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It’s your paper! Friday, July 13, 2018 • Vol. 5, No. 5 • Fitchburg, WI • ConnectFitchburg.com • $1
‘An air of discovery’
Inside
Fitchburg resident takes up childhood dream of paleontology KIMBERLY WETHAL Unified Newspaper Group
Festival of Speed photos Page 2 City opposes North Stoner Prairie development Page 3 Fitchburg dog park opens for summer Page 8
Business Paik’s martial arts opens on Research Park Drive
Sports
Photo by Kimberly Wethal
Ta’Nijah Mondy, 8, tapes ribbons onto the top of her maraca during the Leopold Community Night on Tuesday, July 10.
Library, outdoors
Outreach program connects with Leopold community AMBER LEVENHAGEN
If You Go
Unified Newspaper Group
OHS girls soccer finishes WIAA D2 state runner-up Page 11
Schools New principal for Leopold Elementary School OSD Friends group raises money for local programs Page 15
Liz Zimdars has had a busy summer. Every Monday through Thursday, Fitchburg’s outreach librarian loads up the library’s van full of activities and supplies and makes the six-minute drive to Aldo Leopold Park, where the community outreach program has been running since June 18. “I haven’t slept for Zimdars weeks, I’m full of mosquito bites and covered in sunburn,” she told the Star last week. “It has been so much fun.” The program started on a much smaller scale last summer, when the van was introduced in August 2017. Some Fitchburg residents don’t have access to the library and its services because of the city’s wide range of residents with different socioeconomic situations, some of whom may not be able to pay for transportation to get to the library. The goal was to strengthen the PRSRT STANDARD ECRWSS US POSTAGE
What: Fitchburg Library at Leopold Park When: Noon to 3 p.m. Monday-Thursday Where: Leopold Park, 2906 Traceway Drive Info: fitchburgwi.gov or 729-1791
through a program offered by the senior center, as well as dance classes and yoga. “We’re seeing how important a program like this is,” Zimdars said. “We’re seeing, on average, at least 50 people a day, so the response really has been fantastic.” And while they can’t use stationary services like the library’s computers during the outreach events, some of the library services are able to fit into the white van that Zimdars stuffs full. “So far, we’ve had almost 200 kids sign up for the summer reading program, that’s bananas and so awesome,” Zimdars said. “They might not have been able to participate otherwise because they can’t get to the library, so now we can do it together, each afternoon, with a snack and a story. We’re all reading together.”
community connections between those individuals and the programs the library can provide. Last summer, the program ran just a few days a week, with some special events during the school year. This year the program was expanded to afternoons four days a week, with special events Tuesday nights. The events include games, reading times and crafts, as well as some other activities coordinated Community for community with local businesses and organiHowever enthusiastic and passionzations. These include free lunches ate, Zimdars is only able to accomwith REAP Food Group and bike plish so much on her own. safety programs and obstacle coursBut she has wide-reaching supes with Healthy Kids Collaborative port. and Dream Bikes Repair. For adults, The library hired three part-time there’s free blood-pressure checks
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Tom LaChance has loved dinosaurs for the majority of his life. Born and raised in Waterbury, Connecticut, he remembers going to Yale University’s Peabody Museum of Natural History with his older brother and aunt at the age of seven. Upon walking into the dinosaur hall, he threw his hat up into the air – as high as he could — and shouted, “Hurray!” From that day, the love of dinosaurs never left him. “I’ve been enthusiastic ever since,” he said. LaChance, a Fitchburg resident, had considered going into paleontology after high school, until “well-meaning” people convinced him out of it, saying “you don’t want to live grant to grant.” So he opted for a variety of different careers – bank auditing, running a printing shop, and separate State of Wisconsin government stints in the departments of the Disability Determination Bureau, Natural Resources and Revenue – where the only thing in common was a paycheck. It took a few decades, but LaChance has finally come around to being the paleontologist he had dreamed of as a child. It’s a spark that was rekindled in 2003, when he accompanied Boy Scout Troop 11 to South Dakota for a dinosaur dig. “ O n t h e wa y b a c k , I decided, ‘well, I have a new hobby,’” he said. Fossil hunter That hobby has since taken LaChance to Morocco, England and Wales in search of fossils. Last month, he spent five days in Hanksville, Utah alongside other volunteers with the Burpee Museum from Rockford, Ill., looking for
Turn to Discovery/Page 19
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