W A S H B U R N C O U N T Y
Register
Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2014 Vol. 125, No. 28 • Shell Lake, Wis.
We e ke nd w atch • See calendar on page 8
wcregist eronline.com
INSIDE
Feb. 26, 2014
75¢
Warm welcome to the ice castle
A night to jazz it up Back page
The ice races Back page
Local skiers finish at on top at Birkebeiner Page 7
BREAKERS
Got an idea for a story? Email us @ wcregister@centurytel.net
SHELL LAKE — Mitch Brown, Shell Lake public works director, would like to remind Shell Lake municipal water utility customers to please run a pencil-sized stream of water from one tap until further notice. The utility will adjust your bill for the additional volume. If you have any questions, please call the city administrator’s office at 715-468-7679. — from Shell Lake City Hall ••• SPOONER- JoEllen Weathers, manager of the Palace Theatre in Spooner, announced Monday, Feb. 24, that the owner of the Stardust Drive-In Theater in Chetek, has offered to sell two 1-year-old digital projectors to the Palace Theater. “So WHEN we reach our goal of $60,000 in 11 days we will now be able to fully convert our theaters to digital cinema,” Weathers wrote in excitement. Originally, Weathers only planned to convert one of the two cinemas in the 75-year-old theater to digital cinema due to the high expense. Since starting the digital cinema conversion fundraising project on Jan. 6, a total of $48,313 has been raised through 380 project backers from across the globe. To check out the project’s current progress go to kickstarter.com and search The Palace Project. - with submitted information ••• NORTHWEST WISCONSIN - All Washburn County schools were closed due to the strong winter storm that hit the Upper Midwest Thursday night, Feb. 20. Those school districts included Shell Lake, Spooner, Birchwood and Northwood. The huge storm Thursday and Friday made for some of the worst road conditions in years in the area. It also posed some challenges for the American Birkebeiner Foundation, which held the 41st American Birkebeiner ski race over the weekend. More than 10,000 skiers were registered for the largest ski race in North America. The Sawyer County Record reported that the Junior Birkie was canceled due to the snowstorm.
Find us on Facebook facebook.com/ washburncountyregister
On Saturday, Feb. 15, Miss Shell Lake Dakota Robinson, Junior Miss Shell Lake Zayla Sturtze, Little Miss Shell Lake Jordan Lawrence, and Little Princess Cyrice Lehmann attended the 2014 Luck Winter Carnival parade, visited with the new royalty and enjoyed the ice castle. — Photo submitted
Washburn County Board
Budget-increase requests meet split board decision
Danielle Moe |Staff writer SHELL LAKE — The regular monthly meeting of the Washburn County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, Feb. 18, involved discussion centered on requests to increase two county department budgets among other agenda items. “We are struggling to keep up, we are falling behind, we are not keeping up with the pace,” said Mike Keefe, county administrator, to the county board. The requests were for the administration and finance departments to receive additional funding for additional staffing. Together the two requests totaled $59,404. The administration department’s request of $9,404 was to make a current 85-percent position a full-time position. According to Keefe, the department took a budget cut about three years ago, reducing one position to 85 percent,
and they have been trying to make it work at that level since. The finance department’s request was for $50,000 to establish a full-time account clerk position. The position workload would focus on W2, payroll, employee benefits, cross training in finance and other department-related tasks. Supervisors Romaine Quinn, Steven Waggoner and David Haessig all agreed that the implementation of the position would free up more time for Keefe to do administrative work. Neither department had the funds in their accounts to support the increased staff positions. “If this position is funded from forestry, at this time next year where would the funding come from,” pointed out Beth Esser, District 8 county board supervisor. In order to finance See County board, page 4
Register reporter awarded WNA scholarship One of two honored by Wisconsin Newspaper Association MADISON - Two Wisconsin journalism students will each receive a $1,500 Wisconsin Newspaper Association Foundation scholarship at the group’s annual convention, set for Feb. 27-28 in Milwaukee. The scholarships are awarded annually to journalism students working toward associate or baccalaureate degrees. Abigail Becker and Danielle Moe will be recognized Friday, Feb. 28, during the convention’s Student Awards and Professional Networking Luncheon, held at the Milwaukee Marriott West in Waukesha.
Danielle Moe Moe is nearly one year into her reporting job at the Washburn County Register, owned by the Inter-County Cooperative Publishing Association in Frederic. Her writing can also be found in the InterCounty Leader, a newspaper also owned by the ICCPA. Moe attended college at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minn., from 2006 to 2010 and will use the scholarship toward completing final credits needed for Danielle Moe her degree in journalism. See WNA, page 4
T h e Reg i st e r i s a co o p e rat i ve - o w n e d news pa per