Verona Press The
Thursday, December 26, 2019 • Vol. 55, No. 32 • Verona, WI • Hometown USA • ConnectVerona.com • $1.25
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One church, twice rebuilt
Stories of 2019
Photo submitted by Michelle Byrne
Interior of the church during the 150th anniversary mass on Nov. 24. Photo courtesy Findorff Construction
A still photo from a drone shows the new Verona Area High School behind the nearly complete artificial turf football field in early December. The construction of the school and the associated policy decisions that will come with all of the facility shifting next fall was one of the biggest stories of 2019 in Verona.
Building for the future Construction projects at high school, major roads dominate the year Attendance areas kept the school board busy into September, and the reworking of other policies associated with the shuffle of several other buildings, as a result, is ongoing. Ve r o n a n s h ave b e e n waiting a decade for the Verona Road and County M projects, but restrictPhoto by Jim Ferolie ing traffic on both major The County Hwys. M and PD intersection nears completion entries to Madison at the in September 2019. As of late September, westbound traffic same time this summer was on PD travels in an underpass and does not stop. aggravating to say the least. Associated projects like the Fitchrona Road roundabout and the resurfacing of M south of the city added to 1. Planning and building new VAHS, school boundaries the frustration and made 1. County M and Verona Road open after concurrent people wonder whether construction traffic planners ever talk to 3. Festival Foods opens after 100 years of a one-grocery one another. town At the No. 3 spot, Festival Foods put a presumably 4. Boys soccer team wins state title permanent end to Verona’s 5. (tie) Fireman’s Park opens after $3 million renovation decades of being a one-gro5. (tie) Administrator, senior center director asked to cery town. resign Our No. 4 story was a sports shocker, with Vero7. Fire chief retires, new candidates rejected na’s boys soccer team win8. Badger Ridge traffic worries result in beacon, crossning the first state title in ing guard plan the program’s history. 9. VAHS security protocol changes We had a few more tie 10. Chinese will be taught in middle schools
Stories of 2019
NEAL PATTEN Unified Newspaper Group
Parishioners celebrated the 150th anniversary of St. William Church in Paoli on Sunday, Nov. 24. But the building they celebrated it in is the third in the church’s history. Mary Schaller, lifelong Paoli resident, has become a de facto historian for St. William Church, compiling much of the following information herself from newspapers and oral histories. She was baptized there and hopes to be buried at the cemetery alongside her parents, grandparents and aunt and uncle. The church began its life in the log cabin homes of Irish and German families who settled in Montrose
Township, two miles west of Paoli, according to Schaller’s compilations. Beginning in April 1853, priests from Oregon would hold masses inside the parishioners’ homes. At the time, the parish was known as St. Raphael. In 1869 the first St. William Church was built, on Schaller Road, home of the parish cemetery. Priests from Madison served as the resident pastors during the 1870s, splitting time between St. William Church, St. James in Dayton, and later St. Mary of Lourdes in Belleville. By 1889, the St. William congregation had outgrown its church building in Montrose Township, and so in 1900, a new church was built in Paoli, and the original church was razed. At the time, 87 residents of Paoli, including both Catholics and Protestants, donated $3,810 to the construction of the
Turn to Church/Page 3
Inside Sports stories of the year: Verona boys soccer, Wildcats hockey and Jackson Acker Page 10
Turn to 2019/Page 13 The
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Number one last year is No. 1 again this year. And, we can tell you now the construction of Verona Area High School is the early favorite to be in our top spot again one year from now. That’s a rare occurrence for any “stories of the year” list, but it’s what happens when Verona builds one of the most expensive high schools in state history. This year, however, the high school has company at the top spot, joined by a pair of other massive, multimillion-dollar construction projects that also have been an ongoing source of strife – the reconstructions of Verona Road and County Hwy. M. And two other major construction projects made our top-10 list: the Festival Foods grocery store and the Fireman’s Park renovation. While the biggest source of frustration surrounding the school – the controversial secondary access road – had died down entering the year, it came with plenty of difficult topics.
150 year old Paoli church has outlasted fire, Great Depression