EAGLE, Wis. – The spring season kicks off at Old World Wisconsin in Eagle with new attractions.

Those attractions include a new Wagon Works attraction, the addition of the rare heritage breed Java Chickens to our farm, spring birding and wildflower hikes near the new Danish Naturalist Cabin, hands-on folk art crafting in the Polish Homestead, spring planting at the 1860s Pomeranian Farm, and Mrs. Claire Peacock’s 50 birthday party.

Guests can also enjoy our perennial favorite experiences like blacksmithing and old-fashioned bicycle-riding.

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Old World Wisconsin is open Saturday and Sunday only until June 12, when the summer hours kick in from Wednesday to Sunday.

And on Sunday, May 12, moms get in free!

Experience springtime on a historic bike at Old World Wisconsin where you can visit our collection of historic bikes along with riding a 19th century tricycle around our bicycling ring.

Wheels played an important role in history and within this new space guests can learn what goes into designing a wagon, from drawing to testing out seat cushions. Guests can also get involved in learning how to design a wagon wheel.

Work on the first phase of improvements planned for the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame‘s Walk of Fame in downtown Milwaukee will begin soon and could be completed in time for the Republican National Convention on July 15-18.

“That continues to be our goal, to have everything in place by then,” said Brian Lammi, owner and board chairman of the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame. “We’re very excited about the design.” Milwaukee-based Rinka is the design firm for the project.

The Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame plans to spend more than $1 million on improvements to its walkway, which is located along the west side of Vel R. Phillips Avenue between West State Street and West Kilbourn Avenue in downtown Milwaukee.

First announced last year, the initial phase of improvements to the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame’s Walk of Fame will include a 160-square-foot video screen attached to the southeast corner of the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena, at the south end of the walkway. The video screen will show highlights of the careers of hall of famers and clips from the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame induction banquet and golf outing.

“As people are walking by or driving by they should get a good view of the 74-year-old history of the Hall of Fame,” Lammi said.

The video screen will also provide an opportunity for sponsorship messages and for messages from fans.

“It will be an interactive way for fans to participate with the Hall of Fame,” Lammi said. “We plan to open it up for fans to do things like a birthday message or celebrate their favorite youth sports team. There will be ways that fans can participate as those video boards can change throughout the year.”

The initial phase of the walkway improvement project will also include the addition of eight double-sided backlit boards that will show images of Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame inductees and will be placed on top of columns lining the walkway. The signs will be created by De Pere-based Jones Sign.

The Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame also plans to host numerous events to make use of and draw attention to the walkway.

“Our goal is to start featuring press conferences, maybe do some basketball shootouts or putting contests or other ways that people can experience and be a part of the walkway and really trying to drive consistent traffic for that walkway,” Lammi said.

Ideas for additional improvements to the walkway are still being discussed but could include interactive touch screens to engage fans and help tell the stories of the hall of fame inductees, Lammi said.

Founded in 1951, the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame stopped adding bronze plaques for inductees a few years ago because space was running low to display them, they are extremely heavy (weighing 250 to 400 pounds each), some have been degraded by years and the elements, and today’s fans prefer to engage with modern forms of media, Lammi said.

“We felt more interactive, interview-focused videos or backlit images on stationary boards would be a better way to celebrate inductees moving forward,” Lammi said. “We just don’t think continuing to place these bronze plaques, which people aren’t necessarily paying a lot of attention to, was the best way to tell the story for these inductees.”

Menasha-based insurance company Network Health has become the presenting sponsor for the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame walkway, and the Hall of Fame’s golf outing. Milwaukee-based Zizzo Group is also a sponsor. Additional sponsorship opportunities are available, Lammi said.

“We’ve got a wide range of opportunities for organizations to share their stories and messages with the community,” he said.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge this afternoon upheld a Wisconsin law that requires absentee voters to complete their ballots in the presence of an adult witness, who must complete a written certificate containing a signature and address.

In a federal lawsuit filed last fall, four individual Wisconsin voters alleged that the state’s witness requirement violates Section 201 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA). This lesser known section of the famous federal voting legislation prohibits denying the right to vote on the basis of a citizen’s failure to comply with a “test or device.” 

Under the law, tests or devices include the “requirement that a person as a prerequisite for voting…prove his qualifications by the voucher of registered voters or members of any other class.” Section 201’s ban on “tests or devices” was codified in the original 1965 VRA to outlaw a discriminatory post-Civil War voting practice in which prospective voters would need a “supporting witness” to affirm their qualifications. 

In addition to their VRA claim, the voters argued that the witness requirement contravened the Materiality Provision of the Civil Rights Act, which protects against disenfranchisement on the basis of trivial errors that are immaterial to a voter’s eligibility. The lawsuit pointed to the fact that during the 2022 midterm elections alone, over 2,200 absentee ballots were rejected due to witness certificate issues, such as a missing witness zip code. 

In today’s ruling, Obama-appointed Judge James D. Peterson rejected both of the plaintiffs’ arguments. As for the voters’ VRA claim, Peterson wrote: “The bottom line is that the only reasonable interpretation of [Wisconsin law] requires a witness to certify that the voter prepared the ballot correctly; it does not require the witness to certify the voter’s qualifications.” 

In terms of the voters’ Materiality Provision arguments, Peterson concluded that the “Provision does not apply to the witness requirement because it does not relate to “any application, registration, or other act requisite to voting.” The court relied heavily on a recent decision from the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in which a three-judge panel held that the rejection of mail-in ballots with an incorrect or missing date did not violate the Materiality Provision. 

According to both Peterson and the 3rd Circuit’s reasoning, the Materiality Provision only applies to determinations regarding whether a person is qualified to vote. “The witness requirement is not a process for determining voter qualifications, so the Materiality Provision simply does not apply to it,” the opinion reads. 

As a result of today’s ruling, Wisconsin’s absentee voters must continue to fill out their ballots in the presence of a witness, who is required to complete a signed certificate.

Meanwhile, litigation is ongoing in two state-level lawsuits concerning what components of a witness address are sufficient to have an absentee ballot counted.

In a set of January rulings, a Wisconsin judge held that any witness address information on the ballot certificate that is enough to identify a location where a witness can be reached is adequate. The judge also ruled that the rejection of absentee ballots due to certain witness address errors violates the Civil Right Act’s Materiality Provision. Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled Legislature appealed the rulings, which are currently being litigated in the Wisconsin Court of Appeals. 

According to Democracy Docket’s database, there are five ongoing lawsuits surrounding absentee voting in Wisconsin. Earlier this year, voting rights groups filed a legal challenge to Minnesota’s witness requirement, which is currently proceeding in a Minnesota trial court.  

Read the opinion here.

Learn more about the case here.