Podcast For Hire

Find 7 Rivers BBBS online at 7riversbbbs.org Transcription is for SEO purposes only. Many people are interested in becoming a big brother big sister, the oldest, largest and most proven mentoring organization in the nation at seven Rivers big Brothers big sisters were helping all you to achieve their full potential. What makes a successful internship for a successful match training and think the successful matches that typically matches their meeting on a regular basis and have been nice, fair, a longer period of time so it comes to being matched with the between the big and little. What are some of the things that they can do what we do reach events once a month on each offense. I recreation, education, arts, we can also be like in engineering and science event, they change the time to so that we can have different events to serve the different interests of the people that we work with. You can really do anything as a big brother big sister. We try to match literals and bags that share similar interests so that oftentimes they can exploit is interests together. We have bags that are really into like golfing or fitness or ask about any sports, and then we can parents of kids that I really active or have interest in the sport specifically on other times we have bags that I really I just check and literals that have an interest in art or design and we try to pair them together that they can express interest. So does big Brothers big sisters are they looking for matches right now are looking for bags or Littles absolutely were always looking to serve the most amount of people in our community that we can wear really at this time in need of big Brothers we have a large little brother waiting list. Just because often little brothers are looking for that male influence. So like, we could pair them with big sister is by they feel or their family feels it benefit more from a big brother know is in there matches that are couples or on we do big couples as well that kind of looks like if there is like a couple that is interested and kind of like how mentoring a little they can do that which the benefit of being a big benefit of being a bank. I think that being a big sort of gives people the opportunity to go out into their community more than they normally would have. Additionally, it gives you the opportunity to form a lasting and trusted relationship with the little you gain that relationship that friendship from being a bag to be an example of a of a match that went really well. Little started with our program and they were matched with their bag. They were really struggling in school, to the point where they had like an IEP because behaviorally they just weren't able to be successful and a traditional school setting is also like a lot of anger that this kid was holding and it was really affecting his relationship with his mother and his peers. Anyways he was matched with his bag is just an incredible guy and this pig was able to support him and motivate hand and inspire him to try. I guess in school and to be more understanding and patient with his peers and with his family and now year later inspire match this kid is doing really really well in school and he's back to normal classes and his relationship with his family is strengthened is the best part of your job yes absolutely sing the success of widows, I think, is why a lot of us do the work that we do so we find out more information about becoming a big. The easiest way is to becoming a vague order to enroll a little in our program is to go to our website which is seven Rivers BBB asked.org or to stop by our office on fourth street downtown, or you can give us a call our number for our lacrosse office is 608782 2227 our number for our Winona office is 507452 2227 big Brothers big sisters is just about creating and supporting relationships of creating one-on-one mentoring relationships, igniting the power and promise of our youth to find out how you can become a big brother big sister contact seven Rivers big Brothers big sisters at 608782. 2227 in the cross or 507-452-2227 Winona you can also find us on 7 Rivers BBBS.org

Transcription is for SEO purposes only. To find out more about the city of La Crosse please visit their website www.cityoflacrosse.org to find out more about Podcast For Hire please visit PodcastForHire.com
Teri Lehrke the city of La Crosse city clerk. What is the city clerk do well that does a lot of different things to a lot of licenses. We maintain the records that the common Council records management for the leases contract legislation the account so that a large portion of the duties of the city clerk tell him to be the election administrator for the city. So what does that mean as election administrator for the equally fabulous and equipped the polling places to hire and train the election worker we acquire and maintain the voting machine. Prepare ballot placement certification and and how many quantities ballots were going to need in order to get the right number of pallets printed for each election. We also issue at thinking ballots administer campaign-finance registration and voter registration and with it being an election season and even here is the volume of voter registration and balance it increased quite significantly. Let's talk about voter registration five twins and they just turned 18. I took my son to vote for the first time it took a long time to get registered. There's gotta be a simpler way. There is a simpler way and that's on election day. People in Wisconsin are allowed to register on election day prior to voting. However, there is a new opportunity that's been out for probably two years. It's basically online voter registration. The website that people would be using would be my vote.WI.gov voter registration database is for the whole state of Wisconsin and so the Wisconsin election commission created this online portal with you. Well, to allow for a lot of different things a lawyer can look up the polling place they can check their status to see if they register they can see what's on their ballot, but one thing that is really nice is that they can register totally online. If their drivers license in Wisconsin next is where they live currently is a seamless online voter registration where it's basically a matching system. The databases look at each other and match their address, people can get themselves registered ahead of time if you do at the time it will avoid standing in two lines on election day. At least you will already be registered and then you would have to stand in line for voting purposes. Course there are deadlines are still seated with me online voter registration, the online registration is only available during open registration. What that means is every day of the year. You can register online. If your address also matches the DMV except it closes 20 days before the election and on election day Terry, how does somebody go about registering in person on election day. What do we need to bring. I would encourage people to go to the my vote website. My vote that WI.gov and look up the address of the polling place and so what they know that. And then there at least 10 days. That's a lot of our time. That they have to establish residency for voting, then what they do is they have to bring an acceptable form of proof of residence with them. The most common form is the Wisconsin driver license or ID. If your driver's license or ID has not been changed through the DMV and other acceptable proof of residency document would be a utility like charter bill or sensory or XL energy there a utility bill, bank statement or credit card different things that you can use for proof of residency and all those different things are spelled out on the on the my vote website. You were always here to help people to navigate the system. The municipal clerk Joe is a good resource for voting information we do have a lot of information on the website. We are located in City Hall 400 La Crosse St. on the second floor is anything missing. Just take a look at the my voice I save yourself some time on election day get prepared to get registered and then go

Contact School District of La Crosse
807 East Avenue South
La Crosse, Wisconsin 54601
(608) 789-7600
https://www.lacrosseschools.org/
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This is Randy Nelson and this is an edition of extra innings as a retiring superintendent of schools. Many things run across my mind when I reflect on 37 years of education, what's happened in those 37 years. What we been doing in our schools and even what's on the horizon to help facilitate the discussion. I've enlisted the assistance of Mr. Bob Schmidt past radio talkshow host a parent and a friend. There's a lot of things is apparent, especially since all for my kids are gone through lacrosse schools that concern the things that are happening in schools that are not good all around the country, you know, I think I we haven't had any issues here in the La Crosse area but when it comes to safety in lacrosse schools. What Things are being done is a lot of things that are been happening over the last several years and unfortunately most of those have been happening as a response to the national scene and tragedies that have taken place in other schools and what we learn from those Sandy Hook really being the one that started a lot more national conversation about school safety, like many other school districts we have stepped out in front as best we can to respond in several different ways. One of the things and probably the most costly thing that we've done is we have now retrofitted every one of our schools and the school district lacrosse to ensure that there is a two-step entryway into the schools by two-step meaning that there is a vestibule there is a there is a place where once you get into the school. There's another holding place that you go in and add before you would see an adult inside of that school so it's kind of a two-stage process to get in and I just to get into the front door. We've also established cameras and an opportunity for person to announce themselves pushing the button I think of the days that you know people Michael in a club and you push a button or sciences was there and so we been able to use security cameras in such a way that someone with a direct line of sight to that doorway can see with the person as they can get a line of vision on that person. They can also buzz in that particular person. And so it does provide for us an opportunity for that person to go through stages before they actually get into the school you know you talk about school safety and I wish that there were guarantees and and in life and and and there really are to whether it's for me or whether it's for you. There just aren't any guarantees that tomorrow morning were to wake up and I wish that there were guarantees, but what I will say is that what our goal is here is to slow people down when someone's coming to school with that terrible intentions. It's to slow people down slow down the process and do what we can to make sure that we have more ample time to to contact we need to contact for help. One of the things to that the La Crosse school district doesn't think does well is that in the middle school and high school. There's a uniformed police officer in those schools all the time right yeah absolutely that's another thing that we've done. It's something that we've included in partnership with the Police Department and that is that we have full-time SRO school resource officers are schools and one of the things that's really true, it's that the job of those individuals is not just to address someone who might break the law someplace on our school campus or thereabouts, but the purpose of that person inside of that particular school is to build relationships of students we want that school resource officer to be connecting with students. We want the school resource officer to be connected with families because what we do find out is that sometimes despite all of the effort in all the work that we put into buy things and to do things inside of the schools like we've been talking about its many times relationships and the capacity for adults to have built strong relationships with students and other family members that we sometimes can get out in front of issues before they died might develop in the something bad at school when it comes to training staff about safety in general. What kind of things are being done to to help our staff out with knowing and being above and being ready to jump in when they need to just make sure that people are not hearing things and just ignoring it, but they are indeed intervening in those types of situations and helping students understand a couple of other things that that were doing in the school district through some grants that came to us from the Department of Justice here in Wisconsin we have on several of our schools. We have installed what we would call some shatterproof a film on some of our schools that again makes it more difficult for an intruder to comment. The other thing that we've done is were implementing what's called a raptor system when someone does come through those front portals to our schools before they can move into the rest of the school or get past that office. They have to swipe their license and that drivers license swipe is actually going through a really quick database that databases helping us better understand if this particular person. For instance, might not be a good person to be in that particular school. We continue to work on those things. I think what's been difficult to see is that we used to do one fire drill per month in a school now are doing active shooter drills, schools, and it's been difficult to watch that transition and it said it's it makes me wonder why got a lot of philosophies about that, but it's one of the discouraging things that I see happening. I really hope that whatever those things are that are milling about that cause these things to happen that they can be addressed whether it's mental health. Whether it's social status than standing on these things need to be addressed. Somehow, because our schools should not be the place where students feel that they are going to school in fear. It should be at least one of several places, but it should always be a place that they feel that they are safe and there amongst adults who care about. Thanks, Randy. I'm looking forward to our next extra conversation retiring superintendent of schools Randy Nelson's extra innings time as a podcastforhire.com

https://www.hypnotistchrisjones.com/
Chris Jones is well known for his appearance on America’s Got Talent when he made the impossible happen: Known germaphobe Howie Mandel shook hands with Heidi, Howard, and Mel live. Since his first TV appearance, Chris has performed on shows like The Steve Harvey Show, Windy City Live, Good Day Chicago, Penn and Teller, Scam School, and the Adam Carolla Show.
This episode we start to talk about Chris Jones buying a house and fatherhood. Listen to where the conversation takes you.
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hows homeownership. The house that's pretty cool little life is pregnant and so I've been moving things because she is working and growing up show you the work and enduring morning sickness I'm packing. How far is the house from where you live is currently 20 minutes okay 25 is that traffic right was not horrible and it is only like 4 miles from the airport. Those that make my commute a lot easier. So tell me about the pregnancy, you know, I'm just trying to be thoughtful because Stacy can't drink I'm not drinking, and the you know like wow I really could have like a nice drink right now and not stressed so much or be in my head, but you don't try to be empathetic, so she can't drink. I'm not drinking the babies up the last time we spoke you pretty excited about the about about a couple things we talked about both of them actually talked about that you know the homeownership and about the about you being a father is kind of weird that only first met. I don't think you'd want to be a dad always met me. I deftly didn't want that responsibility. I would like is all about me I am the focus of the and out like I want attention or when the I rather give someone else realize universe is much, much bigger than I which is an insane concept like I'm one person that there's 7 billion people on the planet like to be self-centered at 30 40 you mean you've grown to come along way you know think about it that way. Thanks. Hello. I blame Stacy for my growth yeah yeah something to blame… That's pretty awesome to think about it. If you think about it like is good. I went to one of those job fairs for myself and I showcase for 30 minutes and usually I could do is show and 30 minute like that's plenty of time, but I didn't but I didn't rock my agent because he likely had anything so graciously heavy on stage like it's on audience like to try to stand up and it's funny you give me an ulcer you know is what you get to the part reinvent. I do your skip and I get to the point of the like, yeah, I do my best and his name is Chris as well and I got up there and I on that. I talked for like eight minutes on my 30 nights in three minutes at a time. People now I got to do one or two skits that I got Chris. I got up I wasn't thrilled with my performance. I got off stage and I was like I Stacy was there. My buddy Adam was there. My videographer was there like guys I'm going to go take a nap because I didn't Bob it wasn't a flop but I give that performance to C+ and it was in front of no 1500 people, but in the real other shady thing is there are other hypnotists performed after me the least to others, and they probably did better than I did and it's just what it is like I'm the guy who who had a target on his back. I went the first day like opening this job fair this conference. I didn't compete like I wanted to, but the house alike in a big way so I can't complain what the teacher I had all these ideas I wanted to share with the audience and Stacy like you know what your goal what your purpose and she sleeps in his ability to do this you like just you have a lot of messages just focus on one of them. I like know about inequality in our talk about this idea as a lady standing up if you Restrain your hand your keychain. Show me your preference. Regular size guys. They're afraid of us. We need to be better is the thing I want to talk was that yeah I hear you Stacy like you could just do that at the school. You don't need to go on your platform you know every chance you can you wait to your on-campus yeah but one might ask people from all 50 states in a room at one is like the size of the listeners is a focus on entertainment so I got to the school like a guy I get upset because women have to walk around in the dark with your keeping your fingers and rape whistle and pepper spray and we drunk guys and distributors we want and stucco his own apartment like you understand. I like how privileged we are. So what did I learn you now as you hurry you can drill five whole 5 feet deep, boating, drill one whole 25 feet but you can't do both. Like make your message firm or make five messages whatever dream is and not structurally sound. The binder that make sense yeah actually it does you got that you can 3:30 or four or you can do, wanted to know, yeah, the last thing that all I'll let you go. I think part of that is because I needed someone to talk to. I admitted their personal a while. I haven't had sharing time I got out of the time but just losing my headphones is not enough. I didn't do any writing talk venting all of this is just me moving +567 days by myself with the dog, and the like Tom Hanks and castaway we can just talk to your dog than that of an object being you have my number brother you can always call me I do and that you talk me on a great day like you talking on visiting my mom. My grandma Terry and I'm not a cemetery guy all hang there for all of 60 seconds and I'm like well the bugs I'm leaving cemetery are not my cup of tea

To find out more about Initiate Demand please check out their website https://www.initiatedemand.com/
Follow them on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/initiatedemand/ and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/initiatedemand/
Transcription is for seo purpose only. Your brand name is initiate demand orders competently. It took a while we looked at what we do well we help people really get started. We help them in different formats really start to reach their audience well and because there's so much turmoil in the delivery of content were continually having to initiate new things for the same client with the same content in different formats what content is king. These days content all content content is better than buying ads pretty much buy anything if you have great content, people will consume it but it has to be presented correctly. A lot of people will put up walls of text or poor images or poor video. If you put forth content its poor people tune you out. It's really easy nowadays to simply unlike something or block it or not follow it anymore. We do those things you lose an audience member. So is no content better than poor content. Yes it is. I've seen interesting success with people who know their audience well your audience is someone who they've done business with always over the phone so they will market their basic product with their phone number. They don't have a lot of content on top of that, and those people and turn around and call them it in. That's how that business works and I think that's a key is understanding the business, how it has reached its clients or customers, but more importantly, how else can they in some cases you can only reach specific types of clientele by getting them on the phone. In other cases, you can only get to them through a podcast like were doing today and now we had this distributed market so used to have TV, radio, newspaper, for the most part was a main advertising formats. Now content is distributed in hundreds of different ways and so you need to really have a good content strategy for every chance that your content will be out there and gain someone's attention does a different content reach different clients completely. Please radio. For instance, podcasting reaches way more people in an audio format than radio does today and those people are typically under 30 there already consuming podcast there on spot a fire there using another podcasting type tool or music tool and that's where they find you know, one of the things that we talk about is how the audience is changed. They've moved Hill used to be in that traditional market right your audience was consuming most of your content from TV, radio, newspaper print, then the Internet exploded brought Google on the play. Everyone wanted to be found in the search and want to be found in Google that still important, but was changed now since then is social media. Your audience is now in social media there on their Facebook app all day there and LinkedIn all day there on tick-tock or some other social media apps that they have on their phone that they don't leave that environment so only search for something they don't go out to a browser they search from within that application. That's how they find you and so you had to find ways to reach those audiences almost different places can initiate demand. Help me to do that. That's what we do. That's were very good at how we take the time to understand your business, your customers, not just your existing or potential, and where there consuming content. What type of content they prefer and then how their consuming. Someone may not want to read two paragraphs. Might one of read three sentences they might want a visual image they might want a short video they might want just animate a gift or some humor. It's really take some time to understand the right process. You know in our market. Now we see a large trend to people selling just pay per click ads on Google because in our market. People have been there. Still, in that I want to be on Google search radar and it does help them because right now they're not. But really what would help them even beyond that is to get them into those social realms where they're not performing well and that's one thing that's difficult for most is it's very easy for anyone to create a Facebook page. It's very easy for anyone to create a business page on LinkedIn or have a Pinterest account and post a bunch of stuff there is a misconception that the amount of likes I get current is positive the number of likes you have with content doesn't necessarily mean people are engaged in what you're doing. It simply means liking is easy and it's so easy that Instagram removed likes because it's not a good indicator of what people are looking to turn those views into potential clients. That's the key is to get them, not just from a view, but to get them engaged to have content that causes them to want to do something, whether it's make a comment call you send you a note send you a message you know instant message you through an app, it's really getting them to react in a positive way about what you're talking about about what your content subject matter is and that's what were lacking right now with a lot of social media content that I see out there so is paid versus organic better when it comes to reaching new clients paid as fast, organic is a longer-term process, you can turn much more quickly in the paid solution, but that longer-term content strategy through organic search will last longer. It will have longer value over time. So the question is really, are you trying to quickly enter into a market or specific audience or demographic. And I would see do both. Both of what you know what you're doing is to be that way. Can you be successful at both. Of course you can be very successful both. The issue is making certain that your targeting your audience correctly when I say that I don't mean having the right demographics picked for your ad. I mean having the right content in place. I've had clients who try to replicate what we've done and they don't understand why a specific image works as well as it does to cause a reaction to cause him to engage in what you're doing and they just don't understand and that's okay because their role in their business is not to know how to do that their role in their businesses to run their business and to be a part of their business. There's a reason that I don't do my own plumbing in my house. I call a plumber could I do it sure should I Heck no. So you're the guy that'll come in when your quote. Brother-in-law knows how to do website or your quote child knows how to set up a Facebook page or your you know your best friend's son or daughter is a is great at twitter you're the guy that comes in and does the cleanup. A lot of times, yes. But the difficulty is understanding those previous efforts. You see IA's people are liking our page. People are liking your content and right now the assumption is that is very positive, but likes are so easy, it's not engaging you need to be engaged in your and your client base need to post things they want to read it in our world. Not many people want to read about social media and how to market it. Not many people want to understand it from a business right what's right way to go ahead and and tackle some of these things, you know that you know we talked about we talk we talked a little bit about paid versus organic. We talked about the different you know putting putting stuff up and putting it up regularly. But what's the right way to go ahead and tackle getting new clients with my social media search really good strategy you have to have a strategy before you attack any of a lot of people will simply look at I just want to bid on a keyword and I'll do that but that keyword brings them to say their website or landing page, but their website itself doesn't convert that customer doesn't turn them into someone who calls them, or engages in their website or their podcast or whatever that that content is being pushed to from that paper click add and so all of a sudden they don't see good conversion rate on what they're doing and they just give up when, in essence, the ad was good targeting was good it was causing people to go to that secondary location there website or something else with their website itself wasn't set up to convert someone. It wasn't set up well to do that and sometimes those changes can be very simple. One of the best things you can do is stop hiding your contact information on the contact page. If I hit it. If I click on an ad and I go to your website and I want to call you. I'm not typically going to click two or three more times. I want to know how to get a hold of you right now, especially with small businesses. It's very relevant

Transcription is for SEO purposes only. To find out more about the city of La Crosse please visit their website www.cityoflacrosse.org to find out more about Podcast For Hire please visit PodcastForHire.com
This is Jason Gilman, the director, planning and development for the city of La Crosse and my role is basically to make sure that the plans that the city ratifies. That is, the Council adopts are implemented in those plans largely focused on ways that we can improve the city from a quality-of-life standpoint, but if you break it down into baby for digestible areas. You can think about economics, environmental conditions, social conditions and cultural conditions. Those are the pillars of most plan implementation gets done by, usually three different tools that municipal government has at its disposal. One would be regulation or deregulation second would be financial programs that would have some measure of return on the public's investment and then the third would be education and awareness of networking, so this would be things like making sure that were constantly reaching out to investors to nongovernmental organizations to neighborhood associations and keeping people colored with good information about city. The city's comprehensive plan is now 18 years old… Are you planning on doing to retire that plan and to start with a new one, were actually working on a plan update. Right now it's customary for a comprehensive plan to have about a 20 year shelf life. If we look at a snapshot of our last 20 we seem very significant changes from the great recession to lots of construction downtown La Crosse to rapidly aging population. The first phase is really to collect information about the city to update all the data is both primary and secondary data so the primary data would be survey information unique information from our citizens. Secondary data would be the stuff that's available on the web from demographics to the Department of workforce development and other sources and we really look at that data in defense and offense of categories for the defense. It would be decisions over the next decade to mitigate downside risk so you can think about some of the risks cities are facing like decaying infrastructure or mental health issues in the community or aging could be one although there's a positive side to aging to but we want to make sure we address the issues that could affect quality of life of our aging population. Climate action is another one, and several others in the offense of side is really to build capacity. How do we make a better city so that citizens have a better quality of life. Then they might elsewhere that can be everything from affordable housing and economic security for people to bolstering our neighborhood Association so people can be civic. We engaged in their city with good information and access to resources and other things like that Kissimmee did mention housing affordability, and I know that in the 28 years that I've owned a house on the cross that the housing market is kind of gone up all puppet away how how do we bring those prices back down so they can be more affordable for the average person to be home water. It's a real conundrum and in cities because were really facing the perfect storm. We have high levels of retention because of aging population. People are wanting to age in place and that's partly due to the fact that we don't have enough senior housing to meet demand, or enough of the variety that seniors are looking for like urban tall houses or condominiums think like that. The other part of that is construction inflation were facing unprecedented construction inflation or new construction for single-family homes is pushing $200 a square foot or more. And the problem manifests in other ways because he should be spending more than 30% of your debt income on housing related costs and if you're spending 50 or 60% it leaves you vulnerable to other problems with the stuff you basically just been talking about. Is there any hopes for maybe the old ShopKo's or Kmart or any of the other vacant properties that are out there to maybe have those become affordable. Yeah, absolutely. And that that's really what's exciting about some of these what we call greenfield sites which are really in transition from the old big box retail model to something more current. A lot of the success stories around the United States with regard doing adaptive reuse or retrofitting of those old retail sites are showing more compact retail Lake neighborhood retail which could be anything from coffee shops to insurance and fitness centers, and other things in the context of mixed-use of the year housing component and that housing component could be a combination of senior housing affordable housing market rate housing and it's usually vertical construction, which is yield better land utilization more tax base for the city but it also puts people closer to services so they can all live, work and play in the same area. Let me ask you this strength score La Crosse. I would say in our strengths here are tremendous employers that are in growth mode are great medical institutions are schools the fact that we have urban elementary schools which give people great quality-of-life neighborhoods. We have beautiful older housing stock. Even though some of it needs REIT rehabilitation. It's it's on the up ticking on terms of investment lot. Lots of strengths and then of course are natural firemen gets talked about all the time. With regard to homeport matters in your life have access to patron recreation and then external opportunities. I think there are all kinds of things like Viking cruise lines wanting to invest on the Mississippi River docking 7 to 12 times a season and having international visitors enjoy our city and shop at our doors downtown and help our local business owners can then then I would say energy innovation. We got some great minds in the city with train company in our universities and our power companies that are shifting gears to renewable energy and provide people with more cost-effective services that are more environmentally sound

https://www.hypnotistchrisjones.com/
Chris Jones is well known for his appearance on America’s Got Talent when he made the impossible happen: Known germaphobe Howie Mandel shook hands with Heidi, Howard, and Mel live. Since his first TV appearance, Chris has performed on shows like The Steve Harvey Show, Windy City Live, Good Day Chicago, Penn and Teller, Scam School, and the Adam Carolla Show.
This episode we start to talk about Chris Jones buying a house and not touching the water. Listen to where the conversation takes you.

Transcription is for SEO purposes only. To find out more about the city of La Crosse please visit their website www.cityoflacrosse.org to find out more about Podcast For Hire please visit PodcastForHire.com
Were always looking for new and innovative ways to try to tell the story of what goes on in city government and services and projects that were working on and I think this is a great opportunity to do that to have a monthly podcast with various departments and economic can highlight things that people don't know about that our city government. Mayor Tim Kabat why electing the mayor of city of La Crosse. It's really about our people here we have such an incredible community and I think there's a lot of folks that point out the natural beauty in the river and the bluffs in the Martian and just being able to get outside. Here is particularly special for me it's all about the people in the hospitality and just the friendliness and and what it means to live and work and play in the La Crosse area. I think you know when I hear stories all the time and and get to experience it firsthand of just how nice people are here and that just have so much to offer not only the outdoor recreation. We got a great downtown that has a lot of just wonderful restaurants and bars and music in your looking for that nightlife. It's it's here. You've got great employers send place to work, so they just all in all of course I'm perhaps a little bit biased, but I just happen to think that this is a wonderful community and it's because of the people that live here and work here that really make a huge difference there. Tim Kabat talking about the city of La Crosse was the vision for 2020s we got a number of exciting projects in the works. I think for us. It's all about focus on these essential services. So are our street repairs and working on our infrastructure and trying to get caught up with getting potholes fixed and in those types of things the public safety aspect were looking at, you know, additional opportunities for expanding our neighborhood policing program, which is been very successful and I'm hoping to be able to break ground on a new Northside fire station this year. I think that's in the works. So from that those essential services the streets and police and fire. I think we do that is good as anybody. But what really makes a community special is how we take care of our most vulnerable citizens. So working on things like our homeless challenges are affordable housing needs were part of the B alliance to heal, which is a multi partner group that's been working and will be working over the course the next couple years to really focus on improving our treatment for people that are experiencing substance abuse and mental health issues when were able to do those things and and then of course obviously beautiful parks in our libraries and just our quality of life when were able to do that then were really, I think exceeding our expectations of the community. The other projects like the La Crosse center in me. That's under construction. Now that's a very significant regional project that is going to mean a lot when it comes to concerts and events and conventions in bringing community together. So I look forward to 2020 think there's a lot of excellent things in the works I think so to just from hearing you talk about it and things I've seen on the do's and read in the paper as well. When it comes to being a newbie or somebody just moved La Crosse or just visited La Crosse for the first time. What are some of the things that you would definitely tell people that you have to see light think that again. If you're looking at getting outside so getting to Hickson forest and hiking the trails they are getting in the La Crosse River marsh having opportunities on the river that's what it means to live here in this community and have the natural resources that we do. But then it is really to kind of experience the things downtown amine Lake everybody's got their favorites is the mayor. All of them are my favorites. I can't just say I can't pick one, but I know it's the ice cream shop since the restaurants as the bars. I think you know we still have a number of of neighborhood taverns that are part of our culture. I think the things like the loggers games in the summertime. Any and all of those if I if I was new to La Crosse I that's what I would be looking to experience because it gives you kind of the sense of what it means to be part of this community. Being a La Crosse resident for the last 29 years myself. I didn't realize it there's 46 parks in the cross. Yeah, it's pretty it's pretty amazing for community. Again, our size and they really range a menu got large open spaces. You've got kind of small neighborhood parks. You got the trail connections and then everything in between and were really working hard to try to know, take care of those improvements, and sometimes there's your people wonder like what we should be spending all of the cities monies on roads and fixing nose and wiry spending money on parks while parks are definitely a part of this infrastructure as a community and our quality-of-life and were working hard to try to make sure that you know keeping them well-maintained and fixing them up when we need to.

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To find out more about the Wisconsin Great River Road please check out the website www.WiGRR.com
find out more about at deanklinkenberg.com.
Bob: [He’s] the author of a couple really cool books – actually, a handful of really cool books – dealing with the upper Mississippi River and the Wisconsin Great River Road, as well as the entire Great River Road. Dean Klinkenberg [is] my guest this month on the Wisconsin Great River Road Podcast. Dean, I appreciate you spending some time with us to talk about the beauty that is the Wisconsin Great River Road.
Dean: Thanks for having me on. I love talking about the river.
Bob: Dean, you currently live on the Mississippi, in St. Louis, but you spent some time up in La Crosse, Wisconsin. What was the start of the love for Dean Klinkenberg and the mighty Mississippi River?
Dean: I blame it on La Crosse, mostly. I went to college there; I moved there in 1982 to start college. Being that close to the Mississippi, I took pretty good advantage of the opportunities to get outside and experience the river when I lived there. I had a couple favorite activities that I did often. I loved hiking around in the bluffs and going to places around Grandad Bluff that I wasn’t supposed to go to – of course, don’t do that [because] you’re not supposed to do that – and riding my bike down to the river to the favorite spots for me to sit and brood. I just loved going down to the river and watching it swirl and watching the animals and the birds. The first time I canoed on the Mississippi was also from La Crosse. For some reason, my friend and I started off by paddling upriver. We weren’t the brightest at that age, but we made some progress and got up to some old beach, then we stopped and swam and had a little lunch before we paddled back. It just left a big impression on me from those years in La Crosse.
Bob: It is a beautiful area. I moved here in 1992 thinking I’d be here a year or two, and here it is 27 years later and I’m still enjoying La Crosse, for sure. One of the books you wrote is called, “Small Town Pleasures,” and I’m assuming there’s probably some small-town pleasures here in Wisconsin.
Dean: There are a lot. It’s one of the things that I think sets the Wisconsin Great River Road apart from other areas. It’s mostly small communities. You have places like Fountain City and Alma. [They are] these small, little river towns that have done a great job of maintaining their river identities and staying really connected to the river. Because you have so many small communities, you have a lot of small-town businesses. You have a lot of businesses that are owned locally. I like patronizing those small, local businesses as much as I can because the money I spend tends to stay in those communities. And you’re not sacrificing the least bit of quality. These are all great places, so it’s fantastic. People are generally nice and making sure you have a good experience. It’s just great all around.
Bob: You’ve had the opportunity to travel the entire Great River Road multiple times, I’m assuming.
Dean: Multiple times. I was just thinking about that today. There may be 50 to 100 miles of pavement I haven’t driven yet. I’m kind of losing track of how many miles I’ve driven just along the Great River Road since I started doing it, but I know it’s over 125,000 miles.
Bob: You’re driving that much and spending that much time on the Mississippi. Do you have a favorite spot in Wisconsin on the Great River Road?
Dean: Where I am at the moment. Just wherever I am at that moment. It’s hard to pick a favorite spot. I will say that that stretch of the Great River Road from Prescott down to Sandy Hook is among my favorite drives anywhere. Picking a couple of favorite spots along there, it’s really hard because there are so many that I enjoy.
Bob: The other book that you wrote, “Road Tripping Along The Great River Road,” talk a little bit about that and some of the cool road trips that there are here on the Wisconsin Great River Road.
Dean: One of the reasons I started writing these books is I was discouraged to see people who had heard so much about the Mississippi and went out of their way to drive to the banks of the river, took a look at it, and then drove on somewhere else. I wanted to give people more of a context for what they’re seeing and help them understand why they needed to spend more time along the Mississippi. All my books spend a fair amount of time describing local history for each of the communities along the river, and then giving people different ideas of things that they can see and do while they’re there. I know people like to take day trips when they drive along the Great River Road and then they zip back up to the Twin Cities or Madison or wherever. You need some time to really get to know it well. The Mississippi begs you to slow down. To really get to know it well, you need to take your time and explore it slowly, spend some time in the communities, spend a couple nights here [and] a couple nights there. You can do weekend trips over portions of the Wisconsin Great River Road, particularly around Lake Pepin. The Wisconsin communities along Lake Pepin would be great for a weekend. I know people tend to rush through those. I’d like people to set aside two or three days to do that. Traveling and being along the Mississippi is what was making me happy.
Bob: It’s awesome when you can find something you love to do and make some money at it at the same time. You’ve written a bunch of books, which is really cool. You’ve written nonfiction as well as some fiction books. Tell me about how we can find out more information about you, Dean.
Dean: There are two websites that I maintain. Mississippitraveler.com is the site where I have travel information about places along the Mississippi. I also write fiction. I write mysteries that are set in places along the Mississippi. Two of them are in print: Rock Island Lines and Double Dealing in Dubuque. The third book, which should be out next year, is tentatively called “Letting Go in La Crosse.” That will be topical, sort of the Wisconsin Great River Road. Those you can find out more about at deanklinkenberg.com.