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Thursday, April 19, 2018 • Vol. 136, No. 39 • Stoughton, WI • ConnectStoughton.com • $1.25
Stoughton Area School District
Quietly determined Olson focused on ‘respect,’ ‘collaboration,’ KPW controversy
Dirks reflects on school board tenure, future of district
BILL LIVICK Unified Newspaper Group
SCOTT DE LARUELLE Unified Newspaper Group
Photo by Alexander Cramer
Eleanor Kemppainen pours vinegar over a “rock” while Piper Grant holds the beaker during the escape room at the library on April 12. The group is trying to dissolve a rock that’s sitting in the beaker they believe holds a crucial key.
Stoughton Sherlocks ALEXANDER CRAMER
Inside
Unified Newspaper Group
Last week was Sherlock Week in and around the library, with librarians organizing several Sherlock Holmes-themed events to engage kids and adults alike. Made possible by a grant from Beyond the Page, which helps Dane County libraries put on activities in the humanities, librarians organized a sleuth-inspired improv night, a pizza and art event with a chance to make art that would hang in the library throughout the week and a chance to meet real crimefighters in K9 Ole and his handler Officer Chad O’Neil. Adult reference librarian Cynthia Schlegel created an escape room in the library’s basement based on the famous detective, complete with a table for science experiments, a battered violin, a faux-fireplace and a thematically-appropriate soundtrack. The library gave both adults and children the opportunity to use the escape
Courier Hub
More photos from the library’s Sherlock Week Page 7 room, and Schlegel noted that a major difference between the two — and what helped the teens escape much faster than the adults — was the teens’ willingness to make mistakes. Schlegel worked on the project for months, turning her garage into a temporary laboratory, recreating the cipher from the story “The Adventures of the Dancing Men” and even hiding a key in a “rock” she made out of baking soda and coffee. Participants had to dissolve the rock in a beaker of vinegar to free the key. – Alexander Cramer
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Donna Olson started life as a farm girl from Gays Mills and was raised in a family that taught her “how to respect others’ opinions and really listen” to what Olson they had to say – habits that stayed with Olson as an adult and served her well as Stoughton’s mayor. Olson had no idea when she took a part-time receptionist job with the city in 1995 that 15 years later she would be elected mayor and go on to serve two terms. She told the Hub she got the idea to run for mayor after serving as administrative assistant for mayors Bob Barnett and Helen
Johnson between 1996 and 2008, and only after Johnson had decided not to finish the final year of her second term. Olson then took a year off and ran for mayor in 2010, defeating incumbent Mayor Jim Griffin. Now, 23 years after she started working in City Hall, Olson’s tenure has come to an end. Having accomplished some big goals, she decided last August not to seek re-election in order to have “more time to spend with my family and growing grandchildren,” she said. In her typical soft-spoken manner, Olson told the Hub she was a member of a team and credited city staff and elected officials for helping her achieve good things for Stoughton. A m o n g t h o s e
Turn to Olson/Page 12
Council accepts agreement for KPW highway connection City, developer to work out steps needed to proceed BILL LIVICK Unified Newspaper Group
The mostly residential phase of Kettle Park West has a chance to become r e a l i t y w i t h t h r e e - wa y agreement the Common Council accepted last week. The deal, among the city, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and the Town of Rutland, would allow Forward Development Group to connect a collector street planned for
the Phase 2 area to the highway. The council had voted two years ago to require that connection, a new access point on state Hwy. 138, for the developer to proceed with the second phase. On April 10, the council voted 10-1, with Ald. Kathleen Tass Johnson (Dist. 2) dissenting and Greg Jenson (Dist. 3) absent, in favor of the agreement. The Town of Rutland still must approve the agreement before it can take effect, but Rutland officials had participated in the discussions that led to
Turn to KPW/Page 14
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Turn to Dirks/Page 11
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City of Stoughton
Looking back, looking ahead
Tough decisions ahead, but also plenty of possibilities. When outgoing president Scott Dirks looks back on his time on the Stoughton Area school board, he’s proud of a district he believes is in much better shape than i t ’s b e e n i n y e a r s . Dirks And while challenges lie ahead, he believes the potential is there for an even brighter future. Dirks – first elected in 2010 and board president since August 2016 – didn’t seek re-election this year, citing the effects of an increased caseload in his work as an assistant Rock County district attorney, handling child maltreatment cases. His last day as board president is April 23. “Those cases really are very, very demanding of my time (and) are also very emotionally draining,” he told the Hub last week. “Being board president was about 15-20 hours a week … it just got to be too hard for me to continue to do my day job as well. Something had to give.” It’s been a challenging time for the district, with student population stagnant at best and the district going through two separate operating referendums. But he’s pleased about the recent direction
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