Thursday, September 7, 2017 • Vol. 53, No. 16 • Verona, WI • Hometown USA • ConnectVerona.com • $1
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Verona Press The
2009 VAHS grad ‘ready’ for Ironman Race will again come through Verona Sept. 10 SCOTT GIRARD
Inside Details on traffic, Loop Festival Page 16
Unified Newspaper Group
Photo by Scott Girard
From left, Sawyer Rohan, Max Crimmings and August Joelson walk up and down their class line.
Back to school
Students around the Verona Area School District, including those at Glacier Edge Elementary School, returned for their first day Friday, Sept. 1, before a three-day weekend for Labor Day.
Inside More photos from the first day Page 8
Obsessed with answers Verona native writes book after discovering historical mystery Press correspondent
For years, Verona native Carolyn Porter has been infatuated with love letters written by a man she never met. Porter, a graphic designer, had been perusing an antique shop in Stillwater, Minn., for source material for her “passion project” – designing a font – when she found letters written with gorgeous handwriting, in a language she couldn’t read. Once translated, it uncovered the story of a French man living in a labor camp during World War II, writing to his wife and daughters. Porter has brought that story to life in her book, “Marcel’s Letters: A Font and The Search For One Man’s Fate,” published in June 2017.
The book weaves together two true stories, Porter told the Press: one of her desire to complete her passion project, which took 12 years to design; the other, to ensure a man named Marcel Huezé was not forgotten by history. “The second part of the story is a search for answers,” she said. “Who was Marcel, and Porter why were his letters for sale in an antique store in Minnesota? What happened to his family? Why was he in a labor camp in World War II? “And the biggest question, the question that confused me for so long, what happened to him?” To find that out, you’ll have to read
The
Verona Press
the book, as Porter asked to not give away the answer. She looks at the letters as a sort of historical mystery, and she tries to take readers on the same journey she experienced. The decision to write the book came after she had one of the letters translated while working on the font. Her interest in typography dates back to her time in the Paoli 4-H Fireballs 4-H club. The posters for the 4-H projects she exhibited were all handwritten. Porter grew up between Paoli and Verona, off County Highway PB, living there from age 3 to the end of her eighth-grade year, when her family moved to Minnesota. She still checks in with classmates from time to time. The book, which took a quarter of
Turn to Book/Page 13
of 2010 graduate Kory Seymour is also competing. Sunday’s race begins and ends in downtown Madison – with a 2.4-mile swim in Lake Monona, a 112-mile bike ride with two loops through Verona and finally a 26.2-mile run. Ve r o n a h a s b e c o m e well-known for its Loop Festival on Main Street, in addition to plenty of cheering race-watchers in several other areas, including Whalen Road near Old Hwy. PB and Midtown Road near
Turn to Ironman/Page 16
Fitch-Rona EMS turns 40 Advancements in technology lead to better service KIMBERLY WETHAL Press correspondent
Forty looks good on Fitch-Rona EMS. The Fitch-Rona EMS has come a long way since starting as a volunteer organization with one ambulance truck in Fitchburg in September 1977. Today, it has become a service that employs fulltime paramedics, can send electrocardiograms (EKG) to doctors waiting at a hospital and is looking to add a third ambulance
as early as 2018, when the newest station on the northeast side of Fitchburg is built. Brian Myrland, FitchRona EMS’ chief, joined the program in 2002 as a volunteer who wanted to give back to the community and was intrigued Myrland by the idea of working with the EMS. Since then, he’s seen the Fitch-Rona EMS become the second-biggest emergency medical service in Dane County, following
Turn to EMS/Page 14
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KIMBERLY WETHAL
Chris Borgerding remembers watching the Ironman race going through his neighborhood as a child growing up in Verona. This year, the 2009 Verona Area High School graduate will be among the thousands of bicyclists coming through the city as a competitor Sept. 10. “(Competing in the race) was always kind of in the back of my mind,” Borgerding told the Press just more than a week before the race. T h e f o r m e r VA H S hockey player will have a friend by his side – or at least somewhere on the course – as VAHS Class