Stevens Point Journal from Stevens Point, Wisconsin • Page 3

Your contact: Allen Hicks 715-422-6724 Nathan Vine 715-345-2052 Sunday, February Top quotes 15, 2009 "It's just so much fun flying through the air. It just feels like you're going to be there 15-year-old James Cody of lola, who competed in ski jumping at the 2009 Badger State Games, and has qualified for the 2009 Junior Olympics to be held in Alaska in March. "This statement will come back and bite the county. It was unprofessional." Wood County Public Safety Committee Chairman Jeff Conradt. The committee approved censuring Marshfield police chief Joe Stroik, who was quoted as saying staffing dispatch with less than four people was negligent and could lead to tragedy and potential lawsuits.

"$60 to win $10,000, that's a pretty good Patrick Barrett, 47, who took first place in the American Cribbage Congress open tournament the first weekend of February. He won $10,000. Calendar MONDAY FAMILY FUN Silly Olympics (elementary-age program), 4 p.m., McMillan Memorial Library, 490 E. Grand Wisconsin Rapids. 715-423-1040.

OTHER STUFF UWSP voice area recital, 7:30 p.m., UWSP, Michelsen Recital Hall, Noel Fine Arts Center, 1800 Portage Stevens Point. 715- 346-3107. Monday Movies, 7 p.m., McMillan Memorial Library, 490 E. Grand Wisconsin Rapids. 715-423-1040.

TUESDAY KARAOKE Karaoke with Lonie 9 p.m., Brown's Bar, 504 E. Fourth Marshfield. 715-384- 3232. OTHER STUFF Senior citizens pinochle, 12:45 p.m., Stevens Point Parks and Recreation Department, 2442 Sims Stevens Point. 715- 345-9821.

"To Laugh is to Live," by Kenny Ahern, 6:30 p.m., McMillan Memorial Library, 490 E. Grand Wisconsin Rapids. 715-423-1040. WEDNESDAY KARAOKE Bluegrass open mic, 8 p.m., Northland Ballroom, N10103 Highway 49, Iola. 715-677- 3491.

Karaoke, 9 p.m., Whoudini's Bar, 2010 Chestnut Wisconsin Rapids. 715-424-1807. Karaoke, 9 p.m., Citie Haul, 430 W. Jackson Wisconsin Rapids. 715-421-4990.

Karaoke with Lonie 9 p.m., Potsie's, 511 S. Central Marshfield. 715-384-4087. MUSIC UWSP Jazz Repertory Concert, 7:30 p.m., UWSP, Michelsen Recital Hall, Noel Fine Arts Center, 1800 Portage Stevens Point. 715- 346-3107.

Jukebox Joe, 2 p.m., Golden LivingCenter-Three Oaks, 209 Wilderness View Drive, Marshfield. 715-389- 6000. Local wisconsinrapidstribune.com marshfieldnewsherald.com stevenspointjournal.com 3A Research Research may reopen mills good enough condition to Biofuel innovations could provide jobs to laid off workers be retrofitted. Some lack everything but the wood BY NICK PAULSON CENTRAL WISCONSIN SUNDAY Not only could biofuel research by two professors help alleviate dependence on oil, but it could help unemployed mill workers get back to work. Don Guay and Erik Singsaas, both professors at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, are working on separating biomass wood, agricultural residues into its main components and then converting those into marketable products.

The process would take place in biorefineries, which can be built in vacant pulp mills, similar to ones in Port Edwards and Brokaw. "We have the biomass available," Singsaas said. "And we have the work force that knows how to handle and process that biomass." GANNETT WISCONSIN MEDIA FILE PHOTO could lead to mills such as Edwards, which was closed in biorefineries. how to operate. There also would be indirect job creation to grow and transport the wood.

American Science and Technology, one of the pair's partners that will build the initial pilot plant, estimates a substantial percent could Innovations in biofuel research the Domtar paper mill in Port 2008, to be reopened as Much of the plant work would be the same or very similar as before, so returning workers would need minimal training. The new plants would use the wood rooms and chemical digesters pulp mills already have and workers already know Local TV stations set for switch to digital BY MEGAN LOISELLE FOR CENTRAL WISCONSIN SUNDAY Despite a last-minute public notice from the Federal Communications Commission, all Wausau-area television stations appear set to continue with plans to make the digital transition on or before Tuesday. The FCC informed 123 stations, including those in Wausau and Rhinelander, they might have to delay the switch until June 12, so no city loses all its analog network broadcasts. The government has delayed the mandatory shutdown of analog TV signals by four months to give people with older TVs more time to prepare. But because it is costly to keep broadcasting analog signals after a station's digital signal is active, nearly 500 stations have announced they will make the transition by Tuesday.

Gil Buettner, general manager of WJFW-TV Channel 12 in Rhinelander, said the FCC on Friday approved the station's request to end analog service because the station had notified the public well in advance. WJFW plans to make the switch at 11:55 p.m. Monday for those who receive their signal on Channel 12. The station's second transmitter, which broadcasts on Channel 27, most likely will switch over Tuesday. The station will remind viewers during its evening newscasts, and a message will scrawl across the screen until the switch is made, he said.

WSAW will now transition at 11:55 p.m. Monday instead of Tuesday afternoon as previously scheduled, according to their Web site as of Saturday evening. Officials at WAOW-TV Channel 9 and WFXS-TV How Do You Watch Local TV? transition quickly to a new biorefinery, although there is no current estimate for how many could open. "I think the overlap is about 60 to 70 percent," said Ali Manesh, president of AST. "They can be directly implemented to do exactly what they were doing, except with a new product." But there still are hurdles to jump before the pilot can be built.

There is a small fraction of the separated biomass Guay and Singsaas need to decide what to do with, and then the entire process needs to be scaled up to the factory level. The pilot plant is slated to open in 2010, with the full biorefinery on target for a few years after that. The interim period will give them a chance to find the right sites. Not every pulp mill will be in Converter Box Digital TV Satellite or Cable Is it hooked up to the Is it hooked up to the You don't need to do antenna? antenna? anything Set-top Outside Set-top Outside If no picture, contact or rabbit rooftop or rabbit rooftop your provider ears Antenna ears Antenna You may Is it You may Is it need to pointed need to pointed move the toward move the toward 'ears' Rib Mtn? "ears" Rib Mtn? Still having a May new need or Are converter the a May new need or rescan Did you your trouble? outside TV box set set at outside If channels? not, Contact antenna 3 antenna Ch or one of the resouces Did you Do you rescan your listed have instruction your If channels? not, below manual? Herald Feb. 17 March 30 DTV Call Center Help Line 1-800-422-9707 1-888-225-5322 www.dtvanswers.com www.wpt.org/digitaltv Channel 55 in Wausau could not be reached for comment, but as of Saturday, their respective Web sites still announced plans to make the transition to DTV.

Charles Engle, the FCC transition coordinator for Wausau, will answer questions and demonstrate how to hook up a converter box from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today at the Wausau Center mall. Delores Loskot of Wausau met with Engle at the mall Saturday to ask how to scan for channels through her converter box after the switch is made. "I will have someone come over to do it," Loskot said.

Engle recommends people rescan their channels using their television menu on Tuesday afternoon once the stations shut off their analog signal. Buettner said he anticipates a lot of phone calls Tuesday from people having difficulties with their antenna or converter boxes. The elderly and people living in apartments, trailer homes and rural areas likely will experience the most problems, he said. "Some people are not prepared," Buettner said. State budget woes worry school officials around.

The Stevens Point School District will be in the third and final year of a public referendum this fall so it will have enough funding for the school year, but if cuts do take place, the repercussions could be terrible for so many districts across the state, School Board President Dwight Stevens said. "The problem I see is for the potential loss of general aid and that would be very crippling," Stevens said. "If things fell apart at the state level, it would give every community severe problems." Currently, the state gives most districts twothirds of each one's rev- remainder is funded up by the local taxpayers. The amount the district receives from the state depends on the valuation of its land the richer it is valued, the less it receives. Wisconsin Rapids School District Superintendent Bob Crist said Doyle's speech at the Wisconsin Association of School Boards convention last month provided hope that school districts in the state, many of which have already made plans for substantial cuts to programs and staffing numbers this year, will be spared from cuts to state funding this year.

"He gave a very eloquent message to all of us to try to hold the line as best he can with education funding, but he can't promise anything," Crist said. The $787 billion federal stimulus package, which Congress approved Friday, is expected to provide a boost to public education and could save Doyle from making cuts to general aid this week. Early reports have Wisconsin receiving anywhere between $2.5 billion and more than $4 billion from the package. "Hopefully it won't come to that point," Stevens said. "We need to remember if state aid is cut, eventually the local state taxpayer picks up the cost." BY ADAM WISE potential cuts this time enue cap, while the that he's basically going room, while others are too outdated to be worth the money.

"If that was a 100-yearold mill, what skeletons are under the ground?" Guay said. "You have to go into the mills and take a look." The site is critical for the long-term goal, which is making each refinery flexible enough to quickly transition between products depending on what the market demands. Like an auto plant switching from manufacturing cars to trucks, the biorefineries would need to jump between fuel, heating oil and even wood pulp, something ethanol plants can't do. "We're hoping the biorefinery will produce multiple products and be less susceptible to the economic ups and downs you usually see," Singsaas said. Library uses GPS to help locate cemeteries BY NATHANIEL SHUDA CENTRAL WISCONSIN SUNDAY Twenty-first century technology is now making things easier for those who want to find out more about their relatives who lived and died centuries ago in central Wisconsin.

McMillan Memorial Library in Wisconsin Rapids has created an online guide to Wood County cemeteries using a Google Maps feature to make it easier for researchers to locate the county's more than 60 cemeteries. "We get a lot of requests for cemetery lookups, and when we tell people that a burial is in a certain cemetery, we didn't have a way of telling them where it was," said Andy Barnett, the library's assistant director. The guide includes a listing of each cemetery, a brief description of its location and the GPS coordinates, which can be used in conjunction with car navigation systems to obtain turn-by-turn directions. While the library already had the majority of the information, most of it was in -copy format and stored at the library inaccessible to those outside of the Wisconsin Rapids area, Barnett said. Gravestones often contain birth and death dates and sometimes even parents' names and other vital information, said Diantha Neinfeldt, vice chairwoman of the Heart O' Wisconsin Genealogical Society.

While the society continues to work on indexing the 71 cemeteries in Wood County, being able to more easily locate those hardto-find spots through GPS could save hours of looking. "I'm always searching for stones that are out in the middle of the fields or stones that are out in the middle of the woods and are hard to find," Neinfeldt said, citing one grave site out near City Point. When she finally found the stone, the owner of the nearby property didn't even know it was there, she said. "I think it would be helpful for someone living outside the area to be able to find (any) cemetery," said Doreen Dimick, also a member of the society. "I know that when I have done trips, you like to know where you're going, so it does help that you can go online." Since library staff launched the new tool about a month ago, they have gotten quite a bit of positive feedback from people outside the area, Barnett said.

"When we respond and include that (link), people are very pleased," he said. On the Web: Use McMillan Memorial Library's cemetery locator feature at www.mcmillanlibrary. CENTRAL WISCONSIN SUNDAY Leaders from two of the largest school districts in central Wisconsin are bracing for Tuesday's planned unveiling of the state's budget, which could drastically affect public education this fall. Gov. Jim Doyle is expect to release his plan for the 2009-11 biennial budget Tuesday, which currently is projected to have a more than $5 billion shortfall.

Doyle, who has been called a strong advocate for public education, admitted that in the current financial crisis in both the state and the country, education is not completely free from.