When we created the Community & Culture issue, our intention was to highlight Greater Madison communities and the people, places, and things that have become part of our local culture. We celebrate our diverse communities because they enhance our life experiences, and they’re why people love living and visiting here. We’re all better for them.
Sugar River Pizza is a threefold example of a community business due to its locations: New Glarus, Verona, and Sun Prairie. It’s a great model of how a family can create and grow a successful business. While Sugar River Pizza is one entity, individual family members focus on each location, allowing for a more beneficial focus. Together, they positively impact their pizzerias, the family, and each community.
As a Spanish-English dual-language charter school, Nuestro Mundo Community School follows a two-way immersion model in which native English-speaking children and native Spanishspeaking children learn together in a classroom where the use of each language alternates between lessons. What an incredibly impactful way to help children better connect, communicate, and create stronger community unity today and in the future as they age into adults.
Music is an important element in a vibrant arts society. Cafe CODA does its part for Madison’s music culture as a local jazz club, including opening its space for other creative uses.
cover photograph
Maple My Bacon at Sugar River Pizza by Eric Tadsen
photographs on page 3 (top left to right): Camp Randall arch by Fred Engle Cafe CODA stage provided by Cafe CODA
(bottom left to right): Kids in classroom provided by Nuestro Mundo Community School
Dispersing native seeds at Lulu Lake SNA provided by Cory Peters
We also provide a historical perspective of Camp Randall; information about the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin’s Cherish Fund, which protects Wisconsin public lands; and we’re thrilled to share the impressively imaginative talent and work of artist Beth Bojarski.
Take time this fall to connect with these and other businesses inside. They’re our neighbors and friends, and when we support them, they contribute to making our communities greater.
by Kyle Jacobson
C DA Cafe
Jazz: the uninvited guest everyone hopes shows up. As unexpected as it is welcome. I enjoy the small amount of jazz I’ve been exposed to, but I’ve never seen it live—never had a chance to feel it shape a room. That’s why Hanah Jon Taylor created the jazz club Cafe CODA: to be “so intimate that if you sat close enough you could feel the sweat and the steam coming off the horns.”
Hanah is a 75-year-old jazzman from Chicago who’s been playing flute and saxophone for 50 years and has lived in Madison for 30. He’s played in Europe, Scandinavia, the West Indies, parts of South America, Anatolia, and across the United States. It was only eight years ago when he opened Cafe CODA, but his wealth of experience—and experience is what he’s all about—was the driving force that led him to recognize and address the need for Madison to house a jazz club.
“Transplanting myself here furthered the notion that perhaps there was something here that did not exist that I could contribute to cultivating and
actualize,” says Hanah. “There are no televisions, ping-pong tables, pool, dart boards, and that’s for a reason. This is a listening room. That idea is in contrast to the stereotypical Wisconsin bar. We have had to cultivate the idea that one can come and listen and appreciate music that he or she may have not heard in Madison and would have to go to Chicago to experience live.
“As Madison hubs itself to Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and my hometown, we have had the opportunity to draw from musicians who have come through those municipalities and come here. I would like to think I can attribute a lot of that to the fact that I know a lot of these cats from being on the road and meeting them at different festivals and such, and them knowing that I have this place.”
There is one notable limitation. Cafe CODA only has the capacity for 99 persons. To get some big-name players, the venue just isn’t large enough, but that’s also the magic of Cafe CODA. To Hanah, jazz is fundamentally meant to be an experience, and if the experience is good enough, people will seek it out.
“I remember when I was a kid, my uncle and father used to take me and my cousins to Tommy Bartlett’s water show in our station wagon,” says Hanah. “Back then, it was a five-hour drive to
Wisconsin Dells, and what was so deep about that is none of us could swim. None of us. We were city kids. We’d do this every year, and it finally dawned on me why they were doing this. They were trying to give us an experience outside the south side of Chicago. They were trying to show us something as far as they could afford to take us in their station wagon; they wanted to show us something outside of what we were living through. And we weren’t living that bad, but it was an experience. It became a destination point. And I still don’t know how to swim.”
...“so intimate that if you sat close enough you could feel the sweat and the steam coming off the horns.”
Aside from using the space to attract visitors, Hanah has also used Cafe CODA to embrace the needs of the community. The original vision didn’t include tango, bachata lessons, karaoke, swing dance, and kirtan meditation, but COVID wasn’t kind to a lot of venues. Cafe CODA was fortunate enough to survive the pandemic, and Hanah felt compelled to address the returning need for these types of spaces. He says, “What would we look like not accommodating a community that had that kind of need, you dig?”
With a little money from the Small Business Administration, Hanah was able to clean up the garage in the back of his jazz club and create a studio space. This addition has allowed for multiple recurring events. Tuesdays are dance classes, with tango at the front of house and bachata in the back. Wednesdays, there’s karaoke in the front and jump swing dance in the back.
Hanah also started the Cool School, a free-of-charge Saturday morning and early afternoon event. The first session is for 8- to 12-year-olds from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m., and the second is for 12- to 18-year-olds from 11:30 to 1:00 p.m. “Any young person can come,” says Hanah. “We discuss and experiment with sound and the whole idea of improvisation, which is something they don’t get a chance to do a lot in school. A lot of kids we find are not involved in school music programs for one of three reasons: either they can’t afford
an instrument, and we cool that out because we have instruments for them in the back; they can’t read music, and we don’t worry about that because we’re not asking them to read; or their behavior is so that the music teachers can’t deal with them, and we don’t worry about that because I’m a music therapist by degree.”
With all these things going on, it’s difficult to imagine Hanah still finds time to go on the road and play. He admits it’s difficult to travel while running Cafe CODA, but appreciates the balance he’s found between being a musician and a grandfather. That said, he hasn’t retired from the road yet.
As for what visitors gain, it’s that experience that Hanah has worked so hard to create. People often tell him that being at Cafe CODA is like being transported someplace else. When they walk out, it almost surprises them that they’re still in Madison. “We’re going for the cathartic moment,” says Hanah. “If you have one of those a week, maybe you can survive the madness that’s on the other side of the door. Leave that back there, and hopefully people will be able to rely upon this experience to offer that to them.”
It’s clear that the future of Cafe CODA isn’t restricted to the space it is now. Owning a business, for Hanah, has involved the awareness of jazz. He has an evolving vision shaped around serving his community. “Maybe there’s another challenge ahead of us that we have to prepare for in the next couple years, but we’ll probably give out before we give up.”
Kyle Jacobson is a writer who picks up what he puts down, fills what he digs, and gives what he gets.
CAFE CODA
Photograph by Barbara Wilson
Kyle Jacobson
Photographs provided by Cafe CODA
Sugar River Pizza Sugar River Pizza
by Kyle Jacobson
What’s to be said about pizza that hasn’t already been said by an anthropomorphized turtle? Totally tubular, most radical, or a bit gnar gnar with the habanero. Sure, it sounds out there, but after a hearty bite of the perfect slice, it starts making sense. Pizza has personality. It invites playfulness. At times, it can be absurd. Pizzerias aren’t just restaurants; they’re cornerstones in our communities. They’re great for a first date or a 50th anniversary, for toddlers and teenagers, for picky eaters and adventurous ones. Seriously, who doesn’t like pizza?
Sugar River Pizza threw its hat into the Greater Madison pizza ring in 2009, and it came out strong—an early success owner Sarah Thomas credits to the jobs she’s had along the way. “I had been a cook at Bluephies and Pizza Pit in the ’90s, which are two very different restaurants. ... Pizza Pit back then, they sent us to pizza school. When you were a cook there, you really got to learn. And they did everything from scratch. That’s where I learned to make dough and all that kind of stuff. And
the head chef at Bluephies, he taught me a lot about dressings and a love for the kitchen.”
Sugar River Pizza’s original location was a humble 1,000-square-foot space in Belleville, Wisconsin, meant as a side project to go along with Sarah’s job at Epic. Her mother had also just retired from the corporate world, so she was onboard along with Sarah’s dad, who built the front counter. Sarah even called in old Pizza Pit friends to help with the operation. It wasn’t long before dad developed an ambitious vision of a Sugar River Pizza empire and mom found she simply loved making pizzas.
Green Goddess
In 2012, Sarah and her parents bought a space in New Glarus to open their second location. Sarah says it was “basically a shed. I remember our contractor looked at it with us, and he was like, ‘I have no idea how long it’ll take to renovate this.’” There would be a few steps before Sarah could transition out of Epic, but the team was working hard to get things running.
Then came the day when a developer in Verona visited the New Glarus restaurant. Sarah says, “I was looking to retire from my corporate gig, so he
talked me into this spot.” The spot is their current corner-cap location in Verona. Though Sarah was initially interested in something smaller, closer to 2,000 square feet, she started to see what a larger space with presence would provide.
As the concept of Sugar River Pizza took shape, the Belleville location just wasn’t fitting in. They sold the place in 2016 to Great Scott’s Pizza, which would never open before exchanging hands yet again, and again, and again. “It’s a tough spot
Crispy Chicken and Broccoli Alfredo
for restaurants, as Big Kat’s BBQ & Grill just closed,” says Sarah.
Today, there are three Sugar River Pizza locations. “New Glarus was owned by my parents, and my husband and I own this one in Verona. But we operate as one unit. I’m the chief financial officer for the whole kit and kaboodle. My mom runs New Glarus, she’s [redacted], don’t put that in the article, she would murder me. And my sister runs the Sun Prairie restaurant. She got her master’s degree in philosophy, so restaurants.”
Sarah really can’t say enough about how vital her family has been for Sugar River Pizza’s success. Her mother has a lot on her plate owning both the New
Pizzerias aren’t just restaurants; they’re cornerstones in our communities.
Norwegian Heritage Center
We invite you to Explore the Journey: Dive into interactive displays that highlight the journey of Norwegian immigrants.
Glarus and Sun Prairie location after her husband passed over a year ago, but she hasn’t slowed down. And Sarah’s sister took on a big role to fill dad’s shoes.
Along with the family’s commitment to the very modest Sugar River Pizza empire, one ingredient provided the consistency needed to hold everything together: the cheese. Every ingredient has stood the test of time, from the dough to the sauce, but the perfect cheese is essential to Sarah—her go-to slice being a good old-fashioned cheese pizza. Even on her recent trip to New Orleans, by day four, she was done with seafood and just needed a slice of that cheese.
“Where immigrant stories come alive”
Back to Sugar River’s cheese: a signature blend from the renowned Silver & Lewis Cheese Co-op in Monticello. Surprisingly, Sarah tells me she’s the only pizzeria in the area working with them. But maybe when you order a pizza, instead of the signature blend, you’re just looking for fresh mozzarella, cheddar, goat cheese, feta, habanero pepper jack, whipped ricotta, or some Violife vegan cheese to add some savory to your sauce. Well, it’s all there, most of it made right here in Wisconsin.
Sarah is quite proud of the relationships she’s built with her vendors, each one an
Photo by:TKWA
Marinara & Goat Cheese with Bread Sticks
asset either adding something delicious to a classic or inspiring something new. “We’ve built some great relationships,” says Sarah. “Rhoda’s Mustard out of Belleville, Martin & Sons maple syrup, New Life Greens. It’s been a big part of what makes it fun for us. Going to the Farmers’ Market, finding something local.” Recently, Sarah reached out to a hot sauce maker she met at the Seven Acres Christkindlmarket, so a Sugar River Pizza hot sauce could be on the horizon.
Just as important to Sarah as her vendor relationships are the ones she’s built with her employees, who fill the gaps in Sarah’s skill set—namely bartending. “Christine is my beer connoisseur here. She does an amazing job with our vendors to try to bring in some really unique stuff. And then Rachel and April handle our liquor side of things. Rachel is huge into mocktails, so we’ve been really expanding that. They put the same effort into the bar that we put into the food.”
After 16 years of Sugar River Pizza, Sarah has come to better understand why she does what she does. For these articles, she used to have a whole spiel prepared, but now it’s about
the conversation. I learned about her husband being a farmer and how they use his beef in their products. How Sal from Aztec Taqueria helped her through some tough times at work. How she knows all her staff, including graduation dates and events going on in their lives. And how she’s gotten to learn so much about her regulars and watch their children grow and lives change. Sarah says Sugar River’s bestselling pizza isn’t anything special. It’s just the Deluxe. But that pizza embodies the relationships she’s built over the years, each slice a testament to how a pie brings community together.
Kyle Jacobson is a writer who thinks life is like a misdelivered pizza; you never know what you’re gonna get, but hey, Pizza!
Drumlin Ridge, located just outside Madison, offers a private rental space for small gatherings. Guests can relax with a glass or a custom flight of locally produced wine while overlooking the hillside vineyard. Enjoy small plates or browse the gift shop.
6000 River Rd., Waunakee 608-849-9463
DRUMLINRIDGEWINERY.COM
Photograph by Barbara Wilson
Kyle Jacobson
Photographs by Eric Tadsen .
Crunchy Pesto Chicken
NUESTRO MUNDO COMMUNITY SCHOOL
Two-Way Immersion Bilingual Education
by Kyle Jacobson
“Our job in education is to pave the way for self-actualization. If a student wants to go into the trades, they go into the trades. If they want to go to law school, they go to law school. Our job is to give them an experience that will not create barriers or hinder them in any way in choosing which path they want to go. They choose their path, and we give them anything they need to have the most paths to choose from.”
—Joshua Forehand, Principal/Director Nuestro Mundo
The above is a common sentiment amongst educators, but how does that translate to a school aimed at teaching the English language to non-native speakers?
At Nuestro Mundo Community School, an elementary school applying the twoway immersion model, the answer is simply that language acquisition isn’t the only primary goal. Rather, a twoway immersion program brings students from two different language backgrounds together to learn the curriculum in both languages, with each thoughtfully integrated across subjects. Academics is the focus, and conversational language acquisition happens organically.
Principal Forehand says Nuestro Mundo spawned from a grassroots movement
20 years ago in reaction to a large influx of Spanish-speaking immigrants coming to the area. “A small group of likeminded people got together, and they saw that MMSD [Madison Metropolitan School District] really only offers English as a Second Language (ESL), which is mostly pulling students away from not only the core curriculum, but also pulling them away from their English-speaking peers. There was a high school teacher from Memorial, Debora Gil Casado, and a high school teacher from La Follette, Bryan Grau, along with some other people in town who either had an interest in education or the Latino community who found themselves rallied together around this cause.
“They went to the school district, and the district wasn’t quite ready to implement something like this at that time. So they said let’s start a charter school. This group started doing their research and meeting with experts. They met with a professor from the University of Minnesota from the Center for Advanced Research in Language Acquisition (CARLA). She kind of guided them through the
pedagogy and things they may not have been familiar with. They landed on this two-way immersion model.”
To effectively administer this model of education, teachers are trained to facilitate conversation around the subject matter. This way, students aren’t just having social conservations, but conservations that include academic vocabulary related to what they’re learning. According to the research of Virginia Collier and Wayne Thomas, the most significant downside to the two-way immersion model is progress is initially slower than a conventional ESL approach. Over time, however, student progress erupts to the point where non-native English speakers are often surpassing their Englishspeaking peers.
Principal Forehand says, “The reason is [non-native English speakers] have
Residents of Madison may be familiar with MMSD offering two-way immersion education all the way from kindergarten to 12th grade, but that wasn’t always the case. Nuestro Mundo was the start of it all as a charter school that went through MMSD, rather than the UW system. It’s first home was as a school within a school in the Frank Allis Elementary building on Buckeye Road. It didn’t take long for the district to recognize the popularity of the education model, and now seven of its elementary schools, four of its middle schools, and each of the four high schools use dual language programs (of which the two-way immersion model is one).
As the district made its journey in developing successful language-acquisition programs, Nuestro Mundo took a little journey of its own. In 2012, the school moved out of the Frank Allis building to its own place in Monona. Then, in
access to math, science, social studies, all the content in their native language early on, so they’re not missing out on that. Then, through strategic bilingual methodology of creating bridging between the two languages, opportunities to transfer knowledge between the two languages, they have a stronger basis for their ability to make connections between two languages.”
As an example, consider that a lot of scientific terminology comes from Latin. At Nuestro Mundo, the language being taught alongside English is Spanish, and Spanish is a Romance language, meaning it evolved from Latin. The result, students can more quickly understand scientific vocabulary and incorporate it properly into conversation and writing.
2020, a referendum passed to fund the construction of a new school, Southside Elementary. This new school would effectively replace Frank Allis Elementary, so when construction was completed in 2023, the old building would be
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vacant. That same year, Nuestro Mundo found a new home in its old home at the Frank Allis building.
Being back home, so to speak, comes with the added bonus of regaining access to the extensive school garden available on premises. “We have a master gardener who comes 20 hours a week and works with our students,” says Principal Forehand. “Everything from preparing soil and planting to, when we come back in the fall, maintaining gardens, harvesting, and cooking. We can make
Huge Deli Featuring Salads, Olives & Fresh Italian Sausage
tortillas and salsa all with ingredients coming from the school garden.”
Food and language are part of culture, and Principal Forehand and everyone at Nuestro Mundo see each student’s culture as part of their identity. “ESL, while it’s extremely important from a philosophical standpoint, it’s not allowing students to develop their identity as a speaker of a certain language,” says Principal Forehand. “I’m from Texas originally, so when I taught there, students would have two years in bilingual and then they had to leave. So we’re telling kids that your language and identity are things that need to be overcome so you can
be successful in this country. Whereas with a dual language program, the message is you can strengthen and maintain and enrich your identity through your language and culture while simultaneously gaining language and skills in English that are necessary to be successful in this country.”
In case it wasn’t obvious, native English speakers benefit by being a part of the two-way immersion model as well. At Nuestro Mundo, these students come away with an advanced understanding of the Spanish language. It’s well documented that bilingual speakers get hired first and have higher salaries, but there are other advantages as well, like
having a decreased risk of developing dementia. The benefits of having Nuestro Mundo as part of MMSD have already been realized and will surely extend far into Wisconsin’s future.
Kyle Jacobson is a writer who thinks we too often use exceptions to develop our truths.
provided by Nuestro Mundo Community School .
Mundo Community School
4201 Buckeye Road, Madison, WI (608) 204-1079 nmcs.madison.k12.wi.us
Photographs
Photograph by Barbara Wilson
Kyle Jacobson
Nuestro
Camp Randall
by Jeanne Engle
Within three weeks of the outbreak of the Civil War, April 1861, Wisconsin men entered the gates of Madison’s Camp Randall to be trained for the Union Army. The training camp was named after the state’s governor, Alexander Randall. He had immediately called for Wisconsin volunteers when President Lincoln requested men to fight for the Union.
This place, typically associated with University of Wisconsin–Madison athletics, especially football, served as the center of Wisconsin’s Civil War activity. More than 70,000 of the 91,000plus men Wisconsin sent to fight the Confederates were drilled there. Within three months of the opening of Camp Randall, six regiments (4,800 soldiers) had been deployed.
During a typical day, the volunteers learned how to take orders, operate their weapons, march in columns, interact with fellow soldiers, and even how to cook in the field. Because battlefield tactics had changed little since the Revolutionary War and soldiers fought in a row side by side, it was imperative they knew their weapons intimately. However, marksmanship was not a priority over other maneuvers because the military thought each soldier would shoot accurately simply because he was told to do so.
Soldiers at the training camp were oftentimes bored once drills were finished. They longed to see some action on the battlefields. Unfortunately, some of the action they saw was in Madison taverns, where they drank too much and strained relations with Madison residents.
Camp Randall could handle up to 5,000 recruits at a time. Training lasted from
several weeks to several months. That first winter of 1861 was harsh, and the camp was overcrowded. Some recruits were housed in tents rather than in barracks. Measles, typhoid fever, and other diseases plagued the men. To improve conditions as new soldiers enlisted, buildings were expanded and hospitals on the grounds were renovated.
For a very short time, April through May of 1862, Camp Randall served as a prisoner-of-war (POW) camp. Nearly 1,200 Confederate soldiers who were captured during a battle along the Mississippi River near New Madrid, Missouri, were sent to Madison. Many of them were sick or wounded. Madison residents hung out at the railroad station hoping to glimpse the prisoners as they disembarked. According to local newspaper reports, the Confederates, mostly from Alabama, were not taunted and jeered by Madison residents. In fact, some good-hearted souls provided newspapers, food, and other supplies to the prisoners so their lives would be more comfortable.
Though 140 of the Rebel prisoners died at Camp Randall, conditions probably weren’t the worst compared to other
POW confinements nor were they the best. Those who met their end in Madison were buried in a plot in Forest Hill Cemetery named Confederate Rest, the northernmost burial site for Confederate soldiers in the United States. Union soldiers are buried in an adjacent, but separate, section of the cemetery.
Today, a small part of the original Camp Randall training complex, which was more than 50 acres bounded by University Avenue, Lathrop Street, Monroe Street, and North Randall Avenue, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. An arch, 36 feet high and 36 feet wide in the Roman triumphal style, marks the entrance to Camp Randall Memorial Park, six and a half
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acres of green space directly adjacent to today’s McClain Athletic Facility and the Camp Randall Sports Center.
A sculpture of two soldiers can be seen along either side of the arch—one a young
Season opens with Matilda and Winnie The Pooh
man ready to fight and the other an aging veteran. Old Abe, the bald eagle mascot of the Eighth Wisconsin Regiment, sits on top. Plaques on the interior walls of the arch honor the regiments that trained at Camp Randall. A Civil War cannon, a reconstruction of a small cabin representing accommodations at the camp, and an obelisk commemorating the sesquicentennial of the Civil War are also in the park.
The arch, on the corner of West Dayton Street and Randall Avenue, was dedicated in 1912. Three Civil War soldiers trained at Camp Randall were appointed by the Wisconsin governor to decide on a design and oversee the work. The arch was built by the same contractor who was rebuilding the Capitol building that had burned in 1904. The design of the arch has been attributed to Madison architect Lew Porter, although any definitive plans have not been found. Rather, it’s believed that a draftsman from the construction company may have been the designer.
More than 500 Civil War veterans attended the dedication. Considering that
the majority would have been around 70 years old and that the average American male life expectancy then was about 51 years, it was a remarkable number.
The original Camp Randall, prior to the Civil War, had been leased by the estate of William Bruen to the State Agricultural Society in the late 1850s. The Society used the land for the state fair, but gave it to the state at the outbreak of the Civil War for the Camp Randall training facility. After the war, Camp Randall was once again used for the state fair until 1885.
A few years later, the state was set to sell the land for residential development. Once a Civil War veterans association, the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) caught wind of the plan and lobbied the Wisconsin State Legislature to preserve the memory of Camp Randall. They were successful, and the land was purchased by the state. In turn, Camp Randall was deeded to the University of Wisconsin in 1893 for agriculture, athletics, and military drill. Again, an appeal to the Legislature by the GAR resulted in
state funds being allocated in 1911 for a memorial park and monument that was dedicated the following year.
Today at Camp Randall, UW–Madison students train for competitive athletic teams while advancing their academic and social development. They have metaphorical battles on athletic fields and courts. Their opponents: other institutions of higher learning. Discipline and camaraderie are forged here as they’ve always been, inspiring a community and linking past sacrifice to the present.
Jeanne Engle is a freelance writer.
Jeanne Engle
Photograph by MOD Media Productions
Photographs by Fred Engle.
autumnal landscape at Kettle Moraine State ForestSouthern Unit
by Emma Schatz
“The Cherish Fund will last lifetimes because our precious lands and waters must last lifetimes. When you support the fund, you support our public lands—now and forever.”
— Caitlin Williamson, director of conservation programs for the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin
Whether it’s the crunch of fall leaves, a tranquil fog over a favorite lake, or amazing wildlife viewing, Wisconsinites across the state can enjoy nature’s best moments at our state’s public lands. But what will it take to keep those moments happening far into the future?
Wisconsin boasts over 1.5 million acres of publicly owned forests, prairies, streams, lakes, and parks, but conservation is more than just setting aside land. It requires active stewardship, too. Managing invasive species, restoring native ecosystems, enhancing wildlife
PROTECTING WISCONSIN’S Public Lands through the CHERISH FUND
habitat, and improving public access are vital. That’s where the Cherish Wisconsin Outdoors Fund comes in.
In 2013, the DNR and the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin established the Cherish Wisconsin Outdoors Fund to support the conservation and management of our state’s public lands for generations to come. This endowment fund provides a permanent source of funding for habitat improvement and ecological restoration across lands owned or managed by the state. These include state natural areas, parks, trails, wildlife and fisheries areas, recreation zones, and forests.
The fund grows when Wisconsinites make small donations while purchasing their hunting and fishing licenses or when they give directly to the fund. Most donations are $10 or less, but it adds up quickly. Every dollar helps make sure future generations can enjoy the same natural places we do today. During the summer of 2025, the Cherish Fund reached $3 million in funds for the continued protection and management of Wisconsin’s public lands!
As the Cherish Wisconsin Outdoors Fund has grown, so has its positive impact on the lands we love. Last year, five high-priority habitat projects came to life in Calumet, Dane, Florence, Sauk, and Vilas Counties. These projects are restoring habitat for rare species while enhancing recreational opportunities for all.
From removing invasive species to restoring prairie remnants along the Ice Age Trail, the work protects the state’s species of greatest conservation need and globally
Photograph provided by Wisconsin
significant habitat. Meanwhile, past projects enabled by the fund continue making a difference.
In 2023, the fund supported habitat improvements at Leola and Buena Vista Wildlife Areas, home to the statethreatened greater prairie-chicken and many other grassland birds. A DNR crew removed invasive woody vegetation and brush across 350 acres, improving habitat for rare butterflies and grassland species.
At Lulu Lake State Natural Area, just west of Milwaukee, the Savanna Enhancement Project in 2021 aided more than 200 acres of oak savanna, prairie, and old field habitat. The work restored abandoned agricultural fields to prairie, increased plant diversity, and controlled invasive buckthorn. It also improved wildlife movement between grassland and savanna ecosystems. Now, Lulu Lake has richer habitat for birds and
pollinators plus improved access for hunters, anglers, birders, and hikers.
In 2019, restoration crews improved 278 acres at Lawrence Creek Fish and Wildlife Area in Adams County, removing invasive plants across oak savanna, barrens, and sedge meadow. The area is home to the American woodcock, eastern whip-poor-will, blue-winged warbler, and several types of reptiles and butterflies along with a variety of game species and a Class 1 trout stream. The work has improved hunting opportunities and enhanced the site’s beauty and accessibility for outdoor recreation.
These projects are just a glimpse into the Cherish Wisconsin Outdoors Fund’s growing impact on public lands in Wisconsin. Whether you fish, hunt, camp, canoe, hike, bike, birdwatch, or watch your children and grandchildren experience these activities, the fund
helps ensure these recreational activities can be enjoyed by everyone long into the future.
Three million dollars is an amazing milestone, but with all the challenges facing nature in Wisconsin, it’s not yet enough to protect our biodiversity. The needs are great, but not insurmountable. When hunters and anglers make donations of any size to the Cherish Fund, they truly are making a difference. For more information or to donate, visit wisconservation.org/cherish.
Emma Schatz is the digital communications coordinator for Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin.
Emma Schatz
freshly caught trout
Photograph provided by Christine Tanze
Photograph by Nate Fayram
prescribed burn at Bluff Creek State Natural Area
Beth
Bojarski
by Efrat Koppel
“There was a little pull chain she was about to pull, and it said something about ‘getting lucky tonight.’” In the painting, a man and a woman with a goiter stand under a light. Beth Bojarski tells me about a group of four laughing at her paintings in a booth, but “the wife in particular sees that one and just roared.”
A few minutes after they left, the husband came back and bought the piece. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen my wife laugh,” he said. “And anything, anything that makes her laugh like that, we need to have. I want that in our world.”
Few people buy Beth Bojarski’s paintings expecting to do so on first interaction, and stories like this are endemic to her
CloudHat
Stan Got Braces
experience. Look through her collection and you’ll find an Edwardian gentleman sniffing glue, a crow with braces, and a series of paintings with subdued palettes and incredible titles. If you take yourself too seriously, you might be spooked. You would also, unfortunately, be missing the point.
“Three viewings before they’re ready to buy,” Beth says. “The first time, it just might be ‘what is this?’ The second time, you’ll laugh again, and it grabs you again. The third time, people are ready to buy. That happens a lot.”
It makes sense. Beth’s palettes are often faded, and her paintings feature fancy characters who look like they belong to another era. There lies the brilliance of her craft. Our own lives don’t mirror the hypersaturation of social media and edited images, and it’s easier for us to take ourselves less seriously with anachronistic
Filthy
subjects. That combination of distance and closeness allows us to open, connect with, and enjoy the heart of what Beth is offering. In a perfectionistic world, Beth’s humor and imperfect characters feel like a welcome reprieve.
Humor comes naturally to Beth, who credits her dad, a prankster with a boisterous laugh. “He introduced it, and that’s the place that made me happy. Getting Dad to laugh when you knew Dad was funny was the goal. To hear that laugh, and the power of what that was. And then just following that.”
Beth got a late start in oil paints, trying them for the first time at 28. Trained at Kendall College of Art and Design
as a watercolor artist capable of highly technical realism, she went on to work full-time at Kohl’s as a creative director overseeing product design. She had stopped making work for a long time. “Watercolor is unforgiving. You need to know what you’re gonna paint before you go in because once you make a mark, it’s there.” When her dad opened an art gallery and asked her to contribute, she picked up oils. “I loved how they felt, how they moved across the board.”
She began using oils like watercolor, adding water to create thin washes of uneven colored surfaces where she could find and see things in shapes. The subjects and tone she chose, though unintentional, were a complete 180. She was only going to paint what she enjoyed,
Finally, Happy
Glue Sniffer
to her with tenderness, saying, “Emily, you’re not alone.” The piece sold, but Beth sees her now and then.
Just as the cartoon-like quality of her first works has fallen away, the distortion is on its way out. She’s moving to a higher level of realism and larger pieces now that she and her husband, sculptor Mark Winter, purchased a new space in Milwaukee with a studio and a home. The studio is larger than the 10- by 12-foot bedroom she painted in for 22 years. The home is kept as an Airbnb gallery filled with Mark’s furniture and local art. Guests can live with the art and purchase pieces if something speaks to them.
Devotion is paramount to Beth. She paints 11 to 12 hours a day, 9 months a year, only stopping between October and December. She spoke to me about the importance of taking your craft seriously, building a routine around when the muse comes to you, but
and the “raw, cartoonish, distorted” characters that defined her early career were born.
All her pieces sold immediately, and she kept going until she took the leap and quit her job. “It was the hardest, easiest thing I ever did.” Since then, the desire to find things in the shape has defined Beth’s approach. Beth reacts to paintings; she doesn’t plan them. Many have layers beneath that didn’t feel right. She collects funny phrases in a notebook, but rarely uses them. Beth’s artistic philosophy lives in the instinctual and instantaneous. She builds a relationship with her subjects and intuits her way through. The jokes aren’t prewritten; they’re found.
Even so, Beth’s work isn’t just silly. It’s vulnerable and emotional. There’s grief, acceptance, and lonesomeness. When I ask her if she has a favorite work, she remembers Emily Waits, which shows a girl with a birthday hat sitting, waiting alone for her guests to arrive. Beth relates
Gloaming
then fiercely protecting time. She has a calling, and we all benefit from it.
Imperfectness, awkwardness, vulnerability. For Beth, these words point to the same thing in her paintings and what feels important. There’s a truth in the awkwardness, and that truth is worth cherishing.
She tells me about They Gathered Up The Fingers No One Seemed To Want, which shows birds in flight collecting fingers. At a fair, a man asked why she painted it. She explained, “People can be really turned off by a missing limb or somebody’s imperfection. ... This idea of the birds, they didn’t have a problem with it, they wanted to bring it into their world.”
The man replied, “‘Oh, I just love that so much.” As he was leaving, he said, “Hey Beth.” He lifted his hand. He was missing half a finger and lined it up to the spot in the painting.
Beth says, “He gave me a wink and walked away.”
Efrat Koppel is an arts writer and lifelong arts lover and practitioner. Efrat writes about local artists, creative process, and the role of place in shaping artistic identity. When not writing, Efrat is involved with Dane County Food Collective, supporting food systems and community resilience in southern Wisconsin.
Efrat Koppel
Photographs provided by Beth Bojarski.
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