W E D N E S D AY, O C T O B E R 2 9 , 2 0 0 8 • V O L U M E 7 6 • N O . 1 0 • 2 S E C T I O N S • 8 , 0 0 0 C O P I E S • S E C T I O N A
W E E K E N D W AT C H:
• Haunted Pavilion @ Grantsburg • “Arsenic and Old Lace” @ SCFalls • Haunted house and maze @ Luck • Halloween parties @ SCFalls, Amery, Dresser • Christmas Fair @ Balsam Lake • Ruby’s Pantry @ Danbury • A Northwoods Christmas @ Siren See Coming Events and stories
Leader INTER-COUNTY
Serving Northwest Wisconsin
Time to choose
Set your clocks back one hour on Saturday
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R ed - d y t o sca re
Tuesday is Election Day and there are races to decide - from U.S. president to county treasurer; ELECTION PREVIEW, pages 4-9
Poaching charges Three friends and several others charged in separate cases in same area PAGE 29
11 federal drug arrests Federal officials arrest 11 persons, most tribal residents, charging them with conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine PAGE 3
Keeping an eye on the future District looks to maintain good financial condition while keeping up with technology PAGE 13
Gamache to resign from county board 7th change for Polk County in 10 years PAGE 2
I NS ID E
This monster wasn’t red in the face with embarrassment but rather reddy to scare those who dared venturing into the spooky darkness of Grantsburg’s Haunted Pavilion. More photos inside. – Photo by Priscilla Bauer
“By Heart” Local writer examines home-based learning in rural America
SPORTS
Three in, three out; Area gridders knocked from playoff picture
Unity twins plan goodwill trip to Nepal CURRENTS FEATURE
INSIDE
Volunteers help Ruby’s help others Currents
Unity twins goodwill trip to Nepal CURRENTS FEATURE
ST. CROIX FALLS – “I never intended to home school my children,” says author Kathleen Melin of rural St. Croix Falls, commenting on her book “By Heart: A Mother’s Story of Children and Learning at Home” just released with Clover Valley Press. “We began home schooling in 1992. We thought we’d home school for one year,” says Melin. But the experiment became a lifestyle. What came with the lifestyle was a great deal of questioning, even to the point of hostility, and on the other end of the spectrum, a tendency to glorify the home-school choice. “I was quite surprised by people’s strong reactions to what seemed to me a natural choice,” says Melin. The idea of writing about the experience came about when Melin was working on a graduate degree in creative writing at the University of Minnesota. “I thought I’d write children’s books. I still love them,” says Melin. But she had the opportunity to work with Patricia Hampl, one of the seminal memoir writers of the recent past, whose first book, “A Romantic Education,” helped revolutionize the
writing of memoirs. Memoir writing had been the domain of very public figures with glorious pasts – generals and presidents. Hampl’s literary nonfiction on growing up in Saint Paul and going to a Catholic school, published in 1980, announced a sea change. And now, writing about the experience of a common life is common. Melin had been working on a novel Kathleen Melin and a short-story collection with the intention of using one of them as her thesis project. “The urgency of home schooling and all the controversy around it was swimming in me constantly. I had my own internal questions and tensions. And the societal feedback was very challenging. I wanted to resolve some of those questions, inside and outside. I wanted to live a holistic life, and so for me, that meant living what I was doing, doing it, studying it, and writing about it. My
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