Welcome to “Pornography Awareness Day,” 25 years ago

In 1993, about 40 people gathered at Aquinas High School one weekend to hear speakers warn about porn.  One person on the program suggested that there were probably more people shopping in La Crosse’s adult book stores that day than were at the Aquinas event.  A statistic brought up during the discussion implied that about 90% of sex offenders had viewed porn at one time.

Jane Fonda and her then-husband Ted Turner spoke to much larger crowds in La Crosse that summer, at the first International Bison Conference and Trade Show inside the La Crosse Center.  CNN founder Turner wanted more people to breed buffalo for meat, and workout guru Fonda promoted bison as healthy food. 

People in La Crosse were getting worked up about plans for a 75-foot-tall beer stein proposed for downtown, near City Hall.  The idea by artist Susan Sampson was greeted with a protest campaign, called “Nein the Stein.”  Within a couple of months, Sampson abandoned plans to have the stein built in La Crosse, and considered building it in Black River Falls, instead.  That was 25 years ago, 1993, yesterday in La Crosse.