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• Indian Ocean standoff with pirates: Local man hopes for happy ending
• Once again, state ignores UW-RF building project

By: Phil Pfuehler

Bill Coggio, town of Troy, has a family connection to Capt. Richard Phillips, captured by Somali pirates and held hostage in the Indian Ocean this week.

Phillips is Coggio's brother-in-law. Coggio's older sister, Andrea, is the wife of Phillips. "It's in the realm of the bizarre," Bill Coggio said late Friday morning.

"You hope for the best and try to maintain as much normalcy as you can. But you're still anxious. Sleep is certainly not as restful."

Coggio, 45, is a 3M research scientist. His wife, Grace, is an adjunct faculty member in Communication Studies and Theatre Arts at UW-River Falls.

The couple have three children -- a 4th grader at Westside; a 7th grader at Meyer Middle School; and a sophomore at River Falls High School.

The family has lived in the town of Troy since 2001.

Bill described his sister, Andrea, who lives in Underhill, Vt., as "incredibly strong, very positive and holding up well," thanks in part to the presence of many family members.

Bill has six brother and sisters. All live out east and are in Vermont now with Andrea.

"Living where I do, I'm the oddball," Bill said. "Our family here is doing OK, but we have the benefit of distance in some respects. We're more isolated from all the media attention that's going on out there.

"But we're in contact with them by phone and thinking of them all the time. Distance may separate us, but family ties do not."

Bill said his brother-in-law, who captained the hijacked cargo ship, was very much aware of the growing pirate threat in that part of the world.

"They had stepped-up training to prepare," he said.

Ironically, besides his pirate-captured brother-in-law, Bill also has two brothers who work in the merchant marines for private shipping companies. One brother is an engineer, the other is a purser (in charge of food supplies).

On top of that, Bill has a sister who's a Coast Guard captain and operates a ferry boat in Lake Champlain between New York and Vermont.

Bill said that watching tragedies unfold on the news is so different when it hits home and affects your family.

"It's crazy, unreal, more intense," he said. "In this case, the outpouring of support from around the world has been just phenomenal."

By: Phil Pfuehler

Choosing to focus on big building projects at UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee, the State Building Commission Wednesday voted not to give approval for UW-River Falls to build a $44.5-million Health and Human Performance building that would replace Karges Center. UW-RF officials have been planning since 1990 for this much-needed facility. It's been recommended for 10 years by the UW-System Board of Regents.

In addition, UW-RF was given the OK in the current biennium to spend more than $1 million to plan for the facility that would include classrooms, labs and also a new basketball arena.

Karges Center first opened for the 1959-60 school year.

Blake Fry, UW-RF special assistant to the chancellor, said Mike Morgan, Wisconsin Secretary of Administration, will visit the campus this summer to look over what's needed and to get a firsthand grasp of the HHP project.

Fry gave state Rep. Kitty Rhoades (R-Hudson) credit for lobbying hard on UW-RF's behalf. Fry said Rhoades stressed to state officials how important the new HHP facility was for the mission of the university and to the economy of the River Falls area.

The State Building Commission also chose not to fund an education building at UW-Eau Claire and a new dorm at UW-Whitewater.