La Crosse Talk PM WIZM

UW-La Crosse political science professor, Dr. Anthony Chergosky, may have just sparked Wisconsin’s fiercest food fight — the Great Curds War between Kwik Trip and Culver’s.

We kicked off Friday's show with this critical debate and circled back often. Chergosky took a firm stance on who has the best cheese curds based on some changes in the Kwik Trip kitchens. 

In the spirit ...

UW-L political science and public administration professor, Dr. John Kovari, joins in-studio to dissect everything from the city administrator's role in lowering La Crosse taxes to working Oompa Loompas into a conversation about TIFs — which might explain why his TIF book is orange.

Kovari breaks down TIF (Tax Increment Financing) districts, how La Crosse u...

UW-La Crosse political science professor, Dr. Anthony Chergosky, joins on Valentine's Day, so of course we discuss those chalk hearts. We also got into voter turnout in Tuesday's primary with the mayor race being on the ballot, plus is Tim Walz going to run for US Senate in Minnesota? 

Began the show, though, with Valentine's Day, whether those candy hearts are even good and what ever happened to those candy cigarettes. Later ...

UW-La Crosse political science professor, Dr. Anthony Chergosky, in the WIZM studio Friday for La Crosse Talk PM, breaking down the mayor debate, while also discussing what you wish you knew before moving to the area and creating fake social media profiles.

Less than 12 hours after WIZM hosted the four candidates for La Crosse mayor, Chergosky, along with WIZM’s Brad Williams, spent a good portion of the show covering differe...

On Feb. 6, the four candidates running for La Crosse mayor took part in a forum hosted by WIZM at the UW-La Crosse Student Union. Shaundel Washington-Spivey, Vicki Markussen, Ellie McLoone and Chris Kahlow are looking to push through the primary and on to the spring election. Voting in the primary ends Feb. 18, when the field will be cut to two.

Here's the rundown of questions:

3:24 - Opening statements 

10:22 - Question 1: Al...

UW-L political science professor, Dr. Anthony Chergosky, in the WIZM studio for La Crosse Talk discussing the worthwhile and worthless bill lawmakers propose, like banning cellphones in school in Wisconsin and putting Donald Trump on Mt. Rushmore.

We went down a rabbit hole on that latter idea, while I came up with a better proposal — putting Trump on the $1 million bill. That, in a way, actually, already happened, but it did...

La Crosse County and 3rd US House District Democratic Party chair William Garcia in studio trying to make sense of all the chaos that surrounds President Donald Trump's first days, the Dems' involvement in local races and Goonies turns 40 this year.

Started and ended the show with Trump's first 10 days in office. We began with his administration's strategy of overwhelming with chaos. The impossibility of anyone or anything trying t...

UW-La Crosse political science professor, Dr. Anthony Chergosky, in studio as we kickoff the show breaking news that a La Crosse mayor primary debate is coming, plus the news of a media group laying off or firing local meteorologists. 

Began the show talking about WIZM hosting an upcoming La Crosse mayor debate between Ellie McLoone (who will be on La Crosse Talk at 7 a.m. Wednesday), Chris Kahlow, Shaundel Washington-Spivey a...

UW-La Crosse political science professor, Dr. Anthony Chergosky, in the WIZM studio Friday for La Crosse Talk PM, despite it being Quitters Day. We discuss what that is, along with a slew of other things:

• How businesses use amenities to guilt us into shopping
• The controversies around Facebook/X/TikTok hoarding our data and looming TikTok ban
• Is this newest Kwik Trip in La Crosse the Taj Mahal of KTs?
• The genius of Wisconsin&rs...

Katie Kotlowski, the two-time National Champion with the No. 1-ranked University of Wisconsin women’s hockey team, joined La Crosse Talk PM on Thursday.

The senior defensive player, who calls La Crosse her hometown, talks about playing on the ice on Wrigley Field last weekend, how she got started in hockey at the Green Island Ice Arena and what she does off the ice through volunteering.

Plus, you know, winning titles in 2021 ...

He’s the man behind the eats on Abe’s Raves, Abram Dyke, stopped in the WIZM studio to talk everything food in La Crosse. What the area’s doing well, what it needs to work on and why he started the page.

How he got started is a pretty heart-warming story of helping struggling businesses.

We also hit on what La Crosse does well for dining out, and what it’s missing. 

This conversation was a clash of...

UW-La Crosse political science professor, Dr. Anthony Chergosky, in the WIZM studio Friday for La Crosse Talk PM, predicting the Top 2025 stories for both La Crosse and Wisconsin.

This conversation went back and forth, as we did a bit of a dive on each topic, including the La Crosse mayor's race and adding ranked-choice voting, plus school referendums and when to put those on the ballot, and lastly the top story potentially dealing...

Instead of having Pam Starcher stop in at WIZM, we took La Crosse Talk PM to her, and discussed how to make yoga a New Year's resolution, right from her studio at The Yoga Place at Fifth and Main streets, downtown. 

Stacher has been the owner for a decade but The Yoga Place has been there nearly 40 years and was La Crosse's first-ever yoga studio.

For those who want to try and make yoga their thing in 2025, Starcher has a begi...

WIZM's Brad Williams in studio to recap La Crosse's biggest topics of 2024 from the porn scandal at UW-La Crosse to Donald Trump and Kamala Harris campaigns in town and capped off by development in the area.

A week ago, we broke down the Top 25 most viewed stories on the WIZM News website, but this conversation is about Williams Top 3 story categories, which was led off with the UW-La Crosse saga involving fired chancellor Joe Gow ...

The owner of Pearl Street Books, Beth Hartung, and La Crescent’s public library director, Jess Witkins, stopped in the WIZM studio to discuss, what else, books, including the best of 2024, book bans, reading as a New Year’s resolution, and what’s changed in popularity over the year and years.

This is part of a series of La Crosse Talk PMs about New Year’s resolutions, as we discussed a couple of different st...

Claire and Phillip Mitchell kickoff a La Crosse Talk PM series on health, as the new year approaches and we all start thinking about resolutions.

The two own Mitchell Holistic Health in Onalaska, a clinic that tackles health issues in various ways, from physical therapy to functional medicine to life coaching.

The Mitchells are headed into their fifth year at the clinic, and we talked abo...

Two conversations about homelessness on Monday's La Crosse Talk PM with city council members Chris Woodard and Mac Kiel. 

La Crosse’s two big committees meet next week Thursday, Woodard discusses a resolution he’s authored that — simply put — requests the state and federal government’s help in addressing homelessness.

After that, Kiel joins to talk about the warming shelters being full and how the...

UW-La Crosse political science professor, Dr. Anthony Chergosky, in the WIZM studio Friday for La Crosse Talk PM, discussing whether Santa is a Democrat or a Republican, how old is too old to believe, is Elon Musk or Donald Trump the president, and will the next two years of the Wisconsin state Legislature be less productive than the last.

Began the show with a caller complaining about alternate-side parking rules, after she receiv...

Central High School teacher John Havlicek in studio discussing, in his over 30 years, how kids have changed because of cellphones. We also hit on the $4.5 billion state surplus, as Gov. Tony Evers was in La Crosse on the budget, and how school funding leads to better student outcomes.

We started, though, with Havlicek teaching Spanish and how or whether that’s changed of his three decades.