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Thursday, May 3, 2018 • Vol. 53, No. 50 • Verona, WI • Hometown USA • ConnectVerona.com • $1.25
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Verona Area School District
Hometown Days
No more Thursday New music added to three-day festival next month KIMBERLY WETHAL Unified Newspaper Group
Photo by Scott Girard
Kaitlyn Spencer shows an aneurysm CT scan on the computer, marked by the object in her jello model of a brain. Spencer says she hopes to be a neurosurgeon someday.
Presenting with passion
for. Others like Cayden Corning used their interest in board games to show off their strategic chops, combining See more photos from the Passion Project three board games into one. presentations: Some students did the research on their own, finding books or searchConnectVerona.com ing online, while others got to go out into the community to meet people who work within the field they were Some students, like Kaitlyn Spen- exploring. cer’s presentation on strokes, chose a topic in a field they want to work – Scott Girard
On the web
Franson credits Verona beginnings for success AMBER LEVENHAGEN Unified Newspaper Group
Female empowerment, friendship, sexual harassment, self-discovery and a little love. Those are some of the major themes in Verona Area High School graduate Sally Franson’s first novel, “A Lady’s Guide to Selling Out,” published with Random House on April 10.
Franson grew up in Verona and graduated from VA H S i n 2002. She now lives in Minneapolis after earn ing a bachelor’s degree at Barnard College, Franson overcoming Stage 3 Hodgkin’s lymphoma – from which she is now in remission and by general medical standards “cured” – and then returning for a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Minnesota. The
Verona Press
The cancer diagnosis was the factor that gave her the final push to pursue her master’s degree and begin writing professionally. “I always wanted to be a writer; when I was a little kid, people asked me what I wanted to do, and I’d say either a writer, a comedian or a hairdresser,” Franson told the Press. “It was always in the back of my head, and I had a lot of teachers who encouraged me, including Ms. (Erin) Barnard at Sugar Creek, who helped me find books to read.” H e r f i r s t n o v e l , “A
Lady’s Guide to Selling Out” is fictional tale about Casey Pendergast, a woman five years out of college who gave up her dream for artistic freedom to make a lot of money at an advertising firm. Casey faces a moral dilemma as the workplace dynamics shift. “(It’s not about me) in any direct ways, I’ve never worked in advertising, she is someone very intentionally different than me,” Franson said. “She’s someone who acts first and thinks after – I’m not
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the last three days of the festival. But it wasn’t financially worth the cost to put it on, she said. The now three-day festival, set for June 1-3, will still feature food, musical acts, a carnival and various other kids activities, its annual Sunday parade and
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City of Verona
600-home plan would be aimed toward seniors JIM FEROLIE Verona Press editor
VAHS grad publishes first novel
What: Hometown Days When: June 1-3 Where: Festival Park Info: veronahometowndays.com
It has been more than six years since the state overrode the wishes of a local planning body to approve an expansion southwest of the city. Next week, the first official proposal for construction in the area planned for that addition is set to go before the Plan Commission. It’s a big one. The 160-acre, senior-oriented neighborhood would feature around 600 homes, about half of which are single-family, south of Valley Road in what still is the Town of Verona. While it’s just a concept at this point, with its developer looking for feedback, the submission to the city shows four distinct sections – a
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set of “active adult pocket neighborhoods” surrounding assisted- and independent-living complexes, a subdivision of up to 300 single-family homes and an outdoor activity area featuring natural lands that back up close to the Sugar River and adjacent farmland. Applicant Matt Mauthe, a Verona resident, explained in his submission that the c o m p a ny h e ’s C E O o f operates nonprofit retirement communities around Southeastern Wisconsin and did a market study last year to determine the need for senior housing. It said the company hopes to begin occupancy in 2021. The 265-acre Southwest Area was master planned in 2009 to accommodate Dean Health, which had
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Board games, “brains” and bracelets were all on display around Savanna Oaks Middle School Tuesday afternoon. Those were among the “passion projects” the school’s eighth-graders presented to classmates and family May 1. The projects, which took months of research, allow students to focus on a topic or area of interest and decide how to create a presentation on what they learned.
Hometown Days is giving up its “dry run.” Thursday night activities, which have experienced lower turnout in recent years, have been eliminated from the annual Hometown Days festival this year. L e J o r d a n , exe c u t ive director of the Verona Area Chamber of Commerce, said Thursday night was an opportunity for vendors to prepare for the larger wave of attendees to hit during
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