Barron County Retired Educators: WREA District 1 Meeting

The WREA District 1 meeting was held on Wednesday, May 7, 2014, in Rice Lake at Turtle Back Convention Center. Approximately 60 district 1 members, invited speakers, and staff from the WREA office attended the meeting.
A panel of Wisconsin elected officials was first on the program. Joe Baye was the moderator for a panel consisting of Senator Bob Jauch, Representatives Mick Milroy and Stephen Smith. The panel commented on questions dealing with Public School Funding; Common Core Standards; The State Retirement System; and Communication with legislators from both sides of the aisle.
Next, the WREA presented retiring senator Bob Jauch with a plaque thanking him for his years of service to northern Wisconsin and his support to public education.
Following a short break, Dr. Bernie Hughes, Professor Emeritus from UW Superior presented on staying active during retirement years. Dr. Hughes will be turning 90 this September. His talk was filled with memories of this growing up, years in education, and time since he has retired.
Prior to lunch, the WREA District 1 Foundation Challenge Award winners were presented. With the change from fall to spring district meetings, two winners were presented to the group. Last years winner was Rice Lake Middle School and this years was Rhinelander High School. Steve Hoersten from the Rice Lake MS presented the winning program and Susan Hampton, along with two students from Rhinelander, presented their winning program.
Following lunch, Nancy Cramer, District Manager of MASA made a short presentation of some of the available benefits for WREA members.
After Nancy's presentation a panel of WREA members presented their views on grassroots legislative contacts and what they thought should be WREA's involvement in lobbying for education legislation. On this panel was Joe Baye, John Bigley, Bob Opsahl, and Terry Derleth. The moderator for this group was David Bennett.
Those attending took a short afternoon break, then Ginny Pedersen and Lynne Kagelmann, both of the WREA State Membership Committee, made a presentation (Dog and Pony Show!) on the WREA Membership Toolkit developed by the committee. They used hand puppets of a dog and a pony to help get their points across to the audience. A set of these puppets was given as a door prize for those attending.
The meeting wrapped up with presentation of volunteer checks recognizing unit members for volunteer hours, door prizes of plants from tables, hand puppets, and dice from the casino, along with parting statements from John Osterloth, BCREA president, and Vic Bekkum, WREA president.