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Thursday, September 6, 2018 • Vol. 54, No. 16 • Verona, WI • Hometown USA • ConnectVerona.com • $1.25
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New VAHS
Emails: 17 acres on the table Road proposal would develop or build on one-third of woods JIM FEROLIE Verona Press editor
Photo by Scott Girard
Kindergartner Luz Jimenez, center, talks with her older sister Evelin, a third-grader, as they walk toward Sugar Creek Elementary School for the first day of the 2018-19 school year Tuesday, Sept. 4.
Back to school
Students waited excitedly outside the doors of Sugar Creek Elementary School on Tuesday, Sept. 4, for the beginning of the 2018-19 school year. Principal Todd Brunner and other SC staff greeted students and parents at the door, welcoming them and their backpacks full of supplies into the building. Sixth- and ninth-graders also returned Tuesday, while everyone else began school Wednesday.
Inside More photos from the first day of school
More than one-third of the rustic area known as Stewart’s Woods would be made available for development or roads leading to development under a deal proposed this summer and still being negotiated. That proposal and several exchanges indicating Verona Area School District officials have major reservations about giving up that much of its recently acquired old-growth hardwood forest are in an open-records request fulfilled by the City of
Verona last week. The district has been seeking alternatives for a required second access point into the new Verona Area High School site for the past two months, and land acquisition for this one, from Paoli Street, would cost far less than another proposal. However, the school board has concerns about “clear-cutting” on 12 acres of old-growth forest next to the U.S. Hwy. 18-151 bypass, superintendent Dean Gorrell writes in some of the hundreds of emails released to the Press. In those emails, Gorrell adds the board is concerned about the overall amount of land that would be given up
Turn to Woods/Page 8
Page 2
VAPAS turns 20 ‘A third place’ for SBR Endurance with new season Ironman Loop Festival The annual Loop Festival will be back at St. Andrew’s Catholic Church on Main Street across from the high school this year. The Sept. 9 event, which runs from around 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., will feature high school groups selling food as fundraisers, as well as an announcer calling out names as they pass by on bicycles.
KIMBERLY WETHAL Unified Newspaper Group
In 2011, Jessica Laufenberg wrote herself a letter. At the time, she was co-owner of SBR Endurance Performance Center and Rocket Bicycle Studio. She mailed the letter, containing her goals for opening a multi-sport complex, to herself in a yellow manilla envelope that next day and kept it sealed. Laufenberg opened it last week after seven-and-a-half years, when she and business partner Peter Oyen opened their new facility at 507 Bruce St. “A lot of it is what we’re doing right now,” she said. “We want people to make this a third place … Place one
is home, place two is work, and third place can be here.” Laufenberg opened SBR – Swim, Bike, Run – 13 years ago on Main Street, relocated to Venture Court a decade ago, and added Oyen and RBS a year later. Now, the business has moved south again, this time across from Fireman’s Park, where the Wisconsin Tritierum Triathlon begins and ends and along to the path where
The
Verona Press
White attributes success to community support BILL LIVICK Unified Newspaper Group
the Ironman Wisconsin’s bike course loops twice this coming Sunday. The success of the business prompted Oyen to eventually choose between his “corporate America” day job and his passion of cycling, at the urging of Laufenberg, he said. “(Laufenberg) had a lot of clients that wanted professional bike-fitting,”
When the Atlantic City Boys take the stage of the high school auditorium in November, their appearance will start the 20th year for the Verona Area Performing Arts Series. VAPAS board of directors co-president Carolyn White has been involved with the concert series since the beginning and told the Press it couldn’t
Turn to SBR/Page 16
Turn to VAPAS/Page 7
2018-19 shows ATLANTIC CITY BOYS 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 10 Tickets: $32; $30 seniors, $10 students THE YOUNG IRELANDERS 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 23, 2019 Tickets: $32; $30 seniors, $10 students THE CANADIAN BRASS 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 5, 2019 Tickets: $32; $30 seniors, $10 students
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Multi-sport complex opens just before Ironman