Yesterday in La Crosse

The chief calls it a career, 13 years ago

Published

5 years ago

April 9, 2019

In early 2006, Pete Stinson was retiring after a decade as La Crosse’s fire chief and more than 30 years as a firefighter. The chief told reporters that when he started, all you needed to become a La Crosse fireman was a high school diploma…and you had to be breathing. But modern firefighters were more likely to need a degree in education. Stinson had been a political science major at UW-L, and applied for the fire department when he couldn’t find police work.

In Houston County, Justin Meier was getting ready to go on trial for a murder dating back to Christmas-time of 2003. Meier was charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of Mark Sullivan of Caledonia, who had been seeing Meier’s ex-girlfriend. Police said Meier also kidnapped his ex and her baby boy and took them to Iowa just after the shooting.

Early that year, movie theaters were showing the animated ‘Hoodwinked’…a remake of ‘The Pink Panther,’ with Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau…and ‘Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector.’ ‘Larry’…real name, Dan Whitney…married former La Crosse radio personality Cara West shortly before the ‘Health Inspector’ movie came out in 2006, yesterday in La Crosse.

Brad Williams

A native of Prairie du Chien, Brad graduated from UW - La Crosse and has worked in radio news for more than 30 years, mostly in the La Crosse area. He regularly covers local courts and city and county government. Brad produces the features "Yesterday in La Crosse" and "What's Buried on Brad's Desk." He also writes the website "Triviazoids," which finds odd connections between events that happen on a certain date, and he writes and performs with the local comedy group Heart of La Crosse. Brad been featured on several national TV programs because of his memory skills.