It wasn’t a quiet week in Stoddard, 29 years ago

In March of 1990, there was talk of Stoddard withdrawing from the De Soto school district, and joining the larger La Crosse school system instead.  One meeting on the subject in Stoddard drew about 100 people to the Legion Hall.  A Stoddard village board member asked why only 30 % of the district’s graduates had taken the ACT college entrance exam.  De Soto superintendent Robert Peterson responded ‘We’re not Lake Wobegon…all the children are not above average.’  To this day, Stoddard is still part of the De Soto district.   

The press secretary for Republican President George H. W. Bush wasn’t too impressed with Democratic Senator Dick Gephardt, who had tried running for president in 1988.  Secretary Marlin Fitzwater criticized a Gephardt plan to provide food assistance to the Soviet Union by comparing the Senator to bumbling TV secret agent Maxwell Smart.   

A new Target store was open in Onalaska, near Highway 16…with the slogan ‘Right on the Money.’  Target was advertising deals on soap, curling irons, Pepsi, and potato chips.   

In advance of the Oscars, local movie theaters were showing ‘Born on the 4th of July,’ ‘My Left Foot,’ and ‘Pretty Woman.’  ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ won the best picture award at the Oscar show, hosted for the first time by Billy Crystal…in 1990, yesterday in La Crosse.