Former Mayor Milo has a heart attack, in 1967

In April of 1967, Milo Knutson woke up on a Sunday morning with chest pains and checked into St. Francis Hospital.  Knutson was only 49, and had left the mayor’s office two years earlier.  He would recover, and go on to become La Crosse’s state Senator in the 1968 election.

Ronald Reagan had just marked 100 days as the new governor of California, and the former movie star claimed he hadn’t gotten a honeymoon from the media.  Reagan’s future style of presidential decision-making was already evident as governor.  A newspaper story said Reagan asked his staff to give him one-page briefings on important bills, explaining the issues and offering options…a practice that continued when he went to the White House.

A two-week strike by TV performers almost kept the Oscars off ABC in ’67.  The AFTRA strike was settled less than two hours before the awards show went on the air.  In La Crosse, WKBT announced that if the Oscars weren’t broadcast as planned, Channel 8 would show “The Big Valley” instead, along with its 10 p.m. “service bloc”…meaning the news, weather, and sports.