Dave Wood

“If You Want to Be a Badger,/ just come along with me/ By the bright shining light, by the light of the moon!” song sung in mid-20^th century by grade schoolers listening to Wisconsin Public Radio.

“Wisconsin Idols: 100 Heroes Who changed the State, The World and Me,” by Dean Robbins (Wisconsin Historical Society Press).

What a fetching title, thought I, a Wisconophile of the highest water, forgetting that one should never judge a book by its title, so I plunged into this 300-page tome only  to discover it’s not about the Wisconsin natives who changed the world and the author, but that much of it deals  with people who came to visit, to perform or to go to school, then took off and engaged elsewhere. Folks like Elvis Presley, Otis Redding and Rodney Dangerfield, who filmed “Back to School” at UW-Madison, then got back to where he belonged, NYC.

In truth, of the 100 characters profiled by Milwaukee journalist Dean Robbins, 32 are not from Wisconsin. Like Hattie McDaniel, Chia Youree Vang, and Abraham Lincoln. Thirty-two, in fact, were out of state and had to pay out-of-state tuition, which was good for the U, but not for me, the Wisconophile. In case some of you readers choose to read this massive work, I have stuck to Robbins’ title and added 35 more REAL Badgers who were born, worked and stayed put in the Land O’ Cheeseheads.

EDUCATION: E. B. Fred, Madison longtime UW president; Merle Curti, Madison historian; “Johnnie Blood,” Packer halfback and St. John’s philosophy prof from New Richmond; Aldo Leopold, Baraboo, naturalist; “Ranger Mac,” Madison, Wisconsin Public Radio

SHOW BUSINESS:

Pat O’Bien, Racine character actor

Brian Donlevy, Beaver Dam stage and screen star and real estate developer

Carol Landis, Fairchild movie actress

Chris Farley, Milwaukee SNL Comic

Ellen Corby, character actress from Racine, well-known for playing grandma on “The Waltons”

John Hodiak, Superior movie star

John Myher, Strum singer and musical comedy actor

Harry Houdini, Appleton magician and escape artist

Don Ameche, Racine singer and actor

Alan Ameche, Don’s cousin, Baltimore football pro and restauranteur

Jack Carson, actor, Milwaukee

Dennis Morgan, Marshfield, Irish tenor and movie star.

POLITICS:

Gaylord Nelson of Clear Lake. Senator and founder of Earth Day

Robert and brother Phillip LaFollette, Dane County and leaders of the Progressive movement

Warren Knowles, New Richmond, governor of Wisconsin

Father Groppi, Milwaukee social activist

John Blaine, Boscobel governor and senator

Golda Meir, Milwaukee, Prime Minister of Israel

MILITARY:

Norman Moen, Whitehall, fought with the famous Guerilla unit “Merrill’s Marauders,” valiantly in the Pacific Theater of WWII.

Richard Bong; Superior, air ace; Billy Mitchell, Milwaukee, air ace and commander

Douglas MacArthur, born on a train chugging through Wisconsin

Drexel Sprecher, Independence, prosecuting attorney at Nurenburg War Crimes trials

Michael Red Cloud, Black River Halls, WWII hero

THE ARTS:

Zona Gale, Portage; Edna Ferber, Milwaukee; August Derleth, Sauk Prairie; Robert Bloch, Sauk Prairie; Clifford Simak, Millville; George Wilbur Peck, Madison; Horace Gregory, Milwaukee; Glenway Wescott, Kewaskum; Norbert Blei, Ellison Bay; Michael Perry, New Auburn; Ben Logan, Gays Mills; Nicholas Butler, Eau Claire.

BUSINESS LEADERS

J.I. Case, Jacob Leinenkugel, Fred Miller, Louis Phillips, John Menard, Ron Wanek, Howard Hutchins, Walter Kohler

ALSO RANS: Ed Gein, Plainfield lampshade designer

Aldrich Ames, River Falls counterspy

Joseph McCarthy, Appleton Red-hunting Senator