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• Festival recaptures life in time of Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Clean Sweeps set for Sept. 18-19 in three area counties
• Warm autumn important for Wisconsin crops; state briefs

It's been 142 years since Laura Ingalls Wilder was born in rural Pepin, but folks around here - especially young readers - have not forgotten the storyteller whose books still have a loyal following.

This weekend, Pepin will celebrate the 19th annual Laura Ingalls Wilder Days with a busy weekend of activities for all ages.

Events generally run from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.

The festival will include demonstrations of traditional crafts such as blacksmithing, woodworking, hand-spinning and quilting; museum tours; a quilt show; an art and craft market, food sales, music, pioneer games for children, guided bus tours to Laura's birth site, and more.

A highlight each year is the Pepin Laura Contest, which will take place from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. Saturday. Contestants must demonstrate their talents and knowledge of the life and times and literature of Wilder as articulated in her stories.

Contestants enter in one of three categories: Little Sisters (ages 5 -7), Pepin Lauras (ages 8-11), or Big Sisters (ages 12-13).

Girls must register at Laura Ingalls Wilder Park in Pepin between 10 and 11:30 a.m.; there is a fee to enter. All contestants are invited to ride in Sunday's parade wearing their prairie girl attire.

The seventh annual essay contest gives young people as well as adults a chance to comment on the topic, "How Laura Ingalls Wilder Influenced My Life."

Competition is in two sections, for children under 18 and for adults 18 and over. The winning entry will be read Saturday at the main stage.

Past winners have included a retired teacher who talked about using the "Little House" books in her classroom for many years, and youngsters who wrote about how Laura inspired them to do their best.

Winning entries are published in the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society newsletter.

The fiddle contest is from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. Cash prizes will be awarded to winners in six divisions: Peewees (9 and under), Juniors (10-13), Young Adults (14-19), Adults (20 and up), plus the Trick & Fancy Division (open to all ages).

For more information, call the festival chairman, Dale Anderson, (715) 442-4811, or Yata, the music coordinator, at (715) 285-5101.

Other activities on Saturday: Spelling bee for grades 2 to 5, register at 9 a.m. and compete at 10 a.m.; a Fantasy Corral petting zoo; book readings at the library; square dancing at 11:15 a.m.; and in the evening, candlelight traditional crafts demonstrations followed by music and a bonfire.

Sunday's events will begin with a pancake breakfast from 7 to 11 a.m. at Pepin High School; music and children's games from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.; the annual tomahawk throw at 1 p.m.; and the big parade at 2 p.m.

Admission to the festival is free. For information, call (800)442-3011 or go online to www.lauradays.org.

By Ruth Nerhaugen

nerhaugen@republican-eagle.com

Pierce, Pepin, and St. Croix Counties will provide free disposal of unwanted medications, pesticides, fertilizers, solvents, fuels, cleaning agents, lead, oil and latex based paints, and other chemicals for all farms and residences in the counties on Friday and Saturday, Sept. 18-19.

Businesses and institutions are also welcome to participate, but may be subject to fees.

Residents and farmers of either county may use either event, according to Pierce County Solid Waste Coordinator, Steve Melstrom.

Pierce County's event will be from 8 a.m.-noon on Saturday, Sept.19, at the Pierce County Materials Recovery Facility on Highway 65 north of Ellsworth.

Pepin County Clean Sweep will be held from 12:30-3 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 18 at the Pepin County Highway Shop located at 615 Lake Street in the Village of Pepin.

St. Croix County's will be from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 19, at the New Richmond Street Department Shop, 1006 N. Dakota Ave.

For more information, contact the Pierce County Solid Waste Office, (715) 273-3092, Pepin County Solid Waste Office, 672-5709, or St. Croix County Recycling, 386-4675.

A cool summer has some crops lagging behind in the state and there is concern over the weather cutting into the growing season.

Bill Halfman is an agriculture agent for UW-Extension in Monroe County. He says the biggest problem right now, other than the poor economic situation for farmers, is whether they will see enough warm temperatures this fall.

Halfman says farmers are starting to run into the situation, is the crop going to get ripe before frost or not? If it does, we'll be OK. If it doesn't, it's going to create some problems for the immature grain. The quality of the grain may not be as good. There will be a lot of wet grain.

But farmers may be in luck. Brad Adams is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in La Crosse. He says temperatures will be above or near normal this fall due to El Nino. Adams says he would think the frost could be delayed a little bit this year.

Adams says frost usually hits the southern third of the state in the third week of September while up north it comes a week earlier. Meanwhile, Halfman of UW-Extension says corn and soybeans are 10 to 14 days behind compared to last year at this time. He says late season rains have been pretty good, but we could use another round.

The National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center is forecasting equal chances of above or below normal rainfall from now through November.

-- Danielle Kaeding, WLSU/WHLA-La Crosse

Latino immigrants asked to boycott upcoming head count

A national group of Latino clergy is calling on immigrants to boycott the 2010 census. But immigrant advocates in Wisconsin are giving the proposed protest a cool reception.

The New England based boycott proposal is known as legalization before enumeration. Its leaders claim to represent more than one million people in 34 states. Their goal is to pressure the U.S. Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform or force states and cities to go without the federal aid that census figures are used to calculate.

Peter Munoz of Madison's Centro Hispano calls it an ill-conceived strategy. Munoz says the best approach is to count every single person that is here, particularly emphasizing the fact they are being constructive members of the community and they are bringing real resources to a municipality in terms of shared revenues from the federal government.

Estimates of the number of undocumented workers in Wisconsin are hard to come by but the 2000 census found only 3.6 percent of the state's population are foreign born.

Christine Neumann Ortiz of the Milwaukee based Voces de la Frontera says she sympathizes with the boycott's goals, but would rather have all immigrants, legal and illegal counted in the census.

Neumann Ortiz says she sees the value in supporting the census count because it will not count immigration status and 85 percent of immigrant families are of mixed immigration status so there are many people who benefit from some of the funding that does come in terms of the public programs.

Calls to the regional office of the 2010 census in Chicago were not immediately returned but a national spokeswoman says she's disappointed that a group would encourage people not to be counted.

-- Gil Halstad, WHA/WERN-Madison

Senior housing on the way for Milwaukee-area Latinos

MILWAUKEE -- About $8 million in federal and state aid will help build a housing complex for low-income seniors in Milwaukee's Latino community.

Gov. Jim Doyle attended a groundbreaking for the project Tuesday. Doyle says the site will be built with energy-saving "sustainable" building materials and equipment.

The seniors will have access to a meal program, transportation and social services. About $2 million of the aid is from federal stimulus funds.

About $6 million is low-income housing tax credits comes from the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority.

-- Chuck Quirmbach, WHAD-Delafield/Milwaukee

New tax on rich proposed to pay for job training

STATE CAPITOL -- A group of Assembly Democrats wants to increase job training at tech schools and pay for it by again raising income taxes on the wealthy.

The proposal by Corey Mason, D-Racine, and others would increase the state income tax by 1 percent for people who earn $1 million or more.

Mason says it would generate an estimated $145 million. That state money would leverage an additional $135 million in federal funds that could become available under a bill being considered in Congress.

Mason says he wants Wisconsin to be first in line for those grants, so it's critically important that they come up with resources to match those federal dollars.

The package would also increase financial aid, direct the state to award grants to help businesses modernize and expand tax credits for people who invest in startup companies.

Tamara Grigsby, D-Milwaukee, called it a strategy to help Wisconsin's jobless. Grigsby says we're not going to sit by and watch the pain and suffering that results from our unemployment crisis right now. We want to do something about this and this is the first step in this direction.

If lawmakers go this route, it would be the second time this session they've leaned on wealthier residents to fund state programs. The budget signed a few months ago raised income taxes by 1 percent on individuals who earned more than $225,000.

-- Shawn Johnson, WHA/WERN-Madison

Milwaukee school reform opposition heats up

STATE CAPITOL -- Milwaukee's school board president and Governor Jim Doyle continue their verbal fight over a plan that would allow Milwaukee's mayor to have control over the city's school system.

Elected school officials in Milwaukee have a five year plan to turnaround the district. Milwaukee school board president Michael Bonds told state lawmakers on the education reform committee Tuesday that his vision for Milwaukee's school system is to make it better by making it smaller.

He argues resources are spread too thin. Bonds says MPS has become a system of schools as opposed to a school system. Bonds wants to see quality program throughout the district not just in certain pockets and to duplicate programs that are working."

Bonds pointed to academic improvements made the last three years while at same time criticizing the city's fiscal management. An earlier report indicated Milwaukee schools had poor business practices.

This adversarial tone prompted Milwaukee democratic representative Christine Sinicki to advise against "making it personal" between the school board and mayor Tom Barrett in regards to school governance. Sinicki is against the proposed takeover, saying it implies voters didn't make good choices in electing the school board.

Leah Vukmir, R-Wauwatosa, is also against a takeover by the mayor and the governor. She doesn't believe the legislature would pass it. A previous take over attempt by the Thompson administration was unsuccessful.

Bonds also says the public is being misled when told a mayoral takeover of the district would improve Wisconsin's chances of qualifying for federal stimulus money. But responding to Bonds in Milwaukee Tuesday Gov. Doyle said the takeover would help win the federal 'race to the top' dollars.

Doyle says it is clear that it is not one of the priorities written into the law, but in order for us to really have the Department of Education look at the changes we're making and convince them that we can bring change about, I really believe we need a strong mayoral leadership.

Milwaukee school board president Bonds says even if there were a takeover, its very unlikely Wisconsin would qualify for the 'race to the top' money because it doesn't meet a number of the criteria under the law.

-- Shamane Mills and Chuck Quirmbach, Wisconsin Public Radio

New plan to fund southeast regional transit

MILWAUKEE -- Gov. Jim Doyle has announced a tentative plan for solving a controversy over regional transit in southeastern Wisconsin.

In his state budget vetoes, the governor axed a proposed half cent sales tax increase for Milwaukee county because he said he wasn't sure the money would just be used for transit. The governor also wanted a regional transit plan.

Doyle now says there's an agreement to just use the additional Milwaukee funds for transportation programs. He also says Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha Counties have agreed to operate separate, sub-regional transit authorities that can later merge into one regional board.

Doyle says having the three counties form into a common RTA would help a proposed commuter rail line known as the KRM to obtain new funding from the federal transit administration. But, Milwaukee County executive Scott Walker takes issue with the idea of the public accepting raising his county's sales tax for transit.

Walker is also running for governor as a Republican. He says it would be better to lease the Milwaukee county airport to a private operator and use the revenue to help the financially troubled local bus system.

-- Chuck Quirmbach, WHAD-Delafield/Milwaukee

Lawmakers called to duty

Among the more than 200 Wisconsin Air National Guard members being deployed later this month to Iraq are two state lawmakers.

Central Wisconsin representative Scott Suder of Abbottsford is part of the 115th Fighter Wing based in Madison. It includes F-16 pilots, aircraft maintenance specialists and others to support ground forces in Iraq with close air support. Suder is part of the Life Support unit.

Suder says we are a mission support team that assists the F-16 pilots with equipment and weapons and a whole host of items that both prepare the F-16 pilots for their flights and work with them after their flights.

Fellow Rep. Roger Roth from Appleton will also be going to Iraq. His job is to make sure the F-16 egress seats work if an accident occurs. Suder says they'll be in an undisclosed location for at least 90 days.

The military duty will not interrupt the work of the legislator's offices. Suder says constituent services will not be interrupted in any way. I will miss a few votes and there's nothing I can do about that. This mission has to come first."

Meanwhile, Hawaii representative K. Mark Takai annually checks on the number of state legislators serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. His latest survey in August of 2008 showed 73 lawmakers in the military, 46 are Republicans and 27 are Democrats. In Wisconsin all four are Republicans.

-- Mary Jo Wagner, WHWC/WVSS-Menomonie/Eau Claire

Cherry crop surplus may open new market

DOOR COUNTY -- Wisconsin has a bumper crop of cherries this year. That could lead to a big push by growers and marketers touting the health benefits of the fruit.

Wisconsin is one of the nation's most active cherry growing states. Almost all of them are grown in Door County. Bob Lautenbach has a winery and orchards in Fish Creek and Egg Harbor. He's also a board member of the Wisconsin Cherry Growers' Association.

Lautenbach says Wisconsin has a near-record crop, but prices haven't fallen much in response. He says that's partly due to a marketing effort touting the cherry's anti-oxidant power.

Lautenbach says we're going to put a lot more of our cherries into cherry juice. You can buy cherry juice just about every place now but we're going to put a bigger push on that because of the health benefits.

Some of Lautenbach's customers say cherry juice has eased their arthritis pain. The Cherry Marketing Institute claims cherries can reduce inflammation that can lead to heart disease and can even help with jet lag.

Door County's cherry growers may have a lot more to dedicate to that juice. This year's harvest was nearly eight million pounds, compared to about five or six million in an average year. The big haul comes on the heels of a dismal crop last year. Lautenbach says the bumper crop was due to nearly ideal spring weather.

-- Patty Murray, WPNE/WHID-Green Bay