This collection of stories from people sharing their “Wisconsin Life” includes the story of a team of four UW-Barron engineering students who took on the big boy tech schools around the country to compete in a national Rube Goldberg machine competition (think, build a better mousetrap). Dru Galetka and his three friends used low-budget materials to build their machine and an old ice-fishing shack on wheels to transport the finished entry to the competition. Find out how the students fared – and what they learned along the way.
Then Wisconsin Life travels to Crab Lake to meet Jim Olson. For him, there’s nothing more peaceful than rowing around Crab Lake in his 14-foot boat, trailing three fishing lines in the water behind him. Olson is a muskie fisherman, and that requires a lot of patience.
Next, it’s over to Madison to meet Dawn Marie Svanoe, an artist who uses the human body as her canvas. After twelve years of “body painting”, Svanoe is used to people having a lot of questions about how she goes about creating her work, but she appreciates the added dimension that the “living canvas” brings to the art.
Finally, Wisconsin Life heads to Milwaukee to learn about a Shakespeare therapy program at the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center in Milwaukee helps treat veterans suffering from PTSD. The program was founded in 2013 by Nancy Smith-Watson. Veterans participate on a volunteer basis, and the three-day intensive workshop has veterans act out short Shakespeare scenes selected by Smith-Watson and her husband. Delivering the Bard’s dramatic lines in their own voice becomes something of a catharsis for the veterans.
