It was a perfect day this past weekend for anglers in southwest Wisconsin to take to the lake and try their luck in the 6th annual Atomic Ice Derby.
Almost 800 anglers gathered on Lake Onalaska for a chance at prizes and enjoy an afternoon of fishing.
Scott Gartner, owner of Bob’s Bait and Tackle in La Crosse, started this tournament six years ago with a buddy to generate greater interest in the outdoors and support local businesses.
“We just decided we want to have an ice derby,” Gartner said. “It started out with just around 200 people and grew from there.”
This ice fishing contest is unique. Instead of the only prize being for the biggest fish, and only going after one type of fish, anglers have multiple chances to claim bragging rights.
The contest allows anglers to go after five species that have to be at least a certain length: Bluegills (7 ½ inches or more), perch (9 ½ inches or more), crappie (10 inches or more), bass (17 inches or more), and northern (30 inches or more).
An angler can weigh in up to five of each species for a total of 25 for the tournament. Any fish weighed in that reaches the slot limit, is given an entry into the raffle for a chance to win $10,000 and series of other prizes, which included rod and reel combos, and cash prizes. Unfortunately for anglers in this years derby, no one took home the $10,000 grand prize.
Anglers from all across the area came out to test their luck. Ed Slimen of Taylor, Wisconsin, has fished in all six derbies that have been put on that have been put on by this group.
“If I didn’t have to work, I probably would fish all day long,” Slimen said about being on the ice.
Ed Slimen of Taylor, Wis. caught this 18-inch largemouth bass during the Atomic Ice Derby. (Photo by Kip Kovar)
Slimen found luck in six feet of water, landing a 18-inch largemouth bass on a tip up rigged with a shiner. Slimen was enjoying the time on the ice with his daughter who also partakes in the derby almost every year.
Jared Albitz of Onalaska is also a regular at the derby. Albitz found success in the northern category, catching a 37-inch northern shortly before the weigh in.
Jared Albitz of Onalaska caught this 37-inch northern in the Atomic Ice Derby. (Photo by Kip Kovar)
This event is a test for serious anglers trying to prove their skills, and for families with young kids. Beth Zimmerman of Onalaska brought her kids, Remi and Braeden, out to enjoy the beautiful day on the ice.
“The newness of it, for them, is great,” Zimmerman said. “It’s our first time with them out here.”
Braeden said he loved to be able to spend some time on the ice with family.
“You get to catch big fish,” Braeden said about his favorite about being on the ice.
At the end of the day, the Atomic Ice Derby is a great way for area anglers all to gather and enjoy the outdoors with friends and family. A portion of the proceeds made from the tournament is donated to the St. Jude’s Children Hospital.
Boaters on Minnesota waters are supposed to take measures to prevent the spread of aquatic invasive species. A new law might have boaters staying off Minnesota water and roadways altogether.
According to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Statute 86B.13 will require boaters to take an educational training course about aquatic invasive species and pass an online test to legalize the transportation of watercrafts to and from different bodies of water.
Common aquatic invasive species include the zebra mussel. Image created by Jordan Gerard.
April Rust, an invasive species training coordinator for the DNR, said a lot of aquatic invasive species laws were changed in 2011 and 2012. In the legislation package, one of them was a required boat sticker, four inches wide and eight inches tall, which stated the aquatic invasive species laws.
“What the law stated was anyone that was using any watercraft in Minnesota would have to put the sticker somewhere on their boat, just so they would have the laws with them,” Rust said. “People did not like it and it was less than a year in the next legislative session, that thing was repealed. We had printed some and already had gotten them out and so there was a lot of confusion about it and there was no training or education requirement. All it said was that you need one of these stickers that are free at a DNR office. Call or stop by and get one and put it on your boat.”
Rust said it was very unpopular and the legislature repealed it, but there was “incredible pressure” by groups, lake associations and citizen groups who wanted make sure people knew and followed aquatic invasive species laws.
The new 2015 program, originally set to launch in January and officially required on July 1, 2015, would have boaters take an online course for $5 to learn about aquatic invasive species and then to pass a ten-point quiz at the end, which can be taken as many times as people need. They would receive a decal to be display on their trailers and renew it once every three years, Rust said. If owners have more than one watercraft, they can receive extra stickers.
There was also a paper version ready to be printed for those who do not have Internet, which would cost $11. The $5 online fee would cover the vendor’s costs to manage and host the online content, Rust said.
“Anyone transporting water related equipment in Minnesota would need to take the short course,” Rust said. “And the course in the statute says that the course will instruct people about aquatic invasive species and aquatic invasive species laws in Minnesota.”
Rust said she isn’t sure where the idea came from, be it legislation, citizen groups or staff, but the DNR did not start it.
“This wasn’t ours necessarily, other than we got pulled into it because of our jurisdiction,” Rust said. “So the purpose was to just to make sure that people knew aquatic invasive species laws and to follow it to lower the risk of spreading aquatic invasive species.”
Aquatic invasive species are not native to specific bodies of water and cause environmental or human harm. Zebra mussels, specific types of carp, and weeds are the most invasive species, which can suffocate native plants and disrupt natural habitats, according to the DNR. A full list is available at http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/index.html.
The DNR said aquatic invasive species are spread by not washing off aquatic plants from trailers and watercraft, not draining live wells or water tanks before leaving boat landings, not removing drain plugs and releasing live bait into the water.
Rust said there was mixed opposition and support of the law, but most people wanted to comply with the law.
“They got a lot of phone calls and I would say just from talking to them and from the calls I got, the majority of people calling just wanted to ask questions or get registered to take the course,” Rust said.
Rust said she teaches aquatic invasive species training for businesses that require permits, such as lake associations, boat haulers and irrigators, which take a three-hour training, every three years, and pay $50 for a permit.
“At least 20 percent of them were gung-ho about it, and then a bunch in the middle who just had logistical questions or just wanted to get it and didn’t express an opinion either way,” Rust said.
She estimated about 10 percent of boaters were upset about the law, and those are the ones who have been active and gotten legislators involved. There’s a Facebook group, “Repeal MN Statute 86B.13,” which has 3,450 likes and posts updates about the law’s progress in the legislature. Rust added there is “a lot of misinformation about the program out there.”
“It’s not to dismiss it. They are some of the loudest voices,” Rust said. “I’d say the majority are either supportive or neutral about it.”
Competitive bass angler Cade Laufenberg said he takes the necessary precautions by law to prevent invasive species spreading.
“I do not go through great lengths or above and beyond my call of duty to do such. I do not have time to wash and dry my boat thoroughly after each use when I fish as often as five days per week,” Laufenberg said. “I drain my live wells, remove any weeds from the trailer and boat and wipe down the boat with a water-based solution.”
On Jan. 28, the DNR said in a news release the training course would be “postponed while legislators consider changes to the program.” They also said there were “concerns with the way the law was written.” One concern was boaters traveling through Minnesota but not launching in Minnesota waters, would still need the required training and sticker.
The decals must be obtained through the training course and once received, “must be displayed on the tongue of the trailer near the hitch and does not interfere with any other sticker regulations,” according to the DNR.
If boaters are found without the decal after July 1, they will be ordered by conservation officers to take the training course before continuing to operate or transport watercraft, according to the DNR.
Laufenberg agrees “we should be doing something to prevent the spread of aquatic invasive species” and said “the AIS program has good intentions, but the methods used to try and implement this are a burden on the public who use the waterways and bring so much to Minnesota’s economy.”
“Why should boaters be required to pay additional fees on top of the fees we already pay just to continue using the waterways?” Laufenberg said. “I think the law passing will make virtually no difference whatsoever in the number of invasive species.”
Rust said fewer than five percent of Minnesota’s lakes, numbering 12,000 and about 6,500 rivers and streams, are infected with aquatic invasive species and are listed on the infested waters list.
“It’s not as horrific a picture as I think the public perception is,” Rust said. “Not to dismiss it at all, but it’s not like it’s a done deal where every water body is going to be infested with all of these things.”
Education is the main tool the DNR uses to prevent aquatic invasive species from spreading. The basics of the education programs help boaters know about aquatic invasive species and what they should be doing and the basic laws and how to lower the risk of spreading them, Rust said.
“Prevention is definitely the first priority because if you can keep species out, that’s the most cost-effective easiest way to do it,” Rust said. “There’s a whole bunch of methods, out reach and communication, watercraft inspectors, official DNR ones that have pressure wash stations and will do decontaminations on boats for people for free.”
They also use campaigns, grants and volunteer inspectors trained by DNR staff. The inspectors do not have legal authority, but Rust said the DNR has extended their authority to require inspections and have that force of law.
“We can give that authority to county or city or local unit of government and their employees can be trained and have the equivalent of DNR inspector,” Rust said.
Rust said that a new zebra mussel researcher at the University of Minnesota Research Center said “zebra mussels in Minnesota have spread a decade slower than they have in other Great Lakes states.”
“We don’t know if it’s an effect of geography or our programming or what, but it’s been slower here,” Rust said. “That being said, once a water body is infested, eradication is almost impossible.”
Rust said she thought the new training program would contribute to fewer violations at the check stations and collection points. Compliance rates are compared every year and the rates are going down each year, Rust said.
“Last summer it was 16 or 17 percent at our random check stations of violation rates,” Rust said. “When you’re talking about a few people it would take to spread to a different water body, that’s still too high a percentage.”
Winona State University announced a reassignment to new duties for the Vice President for University Advancement on Thursday, Jan. 22.
Former Vice President for University Advancement Ernie Troy Hughes
According to an email sent to all university accounts, the direction Ernie Hughes introduced did not align with President Scott Olson’s vision for advancing Winona State.
His new duties will focus on “enrollment strategies that will benefit the university,” the email read.
Previous Vice President Gary Evans will return and serve as an interim until a new vice president can be found. The university’s search will “begin immediately,” according to the email.
Gary Evans returns to his former position as Vice President for University Advancement in an interim position.
Hughes was an “at-will” employee of the university, which means an employee can be fired without a just cause for termination.
Olson hired Hughes in June 2014 and his term started Aug. 11, 2014 with a salary of $155,000.
The job description included planning, coordinating, managing and implementing all fundraisers for Winona State and the WSU Foundation, which provides scholarships for students and funding for university programs.
Hughes was also a senior member on the president’s Council of Administrators and served on the President’s Cabinet.
Other duties included reaching out to business and community leaders as well as supervising advancement, communications, alumni services, creative services, government relations, Foundation finance and communicates with the Foundation Board of Trustees.
Hughes’s resume showed several degrees in leadership and advancement positions. He holds a doctor of philosophy degree in human resource development from Louisiana State University, a master of business administration degree in marketing and a bachelor of business administration degree in finance and logistics from Mississippi State University.
Before his position at Winona State, Hughes held similar positions. From August 2010 to October 2013, he was the vice president for advancement and executive director of the System Foundation at Southern University System in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which is a network of five universities in Louisiana.
According to his resume, during his term at Southern University System, he increased donations by 34 percent, increased unrestricted gifts by 37 percent with the creation of a leadership giving society. He was also responsible for soliciting gifts of $5,000 and higher from alumni and non-alumni friends. Notably, he secured a $2.4 million gift for the University system.
Alex Hines, inclusion and diversity director at WSU, was acquainted with Hughes during his time at WSU.
“I think he’s a dynamic African-American male,” Hines said. “He’s genuine, sincere, honest. We enjoyed each other’s company.”
Hughes and Olson were unavailable for comment. Olson was off-campus at the MnSCU Board Meeting and deferred to Cristeen Custer, assistant vice president for marketing and communications, who said in an email that the statement sent on Jan. 22, “is the only information we will be providing on this topic.”
The blank space in Somsen Hall where the stolen piece used to hang. (photo by Tom Wick)
On January 21 a painting was reported stolen from the Winona State University campus. It had been missing for at least a few weeks or as long as two months, according to the report filed by WSU with the Winona police.
That painting, by Robert Pearson, had hung in the stairwell of Somsen Hall since 1986. The stolen painting is one of nine original oil paintings in a collection of artwork donated by the Watkins family in the 1920s and ‘30s known colloquially as the Watkins collection. Of those nine original oil paintings, all were accounted for until January 21.
The painting was appraised for $15,000 in 1986 (adjusted for inflation, about $31,000 in today’s dollars), but at the time of the theft the university was seeking funds to have the painting and other parts of the collection restored.
To Winona State officials like Ralph Townsend, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and one of the collections unofficial curators, the painting is worth far more and tells an interesting story as part of WSU’s Watkins Art collection.
“The collection is more than the sum of its parts,” said Townsend, “it’s an important part of WSU’s history and example of philanthropy in the 1920s.”
The roughly 600-piece collection was donated over a 10-year period during the 1920s and ’30s by Paul Watkins, the second CEO of Watkins Incorporated. Though the collection was never officially inventoried upon receipt, most accounts agree on the relative number of donated items.
Of the original 600 pieces, Winona State can now only account for about 300. According to Townsend and historical records, most of the pieces are what Townsend refers to as “paper pieces” which include prints, engravings, lithographs and photos, many of which Paul Watkins collected while traveling the world.
Most of these remaining “paper pieces” have been removed from their frames and stored in a filing cabinet based on the recommendations of conservators until they can be properly re-framed. There are plans to display some of them in 2016 if funding is available. While Townsend considers the Watkins collection to be important, spending thousands of dollars per-painting for restorations or even a few hundred to have a piece properly re-framed is difficult politically and monetarily.
Townsend said WSU has also gained a source of advice from the staff at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona, particularly MMAM Executive Director Andrew Maus. Maus has been advising the university on how to maintain the collection in a fiscally responsible way.
Maus’ first piece of advice was to create a dedicated art storage facility, so the pieces not on display were moved from the library basement where they were kept for decades to what used to be the map storage room for WSU’s geography department.
“It’s good to see Winona State taking a very proactive role in the collection,” said Maus.
Anyone with information about the stolen painting should contact the Winona police at 507-457-6368 or Winona State Security at 507-457-5555 .
Young tanners in Minnesota haven’t found warmth from the use of tanning beds this winter.
Peter Freese, owner of Electric Beach By GQ on Huff Street and GQ Hairstyling Tanning on Gilmore Avenue in Winona, said he hasn’t felt repercussions from a tanning law that prohibited minors from using tanning beds on August 1, 2014.
It was no surprise to Freese the indoor tanning industry was under attack.
He chose to ignore it.
Minors comprised two percent of his tanners and business, according to Freese.
“It hasn’t affected our business at all,” Freese said.
The tanning prohibition was a feel-good law, according to Freese.
“I think most parents if it was put to a question, would agree the law takes away parental rights,” Freese said.
Most teens come in with parents to get pre-tans before trips to warmer areas to prevent sunburn, according to Freese.
GQ Hairstyling Tanning on Gilmore Ave. is owned by Peter Freese.
In May 2014, Minnesota legislators and governor Mark Dayton signed a bill to prohibit minors the use of tanning beds.
DeAnn Lazovich, associate professor in the school of public health at the University of Minnesota, Ph.D., M.P.H., conducted a study on indoor tanning and its dangerous effects.
The American Cancer Society organized a lobbying campaign for stronger indoor tanning laws for the state of Minnesota, Lazovich said.
Lazovich educated legislators about the risks of indoor tanning.
“I was available as an expert on the topic,” Lazovich said.
Lazovich’s study found those who used indoor tanning beds have a 74 percent chance of melanoma, which is the most serious type of skin cancer.
“Minors are at a higher risk because adolescents are more likely to try out risky behaviors,” Lazovich said.
The accumulated number of tanning sessions increased the risk of skin cancer.
When a 16-year-old girl starts tanning, it’s likely she will carry it into adulthood, and by age 30, the tanning sessions are built up dramatically, Lazovich explained.
A stand-up tanning bed at GQ Hairstyling Tanning on Gilmore Ave. owned by Peter Freese.
“Melanoma is the second most common type of cancer found in young women and in high school girls,“ Lazovich said.
Michelle Strangis, cancer policy coordinator at the Minnesota Department of Health, explained how the American Cancer Society’s lobbying group gathered legislation authors for the bill and then carried it through the session.
“I’m really hopeful people are going to decrease their tanning. I think they will start thinking of tan skin as damaged skin and not beautiful,” Strangis said.
Strangis provided research information for legislators through two news releases.
The first release in January 2013 stated melanoma has increased in white, 20 to 49 year old women in Minnesota.
“For the last 15 years, melanoma has increased by four percent in these women,” Strangis said.
This is the highest increase rate of any type of cancer Strangis explained.
“That’s a very concerning statistic from a public health perspective,” she said.
In January 2014, a second release focused on the dangers of indoor tanning amongst white female students in 11 grade in Minnesota.
In this group, 34 percent said they tanned once in the last year. Secondly, the majority of this group said they tanned ten or more times in the past year, according to Strangis.
“Those two press releases generated a lot of media and were influential for getting support for the bill to prohibit persons under 18 tanning at salons,” Strangis said.
Through the American Cancer Society and once lobbyists got organized, the bill passed rapidly in the summer of 2014, Lazovich said.
For tanning salon owner, Freese, he saw the legislation as politicians “at their best” and a “small victory.”
This blog-based web site is dedicated to publishing the work of Winona State University journalism students, particularly those involved in the senior journalism capstone course. Articles, video, photographs and audio segments will appear here, all researched, written, photographed, edited and published by students.
Please read the articles and view the images, then feel free to comment on them — good or bad — to help students learn and grow from this experience.
