Rave crowd hard to estimate: 10,000 maybe

DROPBASS.NET Rave info site

FOUNTAIN CITY, Wis., Sept. 4, 2001 -- Estimates on the turnout for a four-day ridgetop rave across the Interstate Bridge from Winona swelled to as high 10,000 as the weekend progressed. It was all a surprise. Sheriff Butch Shreiner acknowledged he doesn't frequent the DropBass web site, where the rave was promoted. Even if Schreiner was a DropBass fan, the site was listed only as "Somewhere in Wisconsin" until hours before the rave began. The first indication that something big was happening came when a windy backroad up rural Chicken Valley Road was clogged with out-of-state cars. Normally the Gin Mill, a strip club owned by the Road Dogs Motorcycle Club at the end of the road, doesn't generate much traffic. The actual turnout may be known only to the promoters, who charged $31 for advance tickets and $35 at the gate and vanished. If the turnout was indeed 10,000, the promoters netted more than a quarter-million dollars before the rave ended on Labor Day, almost as suddenly as it had begun. Background: Post-rave court appearances

R.I.P.: Alvin Schley

MITCHELL, S.D, Sept. 4, 2001 -- A Winona State University psychology and sociology grad, Alvin Schley, died in a Rochester, Minn., hospital after a lengthy illness. He was 45. Schley was graduated from Winona State in 1980 and went on to advanced work at Mankato State and the Florida Institute of Technology. Since 1991 he had been a clinical psychologist at the Dakota Mental Health Center. Schley held an Army commission and held numerous service ribbons. He was discharged as a captain in 1999 because of the disease Wegener's granulomatosis.

Second state employee union ready to strike

ST. PAUL, Minn., Sept. 4, 2001 -- The Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, whose 10,000 members include mid-level managers at Winona State University, have voted by a 17:3 margin to authorize a strike. The tally was announced at union headquarters, clearing the way for a strike Sept. 17 unless a contract agreement is reached with Gov. Jesse Ventura's negotiators in the meantime. If MAPE strikes, the members will be joining another union of state workers, AFSCME, on picket lines the same day. MAPE President Deb Schadegg called the strike vote "reflective of the frustration of the stateÕs workforce," Together MAPE and AFSCME represent 57 percent of state workers. The MAPE vote was 5,034-933.