News & Events

Needle felting and copper enameling workshops are being offered at Wisconsin Makers in October. Leani Schoor will teach “Copper Enameling for Beginners and Beyond” on Monday, Oct. 6. The fee is $25 and includes a copper dish. “Needle Felting” for all skill levels will take place Monday, Oct. 13. The fee is $20.

Both workshops will take place from 5 to 8 p.m. at Wisconsin Makers, 200 E. Clay St., Whitewater. Payment may be made at the workshops, which are geared toward ages 10 and up. Register by calling Schoor at (608) 421- 4078 or emailing her at leanischoor@gmail.com.

Copper enameling is a traditional technique that involves fusing powdered glass to a copper surface at high heat to create a permanent, colorful coating. Needle felting is a craft in which specially designed notched needles are repeatedly stabbed into loose wool fibers, compressing them to create firm, 3-D shapes.

Schorr earned her bachelor of science degree in art education and master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. She taught art at Jefferson High School for 38 years. The owner of Studio 2154 in Madison, Schorr teaches wet and needle felting, beadwork, glass fusing, cement yard art, ceramics, copper enameling, metal work and quilting.

Located at the corner of East Clay and Wisconsin streets in Whitewater, Wisconsin Makers is a makerspace that creates an affordable, collaborative and educational environment. The facility houses machine, welding/fabrication, electronics, automotive, 3-D printing, laser engraving and woodworking shops. It also offers pottery, ceramics, metal art, quilting, fabric arts, matting/framing and more.

For more information about the makerspace or workshops, contact Chris Spangler at (920) 728-2960.

TDS Telecommunications LLC (TDS®) has officially marked the end of major construction activities on its all-fiber internet network in Whitewater, Wisconsin. The company designated Whitewater as a “TDS Fiber-Fast Community” at an event on Sept. 25, featuring representatives from the City of Whitewater and Whitewater Chamber of Commerce.

The TDS Fiber-Fast Award certifies the community is home to some of the fastest internet speeds in the world – a huge benefit for current residents and businesses and a signal for others looking for new locations to consider. More than 5,300 City of Whitewater addresses have access to TDS’ network, which features speeds up to 8 Gigabit.

After starting construction in 2023, TDS crews and contractors buried over 50 miles of fiber-optic cable. TDS has made a total capital investment in Whitewater of more than $5 million. The project, which was 100 percent funded privately, is part of TDS’ transformation into a fiber-centric company, with high-speed networks under construction throughout the country.

“We’re proud to have made a significant investment in the city’s future,” said Steve Mathesius, TDS Vice President of Data Management and Chief Information Security Officer. “Having a robust internet connection has never been more important. TDS fiber is a reliable and future-proof technology, and we’re pleased to provide world-class service that’s critical to residents’ day-to-day life.”

Also, as part of the Fiber-Fast event, TDS made a donation to The Community Space to help the organization continue connecting residents with needed resources.

“As we reach this great milestone, we look forward to continue helping make Whitewater a better place by working side-by-side with great local nonprofits,” said Anna Jensen, TDS associate manager of field marketing.

With the project in Whitewater now finished, TDS is redoubling its efforts to bring fiber to other area communities including Fort Atkinson, Jefferson, and Watertown. For more information on TDS and to find out if fiber is available at your address, visit TDSFiber.com.

Editor’s note: The above press release was provided by TDS.

Written by Chris Lindeke and Kristine Zaballos | Photos by Craig Schreiner

Two members of the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater further burnished the university’s reputation for great teaching by being named Fulbright Scholars.

Andrew Hurie, an assistant professor of curriculum and instruction who teaches bilingual education and English as a second language (ESL), was awarded a Fulbright to teach and conduct research in Colombia during the 2024-25 academic year. Stephen Levas, an associate professor of biology and geography, geology and environmental science, will teach and conduct research in Belize during the 2025-26 academic year.

“We are so proud to see these faculty members being rewarded for their commitment to research and teaching,” said Robin Fox, interim provost and vice chancellor of academic affairs. “It’s this commitment that consistently has UW-Whitewater lauded as a College of Distinction, and it’s the kind of experience — exemplified by our Great Teaching stories — that makes a difference to our students every day. 

The Fulbright Program is the U.S. government’s flagship international educational and cultural exchange program, providing about 8,000 competitive, merit-based grants to U.S. citizens to study, research, or teach abroad and to foreign nationals to study or teach in the U.S. every year.

While Hurie and Levas are in different colleges — the College of Education and Professional Studies and the College of Letters and Sciences, respectively — they share a passion for ongoing learning that will ultimately benefit the students in their classrooms.

Professor of bilingual education and ESL taught in Colombia

Andrew Hurie, an assistant professor of curriculum and instruction who specializes in bilingual education and ESL, was in his third year of teaching at UW-Whitewater when he learned he would be shifting his focus to the University of Nariño in Pasto, Colombia. Born in Madison, he has a longtime connection to Pasto, where his wife and son were born.

In addition to teaching a series of research workshops at the university in Pasto and traveling to Ecuador to give a talk on teaching English at the University of Cuenca, Hurie worked with Los Ángeles Children’s Hospital in Pasto and UNIPA, or Unidad Indígena del Pueblo Awá, a political organization by and for the Awá people living in 32 Indigenous reservations across Nariño, Colombia. 

With UNIPA’s support, Hurie conducted dozens of interviews at the children’s hospital in Pasto, half in Awapit, the language of the Awá people, with an interpreter, and the rest in Spanish. The idea to do so stemmed from pediatric doctors at the hospital, who wanted to offer services more aligned to the 30% of patients who identify as Indigenous, the largest percentage being Awá. In the interviews he asked Awá families how they conceived of health and well-being.

“These mothers, fathers, aunts, and grandparents from 10 different Indigenous reservations in Nariño, expressed an expansive understanding of community health centered on collective self-determination and caring for the land, which contrasts with the individual and mechanistic frame that dominates Eurowestern medicine,” said Hurie. “The families also valued diverse healing traditions and reported receiving good care at the hospital, yet leaving their rural homes to seek care in the city was a jarring experience for many. Feeling listened to made a great difference in their well-being.”

Some of the changes in practice suggested by the interviews include providing access to traditional foods not grown with pesticides and allowing multiple family members to visit children at the same time. 

Since returning from Colombia in August, Hurie continues to meet with representatives from UNIPA and the hospital, and share the research results with different audiences.

“I see my role as coordinating conversations and uplifting the voices of the families. The hospital didn’t have the time to do the interviews. It was helpful to have a researcher and educator like me to facilitate the conversations, because it hadn’t happened before.”

“The Fulbright Scholarship really brings home the fact that local connections and international connections are both meaningful,” said Hurie. “Recognizing Indigenous people who have been and continue to steward the land, and their ongoing, shared struggles throughout the globe, reinforce the value of international education experiences — something I hope to bring back to the classroom at UW-Whitewater.”  

Biology and geography professor to teach in Belize

Stephen Levas, associate professor of biology and geography, geology, and environmental science, will teach and conduct coral reef research in the Central American country of Belize in January through May 2026.

Levas will be teaching a coral reef ecology class and embedding his research to get the students to work with a large data set from a coral reef station that measures several different metrics. He has already started working with some of them, including one person working on their master’s defense.

“It’s a way to build relationships — that’s one of the fundamental reasons I applied,” Levas said. “When you hear the name ‘Fulbright,’ for me, it means a high level of success. It’s pretty prestigious in the academic realm. I was interested in building something between UW-Whitewater and other places where we don’t already exist.”

A father of two sons, Levas is also excited to experience Belize with his family present. “This could be a really great experience for them to live outside of their comfort zone,” he said.

Levas identified Belize based on his interests in environmental science, ecosystems, and the natural world. His current research focuses on both seawater chemistry and freshwater ecosystems. He has conducted coral reef research in Australia, Mexico and Hawaii over the past two decades.

Levas’s interest in looking at the changes in coral reefs over the last 20 years is only exceeded by his passion for working with students interested in the marine biology field.

“What’s more important, beyond the research, is that experience of mentoring students and getting the next cohort of marine biologists in Belize going,” he said. “I truly believe in education, I believe in mentorship because I am a product of all of that, and I know it works, and I want to do that for students at the University of Belize.”

Levas, who joined the Warhawk family in 2016, said there are parallels between his work as a Fulbright Scholar and the work he does with UW-Whitewater students through undergraduate research. It’s that kind of work with the students — and the atmosphere of the campus community — that have kept him in Whitewater for nearly a decade.

“It’s the students, it’s the faculty, it’s the administrators who believe in Whitewater and what we do,” Levas said. “I have never been to a place where the faculty believe in the mission and what we do, which is getting students ready for the next step and help them get to wherever they want to be. The students understand why they’re here, they get why they’re here, and they believe in what we are trying to do.”

The man who fatally shot a newlywed couple at an Elkhorn bar last year has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Thomas Routt, 58, was sentenced in Walworth County Circuit Court on September 26 on two felony counts of first-degree intentional homicide for the deaths of Emerson and Gina Weingart at the Sports Page Barr, 29½ S. Wisconsin St., on Feb. 1, 2024, online court records show. The couple had been married the previous summer. Gina Weingart was tending bar while Emerson kept her company. Routt stole less than $150 from the bar. He claimed that he believed the safety was engaged on the gun.

Routt was convicted on June 26, 2025 of six charges, including murder, attempted murder and robbery after about two hours of jury deliberation. Details regarding the trial may be found in this article from WGTD. This brief video from TMJ4 depicts the scene in court as Routt is addressed by family members of the victims and by the judge.

Previous Whitewater Banner stories on this subject may be found at the following links:

Two People Shot and Killed in Elkhorn Bar; Suspect Apparently at Large (Updated) – February 1, 2024

Arrest Made in Elkhorn Double Homicide – February 16, 2024

A new Universities of Wisconsin (UWs) policy would ensure that all core general education courses can transfer between each of the 13 UWs.

The proposed Board of Regents policy, now being shared for comment at the UWs, is a student-friendly approach to transfer that will guarantee that core general education credits earned at one UW university will transfer and apply towards graduation requirements at another UW university. Core general education requirements would range from 30 to 36 credit hours in 10 to 12 courses in six curricular categories at all the UWs.

“The success of our students is paramount,” said Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman. “Nothing should keep students from pursuing their dreams, and this policy puts students first.”

Establishing core general education courses and ensuring their transferability across the UWs would:

• Provide broader consistency and transparency in the core general education requirements across all of the UWs.
• Reaffirm that college credit earned in high school through statewide dual enrollment opportunities transfers and applies the same as credit earned while in college.
• Strengthen existing transfer pathways for students transferring not only between UWs but also from the Wisconsin Technical College System.
• Ensure general education credit mobility and course applicability.
• Reduce the time to degree completion and the cost of attendance following transfer between UWs.

The UWs have taken steps in recent years to smooth out credit transfers between universities. This new effort is the result of provisions in the 2025-27 state budget.

Core general education courses are the courses students must take for graduation outside of their major and minor requirements, and the credit hour requirements currently vary widely depending upon the university.

While the credits associated with the core general education courses transfer between the UWs, the applicability of the courses has been uneven. The new policy is designed to ensure courses transfer and apply to new graduate requirements consistently.

Rothman said students should have clear expectations that core general education courses will easily transfer. The policy will be reviewed by the Board of Regents this fall and, if approved, will go into effect for undergraduate students who first enroll in fall 2026.

A copy of the draft policy is available at wisconsin.edu/act-15-cger/.

###

The Universities of Wisconsin serve approximately 164,400 students. Awarding more than 37,000 degrees annually, these 13 public universities are Wisconsin’s talent pipeline, putting graduates in position to increase their earning power, contribute to their communities, and make Wisconsin a better place to live. Nearly 90 percent of in-state Universities of Wisconsin graduates stay in the state five years after earning a degree. The universities provide a 23:1 return on state investment. The Universities of Wisconsin also contribute to the richness of Wisconsin’s culture and economy with groundbreaking research, new companies and patents, and boundless creative intellectual energy. Learn more at wisconsin.edu.

City of Whitewater Urban Forestry Commission – Monday @ 5:30 p.m.
Agenda includes Discussion and possible action on what to do with wood from Territorial Oak.
Cravath Lakefront room 2nd floor 312 West Whitewater St
*In Person and Virtual
Citizens are welcome (and encouraged) to join our webinar via computer, smart phone, or telephone.
Citizen participation is welcome during topic discussion periods.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89592911936?pwd=1wZ4pxV2jTv6NCSjH4ZooxLJnW0ObW.1
Meeting ID: 895 9291 1936
Passcode: 004861 —
One tap mobile
+16469313860,,89592911936#,,,,004861# US +19292056099,,89592911936#,,,,004861# US (New York)
Join instructions
https://us02web.zoom.us/meetings/89592911936/invitations?signature=L4hFmDvIN404
KQSva3ad6bMq7y5bOew5u_P6ryeL9GY

City of Whitewater Landmarks Commission – Wednesday @ 6:00 p.m.
Agenda includes Discussion and possible action on concerns related to the Birge Fountain.
Cravath Lakefront room 2nd floor 312 West Whitewater St
*In Person and Virtual
Citizens are welcome (and encouraged) to join our webinar via computer, smart phone, or
telephone. Citizen participation is welcome during topic discussion periods.
Please join the meeting from your computer, tablet or smartphone.
https://meet.goto.com/446696309
You can also dial in using your phone.
Access Code: 446-696-309
United States: +1 (408) 650-3123
Get the app now and be ready when your first meeting starts:
https://meet.goto.com/install