Register
W A S H B U R N
INSIDE
Jan. 9, 2013
C O U N T Y
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Wednesday, January 9, 2013 Vol. 124, No. 21 • Shell Lake, Wis.
Weekend watch
• Inside garage sale to support Haiti Medical Mission trip • Jack Frost Fest celebrated in Spooner. • Washburn County Food Distribution, Spooner Middle School Tech Ed Building. See Events page 8
Snowy duplicity
75¢
A recital for young pianists See page 9
SPORTS
Area basketball and wrestling coverage See page 9, 10 & 11 Sisters, Juno and Snowfall, are two lead dogs on Alyssa King’s race team. They love running and work well together in spite of the fact that they are full sisters, or maybe that is why they work so well together. See more on page 2. – Photo by Larry Samson
Full Gospel’s “Burn” girls
Mr. Smith goes to Madison
New state representative follows in footsteps of his mother
See page 8
BREAKERS
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MADISON – State lawmakers were sworn in Monday, Jan. 7, for a new two-year session of the Wisconsin Legislature. For the second session in a row, Republicans will control all levels of state government, from the governor’s office to the Senate and Assembly. The question now is how they plan to use it. GOP leaders have sent mixed messages. Soon after the November election, Senate Republican Leader Scott Fitzgerald signaled a desire for things to get back to normal. “You know, I truly believe that there’s kind of a renewed effort to work across the aisle and get back to kind of a normal temperature when it comes to the legislature.” Incoming Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has also stressed collegiality this session, but with a 60-seat majority he wants an aggressive agenda for Republicans. That includes an income tax cut in Wisconsin, and Vos has been fairly specific about which income levels should get it. “If you are between $20,000 and $200,000, it is a bad place to be a middle-income taxpayer.” Vos has also talked about reorganizing higher education in Wisconsin and rewriting the state’s voluminous administrative code. University of Wisconsin Milwaukee political scientist Mordecai Lee, a former Democratic lawmaker, predicts people will be amazed at how the next Republican budget will transform state government in a way that makes it more conservative. “In other words, they’re going to try to peel back I guess you might say 20 or 30 years of liberal and Democratic legislation that they weren’t able to pay attention to in that first budget, the one that came right after Act 10.” The details of those changes - if they happen - should become clear over the next several months. In the meantime, Republicans have said their first priority will be a rewrite of Wisconsin’s mining laws. - Shawn Johnson, Wisconsin Public Radio
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Patricia Spafford Smith was born in Shell Lake on Aug. 17, 1925, and after graduating from Shell Lake High School in 1942, earned an accounting degree from the University of Minnesota in 1946. She married James Smith in 1950, and the couple purchased the school bus business in Rice Lake in 1957, although her by Dave Zeug husband passed away in 1969, leaving her a Special to the Register SHELL LAKE - Seventy-four years after the widow with six children. Pat was always a fierce advocate of the citi1939 movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” a political drama about one man's effort to zens of the 75th Assembly District. Another exchange the political landscape of the time, Shell ample of this was the badly needed issue of turning Hwy. 53, Lake's Stephen from Rice Lake to Smith will be Superior, from the going to Madison two-lane highway this week to be it had been into sworn in as the the four-lane high75th Assembly way enjoyed District's representoday. tative. And one Pat's son, thing is certain, Stephen, has plans Pat Smith, to follow in his Stephen's mother mother's footsteps and former 75th while representing Assembly District the people of the re p re s e n t a t i v e , 75th District. would be proud of Stephen also her son's accomearned an acplishment and counting degree, willingness to Stephen Smith of Shell Lake was sworn in as the new state rep- although his was serve the same constituents she resentative for the 75th Assembly District by Chief Justice of the from the UW-SuWisconsin State Supreme Court Shirley S. Abrahamson on Mon- perior in 1973. In did years ago. Pat Smith, a day, Jan. 7. Smith follows in the footsteps of his mother, Pat, a for- 1982, he and a cousin purchased longtime Shell mer state representative from the 75th District. – Special photo the school bus Lake resident who passed away 10 years ago this month, was business in Rice Lake, and he became sole elected to the Wisconsin Assembly in 1978 and owner in 1989 when he and his wife, Christine, bought out his cousin's share of the business. was re-elected twice, in 1980 and 1982. "Her most cherished legislative accomplish- In 2009, they purchased interest in Rainbow ments included marital property reform and Home Center of Rice Lake, although he's the Wisconsin Inheritance Tax exemption for "mostly retired" from that business venture direct spousal property transfers," said Stephen now to better dedicate his time to the people of Smith. "She was always a proud Shell Lake res- the 75th Assembly District. Like his mother, Stephen also has legislative ident who continued to serve the public as a goals. member of the Washburn County Board and also as mayor of Shell Lake." See Mr. Smith, page 4