Yesterday in La Crosse
Spelling bees weren’t just for kids, 27 years ago
A new team competition started up in La Crosse in 1991, a Corporate Spelling Bee. A local literacy council recruited three-person teams from companies throughout the area to see which employers had the best spellers. The corporate bee was held in early September at Valley View Mall, and the tradition continued for several years afterward.
Twenty years before Obamacare, Milwaukee area Congressman Jim Moody told an audience at La Crosse’s Baus Haus that he thought people would accept a Canadian-style system of health care. Moody claimed the American Medical Association had fought Medicare until just a few years earlier. He said more than 30 million Americans, including 12 million children, had little or no health insurance.
On TV in 1991, the most popular network shows included “60 Minutes,” “Cheers,” “Home Improvement,” “Roseanne,” and “Murphy Brown.” After all these years, “60 Minutes” is still around, and both “Roseanne” and “Murphy Brown” are coming back with new episodes in 2018…but they were hits 27 years ago, Yesterday in La Crosse.