Viterbo was about to take on a nursing program, 50 years ago

In the spring of 1969, Viterbo College received a federal grant of $600,000 to buy St. Wenceslaus School and convert it into a training facility for student nurses.  The school had only started its nursing program two years earlier, and Viterbo was gradually taking over the St. Francis School of Nursing.   

The La Crosse County jail got high grades from a state inspector in ’69.  The inspector said it was a pleasure to visit the local jail because it was always in ‘excellent condition.’  The jail was inside the new courthouse which had only been open for four years.   

A newspaper headline announced “Girls sob as last bachelor Beatle marries”…meaning Paul McCartney, who had just wed Linda Eastman.  

A La Crosse rock and roll band was getting national exposure.  The Unchained Mynds…Randy Purdy, Wayne Bentzen, Clare Troyanek, and Dan Hanson…had a song on the charts with “We Can’t Go On This Way,” issued on Buddah Records, in 1969, yesterday in La Crosse.