Weigel, Bergman to be honored as 2024 Friends of Access

Two long-time community media volunteer producers will be recognized next month at the 2024 spring Wisconsin Community Media conference as Friends of Access.

The Friend of Access Award recognizes people in Wisconsin who understand, support, and champion community media.  Typically the award recognizes those who have made a significant impact on the success of a media center or someone who has been involved in community media for many years and has demonstrated a dedication to its mission.

This year’s honorees are Mike Weigel and Nancy Bergman. Weigel has been a long-time community media producer for Marshfield Broadcasting, while Bergman has herself been a long-time producer for WTCO in Trempealeau County.

In nominating Mike Weigel for the honor, Marshfield communications director Tom Loucks said, “I believe Mike deserves the Friend of Access Award because he puts in numerous volunteer hours in weekly. Not only does he film and edit events every week, but he also programs the city’s Producers’ Channel daily as a volunteer. He has been dedicated for over 25 years and never gives up. He looks for programs daily to share on the channel and is instrumental in building promos for the channel too.He is always trying to make things better and get the word out in the community.”

In nominating Nancy Bergman for the award, WTCO digital media director Kevin Bargender said, “Her dedicated work and service to Trempealeau County in helping entertain, educate, and inspire viewers on countless amounts of topics ranging from historical to legendary has been invaluable. Nancy has represented Trempealeau County in a positive way for the past 30 years and continues to look for ways to innovate and better herself in making videos. She is an integral part of WTCO and is a household name for people living in and around Trempealeau County. When people think of WTCO, they think of Nancy. Her passion and dedication to the station does not go unnoticed and because of this, I believe she is worthy of this award.”

Both Bergman and Weigel will be honored during the Best of the Midwest Media Fest. The 2024 fest will be held at the Lismore Hotel in Eau Claire at 6:30 PM on Thursday, May 16, 2024. The awards will be presented jointly by the President of the WCM Board of Directors and the person who submitted the nomination.

The WCM Board of Directors approved these nominations at their February 2024 board meeting.

For more information on the Friend of Access awards, go here.

Congratulations to Mike Weigel and Nancy Bergman and a big thanks to all they have done for community media!

Media centers helping voters to decide in 2024

Community media is perhaps at its best when it’s able to educate voters through the use of local candidate forums. In anticipation of February primaries, several centers are producing forums to allow voters to make more educated decisions at the polls.

Staff from Oshkosh Media worked with the League of Women Voters of Winnebago County to produce a candidates forum for Winnebago County Circuit Court Branch 1 Judge on Wednesday, January 31. The forum appeared live on Oshkosh Media Gov TV and can now be seen on-demand here. Voters will see the three candidates for Winnebago County Circuit Court Branch 1 on their primary ballot on February 20. The top two vote getters will appear on the ballot for the April election.

On January 31, Marshfield Broadcasting presented a live forum among the seven candidates running for the Marshfield Unified School District School Board. The forum can be watched here. All seven candidates will be on the ballot on February 20 with six moving on to the general election in April.

Marshfield Broadcasting also fills the gap in local election coverage with “Get to Know Your Candidate” with studio program host Tom Loucks and producer David Ballerstein. Loucks interviewed seven Marshfield School Board candidates eyeing for three seats on the board for the upcoming February 20 primary. Each 28-minute program was shared on multiple platforms and is getting a lot of engagement from the locals of Marshfield. You can find them here.

The station is building viewers at a rapid pace because local media is silent and without community television coverage the public would be in the dark when going to the polls, said Loucks.

After the primary election, Marshfield Broadcasting will turn its sights on local City Council election coverage giving the same opportunities to those candidates.

Also, the Sun Prairie Media Center hosted a forum between the three candidates running for the city council seat being vacated by Brent Eisberner. The candidates are Bill Baker, Matthew Hill, and Santiago Rosas. The two candidates with the most votes will move on from the February 20 primary to the April 2 spring election. That forum can be watched here.

If you know of any locally-produced candidate forums not mentioned here, please let us know and we’ll highlight them next month.

For more information on any and all upcoming elections in the state, voters can go to www.MyVote.wi.gov.

Buttke honored with the Assembly's Hometown Hero Award

Sharing this important day with Tom (center) are (left to right): Speaker of the Assembly Robin Vos; David Ballerstein; his wife, Terri Buttke; Rep. John Spiros; and his sister, Renie Rehmer.

Wisconsin Community Media congratulates Tom Buttke, a community television producer from Marshfield, who was honored with the Hometown Hero Award at the Wisconsin State Capitol on April 25.   

Buttke served on the Marshfield City Council for 22 years and has always been active in the community.  “Tom has done many things from helping kids, to raising money for projects at the Marshfield Zoo,” said David Ballerstein, Communications Specialist at Marshfield Broadcasting.  Buttke was one of the leaders of a fundraising effort to create a veterans wall of honor at the Second Street Community Center.

Buttke also produces and hosts the community program, Heroes from Home, which is shot in the Marshfield Broadcasting studio.  Veterans who come on the show talk about their experiences and share what services are available for vets and how to apply for them.

The Wisconsin State Assembly established the Hometown Heroes program to recognize people who “make a difference in their community.” The award says, “A Hometown Hero has an unconditional desire to lend a helping hand to those around them.”

Congratulations, Tom! Well-deserved!