“Firsts” edition of “Truth Be Told” Sept. 8 at the Cozy Theater
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.
By LeAnn R. Ralph
COLFAX — We’ve all been in that position of having a “first” — first job, first home, first car, first date.
Four Colfax area residents will tell their stories of “firsts” at the “Firsts Edition of Truth Be Told” to be held at the Colfax Municipal Building auditorium’s Cozy Theater Sunday, September 8.
The event will be hosted by Steve Russell and Kobi Shaw.
Featured local storytellers will include Derek Westholm, Ken Neuburg, Jane Sonnentag and Randy Simpson.
An open microphone portion of the evening also will allow audience members to share their stories of “firsts” if they choose.
Westholm
Anyone with children attending school in the Colfax school district may know Derek Westholm.
Westholm is the elementary music teacher and also is the newly-appointed Colfax High School band director following the retirement of Jim Woodford at the end of the 2018-2019 school year.
Westholm says he loves working with students, being involved with the Colfax High School drama productions, performing, composing and serving on his church worship team.
He recently celebrated his first wedding anniversary with his wife, Jolene, and they both enjoy time at home together with their dog, Terra.
Westholm’s story will be about a “first date.”
Neuburg
Ken Neuburg says he is blessed to be married to his wife, Lisa, for more than 35 years.
Lisa Neuburg is the Family and Consumer Science teacher at Colfax High School, and Ken Neuburg serves at the vice-president of the Colfax Board of Education.
Neuburg is the father of three grown children, Lloyd, Grace and Lucas, all of whom are graduates of Colfax High School.
He also is a grandfather to four energetic grandsons.
Neuburg loves cars, tennis, running and mentoring men serving time in prison or jail who are looking to turn their lives around.
Neuburg is a packaging engineer for Hewlett Packard Enterprise in Chippewa Falls in a shock and vibration testing lab.
“Yep, I get to break things for a living, but I need to assure that the tested damage thresholds never happen with regard to our actual customer product shipments,” he said.
Neuburg was born and raised in Milwaukee, which is still home to the rest of his family, not far from County Stadium, previously the home of the Milwaukee Braves and the Milwaukee Brewers major league baseball teams.
“As such, I’ve been a lifelong baseball fan and have enjoyed all 50 seasons of my favorite team, the Milwaukee Brewers,” he said.
The title of Neuburg’s “Truth Be Told” story will be “First Summer with the Milwaukee Brewers.”
Sonnentag
Jane (Helgeson) Sonnentag was born in the Town of Howard just outside Colfax, the daughter of Darwin and Cheryl Helgeson and the granddaughter of Irving and Mary Helgeson and Sylvan and Bernadine Michels.
She has a brother, David, and a sister, Jean.
“Because,” Sonnentag says, “in small towns, it’s not who you are, it’s who you belong to.”
Jane Sonnentag has been married to Louis (Jr.) since 1997.
In 22 years of marriage, the Sonnentags have run a farm, had 10 kids, and have raised “a lot of forage and cows.”
When Sonnentag is not on the farm or at St. John’s the Baptist Church in Cooks Valley — or, perhaps, it goes without saying, being a mother to her children — she is working at St. Joseph’s and Sacred Heart hospital in the pharmacy.
Jane says her favorite things are “love of God, family, neighbors, veterans, fellow rednecks, marching bands, school plays — and the good people of this town.”
The story of Jane Sonnetag’s “First” will remain a surprise until the evening of “Truth Be Told.”
Simpson
Randy Simpson is married to Colfax Messenger staff writer LeAnn R. Ralph.
Simpson is from the eastern part of the state near Green Bay, but he has lived in the Colfax area for nearly 25 years.
Simpson spends his days in the high-tech world of website design and technology, but for this “Truth Be Told” he will take the audience “back to a much earlier time when cars did not have Bluetooth and built-in touch screen computers — a time when an AM radio was the most advanced technology on a car and you actually had to roll the windows up yourself.”
Randy’s story will be about his first car, a station wagon, about which might be said, “they just don’t make ’em like that anymore.”
Show time
The “Firsts Edition of Truth Be Told” will begin at 6 p.m. Sunday, September 8, in the Colfax Municipal Building auditorium, also known as the Cozy Theater.
The event is free and open to the public.
Free will donations will go toward the elevator fund to install an elevator serving all three floors of the municipal building, to install handicapped accessible bathrooms on all three floors and to renovate the basement of the building to serve as a space for library programs and as a community center.
“Truth Be Told” is being sponsored by the Colfax Municipal Building Restoration Group.