News & Events

Editor’s note: The following information was provided by UW-Whitewater.

Continuing a proud tradition of producing international caliber wheelchair basketball players, the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater will be represented by nine current and former Warhawks on the latest roster of Team USA.

The players and coaches will compete in the 2022 International Wheelchair Basketball Federation America’s Cup in Sao Paulo, Brazil on July 9-19. The event serves as the qualifier for the 2022 world championships taking place Nov. 16-27, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Current UW-Whitewater women’s coach Christina Schwab, who has won three Paralympic gold medals as a player and recently coached the American men to gold in Tokyo, will helm the women’s team as head coach. She’ll be assisted by alum Desiree Miller of Monroe, Wisconsin, a gold medal winner in Rio de Janeiro who earned a master’s degree in counseling in 2014.

Students Josie DeHart, a physical education major from Fruita, Colorado, and Mandy Willmore, MBA candidate from Rock Springs, Wisconsin, will join alum and bronze medal winner Lindsey Zurbrugg of Portland, Oregon, on the roster.

On the men’s Team USA roster, Warhawks include Talen Jourdan, a general business major from Deerfield, Wisconsin; Jeromie Meyer of Woodbine, Iowa, who graduated in May with a degree in education; alum Dylan Fischbach of Vermillion, South Dakota; and John Boie of Milton, Wisconsin, a UW-Whitewater alum from the Class of 2014 who also earned an MBA in 2019, and currently works as an academic adviser at the university.

“Our wheelchair basketball program at UW-Whitewater is truly powered by tradition,” said Jeremy “Opie” Lade, who is an alum, former player and coach, and also a Paralympic medalist. “Elite athletes and coaches have built this program to its current status — and elite athletes and coaches will continue to be produced and keep our tradition alive moving into the future. Being a Warhawk is something that is said with a great amount of pride.”

Collectively, the men’s and women’s wheelchair basketball teams at UW-Whitewater have won 16 national championships.

According to an article in The Journal Times, Chris Bennett, the neighborhood services director for the City of Whitewater since March, 2021, is one of five finalists for the position of village administrator of Union Grove. Bennett has also served for over thirteen years as an elected trustee for the Village of Rochester, where he resides. The Union Grove administrator resigned in March after three years on the job. Union Grove is located in Racine County, and in the 2020 census was found to have a population of 5031.

The other finalists are:

• Will Kolschowsky, a management analyst for the City of Urbana, Illinois.
• Todd Willis, economic development coordinator for the City of Brookfield.
• Theresa Loomer, village administrator for the Village of Fontana.
• Kerry Bennett, interim village administrator for the Village of Union Grove. [Kerry Bennett is not related to Chris Bennett.]

Union Grove is also in the process of hiring a new village clerk.

Looking for some fun, free family entertainment? Come learn about the world of FIRST Robotics as Whitewater High School’s FIRST Robotics Competition Team #6574 Ferradermis competes with and against 13 other teams in the Laser Lights Off-Season Event at Kettle Moraine High School on Saturday, June 25. The competition will kick off at 9 a.m. and continue through late afternoon.

Off-season competitions are a chance for teams to introduce newer members to new roles and responsibilities on the team, and in the more relaxed atmosphere, you will find teams ready and willing to take the time to talk about their robots with the general public. In addition to watching matches, you can stroll through the pits and talk with students and mentors.

Ferradermis will be entering two robots in this particular competition – the fully-functional robot they competed with during the 2022 regular season, and a second bot that is simply a swerve drive base. Swerve, a drivetrain in which all four wheels are independently driven and steered, is a project the team has wanted to tackle for a long time. Entering the drive base in an off-season event will give the students a chance to learn to drive this very different system while having fun playing defense on the opposite alliance.

Can’t make it to Kettle Moraine High School on Saturday? The team will be competing in Manitowoc on Saturday, July 16, but will be back in the area for another competition at Mukwonago High School on Sunday, July 24.

Article and Photo Submitted by Laura Masbruch
Whitewater High School Robotics Advisor and Banner Volunteer
lmasbruch@wwusd.org

June 21 is the summer solstice, the longest day and shortest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. The 2022 summer solstice arrives at 4:14 a.m. Central time. At this precise moment the sun appears directly over the Tropic of Cancer — as far north as it appears in the sky all year.

The image on the homepage: Image by press 👍 and ⭐ from Pixabay

The image on this page: Image by lies_rebelle from Pixabay

Editor’s note: The following information is found on history.com. The image above and on the homepage is by khema sok from Pixabay.

Juneteenth (short for “June Nineteenth”) marks the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas in 1865 to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people be freed. The troops’ arrival came a full two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Juneteenth honors the end to slavery in the United States and is considered the longest-running African American holiday. On June 17, 2021, it officially became a federal holiday. 

Confederate General Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox Court House two months earlier in Virginia, but slavery had remained relatively unaffected in Texas—until U.S. General Gordon Granger stood on Texas soil and read General Orders No. 3: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”

The Emancipation Proclamation 

The Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, had established that all enslaved people in Confederate states in rebellion against the Union “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” 

But in reality, the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t instantly free any enslaved people. The proclamation only applied to places under Confederate control and not to slave-holding border states or rebel areas already under Union control. However, as Northern troops advanced into the Confederate South, many enslaved people fled behind Union lines.

Juneteenth and Slavery in Texas

In Texas, slavery had continued as the state experienced no large-scale fighting or significant presence of Union troops. Many enslavers from outside the Lone Star State had moved there, as they viewed it as a safe haven for slavery.

After the war came to a close in the spring of 1865, General Granger’s arrival in Galveston that June signaled freedom for Texas’s 250,000 enslaved people. Although emancipation didn’t happen overnight for everyone—in some cases, enslavers withheld the information until after harvest season—celebrations broke out among newly freed Black people, and Juneteenth was born. That December, slavery in America was formally abolished with the adoption of the 13th Amendment.

The year following 1865, freedmen in Texas organized the first of what became the annual celebration of “Jubilee Day” on June 19. In the ensuing decades, Juneteenth commemorations featured music, barbecues, prayer services and other activities, and as Black people migrated from Texas to other parts of the country the Juneteenth tradition spread.

In 1979, Texas became the first state to make Juneteenth an official holiday; several others followed suit over the years. In June 2021, Congress passed a resolution establishing Juneteenth as a national holiday; President Biden signed it into law on June 17, 2021.

The Whitewater Unified School District introduced a new website this past week. The web address, www.wwusd.org, is unchanged, but the design of the site has had a major overhaul. Currently the following two images are scrolling on the homepage. A pulldown menu in the upper right corner provides for translation in Spanish.

El Distrito Escolar Unificado de Whitewater presentó un nuevo sitio web la semana pasada. La dirección web, www.wwusd.org, no ha cambiado, pero el diseño del sitio ha tenido una revisión importante. Actualmente, las siguientes dos imágenes se desplazan en la página de inicio. Un menú desplegable en la esquina superior derecha ofrece traducción al español.

Editor’s Note: The following information was provided by Irvin L. Young Memorial Library.

The Irvin L. Young Memorial Library announces its summer reading program: An Ocean of Possibilities

‘Tis the sea-son for summer readin’ at the Irvin L. Young Memorial Library. Join us between June 15th and July 31st for free events, crafts, and activities. Play Book Bingo to earn free books and visit the library every week to receive a bit of treasure or passes for more adventures.
Open to youth ages 4-18.
Join us for our kick-off party on Wednesday, June 15th from 3:00-5:00 p.m. We’ll have crafts, games, activities and popsicles!

Programa de lectura de verano
Del 15 de junio al 31 de julio

‘Es la época de lectura de verano’ en la Irvin L. Young Memorial Library (Biblioteca Conmemorativa Irvin L. Young). Súmense a nosotros del 15 de junio al 31 de julio para disfrutar eventos gratuitos, manualidades y actividades. Jueguen al Book Bingo para ganar libros gratuitamente y visiten la biblioteca todas las semanas para recibir pequeños tesoros o pases para otras aventuras.
Abierto a jóvenes de 4 a 18 años.