La Crosse Oktoberfest past and present with Brad Quarberg and Brian Rude

Brad Quarberg and Brian Rude in the WIZM studio talking Oktoberfest La Crosse past and present, including how the fest wasn’t just started to sell beer, the popularity of the buttons, two women as parade marshals and members lost the past year.

La Crosse Talk airs weekdays at 6-9 a.m. Listen on the WIZM app, online here, or on 92.3 FM / 1410 AM / 106.7 FM (north of Onalaska). Find all the podcasts here or subscribe to La Crosse Talk PM wherever you get your podcasts.

Quarberg was the 2016 Oktoberfest Parade Marshall and the Oktoberfest Board President back in 2001. He was also chief editor and one of the authors of the book, The Fest of Times, a look back on 50 years of Oktoberfest from back in 2010.

Quarberg is our unofficial Oktoberfest historian. He was chief editor of the book The Fest of Times — a history of La Crosse Oktoberfest’s first 50 years. Quarberg was also the 2016 parade marshal and the fest board president in 2001.

Rude was the 2017 Festmaster and is also the former Wisconsin state Senate president — though we only talked politics during the break.

This is the third year Quarberg has joined WIZM to talk about the history of Oktoberfest. Some of the other topics we rehashed from those shows was the year the medallion was held hostage, the year Oktoberfest didn’t have beer and how controversial it would be if we picked Mrs. O like we did in the past.

Also joining the show was co-host Ken Cooper and WIZM’s Brad Williams.