WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 2017
Serving Polk County’s St. Croix Valley since 1897
VOL. 119 NO. 35 www.osceolasun.com $1.00
SPORTS: High school track season begins. PAGE 23
Voters guide to the Spring Election BY SUZANNE LINDGREN EDITOR@OSCEOLASUN.COM
Voters will elect numerous local officials April 4, in addition to a Polk County Judge and State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Osceola also has a contentious school referendum. Here’s what to expect on the ballot.
Village of Osceola Incumbent president Gary Beckmann and trustees Carol Otto, Wally Piszczek and Stephen Bjork are all running for reelection in the Village of Osceola. Beckmann is running unopposed. Van Andrew Burch will run with the incumbent trustees. SEE CANDIDATES, PAGE 11
Osceola CEO fined and sentenced to home confinement in fraud case Judge calls Gottfried Kellerman a ‘self-deluded charlatan,’ while an active deportation order awaits enforcement BY JESSICA DE LA CRUZ EDITOR@THEAMERYFREEPRESS.COM
More than five months after pleading guilty to criminal charges, Gottfried Kellermann, 76 of Osceola, was sentenced in Federal Court Thursday for his role in the
fraudulent operation of his own Osceola-based businesses NeuroScience Inc. and Pharmasan Labs. Judge James D. Peterson sentenced Kellerman to six months of home confinement, along with a $50,000 fine and five years of probation, for intentionally violating the oversight of Department of Health and Human Services programs. His company, NeuroScience, Inc., was also named in the case, and was sentenced to five years probation and a $140,000 fine for conspiring to defraud the United
Gottfried Kellerman
States. Both Kellerman and NeuroScience pled guilty to the charges in October, and in civil portions of the case agreed
to pay over $6 million dollars. A history of behavior The Kellermanns’ two companies are intertwined in their day-to-day operation. Pharmasan Labs conducts neurotransmitter testing for doctors and clinics worldwide, and NeuroScience then recommends its own nutritional supplements for patients based on the results those tests. The businesses employ approximately 150 people and have been in operation since 2002. The SEE CASE, PAGE 10
Osceola Middle School ranks fourth in state BY SUZANNE LINDGREN EDITOR@OSCEOLASUN.COM
With a score of 90 percent, Osceola Middle School ranked fourth among 355 middle schools in Wisconsin on its most recent schoolwide report card, based on testing done in the 2015-’16 school year. School report cards are part of the state’s accountability system, rating schools on student achievement, growth, closing gaps, and postsecondary readiness. In OMS’ athletic conference, which includes Amery, Baldwin, New Richmond, Prescott, Somerset and St. Croix Central, the school ranked first in reading and math for the first time ever. “It’s a pretty amazing
Principal Rebecca Styles
place to be academically,” said Principal Rebecca Styles. Now in her 14th year at the school, Styles is seeing the results of a concerted effort to raise standards after the school tested poorly in the 2010-’11 school year. That year, fewer than half of OMS students scored “proficient” or
“advanced” for their grade level, and two of the school’s three grade levels tested below the state average. “This is when we said, ‘What? We’re better than this,’” Styles explained, describing the school’s math scores as “abysmal, to say the least.” Two years later, after implementing a string of changes, math scores were on the rise. And students are continuing to show improvement. Raw test scores do not fully account for OMS’ high report card ranking, according to Styles. An important part of the school’s score was student growth, a new measure on the report cards. “We’re literally as high as we can be in student SEE SCHOOL, PAGE 10
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Eighth graders read at Osceola Middle School. Literacy is now part of the curriculum in every subject.
Thank you to all the local heroes in our communities. Your commitment and decication is an inspiration to all of us.
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