‘Years Ago’ is a compilation of newsy tidbits as published in the Crawford County Independent & Kickapoo Scout on this week ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or sixty years ago.
TEN YEARS AGO
JANUARY 28, 2010 – Eastman’s Cheryl O’Brien, Alice in Dairyland, and Amanda Dudenbostel, Crawford County Fairest of the Fair, attended the State Fair Convention at the Chula Vista Resort in Wisconsin Dells... The Seneca girls basketball team remains undefeated after a smashing 66-27 victory over the visiting Wauzeka-Steuben Hornets last week. Seneca coach Kim Redman can’t help but show her enthusiasm for a team that she sees “continuing to learn at every game they play.”
TWENTY YEARS AGO
JANUARY 27, 2000 – Trojan varsity basketball players Jeremy Fradette, Kyle Hines, Ben Quamme and Jeff Murphy are pictured at a game where the Trojans defeated Wauzeka 60-41… A Gays Mills native, Ada McKnight, has been featured in the ‘Know Your Stoughton Neighbor’ in the Stoughton News, a weekly newspaper. Ada was born in Gays Mills but has lived in Stoughton since 1955 where she has been an active member of the Stoughton Writers Club. Her teaching career began in a rural Crawford County school with eight grades in one room. She taught in one-room schools for 12 years before moving to Stoughton, where she taught 20 years, fourth grade most of the time.
THIRTY YEARS AGO
FEBRUARY 1, 1990 – Barry Jensen, pictured working on the masonry furnace at the new Kickapoo Exchange Co-op building on Main Street in Gays Mills, says the furnace is a very efficient and safe way of heating with wood. Jensen says the floor is the next project, which will be oak over the cement slab. The flooring from the old building, which was the only thing salvageable after the fire, will be recycled and used as wainscoting on some of the interior walls.
FORTY YEARS AGO
JANUARY 31, 1980 – A local softball team with players from Soldiers Grove and Gays Mills area participated in a softball benefit tournament in Viroqua. The Viroqua Jaycees, with Terry Sime as chairman of the event, sponsored the tournament to set up a Danny Weidenbach memorial scholarship fund. The local team sponsored by Squeak’s Bar in Soldiers Grove took third place out of the ten teams participating. Members included Doug Wallin, Lance Petro, Ole Peterson, Fred Applebee, Bill Helk, Gary Torgerson, Al Kopan, Terry Murphy, Caryl Jessup, Leroy Emerson and Rick Hobbs. First place in the tournament was Bert’s Bombers of Viroqua, second place was the Romance Tavern team. Approximately $400 was raised.
FIFTY YEARS AGO
JANUARY 28, 1970 – A nurses’ aide class recently started at Memorial Hospital and Nursing Home with Mrs. Olivia May of Highland as the instructor. Fourteen women from the Boscobel area are enrolled including Sue Hanson, Blue River; Susan Miller, Boscobel; Barbara Tuckwood, Boscobel; Jane Armitage, Soldiers Grove; Joni Poole, Boscobel; Claire Barnett, Boscobel; Maxine Cody, Gays Mills; Beverly Schmitz, Boscobel; Clair Wagner, Boscobel; Jeanette McDaniel, Boscobel; Joy Aspenson, Wauzeka; Leona Dregne, Readstown; Gertrude Martin, Boscobel; and Ida Bartels, Boscobel.
SIXTY YEARS AGO
JANUARY 25, 1960 – Ray George, high school maintenance man, has the job of loading hot lunch containers and milk for his daily run to Orchard View, Bell Center, Petersburg, Barnum and Haney Valley schools. Part-time employees do kitchen duty at the first three schools named. Teachers and pupils at Barnum and Haney Valley have charge of serving… Mrs. Leita Slayton, head of the Gays Mills high school home economics department, announces adult clothing clinics planned for Tuesday afternoons during March. The classes will take place in the home economics building with Mrs. R. W. Friedell in charge. Small children may accompany their mothers to class and will be cared for by home economics students who will operate a nursery during adult class time.
