Western Wisconsin News Briefs: Deer hunter killed in Buffalo County

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MONDOVI - State and local authorities are investigating an all-terrain vehicle crash that killed a deer hunter from western Wisconsin.

Buffalo County sheriff’s deputies said 57-year-old Greg Fedie of Arcadia apparently crashed his ATV on the side of a hill, close to where he was moving his tree stands for hunting. Officers were called just before midnight last night, after Fedie never made it home. Deputies originally found Fedie’s ATV, and his body was nearby. The state DNR is helping Buffalo County officers investigate the cause of the mishap.

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Should county government be in the nursing home business? The Saint Croix County Board in Hudson is expected to answer that question, when it decides whether to keep operating The Saint Croix Nursing Home open. Supervisors will consider options to sell-or-close the 50-bed nursing home – keep running it and cut expenses – or build a new facility. Board chairman Daryl Standafer says it’s been a quote, “contentious political football for at least 25 years.” He favors closing or selling the home – but most of all, he wants the long-running indecision to stop. The Friends of the Saint Croix Nursing Home are fighting to keep it open. Kim Dupre says the group agrees with Standafer that the home’s future has been in limbo for far too long. She said everyone’s tired of treading water on the issue – and it doesn’t help the nursing home, either.

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Sentencing is set for October 19th for a man convicted of a crime spree in Jackson County in 2010 that included a murder. 25-year-old Aaron Powers struck a plea deal in January in which he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of reckless homicide and vehicle theft as a repeat offender. But on Friday, visiting Judge Mark Goodman of Monroe County rejected a request by Powers to withdraw his pleas. He contended he was not allowed to review all the evidence, and therefore he was entitled to withdraw his plea deal. But the judge disagreed, saying Powers repeatedly denied remembering the murder and other events, because he was under the influence of drugs. Authorities said Powers broke into three houses in rural Jackson County before he killed 56-year-old Terrance Stoen of North Bend, who lived in the final house. Prosecutors said Powers slept overnight in the second house he burglarized, before busting into Stoen’s home – where Powers reportedly stole a computer, a cell phone, and other items before shooting Stoen and stealing the victim’s pickup truck. Five other charges were dropped in his plea deal, including three counts of burglary.

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Water levels on Lake Superior have remained normal this year, despite massive flooding in mid-June and relatively dry weather since then. Drew Gronewold of the Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab says the Great Lakes are very resilient – and it will take time to see how they’ll respond to the extreme changes in weather. Scientists will study that subject over the next 5-to-10 years.

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It appears that Wisconsin has lost its world record for the heaviest pumpkin. Chris Stevens of New Richmond has the Guinness World Record with a gourd of 18-hundred-10-and-a-half pounds, confirmed a year ago at the Stillwater Harvest Fest in Minnesota. Now, Ron Wallace of Greene Rhode Island has grown a gigantic pumpkin weighing in at two-thousand-nine pounds. It won the $5,500 first prize at the Topsfield Fair pumpkin contest on Friday in Topsfield Massachusetts – and it won $10,000 additional dollars for breaking the one-ton mark. A somewhat lighter pumpkin also broke Stevens’ record last week. Steve Geddes of Boscawen, New Hampshire had a gourd weighing 1,843 pounds at the Deerfield Fair in New Hampshire.

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