago State University. Thomas J. Calhoun, vice president for enrollment management at the University of North Alabama, is later chosen as president.
Sept. 17: Belmont police investigating burglaries and vehicle thefts discover a one-pot methamphetamine lab in a mobile home. Mitchell R. Engebretson, 32, is arrested on methamphetamine charges.
Sept. 18: Brother and sister Mitch and Madison Knockel are named Platteville High School Homecoming king and queen.
Sept. 21: A two-engine airplane owned by an Ohio company overshoots the Platteville Municipal Airport north–south runway on an aborted takeoff and ends up in a bean field on the south side of the airport property. No one is injured.
Sept. 22: James Kruger is sentenced to 15 years in prison on federal charges of felon possession of a firearm. Kruger still faces Grant, Iowa and Dane county charges in connection with incidents in September 2013.
Sept. 22: The Platteville Common Council votes 6–1 to expand Platteville Public Transportation taxi service the rest of the year. Taxi demand increased since Platteville Cab Service went out of business.
Sept. 24: Paul D. Riechers, 77, Platteville, dies when his car is hit by a tractor–trailer at the U.S. 151/Wisconsin 80/81 interchange.
Sept. 25: The grand opening of the new McDonald’s includes the first $16,140 of business donated to the Moving Platteville Outdoors campaign to finish fundraising for the Rountree Branch Trail lighting and paving project.
Sept. 26: What turns out to be Platteville EMS’ final call is a report of an overturned car without driver or passengers on Grant County O west of Platteville.
Sept. 27: At 6 a.m., Southwest Health officially takes over Platteville EMS services, ending Platteville EMS after 30 years.
Sept. 27: As the moon rises, it goes into a lunar eclipse, the last total eclipse until April 14, 2033.
Sept. 29: The U.S. Department of Education names Platteville Middle School one of 335 Blue Ribbon Schools.
Sept. 29: The Platteville Common Council looks over a list of $43.6 million in proposed capital improvements between 2016 and 2020, including $4.5 million of work on the Municipal Building. District 3 Ald. Barb Daus proposes a citywide referendum for the Municipal Building work, a new fire station and proposed improvements at the city’s museums.
Oct. 1: Douglas Forbes Jr., 23, Platteville, is arrested after a standoff with police in which his girlfriend and her 8-month-old son are held hostage.
Oct. 4: Grant County Sheriff Nate Dreckman and Lancaster Police Chief Deb Reukauf find threatening notes on the doorsteps of their homes. One night later, anonymously written notes are left apologizing for the previous weekend’s notes. One day after that, the four teenagers involved with the notes are revealed.
Oct. 5: Tyron Henry, 20, waives his rights to contest his extradition to Georgia on a murder charge one month after he is arrested by U.S. Marshals in Platteville.
Oct. 6: Hellmuth Krause of the Town of Muscoda, who lost a court fight over easements through pasture land he owns, argues to the Grant County Board that it should reverse the court decision because it goes against county zoning laws.
Oct. 7: UW–Platteville hosts the Midwest Conference on 21st Century Policing: Implementing the President’s Task Force Recommendations.
Oct. 12: Ground is broken on the Westview Elementary School expansion project, expected to be completed in time to move first-graders from Neal Wilkins Early Learning Center and fourth-graders from Platteville Middle School in the 2016–17 school year.
Oct. 12: The Platteville Common Council approves the purchase of the former Pioneer Ford Sales buildings for $982,426.
Oct. 17: A benefit concert at Platteville High School for Family Promise of Grant County raises more than $4,250 for a homeless day center at the former St. Clement Convent in Lancaster.
Oct. 18: Rev. Monte Robinson of St. Philomena Catholic Church is named a monsignor by Bishop Robert Morlino.
Oct. 24: Platteville firefighters are called to a South Oak Street apartment for a fire alarm report. Inside the apartment, two unconscious people are found along with “suspected controlled substances” and drug paraphernalia. The two are arrested on probation violations.
Oct. 25: The Platteville Chorale celebrates its 40th anniversary with a festival that includes the Dubuque Chorale, Mount Horeb Chorale and River Valley Community Choir.
Oct. 25: The Brickl Memorial Library holds its grand reopening to celebrate its completed expansion project into a meeting room.
Oct. 26: Grant County health officials report a confirmed case of mumps. Officials do not report the source of the mumps case, but it is later reported to be UW–Platteville, where five cases are later reported.
Oct. 26: The first round of construction bids on the $16.6 million Platteville Public Schools renovation project are over budget when more work than originally planned is included in the bids.
Oct. 28: Douglas J. Forbes, 23, is charged with eight counts of felony bail jumping, strangulation and suffocation, misdemeanor battery and possession of drug paraphernalia after the Oct. 1 hostage incident.
Nov. 2: The Platteville Plan Commission considers a proposal for a new 80,000-square-foot building on the block of St. Augustine University Parish. The proposal includes a two-story chapel to replace the St. Augustine building, a two-story student center, and three stories of housing for 144 UW–Platteville students.
Nov. 3: Potosi School District voters overwhelmingly approve a $2.3 million referendum for a $2.7 million renovation project, including a central K–12 office and new auditorium.
Nov. 4: Retired Platteville teacher Tom Skubal writes that he has time capsule letters written by Platteville Middle School students between 1976 and 2000 that he is trying to get to the letter-writers. Thanks to social media, Skubal hears from “hundreds of contacts from all over the country” and is able to send out more than 200 unclaimed letters, with “much more still waiting.”
Nov. 6: Platteville police spend the scheduled half-day of Platteville High School classes at PHS after a student incident earlier in the week escalates into threats on social media. PHS students fill out a survey about race relations and safety in which three-fourths or more of students say they feel safe at PHS, but only 55 percent say they feel safe in “reporting dangerous or unsafe behaviors.”
Nov. 7: Kaila M. Fouks, 25, Lancaster, is killed in a crash on U.S. 61 near Airport Road north of Lancaster.
Nov. 7: Cuba City police Cmdr. Eric Lyons, 38, dies after a heart attack three days earlier.
Nov. 10: The Iowa County Board votes to hire former Platteville city manager Larry Bierke as county administrator.
Nov. 13: Platteville Middle School celebrates its U.S. Department of Education Blue Ribbon Award with a parade and ceremony.
Nov. 16: Platteville High School student survey results reveal three areas the school plans to focus on the rest of the school year — cultural awareness, building positive relationships, and increasing school spirit and pride.
Nov. 21: Winter starts early with a foot of snow dropping on the Platteville area. The snow, however, disappears within days after the high reaches 61 one day later.
Nov. 24: The Platteville Common Council approves the developer’s agreement for the Library Block project. What was touted earlier in the year as a library for $1 per year became a project in which the city will be paying the developer $220,000 a year in rent for seven or eight years.
Nov. 24: With the approval of the 2016 City of Platteville budget, property tax rates for Platteville property owners are set at $23.14 per $1,000 assessed valuation, up from the $23 per $1,000 rate one year ago.
Nov. 25: Neal Wilkins Early Learning Center teacher Denise Johnson returns to work after treatment for breast cancer. Neal Wilkins students honor her by raising $2,163.14 for St. Jude’s Medical Center, resulting in teachers having their hair dyed pink, kissing a goat and a rabbit, and getting a pie in the face.
Nov. 30: Potosi police chief Steve Alexander retires after 33½ years with the village and 41 years in law enforcement. Alexander will be the village’s last police chief for the foreseeable future, because Potosi and Tennyson vote to disband the police department and contract with the Grant County Sheriff’s Office for law enforcement services.
Dec. 1: The City of Platteville closes on the purchase of the former Pioneer Ford Sales properties, paying $982,426 for the buildings appraised at $1.642 million. The city hopes to sell the properties to a developer by mid-2016.
Dec. 7: The Platteville Plan Commission votes to recommend the vacating of part of Jones Street, the alley east of Steve’s Pizza Palace, as part of a proposal for a new restaurant. The Common Council must approve the abandonment.
Dec. 8: The first McDonald’s in Grant County, on West Business 151, is demolished three months after it closes.
Dec. 12: The first Badger Camp 1966 Event, which replaces the annual UW–Platteville Badger Camp Telethon ended last year, raises a record $90,740 for Badger Camp. Former Green Bay Packers Jerry Kramer and Gilbert Brown are featured.
Dec. 13: A Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers survey of Wisconsin attorneys about state circuit judges ranks Grant County Circuit Judges Robert VanDeHey and Craig Day well, but not Iowa County Circuit Judge William Dyke. Retired Lafayette County Circuit Judge William Johnston is not part of the survey.
Dec. 14: The sanity phase of the trial of James M. Kruger on charges stemming from a September 2013 crime spree is delayed when Kruger is again ordered for commitment for treatment. Kruger pleaded no contest to three of the 12 Grant County charges he faced Oct. 28, with the other charges dismissed but read in for sentencing.
Dec. 15: The Platteville Historic Preservation Commission doesn’t vote on approvals of demolition of two buildings as part of the restaurant project on the Steve’s Pizza Palace property due to a lack of quorum.
Dec. 15: Wisconsin beats Texas A&M–Corpus Christi 64–49. After the game, UW coach Bo Ryan announces his retirement effective immediately. Greg Gard, who grew up near Cobb and graduated from Iowa–Grant High School and UW–Platteville, replaces Ryan for the rest of the season.
Dec. 18: Grant County authorities report 31 crashes or slide-offs after sudden snow creates slippery roads.
Dec. 23: Alan R. VanNatta, 48, Benton, is killed in one of three crashes on East Business 151.
Dec. 25: The Stop-N-Go in Platteville is robbed by one armed black man with another person seen running with him outside the store.
