9/25/23 Hometown Broadcasting News Monday
25 September 2023 News
MIGHTY MAVERICK’S BATTLE AGAINST BRAIN CANCER
The EMS Chief for Ripon Guardian Ambulance says his four-year-old son is constantly on his mind whether he’s on or off the job. That’s because Mitch Matuszeski’s (MATT-uh-SHES-kee) son Maverick is waging a battle against brain cancer. Maverick is receiving chemotherapy treatments at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Mitch says St. Jude is the “real deal,” the hope you see in their TV ads is genuine. He says Maverick has now reached the halfway point in the 30 treatments he will receive. He gets a treatment each day Monday through Friday. He is sedated for the treatment each morning and after he recovers Maverick and the family have time to do things together. Mitch says soon Maverick will be given a month off from treatment and they will be able to do the rest of the chemotherapy closer to home at Children’s Hospital in Madison. Mitch says because of what his son is going through he has gained a better understanding of what people are thinking when Ripon Guardian provides ambulance service for them. A Go Fund Me page has been started for Maverick’s family which you can find by searching Go Fund Me for Mighty Maverick’s Battle Against Brain Cancer. (Matuszeski family photo).
GRISWOLD STREET TRUCK TRAFFIC
The Ripon Common Council tonight will consider removing Griswold Street as a truck route in the city. Griswold connects Metomen Street or State Roads 44 and 49 and County Road E. Trucks use it as a short cut between the state and county highway. According to city staff truck traffic continues to draw noise and safety complaints from the residential neighborhood. Truck turning movements from south bound trucks on Metomen Street turning west onto Griswold Street has resulted in 3 incidents in the past 2 years where the fire hydrant at the corner has been struck by a turning truck. The most recent incident resulted in a water main break which would have drained the nearby water tower if it had happened during staff off-hours. The latest incident also damaged the road resulting in a sink hole. Staff is recommending the Council authorize installation of signage prohibiting traffic on Griswold Street. The Council meets at 7 pm tonight in the Council Chambers of Ripon City Hall.
CWC EXPANSION BIGGEST EVER FOR THE SCHOOL
It was a big weekend for Central Wisconsin Christian School with one of their biggest fundraisers of the year and an open house for the $11 million expansion to the school in Waupun. Gregg Zonnefeld is the school’s Director of Advancement. He says over the past decade they’ve had 5 different building projects and built 3 additions over the past four years. Meanwhile, in the last three years their student enrollment has increased from 393 to 528 students. Zonnefeld says the expansion project that finished last month was their largest ever. It was a 31,000 square foot addition which included 7 new classrooms for elementary students, and a 2,500 square foot Discovery Center or Library Media Center. Zonnefeld says for the high school they built 3 new classrooms and a 7,000 square foot lab for their agriculture, professional trades, and technical skills students. The lab contains 8 welding booths and room for those in construction trades. They also added a 1,500 square foot greenhouse for horticulture and agricultural students. Zonnefeld says the landscape around them in education is changing and they need to continue to provide students with life prep.
COLUMBIA ENERGY STORAGE PROJECT
Alliant Energy officials say Columbia County may soon be home to one of the most sustainable, advanced energy storage systems in the country. The company has been selected for a grant of up to approximately $30 million from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations for a proposed 200-megawatt hour energy storage system. It would be known as the Columbia Energy Storage Project, the first-of-its-kind in the United States. The project would use an innovative design to deliver 10 hours of energy storage capacity. The battery system could power approximately 20,000 Wisconsin homes. Alliant Energy expects to submit project plans to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission in the first half of 2024. Pending approval, project construction could begin in 2025 with completion in 2026.
OPIOID USE DISORDER GRANTS AWARDED
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services has awarded $1.1 million in grants to six law enforcement agencies to support their work addressing the opioid epidemic in our state. The Buffalo, Columbia, Eau Claire, Marathon, and Sawyer County Sheriff’s Offices, and the Village of Cottage Grove Police Department will receive funds to support community drug disposal programs, programs that keep people with an opioid use disorder out of jail, medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder education and awareness training for staff, and treatment for incarcerated people with an opioid use disorder. The grant for the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office is for $290,605 and will be used to educate and train staff on medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder and treat jail residents with an opioid use disorder.
BASD ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES RELOCATED
The Berlin Area School District started the new academic year with a new location for its administrative offices. District Superintendent Emmett Durtschi says the offices are now located near the commons area of the high school. He points out they are between two schools the high school and the middle school, and they have more interaction with students which he enjoys. He says their office is where the old high school office used to be before that office was relocated to the north part of the building. Durtschi says the relocation of the administrative offices also worked out for the district because they were able to locate their Focus alternative high school program to their former offices.
TREFFERT STUDIOS RIBBON CUTTING
SSM Health Treffert Center celebrated the opening of the new Treffert Studios in Fond du Lac this past week. SSM Health President and CEO Laura Kaiser, members of the system’s board and other regional and local leaders gathered for the studio’s ribbon-cutting ceremony at Moraine Park Technical College’s Fond du Lac campus last Monday. The studios and center are named for Dr. Darold Treffert, the world-renowned psychiatrist who dedicated his life to the study and treatment of savant syndrome, hyperplexia and autism and established the center in Fond du Lac. The new space can be used for live performances, production of music and gaming videos and fine arts displays. It also is a center for cultivating critical life skills for patients and innovating mental health care through multimedia-based treatments. The center also offers a space to help in training and educating Wisconsin’s mental health workforce. You can read more about the Treffert Studios in our story at Hometown Broadcasting.com.
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