There will be two candidates running unopposed for two seats in the upcoming election for the Prairie du Chien School Board.

With the forecast for Sunday's NFL championship game in Green Bay at two degrees above zero, many people are thinking of another championship game 41 years ago, the game now remembered as the Ice Bowl.

The NFL Championship game in Green Bay Dec. 31, 1967 was played with temperatures of -13, coupled with a 20 mph wind which produced weather conditions equivalent to -35.

Four local people have very clear memories of that day, but those memories focus not so much on the Packers, who won, but on their experience as members of the UW La Crosse Marching Chiefs band.

Pat Ahrens Coorough, Bob McDonald, Linda Beneker Kramer and Crystal Anderson had all looked forward to performing in the halftime show of that game and had given up their Christmas vacation to practice for the performance.

The band arrived in Green Bay at 9 a.m. When they marched out to the practice field, the wind chill index placed the temperature at about -50 degrees. The practice lasted for about 13 minutes. According to a write up in the Jan. 9 The Racquet, the university newspaper, "One by one the instruments lost their sound. The woodwinds and the trumpets . . . were the first to go. After these the instruments went out according to size."

The band members themselves suffered from frostbite and exposure, and a total of 12 people were transported to the hospital for observation.

Pat Coorough remembers being taken to the bathroom and told to put her hands under cold water, not warm, for fear she might scald her numb fingers without realizing it.

She also remembers that band director Ralph Wahl tried to pull his whistle out of his mouth and found it had frozen to his lips.

Although band members still wanted to perform, Wahl called it off to protect their health and safety.

For Coorough, the last piece of misery came when she rode home with Bob McDonald. The defroster in his car broke down and they had to drive home in the frigid air with the windows open.

The 33rd annual telethon to raise funds for cancer and heart research is scheduled for Jan. 26.

Sponsored and organized by the Prairie du Chien Eagles Club, it is actually a community-wide effort that last year brought in $39,000 for research. Spokesperson Tom Nelson pointed out that the money, divided equally between heart and cancer research, remains in the region, and is divided among the UW hospital system, Gundersen Lutheran and Franciscan Skemp.

Beginning at 5 p.m. at Bluff View Intermediate School, the event will be televised over Channel 6, the local television station, running until 1 a.m. the following morning. Mediacom is providing the cameras, equipment and staff for the program. Nelson said the idea for the telethon originally came from Faye Grimm, then owner of Cable Vision, the precursor of Mediacom, working with members of the Eagles Club.

Six different people will take turns as emcees: Nelson, Tom Stram, Jim Bittner, Dewey Christopf, Luanne Neumann and Angie Mikkelson.

Entertainment will be provided throughout the evening, beginning with younger children from 5 to 7 p.m. Jade Halverson, pharmacist and singer, and Suzanne Shaw and Shane Hazen, who have performed in the Colgate Country Showdown, are among the volunteers providing entertainment. Various school choirs are also scheduled to perform, and the high school jazz choir will end the evening with a rendition of "It's a Wonderful World."

The evening will also feature a live auction of items donated by area businesses, and listeners can call in their bids and pledges. An addition this year is that a large pizza will be auctioned off and delivered by one of the emcees during the Bittner hour. Nelson says he expects that will be a popular item among those hosting home telethon parties.

For those watching the show live at the school, the Jaycees will operate a food stand which includes pizza donated by Papa Murphy's. There will also be a spinning wheel with prizes for children.

In addition to the telethon at the school, the Eagles Club will host concurrent activities. They will serve a steak and ham dinner beginning at 4:30 p.m. at their headquarters, 200 S. Beaumont. They will also have an on-site auction and raffles throughout the evening.

Volunteers work hard to make the telethon a success. Prairie du Chien High School Student Council and SOS (Students Offering Services) club will help with the memory wall, posted in memory of loved ones; volunteers from various organizations will answer phones, taking bids and pledges. In all, close to 200 people, not even counting those who contribute financially, will have been part of the effort.

"This is truly a community event," said Nelson. "It involves every age group and people from throughout the community." He added, "It seems as if every year there's a reason the telethon might not be successful„tight economy, threatened recession, bad weather, and every year the people in this community rise above that in their contributions."

If he and the city are able to work out a mutually acceptable agreement, former city planner Garth Frable will soon return to that position.

At a special meeting Thursday evening, Prairie du Chien Common Council voted to rehire Frable provided that they are able to work out an acceptable contract with him.

Frable, who has continued to do consulting work for the city since his resignation Nov. 3, 2006, has been working for the State of Iowa, but recently approached city officials with an offer to return if he could do part of his work out of his home in Des Moines.

Asked why he wants to return, Mader said he had enjoyed what he was doing for the city, but left because the job kept him away from home, where his wife, Theresa, has a position.

However, in his new job, Mader said Frable does not have the satisfaction of seeing a project through from start to finish, and had told her he "didn't know how long he could sit in a cubicle."

Frable proposed that the city hire him under the condition that he put in 60 hours per two-week pay period, spending four nights in Prairie du Chien and the remaining 10 at home, where he could work via fax, internet and telephone.

Frable, who worked for the city for almost four years prior to his resignation, played a key role in much of the city's recent development, putting together public money and private investors, obtaining grants of over $5 million, and assisting in development of the city's comprehensive plan, and a master plan for downtown. The pending downtown streetscape is the result of a grant proposal written by Frable.

City Administrator Jim Gitz said that from his observations, Frable would bring in more money than he costs; is competent, knows the city's projects well and is able to interact with state agencies; and the city is fortunate to have the opportunity to hire him.

Gitz added that if he is not hired, they will have to spend time and money advertising and hoping to get someone of comparable ability who is willing to accept the position.

Mader said the city had already posted the job twice and come up short.

"There is plenty of work to be done," said Gitz. "We need employees who will pull their weight, and Garth will do that," he added.

The majority of council members were highly supportive of the hire. Phil Dagnon said, "Garth has never watched the clock; he just gets the job done." Said Kathleen Hein, "Our job as council is to get the most bang for our buck. This is a great thing for the city." Judy Wall, speaking from the audience, said the city has many projects which have been carried forward by volunteers, and said a planner is needed. "If we go longer without a planner we stand to lose a lot of money," she said.

There were, however, some financial details to be worked out. The $50,000 budgeted for the position had been pared to $40,000 in the general budget with the expectation that a new planner would not be hired until spring. However, the shortfall between that and Frable's salary could be covered by the surplus in TIF 6, said Mader, which can be used to fund the city planner position.

Council approved accepting the proposal and authorized Gitz to work out the agreement. Council members Nate Gilbert and Sharon Boylen voted no. Council members Frank Pintz and Aaron Collins were absent.

As of press time, Frable was still considering the offer.

Although it will look much like a small city park or town square, the 30,000 square foot park envisioned for the lot just east of Fort Fun won't be designed for sitting or for strolling: it will be designed for skating, and the Crawford County Children's Advisory Board has begun a fundraising campaign to implement that plan.

Kathy Quamme and Tracy Morovits-Feye, who work for the Crawford County juvenile court system, and are also Children's Advisory Board members, said the idea of a skate park has been discussed for a couple of years, but has begun to take shape over the past nine months. They are both on the advisory board's Skate Plaza Committee.

The Children's Advisory Board has owned $8,000 worth of portable skating equipment and ramps for some time. They were first placed at Cornerstone Church, then moved to the Bluff View school grounds for a summer, and are now located at Hoffman Hall. "You'll see 25 to 30 kids there at once," said Quamme. The ramps, however, are not permanent, and they would like to see a place set aside for young people to use their bikes, skates or skateboards.

Right now, said Morovits-Feye, people are driving their kids as far as La Crosse to skate.

The land has been set aside for use by the advisory board, and Vierbicher and Associates has drawn up a plan based on a skate park in Kettering, Ohio, with a lot of steps and benches. Officials at the county administration building report that they are constantly shooing skateboarders off the steps and railings of the building, where the amount of traffic in and out presents a danger both to the public and the skateboarders.

Some young people, said Quamme, do not like to participate in team sports, and skating or skateboarding presents a legitimate alternative activity for them.

At this point, the park is still in the vision stage, and the cost could run to $200,000 or more. Still, the first steps have been taken. An October Skate-A-Thon raised $1,300. The advisory board is currently selling T-shirts, and they plan to ask the schools to help out with a ïmile of quarters' fundraiser. Morovits-Feye has been working on grant applications for the park, and they plan to be doing presentations for various organizations and asking for donations. "We have to get the word out there," said Quamme.