If it’s April, it must be time to blow out the phone lines…33 years ago

On the 1st of April in 1986, listeners to one La Crosse radio station were advised to put bags over their telephone receivers.  According to an announcement, the phone company was going to blow air through the lines to clean out dirt, and the bag over your phone would collect that dirt.  It may have taken some listeners a while to realize what day it was…April Fools’ Day…and realize that popular La Crosse DJ Brucie Bumchuckles had pulled a prank on them.  The bag-over-the-phone joke is still rated as one of the best April Fool gags ever perpetrated on radio in La Crosse.  

It was no joke when 69-year-old Robert Joanis was elected municipal judge in La Crosse on that April 1st.  Attorney Joanis defeated 41-year-old Thomas Olson by about 500 votes.  Fourteen new members were elected to the La Crosse County Board, along with 20 incumbents.  One of the new board members was 27-year-old Steve Doyle, who is still on the county board, and also serves in the state Assembly.   

A headline about the NCAA basketball tournament said it was a ‘downer for Duke.’  The Duke Blue Devils lost in the ’86 men’s finals by just three points to Louisville, led by freshman Pervis Ellison.  And the La Crosse Catbirds of the CBA won the first round of playoffs in the team’s first season playing at the La Crosse Center…eventually reaching the league finals in 1986, yesterday in La Crosse.