Local News

On June 9, at 11:30 p.m., a deputy with the Crawford County Sheriff’s Office located Todd F. Groom Jr., 28, Steuben, at the McDonald’s Restaurant in Prairie du Chien. Groom was placed under arrest for active felony warrants through Grant and La Crosse counties.

During a search of Groom’s pockets, ammunition was located. During a search of the vehicle Groom had been operating, a Mossberg .410 shotgun with a sawed off barrel and defaced serial number was located in the backseat. Groom is a convicted felon and, therefore, is not to possess firearms. Groom is also on bond through La Crosse County for a prior firearm possession charge. Groom’s bond conditions through La Crosse County prohibit him from possessing firearms and ammunition.

“Since 1957, the mission of the hospital has been to meet the healthcare needs of the communities we serve, and it has been an amazing six decades,” said Bill Sexton, chief executive officer at Crossing Rivers Health. “In the past 60 years, there have been revolutionary changes in medicine and technology, and the hospital has evolved and adapted to accommodate those changes. An integral part of the hospital’s success, is that our team has led our organization to make those changes over the years with dedication and vision.”

The early history of the hospital credits a group of dedicated community citizens with the idea of building a new hospital in 1954. Although there was a hospital in the area, patients often had to wait for surgery or other medical care, because there weren’t enough beds to accommodate them. Community members knew that the present hospital facilities were being pushed to well beyond their intended limits.

The Southwest Wisconsin Technical College Foundation recognized seven individuals and one organization that have made significant impacts in the college’s 50-year history at the Foundation’s donor appreciation and alumni and retiree awards program May 19 at the Fennimore campus.

The Foundation has recognized 30 individuals and businesses as outstanding philanthropists to the organization since 1995, but this was the inaugural year for distinguished alumni and retiree achievement awards. Those recognized with the Philanthropy Award included Huntington National Bank and Shyrle Sedgwick. Recipients of the Distinguished Alumni Award were Kevin Raisbeck, Terri Slapak-Fugate, and Gerald Ward. Honorees of the Retiree Achievement Award were Lowell Ahrens, Mary Davis and Carol Needham.

By Correne Martin

The Courier Press office has welcomed an intern again this summer. Rachel Mergen, a Bloomington native who just completed her freshman year at UW-La Crosse, has joined the staff. She will be reporting on community news through August.

Rachel is a 2016 River Ridge High School graduate and the daughter of Al and Dawn Mergen. She is the granddaughter of Thomas and Ruth Mergen and Carson and Arlene Clifton. She has one older brother, Trevor.

Rachel, 19, possesses a multitude of skills necessary to interview and report about the people, places and things in the Prairie du Chien coverage area. She comes to the Courier having written and self-published four young adult books as a teenager, her first when she was only 16 and the other three in high school. She said she’s working on two more now.

“I wrote a lot of short stories in middle school. It was a nice escape from stress for me,” she said.