Local

Residents from the Stonefield neighborhood flooded the Middleton Courthouse Saturday, where two officers, a detective, a captain and the chief of the Middleton Police Department provided details on the investigation into a recent spike in burglaries. Authorities called for a proactive, collaborative approach to help stymy the thieves who have recently zeroed in on the wealthy neighborhood.

Kathy Hansen is stepping down from her position as Middleton Outreach Ministry’s executive director. She was hired in May of 2012, and was MOM’s first female director and its fourth director in five years.

Middleton resident and New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Chiaverini departs from her Elm Creek Quilts series to debut her first stand-alone novel, “Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker” (Dutton; January 15, 2013). 

Images that appeared in the Middleton Times-Tribune last year ranged from joyous celebrations to solemn remembrances.

Clockwise from top left: performers at the Middleton Chamber of Commerce’s annual celebration; Ann Romney, wife of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, with supporters in front of the Middleton Public Library; educators cut the ribbon at the opening of a new Montessori school in the Town of Middleton; local firefighters help track down a thief in Mexico; a candlelight vigil at the Sikh temple on Century Avenue; police officer Nick Stroik is given a medal of valor for shooting an armed intruder; a photographer gets photographed during the Middleton High School Homecoming Parade; Dianne Hesselbein celebrates her victory in the race for the 79th State Assembly seat (center photo).

Pick up a copy of this week's print edition, or purchase the e-edition, for a full rundown of the year's top stories.

A massive white tempest set up shop in Middleton on Wednesday of last week and didn’t leave town until Friday morning. Multiple media outlets reported that Middleton experienced markedly heavier snowfall than many of its neighbors during the storm, with estimates hovering at around 19 inches when it was all said and done.

It’s Friday afternoon and there’s a distinctive sound emanating from the kitchen beneath St. Peter Catholic School in Ashton. It’s periodic laughter and the percussive clunk of chopping as a handful of volunteers mix massive vats of coleslaw, trim hundreds of slabs of cod, and line up tray after tray of homemade cupcakes.

In a few hours, the sound will be replaced by a din rivaling that of any busy restaurant. Baskets of battered cod will be lowered into cracking oil, and more than 1,000 people will line up to take part in a Wisconsin tradition.

It’s a tradition that has been going on here, at St. Peter Catholic Parish, for four decades now.

Friday night fish fries take place in many different venues. Their origin, however, is linked to the devoutly religious European communities that settled in this region of the Midwest.

It didn’t start with the chickens. Before the chickens came the kids. It all started with the kids.

Amy and Jeff Wiltzius have an uncommonly large residential lot, about three quarters of an acre, in Middleton’s Shorecrest neighborhood. A petite neighborhood with little traffic, Shorecrest is north of County Highway M and east of County Highway Q. Across the backyard fence is Bishops Bay.

In 1997 Amy and Jeff, a young couple with plans to raise a family, bought their home. The  transition to homeownership included the addition of new chores and responsibilities.

“Every weekend we were mowing the lawn,” Amy recalled.

Three years after purchasing their house, Amy gave birth to a son, Nate. An independent child from the beginning, as a toddler Nate’s curiosity took him all over the neighborhood. “We’d find him having cookies and milk in our neighbors’ kitchen down the block,” Amy said.

I love football, I play football, I live football. Life is too short and too valuable to take seriously or take for granted.

I like to treat every moment as a reward, not a gift, because in order to get anything in life you have to earn it through hard work and discipline, that makes life all the sweeter. Work hard so you can play harder.

Fred Statz,

as quoted in the program for his Nov. 17 funeral at St. Martin’s Catholic Church

Fred Statz’s parents and siblings say his passion for football was contagious, and they all caught the bug.

Local members of the Sikh community were joined by the city as they reacted to reports that white supremacist Wade Michael Page opened fire and killed six people at a religious center in Oak Creek on Sunday, Aug. 5.

The City of Middleton is home to the Sikh Society of Wisconsin-Madison’s gurudwara, or temple. Bimal Pangli described the Century Avenue building as her family’s “second home,” where followers of the faith can go to find serenity.

Bakhshinder Singh, a priest at the Middleton gurudwara, called the shooting a “tragedy.”

“This is a place where we pray for everyone,” he said, shaking his head. “This is very sad.”

On Tuesday night, the Middleton Common Council approved a resolution supporting the Sikh community and expressing condolences for the victims in Oak Creek, which is about two hours east of the Good Neighbor City.

In a bed at St. Nicholas Children’s Hospital in Barlad, Romania, a baby named Andrei was wailing. Suffering from Hydrocephalus, the abandoned child’s head was slowly filling with fluid, swelling to twice its normal size.

He was in a facility that houses sick or deformed children cast aside by parents who see them as God’s punishment, or by caretakers on whom the shackles of alcoholism weigh too heavily to care for another human life.

Even in a place where suffering is commonplace, many were overwhelmed by his condition.

“I think everyone was intimidated,” recalled Nicole Mueller. “I was too. He cried 24/7 and he had sores all over.”

Mueller, at the age of 23, is a picture of health - Andrei’s opposite in nearly every way. Athletic and copper-skinned, she flashes white teeth in a frequent smile and speaks with unflinching Midwestern amiability. She was in Romania with the Global Volunteers program.