May 17, 2006

Nearly everyone loves the delicious, but hard-to-describe flavor of morel mushrooms. Once a springtime delicacy reserved for intrepid woodsman, the morel has become big business.

"A really good picker, someone who really knows what they're doing, can make $5,000 to $6,000 a season," said Mike Valley, Owner of Valley Fish and Cheese shop, one of two mushroom buyers in town. "One guy was financing his prom," said Todd Koresh, owner of Eunice's Liquor and Cheese, who also buys mushrooms.

But mushrooms can be hard to find, and prices can be fickle. This year there has been an abundant crop of morels.

That means a bad year for the mushroom business for Valley. At the beginning of the season he was selling mushrooms for $26 a pound, now they're down to $13.95. More mushrooms in the woods translates into fewer buyers, lower prices and less profit for him. "The phone must ring 200 times a day here with people wanting to sell mushrooms," he said. "We've turned down five times the number of mushrooms we can sell," he added. Valley has bought 2,000 pounds of the fungi so far this season, and he says they make up about a third of his spring business. On average, he keeps about two to three hundred pounds on hand. Currently he's paying about $6 a pound to pickers.

Valley sells fresh mushrooms primarily as a retail item in his shop. Customers from cities around the region visit the shop every year to buy morels. They come from Madison, Janesville, Waterloo, Cedar Rapids and other places to get that one-of-a-kind taste of springtime. Valley dispenses cooking advice with the morels Ð he advises rolling them in his fish breading and frying them in half oil, half butter. Hungry yet?

Last Friday was busy at Eunice's. Parked outside the door was a minivan with Indiana plates driven by two men, morel buyers sent to pick up mushrooms for a shop near Fort Wayne. They were hoping to leave with 300 pounds. They spent over an hour sorting, weighing and loading mushrooms.

One of the men, Phil Welty, said that while mushrooms do grow in his area, there is so much development that there are not many woods and fields left where mushrooms can grow. He would not say how much the mushrooms were selling for at his employer's shop.

According to Todd Koresh, about 60 percent of his mushroom sales are offered wholesale to out-of-state buyers. One of his buyers this year was shipping morels to Florida for a chef. But most buyers are from the Midwest.

The men from Indiana looked on in anticipation as Lissa Moses walked in the door at Eunice's carrying four plastic shopping bags bursting with enormous mushrooms. Her daughter, five-year-old Macy helped her while her mother carried one-year-old Wyatt in her arms. Macy and her father had gone picking the night before near their Monona, Iowa, home.

"Some people, they walk in the door, and you just know they're bringing you excellent mushrooms," said Koresh.

With cool weather prevailing, morel mushroom season is expected to last through the end of the week.

Beginning next school year, Prairie du Chien High School will offer a new alternative education program, which will enhance its existing programs for those students who learn better outside of a traditional classroom.

At its regular meeting May 8, the Prairie du Chien School Board approved the implementation of GED Option 2, (better known as GEDO and pronounced "Guido").

Alternative education teacher Kathy Pettit said that GEDO is a winning situation for everyone. It will be run at no cost to the school district while at the same time increasing the high school's graduation rate and helping alternative students graduate at an accelerated pace in order to get out and into the work force sooner.

Pettit explained that the high school used to send students to Southwest Wisconsin Technical College in Fennimore in order for those students to gain their High School Equivalency Diploma (HSED). This cost the district approximately $10,000 each year. Also, those students were not counted when assessing the high school's graduation rate, thereby making it more difficult for the school to meet new state standards. If the school does not meet graduation rate standards, it could mean a loss of state aid for the school.

Under GEDO, the students would earn their General Education Diploma (GED) and would graduate from Prairie du Chien High School with their class. Pettit noted that potential employers don't look as favorably upon an HSED (high school equivalency degree) from a technical college as they would upon a student who could say that they graduated from Prairie du Chien High School.

"I'm happy that we will have some of these options," said Pettit, who has taught for 31 years, the last 11 as an alternative education teacher.

Prairie du Chien High School will continue to offer the "School Within A School" program, which is for sophomores, juniors and seniors who are considered at risk of not graduating. Other options are the Challenge Academy at Fort McCoy, the Job Corps, afterhours and summer school.

The GEDO program has more stringent guidelines than does School Within A School. Students in GEDO must be at least 17 years old. They must also demonstrate an ability to read at or above the ninth grade level.

GEDO students will learn math, science, social studies and language arts in preparation for the GED test. In addition, five or more hours a week will be devoted to applied learning such as work experience, vocational courses or electives. Students are also taught career awareness, civics and health. GEDO students will be in school from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday and will then be at their place of employment.

Eighty percent of students enrolled in GEDO must successfully complete the program and graduate with their class or the program will not be approved for the next year. Pettit said that each student will need to score at least 460 points on their GED test in order to pass. Students must also maintain at least a 90 percent attendance requirement.

"The kids that come into this program are committed," said Pettit, who anticipates that attendance and maintaining employment should not be a problem. Pettit said that GEDO students are motivated to get their GED and to get into the work force. They are also older and tend to be more mature in their approach than many of the younger students in the School Within A School program. Pettit said that it is possible that students may start out in the School Within A School program when they are sophomores and later move into the GEDO program when they become 17.

In order to get the GEDO program off to the best start possible Pettit has enlisted the help of Kathy Peetz of River Valley. Peetz has worked with the River Valley GEDO program for the past few years and will serve as a "mentor" for the establishment of the GEDO program at Prairie du Chien.

"She will help make us successful," said Pettit, who explained that the Prairie du Chien program will be modeled after that of River Valley.