The Menomonie High School Drama Department will be presenting Radium Girls October 31st through November 2nd at the Menomonie High School auditorium. Tickets are $5 and can be purchased at the door.
Don't miss out! Tickets are going fast, but you can still get yours today, HERE.
An Evening with Dana Bowman:
"When Dana speaks, she speaks with humility, compassion and humor. Not only is she energetic and dynamic (and a little nutty at times) she is also a women full of grace."
This event is sponsored by Arbor Place in Menomonie
From the Arbor Place Facebook page.
Bring your friends and your brain for a night of Trivia in the Spirit Room. Grab a seat, sip a cocktail, and test your wits for the chance to win prizes!
From the Facebook event page.
Join us for an evening of wine tasting and appreciation!
We’ll be sharing six of our favorite wines - three red and three white - each paired with a complementary amuse-bouche.
Chris Freeman, our in-house wine aficionado, will be here to pour, educate, and inspire a deeper understanding of different wine varieties and how to enjoy them. This is sure to be a fun and enlightening event, we hope you can join us.
Cost: $65/person, $120/couple, $240/group of 4, and includes a tasting of 6 of our favorite wines with a paired bite
Registration is required and can be done HERE.
From the Facebook event page.
Wyatt Thomson's Menomonie Album release party for Sad Records & Country Tunes on Friday, November 8th at the Raw Deal!
$10, show starts at 7:00 P.M.
Opening set by Cap'n Seabeard. https://www.facebook.com/Capnseabeard/
The Driftless Revelers will be backing up Wyatt on the release, and possibly contributing a few tunes of their own...https://www.philvillerecords.com/thedriftlessrevelers
Wyatt Thomson: Wyatt's first full length vinyl album on Philville Records, Sad Records & Country Tunes, captures his signature vocal sound and timeless writing style. Featuring all original songs (written by Thomson & pals Ben Nelson & Jerod Kasyznski), the album is a mellow ride through the soundscapes of the dance halls, supper clubs, and road houses that still litter the landscape of his home in the Chippewa Valley of Wisconsin.
Not unlike a character from a Roger Miller song, Thomson has the bona fides of working pawn shops, odd jobs, and scraping by in the rust belt landscape of NW Wisconsin. As a result, he's gained the street wise and cynical wisdom that is earned young from such a life. https://www.philvillerecords.com/wyattthomson
From the Facebook event page.
The Dunn County Board of Supervisors has passed two resolutions asking the state to provide additional resources for residents who are not getting the medical care or mental health and crisis services they need.
One resolution calls on the state of Wisconsin to tap into the federal Affordable Care Act to expand Medicaid coverage in the state. The board, at its October meeting, also supported increased state funding for medical assistance and Community Support Programs.
“The board recognized that we have many residents who are not getting the medical care or mental health and crisis services that they need,” said Paula Winter, Director of Human Services for Dunn County. “The board is asking the state to provide adequate resources so our constituents can obtain these essential services.”
Under the Affordable Care Act, states can expand the number of people covered under Medicaid in exchange for increased federal matching funds, but, as the resolution stated, “historically the State of Wisconsin has declined Medicaid expansion funds.”
If Medicaid were expanded in Wisconsin, the resolution said, more than 700 additional county residents would qualify for Medicaid; statewide, some 90,000 additional individuals would qualify for Medicaid if the state participated in the expanded federal program. Health care officials have indicated that providing unreimbursed care for those who fall short of qualifying for Medicaid drives up costs for everyone and could factor in the closing of health care facilities.
Studies have shown that participating in Medicaid expansion programs “reduced disease-related mortality among older adults” and encourages better participation in preventative care and compliance with medication, the resolution added.
The resolution asks the Wisconsin Counties Association to support the expansion of Medicaid as the state develops its 2025-27 state budget.
The board also requested that Wisconsin increase funding in the 2025-27 state budget to provide expanded Medical Assistance for Community Support Programming and Crisis Intervention services.
Counties are required to provide crisis intervention services, including emergency mental health services for persons in crisis situations. Community Support Programs offer community-based care for adults whose mental illness and functional limitations might otherwise require them to be institutionalized. Officials also said the expansion of Medical Assistance could save property tax dollars and allow more people to receive treatment.
The closure of the HSHS hospitals in Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls, as well as the Prevea Clinics, has affected the ability of county residents to access mental health services, the resolution said, and counties must bear a disproportionate share of the costs of both the Community Support Programming and Crisis Intervention services. State-imposed levy limits make it difficult for counties to maintain these mandated services, the resolution said.
The resolution concluded: “the Dunn County Board of Supervisors does hereby request that the state of Wisconsin, in its 2025-27 state biennial budget, provide state GPR funding to cover the full non-federal share of MA CSP and Crisis services.”
Dunn County media release.
By Alyssa Van Duyse - Chippewa Valley Technical College
Sarah Zech, a nursing instructor at Chippewa Valley Technical College, said it’s not enough for students to know the technical skills of nursing. They also must know how to connect and care for patients as people.
One way to do that is to immerse them in the world of health care in other cultures to have a better understanding of needs near and far.
Zech and 19 nursing students have started planning their trip to Kenya, which they expect to take in May 2025. Throughout the eight-day educational journey, the students will give the care they’ve learned at CVTC to people in remote hospitals, clinics, orphanages, and elsewhere in Kenya.
Amanda Hayworth, a second-semester nursing student, was selected as one of the students who will travel to Kenya.
In her time as a Nursing program student, she has been able to see things most people don’t get to experience, she said, like the birth of a child.
“Those opportunities with CVTC have been great, and this opportunity to go to Kenya is something I could not pass up,” she said.
The trip is especially exciting for Hayworth, 40, because this is her first time traveling outside of the United States.
“Being able to have the opportunity to do that and really broaden my horizons and see things that will impact how I practice nursing in the future is really important,” she said.
Karly Kibbel, a fourth-semester nursing student at CVTC, traveled to the Dominican Republic with a group from CVTC earlier this year.
“It taught me so much about non-verbals and body language and how to communicate with people even if you can’t understand them,” she said. “I also learned a lot about what people are living through every single day that we completely take for granted. It’s just an eye-opening experience.”
Kibbel said it was difficult to prepare for the experience, but looking back, it gave her a heightened appreciation for health care and compassion for those who seek it.
“In the Dominican, they are very appreciative of any health care that they’re receiving because it’s not something that they expect,” Kibbel said. “It’s something that they only do if they’re desperate for help and they have no other options.”
Kibbel, who is set to graduate in December, said there is no expectation of getting tests or X-rays done to find the culprit of a health situation.
“If we’re feeling bad for a week, we go to urgent care, and we’re seen or tested for things. It’s not like that there,” she said. “When people go to the doctor there, it’s more serious because the resources are so limited.”
Alisa Schey, CVTC Dean of Student Development, said the College has been participating in study abroad for a short period of time, but in that time, alignment with the program’s area of study has been considered, and the College works closely with international partners.
“From my perspective, any type of international travel is transformational,” Schley said. “We hear from our students when they return that the experiences they have not only shaped their education, but it also shapes their personal lives.”
Schley has been to Spain, Ireland and Thailand with CVTC students, and each of those experiences gave students a chance to learn, she said.
“It’s not just about what they’re learning, but learning how to navigate,” Schley said. “It’s about how to travel, how to navigate that, not knowing the language and communicating, and using critical thinking skills.”
Hayworth’s mind is wide open. She’s ready to take in all of the information that will help in her nursing profession.
“Being able to give a full medical assessment where they don’t have access to everyday health care is going to be huge,” she said.
Chippewa Valley Technical College Nursing program students are preparing for a trip to Kenya in May 2025 to donate their health care services. They are accepting donations of items on the list below at CVTC’s Health Education Center, across from the welcome desk, 615 W. Clairemont Ave., and Business Education Center, in the Student Life office, 620 W. Clairemont Ave., both in Eau Claire.
Large suitcases
Eyeglasses and cases, both prescription and reading
Travel hygiene products
New or gently used infant clothing
Small toys (cars, dolls, rattles)
Formula
Diapers, especially cloth type
Washable menstrual pads
New women's underwear
Nebulizer machines
New OTC medications
School and craft supplies
By Abbey Goers, UW-Stout
Menomonie, Wis. – A robotic arm swings across a platform, stops and lowers its wrist to pick up a small wooden block with its vacuum grip. The wrist rises and the arm pivots, stops and lowers again to place the block on top of another, forming the second row of a pyramid.
Across the room, other robots are feeding blocks onto conveyor belts or picking up plastic pegs to balance them on top of blocks.
What’s the power behind these small feats of manufacturing engineering? Fourteen teams of two – students in Program Director Paul Craig’s Advanced Industrial Robotics and Vision System Integration course.
Follow the students’ hands-on experiences in robotics and automation in a photo essay.
In UW-Stout’s Robotics Lab, home to more than a half million dollars of equipment, students gain hands-on experience with FANUC LR Mate 200iD robots, designed for assembly, material handling and machine tending; Universal Robot 3e Collaborative robots, compact table-top robots designed for light assembly tasks; and Cognex cameras, a 2D and 3D vision system for machines.
But it all starts in a computer lab in Fryklund Hall, home of the Robert F. Cervenka School of Engineering, where students learn to program the machines, using industry-standard software, like FANUC Roboguide, Universal Robots simulator and Cognex In-Sight Explorer.
On their computer screens, students view digital replicas of what they will see in the Robotics Lab across the hall, where they’ll apply their offline programs in real time.
Craig has instructed engineering courses at UW-Stout for 14 years, continually modifying curriculum to keep his engineering students at the cutting edge of industry practices.
“There’s a lot of material to cover with modules on FANUC robots, Universal Robots, and Cognex vision systems, all running concurrently through the semester. This gives students the most applied engineering experience possible,” he said.
“I have students in manufacturing engineering and engineering technology, and students pursuing dual Bachelor of Science degrees in manufacturing engineering and mechanical engineering.”
In the Robotics Lab, MFGE seniors Aidan Clifford, of Wausau, and Ryan Myers, of Kenosha, work for Craig as lab technicians, assisting their peers in troubleshooting issues in their programs.
At one station, Jackson Majerus and Nathan Notch use a digital Teach Pendant – a tablet similar to a large remote – to set up their program in person on a Universal Robot. They call Myers over for help.
The robot is supposed to pick up a series of blocks and place them on a conveyor belt, one at a time. However, after placing the first block on the belt, the robot swings back to where the first block was, instead of progressing to the second block. The vacuum suction cup grabs nothing but air, before swinging back to lower nothing onto the belt.
“We needed it to run on a pallet-mode, where the robot moves from one block placement to the next. But we had it set on a loop-mode, so it repeated the exact same motion twice,” explained Majerus, of Chaska, Minn.
“The robot will keep doing what it is programmed to do, even if the task is incorrect. It will continue running until it is shut off or reprogrammed correctly. That’s one difference between robotics and AI – robots will not learn from errors,” said Notch, of St. Michael, Minn., who interned at Graco in Rogers, Minn., and Banner Engineering in Plymouth, Minn.
Perfecting a program takes patience. “One program at an internship we were able to run perfectly on the first go. Other runs can take multiple tries, depending on how complex the task is that you need the robot to complete,” he said.
Ben Gurka, of Beloit, and Isaac Shefka, of Appleton, team up at another Universal Robot.
“These applications are helping to get us familiar with the robots used in industry. Universal Robots and FANUC are two of the biggest companies in robotics in manufacturing,” Gurka said, adding that FANUC are used more in heavy automation, while Universal Robots are used in collaborative industries, like packaging.
Gurka used both brands of robots during his internships with plastics fabrication companies – Universal Robots at MacLean-Fogg in Whitewater, and FANUC at Prent Corp. in Janesville.
“The automation saves time and relieves workers of repetitive motions,” he said. He and Shefka would like to develop programs and troubleshoot robotic operations for worker relief and safety, making physical tasks more efficient and less strenuous.
Teams at the Cognex cameras stations help robots “see” what the engineer sees, allowing the machine to identify and inspect parts, measure distances between objects and the area of an object, and correctly position and align objects on a production line, while safely navigating its restricted workspace.
The small cameras are mounted at an adjustable height above a workstation, facing downward to take an accurate image of the desired object – in this case, the wooden blocks.
“You upload pictures of the parts you’re working with, giving the camera examples. Eventually, you integrate the vision system with the robot. When mounted to the robot, you can use the live pictures with the software to allow the machine to recognize the parts – you’re teaching the robot what it needs to identify, and the program tells the robot what to do from there,” Clifford explained.
The advanced robotics class builds on an earlier course, where students learn fundamentals of automated manufacturing processes, including developing a palletizing program, a common process used to load items onto a pallet for transportation.
And in a shapes lab, they learn to program a pattern, commanding the FANUC to trace various shapes – the laser pointer in the center of the gripper follows a circle, square and diamond on a black template. Students in the advanced course revisit these skillsets.
Craig is the 2024-26 Fulton and Edna Holtby Manufacturing Engineering Chair. He uses the professorship funds for “new toys for students, to make them think critically about engineering problems,” he said, including a Cognex snap camera, which is an AI-based camera, plus additional higher-end Cognex cameras for the Robotics Lab.
Craig completed the Universal Robots Teacher Certification Training, which gives him access to core robotics training courses and, in turn, gives his students the opportunity to take a “final exam” to earn an industry equivalent certificate through Universal Robots.
“Having that certification is a great booster to our resumes,” said Shefka, who programmed a FANUC robot to play chess in an earlier course.
UW-Stout’s B.S. manufacturing engineering program is the only undergraduate program of its kind among the Universities of Wisconsin, and one of about 25 in the country. Program graduates are 100% employed within six months of graduation or are continuing their education, as reported in Career Services’ First Destination Report.
UW-Stout’s Robert F. Cervenka School of Engineering, which produces more engineering graduates than any UW university north of Madison, offers undergraduate programs in computer and electrical engineering; engineering technology; mechanical engineering; plastics engineering; and packaging. The M.S. manufacturing engineering degree is available both on campus or online.
A new engineering minor in advanced automation and robotics gives students hands-on experiences with industry-standard manufacturing software, designing and integrating components within complex automation systems, developing techniques in programmable logic control programming, exploring applications in robotic and vision system integration, system security, digital twin technology and more.
Engineering was listed by the Universities of Wisconsin as a key area to address in Wisconsin’s workforce needs in its 2023 workforce proposal.
UW-Stout, a member of the Universities of Wisconsin, is Wisconsin’s Polytechnic University, with a focus on applied learning, collaboration with business and industry, and career outcomes. Learn more via the FOCUS2030 strategic plan.
