West Bend Winter Warmup with Jess Wildes

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And despite it feeling like we're in the doldrums of winter, we're not. There are tons of great things going on in Washington County. And this week, Jess Wildes, West Bend's Communications and Economic Development Director, joins me to talk about West Bend Winter Warm Up, which takes place in downtown West Bend this Saturday and Sunday, January 22nd and 23rd.

Speaking of Washington County, I want to thank the Washington County Board of Supervisors and County Executive Showman for welcoming me, Gordon Haberman and Justin Reichert from the West Bend, or excuse me, from the Wisconsin 9 11 Memorial. to this past week's county board meeting as they introduced the new Forever Brave Fund scholarship, which will help those and their families with ties to the police, fire, EMS, and the military.

Very much appreciated. And now here's 15 minutes on the West Bend winter warmup with Jess Wildes on 15 Minutes with Fuzz.

Hey, Jess. Thanks for joining me today. Um, before we get going into some of the other details about what's going on, what is your role with the city of West Bend?

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We do all the social media and organization wide communications for the city like public relations and also community television.

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The landscaping and flowers throughout the year and new this year, I'm helping facilitate a new facade grant program for business owners and.

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And it's a wonderful walkable downtown. That's a lot of fun. So, well, that's awesome. So speaking of having a lot of fun, West Bend has a fun event coming up on the weekend of January 22nd. It's called West Bend Winter Warm Up. What can you tell us about that? What can we expect from the West Bend winter warm up?

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And this year, the event has just grown significantly. I mean, it grew a lot last year. We had 20 ice sculptures and this year there's 50.

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So, uh, we, we needed to find something that fit Epic and, uh, and hopefully it turned out. We've got a lot of pet lovers, so I believe we picked a pet theme. Yeah,

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And one of them is Delta Defense and they are going to have like this really large snowman in Old Settlers Park. Oh, cool. It's like seven feet tall. So. That, I, I'm looking forward to that and then I also learned about one, uh, that's like angel wings. Okay. Uh, where you kind of stand in front of it and it looks like you're an angel and get a, a photo.

Oh, awesome. You know, it's a really family friendly event, so there's a lot of like photo opportunities. Sometimes the ice sculptures, you even like engage with them, there's a checkerboard, things like that.

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Yeah,

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From any point throughout the process and then, you know, get your picture taken with it or grab a slice of pizza or something after.

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They kind of come alive. So I definitely recommend that, but we really hope that they stay up for a few weeks after. It really depends on the weather or if there's a big wind storm and they fall over, then And that's it.

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ly, that was probably back in: 2017

She's just taken an awesome, or she's done an awesome job taking the reins, um, and has a committee with several of us from the city, Jackie Maynard, Nicole Bell, myself, and, and other members of, you know, the, the shops groups, downtown. Elle Young from Dunn Brothers. I mean, there's a lot of people involved.

The Bend is really involved this year too. Sure. They're really like a full community effort that makes this a success. To

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I thought, wow, 20 is a lot. And then 15 happened.

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They'll be open. The shops are offering, uh, you know, a lot of different deals. Many of them put out spreads of treats and goodies in their shops. The restaurants, uh, the same. They're offering festive food and cocktails. Just really getting into the spirit of the event. There is a gift basket raffle that's taking place during, so if patrons step into participating shops and restaurants, they can get a raffle ticket and win a pretty giant prize when it's all said and done.

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So there's the HUE, I'm going to say this appropriately for our PG audience. It is the HUE, HUE Jackman, HUE JAS, like JAS with an A, Fat Tire Bike Race. The HUE JAS Fat Tire Bike Race happening on Saturday. What are the details of the race?

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bike. It's h u g h j a s s dot bike. And all the details are in there. It takes place at Wrigner Park. It's a really fun event. It's a really fun game. That does the, the race. Um, we also have a video of it from last year. That's up on our Facebook page. So it's kind of cool to check it out and, you know, hang out by the bonfire, things like that.

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It's free as well to anyone, so it's from 5 to 7 p. m. on Saturday, January 22nd. And, um, it's just a really fun event.

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And I'm sure that they'll, uh, They'll love all the sculptures, and I tried, I tried to pull for the unicorn sculpture for Epic, and actually, it was, we had a three way tie, uh, for the, there was a unicorn, a dog print, and I think a wolf, and I think the dog print one, because we're a dog friendly, friendly company, but I was, I was pulling for the unicorn.

Details on the events are at downtownwestbend. com, correct?

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Then the Bend, the Bend has a pretty huge lineup of live entertainment, a free movie for kids, and just a magician, a ton of stuff going on on that weekend. And they're also a warming location as well, which is new this year.

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Saturday and Sunday, January 22nd and 23rd. Jess, this sounds like a lot of fun. Uh, you get to have a fun job of doing all this stuff and we appreciate you coming on today. so

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That was dorky. Uh, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. My handle is 15withfuzz. You can also leave a message at 15withfuzz. com. You can email me, 15withfuzz, at gmail. com. New episodes every Monday, except for Mondays where I'm in a hospital due to a severe and unknown allergy to an over the counter heartburn medication.

Have a good week. We'll talk to you next time, right here, on Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz.