Yesterday in La Crosse
Yesterday 12/28/16
Yesterday 12/28/16
Rotary Lights gets an extension…10 years ago, Yesterday in La Crosse.
By 2006, the Rotary Lights display in Riverside Park had become a holiday tradition for just over a decade. That year, the La Crosse Park Board voted to add five years to the Rotary’s lease on the park at Christmas-time. The vote happened during the summer, shortly before Riverfest. Among the headline performers at the festival in ’06 would be the bands Caroline’s Spine and Better Than Ezra.
There was talk at City Hall of turning the Naval Reserve site on Green Bay Street into a La Crosse city park. That was described as a last resort by Alderman Tom Sweeney. The Navy had moved out, but the building was still there. The old training facility was torn down eventually, and the lot is still empty today.
Late in 2006, Joe Gow was preparing to come to La Crosse, to succeed Doug Hastad as chancellor of U-W-L. Hastad left La Crosse to run Carroll College in Waukesha. Gow was hired away from his job as interim president of Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln.
NBC had just begun showing Sunday Night Football that fall, and also aired the high school football drama ‘Friday Night Lights.’ And ABC had a new hit with ‘Ugly Betty.’ Ten years ago, 2006, Yesterday in La Crosse.
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