Linda Hall, director of the Office of Children’s Mental Health for the State of WI, discussed why the youth mental health crisis is real. Research shows the crisis is impacting our young across the span of childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. Yet research also offers insights into practical strategies that each of us can take to help improve the well-being of children in our communities now, and to increase the likelihood that Wisconsin’s children become healthy adults with bright, healthy, productive futures.

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Link to recorded program.

Link to PDF of the PowerPoint slides from program.

Wisconsin Folksinger David HB Drake had us singing along with the best songs of love and peace. David reminded us of the powerful anthems and timeless songs that resonate in today’s world from when the times, they were a’changing. This fun program was co-produced along with Winchester Academy by the Waupaca Historical Society and City of Waupaca Parks & Recreation Department.

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Speaker: Chelsea Lovejoy, PhD

Chelsea Lovejoy, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Psychology at UW–Stout, where she has taught the psychology of video games since 2014. Talk about “the dangers” of video games fills the media–they must be right, right? But what does the research REALLY say? This presentation looked at some of the ways video games and game technology help improve the physical and social world around us and enhance human connections. We further examined how they can support well-being, physical health, and healthy cognitive aging as well as ways to start a personal mission of self-improvement, connect more meaningfully with others, and even make the world a better place, were explored.

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Link to recorded program.

Waupaca Area Public Library Community Read

Braiding Sweetgrass, is a non-fiction book by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It examines modern botany and environmentalism through the lens of the traditions and cultures of the Indigenous peoples of North America. Through a series of personal reflections, the author explores the connection between living things and human efforts to cultivate a more sustainable world.

Speaker: Doug Bradley

Doug Bradley is Distinguished Lecturer Emeritus in the College of Letters and Sciences at UW-Madison. In their 2015 award-winning book, We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War, Doug Bradley and Craig Werner placed popular music at the heart of the American experience in Vietnam. Over the next two years, they made more than 100 presentations coast-to-coast, witnessing honest, respectful exchanges among audience members. That journey prompted Bradley to write Who’ll Stop the Rain: Respect, Remembrance, and Reconciliation in Post-Vietnam America and to further explore how the music of the era, shared by those who served and those who stayed, helped create safe, nonjudgmental environments for listening, sharing, and understanding.

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Link to recorded program.

Speaker: Scott Hebbring, PhD

Scott Hebbring, PhD, is the Principal Investigator for All of Us at and a Research Scientist in the Center for Precision Medicine Research at Marshfield Clinic Research Institute. He completed his doctoral training at Mayo Clinic with a focus on pharmacogenomics. His current research is multidisciplinary combining statistical genetics and medical informatics with molecular biology. Our environment, lifestyle, and DNA play important roles in our health. By studying these factors, researchers may find ways to improve health for you, your family, and future generations. The All of Us Research Program is inviting people across the U.S. to help build one of the most diverse health databases in history. Scott’s program will explain how and why this project is working in Wisconsin, and what the results may mean to you.

Speaker: Charles L. Cohen, PhD

Charles L. Cohen, PhD, is the E. Gordon Fox Professor of American Institutions, Emeritus at UW-Madison. He has taught and written about colonial British North America, American religious history, and the braided histories of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The adjudication of religious life in the United States plays out on a field generated by, on the one hand, our Constitution and the political institutions that flow from it, and, on the other, by a religious culture that hugely values religious freedom but that has also been highly inflected by various claims that the United States is a Christian nation. These conditions create a central dilemma: Are there circumstances in which religious beliefs and the practices that issue from them make a group seem incapable of being good citizens, even though the nation’s basic values would seem to preclude religious identity as a condition of citizenship? The United States has been defined in various ways as a “Christian nation”; if so, how do Jews and Muslims fit into American society? American political and culture systems can generally handle most differences, but a few issues are explosive, particularly those that question whether a group’s religion precludes its becoming loyal to the United States, i.e., becoming American citizens.

Speaker: John Bates

John Bates authored ten books and worked as a naturalist in our Northwoods for 33 years. John served on the Boards for the Wisconsin Nature Conservancy, River Alliance of Wisconsin, and the Wisconsin Humanities Council, and he currently serves on the Board of the Northwoods Land Trust. John has a MS in Environmental Sciences from UW-Green Bay. Of Wisconsin’s over 15,000 lakes, very few wild lakes remain. These are rare places where remarkable peace and beauty abounds, and where native wildlife flourishes. Wisconsin only has around 135 undeveloped, publicly-owned wild lakes over 30 acres. Where are they? And more importantly, why should we care about protecting wild places? This presentation spotlighted a few of these lakes and the many values each offers scientifically, recreationally, aesthetically, emotionally, and ethically.

Link to recorded program.

Speaker: Kent Pegorsh

Kent Pegorsh, co-owner of Main Street Marketplace on Main Street in Waupaca, has been producing honey for 47 years and currently manages over 500 hives. Pegorsh discussed the beekeeping year, how some of the best honey in the world is produced in our area, and how the great migration each year of over three quarters of the managed honey bee colonies in the United States to California insure the sustainability of our food supply. The presentation finished with a tasting of varietal honeys.

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Speaker: Jeffrey Kersten

Jeffrey Kersten with the Wisconsin Bureau of Consumer Protection will discuss the details of common scams, the warning signs of a scam, and what to do if you or someone you know falls victim to a scam or fraud. Helpful factsheets will be available. As Wisconsin’s lead agency for consumer protection, the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture Trade and Consumer Protection, provides information and education, mediates complaints, investigates cases, and takes enforcement actions to fight fraudulent and deceptive practices that harm consumers and honest businesses.

Kersten is the Agency Liaison for the Bureau of Consumer Protection within the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.  As the Agency Liaison, Kersten travels around the state to educate the public, businesses, and law enforcement on privacy protection, data security, identity theft, and other areas of consumer protection. Kersten has over 12 years of experience as a police officer and is a prior Consumer Protection Investigator for the Bureau of Consumer Protection.

Link to recorded program.

Speaker: Susan Cook

Wisconsin has a remarkable musical past, one that shows the individual and collective power of its native and emigrant peoples,

and its regional, national and international connections and relationships. This talk presented snapshots from the state’s historical and current soundscapes identifying the circumstances under which musical practices were made, remembered and changed.

Susan C. Cook, Director of the Mead Witter School of Music at UW-Madison, is a music historian and dance scholar whose published work and current research engages with American musical repertories of all kinds. She is particularly interested in the social contexts of art, musical and dance practices as well as the regional practices of Wisconsin.

Speaker: Marissa Ashbeck

Anyone can create a garden space, but can you create a sustainable landscape? 

During "Design Concepts for a Sustainable Landscape" Marissa talked about thoughtful design concepts, low-impact gardens, low-maintenance landscaping, beneficial plants, and how to attract beneficial insects and wildlife into your yards. She discussed getting back to the basics and what is feasible and sustainable in our yards today. 

Marissa Ashbeck is the Horticulture and Grounds Manager at Monk Botanical Gardens in Wausau, WI. She earned her Bachelor's Degree in Horticulture- Landscape Design and Management at the University of Wisconsin- River Falls.  Marissa found her niche in connecting people with plants where she is today at Monk Botanical Gardens.

Link to recorded program.

Speaker: Richard "Rick" Moss, PhD

Moss is Professor Emeritus of Cell & Regenerative Biology in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH), and until he retired in December 2021 was Senior Associate Dean of Basic Sciences, Biotechnology and Graduate Studies.  Over the past 20 years, SMPH has pursued a unique vision as the nation’s first medical school to fully integrate biomedical and public health research.  These efforts are designed to improve health through development of strategies that not only emphasize greater effectiveness in treating disease but also feature collaborations with communities to reduce disease and improve quality of life for citizens of our state and nation. Dr. Moss presented examples of SMPH research and community engagement designed to improve health and lead an interactive discussion about how to address disparities in health and healthcare across our state.

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Speaker: Marcia Anderson

Anderson has a rare perspective on military and civilian service. In 2011, she became the U.S. Army’s first African American female major general, a position she held until her retirement in 2016. She will share some of the experiences that helped form her leadership style, as well as provide insight on the military decision-making process, and how the Army values inform the culture of one of the most successful militaries in modern history. Major General Anderson shared her experience with addressing diversity in the Army and the ongoing efforts to reduce and eliminate sexual harassment, as will as how to encourage the next generation to consider military service. 

Anderson, whose career was the focus of a 2012 video produced by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, offered her reflections on public service in commemoration of Veterans Day 2019.

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Speaker: Steven Ackerman, PhD
SS Edmund Fitzgerald was an American Great Lakes freighter that sank in a Lake Superior storm on Nov 10, 1975, with a loss of the entire crew of 29. When launched on June 7, 1958, she was the largest ship on the Great Lakes and she remains the largest to have sunk there. The exact cause of the sinking remains unknown, though many books, studies, and expeditions have examined it. Ackerman presented this disaster, how it related to weather at the time, and discussed the Lightfoot song.

Ackerman is currently serving as Interim Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education at UW-Madison. Ackerman, along with Professor Jonathan Martin is one of the ‘weather guys’ who appear monthly on Wisconsin Public Radio to discuss the weather and climate. They also write a weekly blog (http://wxguys.ssec.wisc.edu/) and a column for the Wisconsin State Journal which answer people’s weather questions.

Speaker: Tara Roberts-Turner
In 2022, the Biden Administration held the first national conference on food insecurity since 1969. The administration brought stakeholders together to promote a new national plan to combat food insecurity.  Wisconsin Food Hub Cooperative (WFHC) has not been new to this challenge, having worked with Hunger Task Force and Feeding America to deliver boxes to Tribal and Non-Tribal pantries during the pandemic. In 2023, WFHC will work within the Local Food for School (LFS) program, Wisconsin Early Childhood Association (WECA), and Tribal Elder Box (Feeding America), following along the goals established at the conference.  This presentation described the plan, the challenges, and sustainability of each of these programs. 

Link to recorded program.

Rochelle Pennington is an award-winning newspaper columnist and author. This program took a close-up look at the literary genius of Charles Dickens, England's most celebrated Victorian novelist, and explored the hidden history behind the author's 1843 Christmas classic. What events inspired the Carol to be written? Who was it written for? How did Dickens' historical novel "single-handedly resurrect" Christmas at a time when factories were open and churches were closed on December 25th? By 1900, no other book in the world had sold more copies except the Bible. Pennington's narrative offered factual perspective and behind-the-scenes insights into the epic influence of Dickens' immortal characters: Ebeneezer Scrooge, Jacob Marley, and a trio of Christmas ghosts.

Tim Lencki is the owner of Adventure Outfitters with three locations in the Waupaca area.  Having spent over 20 years in the fitness industry as an author, speaker, and personal trainer, he opened his business in 2013 to help people get active by providing sales, service, and outfitting of outdoor gear such as kayaks, paddleboards, bicycles, snowshoes, and XC skis to locals and people visiting the area.  The Waupaca area offers some of the finest and most diverse recreational opportunities around.  Discover exciting year-round adventure using Silent Sports as a way to refresh and help you be active.  Learn about the proper equipment needed and various locations in our area to enjoy the outdoors. 

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Link to recording of program.

Tim Crain, PhD, returned to Winchester Academy to discuss the relationship between Russia and Ukraine which has been difficult for decades. Earlier this year Russia invaded Ukraine in an attempt to destroy Ukrainian independence. The Russian assault led to the largest war and greatest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. The Russian conquest of Ukraine has been universally condemned by the international community, led by the United States. The lecture focused on past issues between the two nations, the war in the present day, and what the future may hold for the two East European nations.

Tim Crain received a Ph.D. in modern Europe, modern British and Irish, and modern Jewish history at Arizona State University. Crain taught for 15 years at UW-Madison and Marquette University. Crain delivers over one hundred lectures nationally each year.

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Link to recording of program.

Eric Yonke, PhD, is outreach coordinator for the ECDC Multicultural Community Center in Wausau.  Previously, Yonke served as a professor of European History and Director of UW-Stevens Point's Office of International Education.  In the summer of 2021, a group of individuals from churches and civic organizations in Wausau spearheaded an effort to bring refugee resettlement to Central Wisconsin. The Afghanistan crisis was the catalyst, but the effort had its roots in the Hmong refugee experience of thirty years earlier.  Now a refugee resettlement office has been established and is bringing people from all corners of the world to Central Wisconsin. This presentation examined this first year of refugee resettlement, its challenges, and its promises for the future.

Dan Naylor outlined the importance of active listening in today’s world of conflict and lack of civility. He presented research, as well as personal and professional experience as a facilitator and mediator to answer the question – “can we truly actively listen to each other with a goal of respect and understanding?”

Naylor, a retired human service consultant, husband, father, and grandfather, served in the Army, and spent 45 years in Human Services including helping develop a Vietnam Veterans’ service center, directing an adult correctional halfway house, and a three-county AODA and mental health treatment agency including a residential center for youth. For 25 years, as a consultant Dan supported Wisconsin counties and tribes in the development of collaborative systems of care for children and adults with special needs. Dan has bachelor’s degree in Management and master’s degree in Public Administration.

Brett Barker, PhD, Professor of History and Chair of the Department of History and International Studies at UW-Stevens Point presented how the Civil War remains the central event in our nation’s history. Historians today agree that the institution of slavery, and how it made the North and South very different societies, was the root cause of the war. Yet for much of the century afterward, some Americans have tried to create an alternative interpretation downplaying the significance of slavery. Confederate apologists and white supremacists continue to deny the role of slavery in the Civil War and in American history more generally. Dr. Barker explored the connections between the Civil War, Confederate symbols, and the continuing struggle over civil rights.

Link to recording of program.

Stacey Berk and Nell Buchman explored the organization of Bach’s Goldberg Variations and beauty hidden in this extraordinary work. Berk is Professor of Oboe and Music Theory/Composition at UW-Stevens Point and narrated. Buchman has an active teaching, performing, and adjudicating career at Lawrence University, Community Music School, and throughout Wisconsin and performed excerpts for our enjoyment.​

Angela Dassow, PhD, is Associate Professor and Chair of the biology Department at Carthage College.

The gray wolf population in Wisconsin has increased since first dispersed here in the early 1980s. As wolf counts increased, there was a relative increase in the number of human-wolf conflicts. Tracking packs involved in conflicts allows for proactive, non-lethal management of human-wolf conflict, versus reactive culling and illegal kills. Radio-collaring and tracking individuals is effective, but costly and invasive. Passive acoustic monitoring offers a non-invasive approach to tracking pack movements. Dr. Dassow explained how acoustic monitoring and tracking works and how acoustic monitoring provides insight into wolf pack dynamics.

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Link to recording of program.

A Lydia Engelbreth is content marketing manager at Waupaca Foundry. She also serves as a mentor to the Waupaca High School WIRED robotics team.

Waupaca High School has had a robotics team for the past six years; as of 2021 the team decided to change from VEX Robotics to FIRST Robotics. FIRST Robotics is a highly competitive international organization that has over 90,000 students competing in 34 countries. In their rookie season, they took home the Rookie Inspiration Award for the team plans for community outreach and their build capabilities. Beyond that, at the second competition they were selected for the 3rd seed alliance and made it to the quarterfinals.

Lydia and members of the team demonstrated the world of STEM by showing how the Waupaca FIRST Robotics teams are developing technical and life skills through hands-on experiences. The program concluded with a live demonstration of their robot.

Jonathan Martin, PhD, Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at UW-Madison, author of Reginald Sutcliffe and the Invention of Modern Weather Systems Science, and appears regularly on WPR's "Weather Guys" show, discussed how a forecast of the weather for a couple of days was considered a practical impossibility a century ago. In the intervening decades a remarkable revolution has taken place such that today a weather forecast to 5 days is so routinely accurate as to be taken for granted. We are among the first humans in history with access to such precise predictions. This capability is among the most unheralded scientific advances of the last century. This talk recounted the life and scientific contributions of a leading intellectual figure of this revolution, Reginald Sutcliffe. Sutcliffe's story exemplified how education, practical urgency, and creative genius - mobilized by an abiding curiosity - conspired to solve even the most seemingly intractable problems.

Link to the recording of the presentation.

Robert "Ernie" Boszhardt, a professional archaeologist with more than four decades of experience, worked for the Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center at the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse for nearly thirty years and is now co-owner of Driftless Pathways, LLC and an honorary fellow at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. He has authored numerous articles and four books that cover a wide variety of Wisconsin archaeology topics with and emphasis on the Driftless Area.

This program featured the award-winning book Hidden Thunder: Rock art of the Upper Midwest, which Mr. Boszhardt co-authored with artist Geri Schrab. He introduced Wisconsin rock art and juxtaposed archaeological and artistic perspectives to a dozen sites, each interspersed with a variety of Native American reflections. Boszhardt reviewed a sample of the sites with illustrations of carvins and drawings along with Schrab's paintings, while covering aspects of history, geology and preservation.

Link to recording of the presentation.
 

The Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research (CDR) is the largest dairy center in the United States and one of the largest in the world. Established in 1986 on the University of Wisconsin campus, The CDR works with dairy processors, packagers, marketers, retailers, food service operations and other users of dairy products to strengthen this vital industry in Wisconsin. By doing so, they contribute to dairy farmers success through increasing the demand for their milk and maximizing the revenue that their dairy products generate which translates into bigger milk checks for dairy farmers.

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Speaker Dean Sommer has worked at the Center for Dairy Research for the last 19 years, serving as a technical resource to Wisconsin cheese manufacturers and their customers. Dean obtained a MS degree in Food Science from UW-Madison.

Allison Fleshman, PhD, has always loved the arts, so a fun side project of hers is identifying the chemical composition of pigments and inks in medieval manuscripts. She also teaches the chemistry of art to non-chemistry majors. Paintings embody human expression, but they also encompass quite a bit of chemistry. From the optical properties of varnish, to the pigments that produce vivid colors, Allison took us on a chemical adventure into the captivating world of oil paintings. She has spent many years watching paint dry, and assures you, it is quite a fascinating endeavor!

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Link to recording of the presentation.

Kurt Dietrich, professor emeritus of music at Ripon College and author of Wisconsin Riffs:  Jazz Profiles from the Heartland  (Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2018), gave an overview of important jazz artists from Wisconsin and the trends that have led from the early days -- the roots -- up to the rich and complex jazz scene in Wisconsin today.

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Link to recording of the presentation.

Ryan Korb, lecturer of Jazz Percussion and Jazz Studies at UW-Stevens Point, discussed why and how African percussion became one of the roots of jazz and why it remains so to this day.

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Link to recording of the presentation.

A mini-drama written and narrated by Pat Phair with musical accompaniment by Linda Harmon. A master of the keyboard, a composer and musical performer, Waupaca native Eddy Hanson spent the better part of seven decades working in the entertainment world. From the penniless days in Waupaca to the top of the penthouse in Chicago his life was filled with successful adventures and personal mishaps. Through it all he remained true to his local roots and devotion to family. This dramatic presentation followed his career and portrayed several of his works. 

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Link to recording of the presentation.

Xia Lee is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Midwest Center of Excellence for Vector-Borne Disease with a strong interest in the ecological dynamics of tick-borne disease. He directed a project with collaborators to investigate the effectiveness of host targeted acaricides in reducing ticks and the prevalence of the Lyme disease agent in questing ticks. This project utilized permethrin treated cotton balls that would be gathered and used as nesting material by white-footed mice to reduce tick burdens. For his PhD dissertation, he studied the host-seeking behavior of the blacklegged tick through repeated collections over a period of 24 hours. He has also collaborated with the Mayo Clinic investigating two newly emerging disease pathogens, Erhlicia muris eauclairensis and Borrelia mayonii.

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Link to recording of the presentation.

Andrea Lemke-Rochon, a member of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) WI State Task Force, shared a personal and historic perspective about this tragic epidemic that impacts native families at alarmingly high rates. She spoke in memory of her cousin, Rae Elaine Tourtillott, who was murdered on the Menominee Indian Reservation when Tourtillott was just 18 years of age. Listen and learn how you might help advocate for justice and change for Native women and girls in Wisconsin.

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Link to recording of the presentation.

Theresa Kaminski, PhD, is professor emerita of history from UWSP. Dr. Mary Edwards Walker always wanted to be somebody. During the 19th century, that was an unusual ambition for a woman. But Walker was an unusual woman. She wore trousers, graduated from medical school, and in 1861 offered her services to the United States Army. Four years later, President Andrew Johnson awarded Dr. Walker the Medal of Honor for her incomparable medical service rendered during the Civil War. She remains the only woman to receive that recognition. After the war, Mary Walker dedicated her life to the women’s suffrage movement, frequently clashing with its established leadership over ideology and tactics.

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Link to recording of the presentation.

Colin Mitchell, PhD, a native of New Jersey, and Jenny Mitchell, EdD, from the Green Bay area, met in Tunisia nine years ago. Jenny taught on five different continents in a variety of schools. Colin, a former head of international business development joined Jenny on her journey with stops in Europe and Africa. They have visited over 70 different countries in 15 years abroad. Listen as they discuss differences in international schools as they hop from one unique cultural experience to the next from a first post in Colombia to traveling around South East Asia via Singapore; from living on the Rhine in Germany to the Nile in Sudan. Each school provided a unique perspective on the world and the globalization of education.

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Link to recording of this presentation.

Rev. Thomas Aldworth, PhD, presented strategies for cultivating creativity as found in the seminal work of the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, especially his books Flow, Finding Flow and Creativity. Aging inevitably leads to a diminishing of physical abilities but aging does not necessarily lead to a diminishing in imagination and creativity. Aldworth will explored pathways that lead to flow and enhanced creativity.

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Link to recording of this presentation.