Lynn Binnie

The WUSD combined 5th grade choir will present their final concert of the year this Tuesday, May 16 at 7:00 p.m. The concert will be at the Whitewater High School auditorium and is free of charge. This 100+ voice choir is comprised of students from Lakeview, Lincoln and Washington elementary schools. Beautiful music from around the world will be presented. Music teachers Christine Hayes, Justin Kamp and Val Troxel will be conducting, assisted by long time accompanist Barb Taylor.

Editor’s note: This announcement and photo were submitted by Christine Hayes.

It’s that time of year again, when Seniors in the Park becomes Whitewater’s “art house.” What is an art house? A cinema that shows films that are high quality, but may not be popular or successful, such as foreign films or ones made by small film companies. In addition to our regular films on the second, fourth, and fifth Tuesdays during May through September, we will be screening an art film on the middle Wednesday of those months at 1 p.m.

“All Quiet on the Western Front”

Wednesday, May 17, 1 p.m. (Action/Drama/War)

Rated R (war violence); 2 hours, 28 minutes (2022)

A German retelling of the classic story of a young German soldier’s terrifying experiences and distress on the Western Front during World War 1. Academy Award winner: Best International Film, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, and Best Production Design. This film will be shown with the original German dialogue and English subtitles.

Seniors in the Park is located in Starin Park, 504 W. Starin Road.

The Whitewater High School’s production of Beauty and the Beast has received three Jerry Awards.  Outstanding Lead Performer went to Anderson Waelchli for his portrayal of Lumiere.  Outstanding Costume/ Hair and Make-up Design was awarded to the team of Karen McCulloch, Bobbi Wedl, Alejandra Diaz-Gallegos, Alexsandra Cansino-Pena, Claire Tourdot, Maddison LaHaie and Remington Van Daele.  The cast Spirit Award honoree is Mel Prince. 

Anderson and Mel, along with dozens of representatives from other schools throughout the state, will be performing as a part of the Jerry Awards Showcase, on June 11^th, at the Overture Center.   Two outstanding lead performers are then selected to represent the Jerry program at The National High School Musical Theater Awards (The Jimmys) competition in New York City.  WHS alumni Lauren Harkness was the 2019 winner who went on to represent the program in NYC.

The Jerry Awards, one of Wisconsin’s high school musical awards programs, encourages, recognizes and honors excellence in high school musical theater. Educators and industry professionals review productions at more than 85 high schools in 30 counties around the state providing valuable feedback. The program elevates the importance of musical theater within high schools.

Congratulations to the winners and to the entire cast, crew and orchestra for their incredible work on this production!

Article Submitted by Jim McCulloch
WUSD Theater Director
jmcculloch@wwusd.org
Photos Courtesy of Tom Ganser

As market managers, both staff and volunteers, we spend 26 weeks of the year planning and executing indoor markets and an additional 26 weeks for our outdoor markets with one focus: community. With our first two outdoor markets now under our belts, we wanted to share a couple of moments from the most recent market and our gratitude.

Thank you for spending these hours with us. Thank you for supporting our local farmers and producers every week. For each item that you see brought to the market, there are untold hours and efforts that go into their creation. Your patronage as well as your encouragement of these micro businesses is beyond value. Thank you for allowing us to get to know you and your families. Thank you for what can feel like an endless game of 52 card pickup but is actually a celebration of the exuberant creativity the youngest members of our community unleash at the market each week. 

If you haven’t been to the market yet in this outdoor season, we look forward to seeing you soon. We would also invite you to stop by our market tent and table. You’ll always find us right in the middle of the market. We’d love to chat and share with you some of the ongoing efforts of the collaboration within Discover Whitewater – Whitewater Area Chamber of Commerce, Whitewater Tourism Council, and Downtown Whitewater Inc. We have treats for our furry friends, crafts and activities for our young patrons, and lots of local and regional information to share. 

This coming Tuesday we welcome Ethan to the team. Ethan is graduating this Saturday from UW-Whitewater, and we’re excited to have him on board for the summer as he remains in the area for a summer internship with the United Way of Northern Walworth and Jefferson Counties.

We would also like to express our sincerest gratitude to Generac for their support of the 2023 market season. Live music at the market is powered by Generac.

Sincerely,

The Whitewater City Market Team

Our thanks to the City Market staff and volunteers for sharing their perspectives and photos. 

— Our Readers Share: We hope that you might have something that you’d be willing to share.  Anything that’s been created by someone else should, of course, be credited, and you should ask their permission if you’re able. We cannot post copyrighted material without permission. We can’t guarantee that we’ll have space for all submissions, and contributions will be subject to editorial board approval. The one definite exclusion is anything politically oriented. We will assume that you’re willing for us to include your name as the submitter unless you indicate that you prefer to remain anonymous. Send to whitewaterbanner@gmail.com or click on “submit a story” near the top right of our homepage.  Thanks for thinking about this!

The public is invited to view the Wisconsin Lego Users Group (WisLUG) large builds at the Irvin L. Young Memorial Library on Saturday, May 20. Drop in the library’s community room anytime between 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. to see these intricate, fun creations. This is a free, family-friendly event. There will also be a Lego building station set up for all ages to enjoy.  

The Irvin L Young Memorial Library is located at 431 W. Center Street in Whitewater.  

Contact Sarah French with questions at sfrench@whitewater-wi.gov or 262-458-2782. 

On May 7th, residents at Mulberry Glen Senior Living Community in Whitewater gathered to enjoy Sundae Sundays -an ice cream bar social gathering that is held monthly. Culver’s of Whitewater provided the delicious flavors of their famous custard. Residents could add syrups and toppings to make their sundaes tasty.

A Proclamation on Peace Officers Memorial Day and Police Week, 2023

  Every day when law enforcement officers pin on their badges, they make an extraordinary commitment to the American people: to rush toward danger regardless of the risk and to faithfully stand up for the rule of law. Across our neighborhoods, towns, and cities, they put themselves in harm’s way, hoping to return home safely to their families. On Peace Officers Memorial Day and during Police Week, we celebrate the remarkable courage of our law enforcement community and honor the fallen heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice to protect their fellow Americans. 

   As a Nation, we expect a lot from our law enforcement officers. They save lives by keeping our roads, subways, and highways safe and responding to domestic violence incidents and natural disasters. We ask them to ensure public safety, build trust within our neighborhoods, and protect the well-being of our communities. Too often, they are also called upon to respond to mass shootings, drug overdoses, mental health crises, and more. Being a law enforcement officer is not just what they do; it is who they are.

  The same is true for their families, who sacrifice alongside these heroic Americans. It takes a special person to marry or be the child of a law enforcement officer — knowing the uncertainty as their loved one walks out the door and dreading the possibility of receiving that phone call.

   No memorial can ever fill the void left in the hearts of those who have lost a loved one in the line of duty. But their sacrifices in full service to their communities and to our Nation will never be forgotten. We will continue to honor their memories with actions that help keep our law enforcement officers and communities safe from harm. 

   When I took office at the height of the pandemic, State, local, Tribal, and territorial law enforcement budgets were shrinking. Some agencies were facing their lowest staffing levels in decades, undermining their ability to perform their jobs. That is why we provided crucial funding to help police departments build new training facilities, recruit new personnel, and give officers a raise. I also expanded benefits for first responders who were disabled in the line of duty and their families. And I signed laws improving officer wellness by expanding critical mental health resources to address the physical and emotional trauma that so many members of our law enforcement community experience.

   Meanwhile, I have taken steps to keep law enforcement officers safer on the job by signing the most sweeping gun safety law in nearly three decades. It helps keep more guns out of the hands of dangerous people, including by broadening restrictions on domestic abusers, which is critical because domestic violence calls can often turn deadly for police. This law also supports crisis interventions, including extreme risk protection orders, and provides a billion dollars to address the mental health crisis in America. We are also strengthening background checks for 18 to 20-year-olds trying to purchase guns, helping prosecutors crack down on illegal gun sales, and reining in ghost guns that police across the country are increasingly finding at crime scenes.

   As I have often said, when it comes to keeping our communities safe, the answer is not to defund the police. It is to fund them with the resources and training they need to protect and serve our communities and to build trust with the American public. My Safer America Plan calls on the Congress to invest in recruiting, hiring, and training more than 100,000 additional officers for effective, accountable community policing, consistent with the standards of my policing Executive Order. My plan also invests in programs that send social workers and other professionals to respond to calls that should not be the responsibility of law enforcement. And it invests $5 billion in proven crime-prevention strategies like community violence interruption. We must not accept the false choice between public safety and public trust; they are two sides of the same coin. 

   At the National Law Enforcement Memorial in Washington, D.C., there is a quote engraved on the wall that reads, “It is not how these officers died that made them heroes, it is how they lived.” Today, during this week, and year-round, we express our gratitude for the courageous women and men of our Nation’s law enforcement community. We honor the memory of the members who made the ultimate sacrifice and pray for their families. And we recommit ourselves to the sacred task of creating a safer and more just Nation for all Americans. 

   By a joint resolution approved October 1, 1962, as amended (76 Stat. 676), and by Public Law 103-322, as amended (36 U.S.C. 136-137), the President has been authorized and requested to designate May 15 of each year as “Peace Officers Memorial Day” and the week in which it falls as “Police Week.”

   NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 15, 2023, as Peace Officers Memorial Day and May 14 through May 20, 2023, as Police Week. I call upon all Americans to observe these events with appropriate ceremonies and activities and salute our Nation’s brave law enforcement officers and remember their peace officer brothers and sisters who have given their last full measure of devotion in the line of duty. I also call on the Governors of the United States and its Territories, and appropriate officials of all units of government, to direct that the flag be flown at half-staff on Peace Officers Memorial Day. I further encourage all Americans to display the flag at half-staff from their homes and businesses on that day.

   IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twelfth day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-seventh.

                            JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

A program designed to provide working adults with technical college credits a pathway to a bachelor’s degree will see the first cohort of graduates in several years cross the stage on the UW-Whitewater campus on May 13.

Developed by the UW-Whitewater’s Rock County’s College of Integrated Studies, the online Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences offers a flexible degree completion pathway for students who hold an applied associate degree from a technical college. The BAAS degree was offered at many of the two-year campuses in the UW Colleges system, according to Tricia Clasen, dean of the College of Integrated Studies, but all campuses stopped enrolling new students in the program when the colleges were restructured in 2017.

“Everything paused during the restructuring,” said Clasen. “As far as I know, ours is the only campus to reinstate the program, which we relaunched in fall 2021 after redesigning it to have emphases that are most relevant to today’s workforce needs.”

In addition to emphasis areas in digital marketing, professional selling, leadership, criminology and human services, a personalized emphasis allows students to design their own emphasis area. Internships and credit for prior learning help shorten time to degree completion.

Clasen says the degree serves many purposes.

“We know that many students out there need a bachelor’s degree to be able to gain certification. Others need it for advancement or to qualify for a raise. And, for some, it’s a gateway to earning a master’s degree.”

She adds that the flexibility of the program is key for working adults who often face multiple challenges including family demands.

“So many working adults have some college credits but no degree, sometimes from multiple institutions. With other degree completion programs, students often feel like they are starting over again. Our advisors work very hard to take in as many credits as possible.” 

In addition to intensive, hands-on advising that often requires a deep-dive into multiple transcripts and involves faculty from both the Rock and Whitewater campuses, Clasen highlights the effort to create emphases that were relevant to working professionals and redesigning courses to be relevant to real-world situations. For example, they designed a statistics course that’s applied and an online lab science course that focuses on human diseases.

A path to bachelor’s degree… and graduate school

Current enrollment in the fully online degree program is 41, and six graduates will earn their degrees this May. One of those to do so is Amy Moore, veterans services coordinator at UW-Whitewater, who is earning a BAAS with an emphasis in leadership.

Moore, a native of Chippewa Falls, joined the Navy after graduating high school and used her military benefits to earn an associate degree from Chippewa Valley Technical College.

“I never planned on getting a bachelor’s degree. The associate degree was enough to get me my dream job, which was working in veterans services on a college campus.”

Moore, who has worked on the Whitewater campus since 2019, also raised four children as she worked full time. As her children left home and some looked as if they might settle down in other parts of the country, she initially looked into earning a bachelor’s degree to be able to more easily find a job in veterans services in another state. 

“With the Wisconsin GI Bill, I could have gone to any school in the UW System. I looked at every college’s online programs to see where I could get the biggest bang for my buck. Whitewater won hand over fist. The program transferred 100 credits from my joint service transcript and my associate degree. I only needed 47 more credits to graduate, but added one more credit to earn summa cum laude.”

With all four children located in Wisconsin, the plan is now to use the bachelor’s degree to be a substitute teacher when she eventually retires from her veterans services position. 

And Moore is not done learning.

“I had so much fun, I applied for the master’s program in higher education leadership at UW-Whitewater, and I start my first class in the fall!” 

A lack of degree hampered job search

May graduate Nicole Brandl found the lack of bachelor’s degree to be a barrier after she lost her job during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I applied to several positions online without any response,” said Brandl. “After doing some research, I learned that the algorithm behind the online job platforms was rejecting my application due to the box not being checked for a bachelor’s degree, despite my years of on-the-job experience. Because of this, I decided to apply to UW-Whitewater to finish my degree. After working through my previous credits and my end goal, my advisor suggested I apply to the BAAS program.”

Brandl, who lives in Clinton and works in sales at PlayMonster Group in Beloit, was able to apply the credits from a previous associate degree in marketing to a BAAS with a personalized emphasis that blends coursework in business, communications and leadership. 

“Honestly, I most likely would not have pursued my degree if it wasn’t for UW-Whitewater,” said Brandl. “I wanted my degree to come from an accredited, prestigious business school, and that was Whitewater.” 

Ready to put new skills into practice

Another nontraditional student to earn a BAAS degree this May is Laurie Harvey. Harvey, who lives in Elkhorn, lost her son Scotty to a drug overdose.

“When my son died, he had been struggling with drugs for years,” said Harvey. “There was never any help for him in Walworth County, and no support for families. He was the best kid, and the only person he was hurting was himself.” 

Her son served two stints in prison for theft to support his addiction, and she found him after he overdosed just 10 days after his latest release. She sought to turn the anger and helplessness she was feeling — and still feels — into doing something.

Harvey, who has also been taking care of a grandson with special needs for 20 years, used the credits she’d earned in an applied associate degree in special education from Gateway Technical College to apply to the criminology emphasis in the BAAS program.

“I thought I might be able to learn enough to be able to talk to the judge who does drug court to change the policy to better help these people. I am not your traditional college student — I am 62 years old and I never had any intention of going back to school until life struck me with a devastating blow. When I realized that there was a need for change in my community, I decided to try to see if I could make a difference myself.”

Now that Harvey has a better understanding of what the courts can and cannot do, she’s eager to see if she can make that difference.

“I want to go in there and watch the drug courts and see what’s happening. I need to try to make a difference. For my son’s sake, I need to try.”

For more information about UW-Whitewater at Rock County’s BAAS degree program, visit the website or contact Trica Clasen, dean of the College of Integrated Studies, at clasenp@uww.edu or 608-898-5072.

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The Whitewater Federation of Women’s Clubs is delighted to report that its Ladies and Young Ladies Tea, held on Sunday, April 30, was completely sold out for two seatings — a wonderful result after having to forego the event during the years of the pandemic. The tea was held at Whitewater’s lovely Bassett House, and all proceeds will go to preserve this historic home. Ladies of all ages — and one dapper gentleman — unanimously applauded the event as a delightful experience they intend to enjoy for years to come. Guests were treated to a course of delicious savories, including chicken curry tea sandwiches and mini sausage quiches, followed by a dessert course that included madeleines and mini butter horns, both homemade. Also enjoyed were homemade blueberry scones with clotted cream from England. On site was a selection of elegant hats for guests to wear, although a number of guests sported their own millinery finery. While the tea had been on hiatus since 2019 because of COVID, the WFWC is pleased to announce that, once again, it will now be an annual event each spring. We hope to see you in 2024!