[00:00:00] Fuzz Martin: Alright, we’ve got a special bonus episode of Fifteen Minutes with Fuzz because I’ve been participating in this piece. So I’ve been working on the background of this piece for 30 runs to remember, but the guy actually doing all the work is Pete Rettler, the Dean of the Moraine Park Technical College West Bend campus.
You’ve been running for 30 years with this, I think is the third time talking about your running streak in the three ish years that this show has been running, and it’s still going on. You’re coming up on 30 years, right Pete?
[00:00:36] Pete Rettler: Yeah,
[00:00:36] Fuzz Martin: and actually I figured
[00:00:38] Pete Rettler: out the days today. It’s like, it’s like, uh, 10, 900 and something.
I’m approaching 11, 000 days in a row, which I, I’ve, I never look at very often, but yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s going to be 30 years if I make it to December 31st. So, uh, it’s a milestone year. Was that Jan, January 1st, 1994? Correct. When I started the day, I think the Badgers won the Rose Bowl with Daryl Bevel as the quarterback.
Yes.
[00:01:06] Fuzz Martin: Is that Ron Dane time? I don’t know if that was Dane time or not. Maybe it was a little bit before Dane time. I remember because I was a sophomore in high school, and we had, uh, had a party for it, and I remember, uh, having a whole bunch of friends in the basement, and it was a good time. I, I
[00:01:20] Pete Rettler: remember going for my run that day and running an eight minute mile, and I was like so ashamed of myself that I was so slow.
And now I wouldn’t kill for an eight minute
[00:01:30] Fuzz Martin: mile. Uh, so you started doing the 30 Runs to Remember. Let’s talk about what we’re doing here. So for 30 days in December, we are running, you are running, and I am talking about it, you are running in honor of someone who is either, uh, was a victim on September 11th, has close ties to super, uh, to September 11th, uh, was a first responder, military, police veteran, um, those kind of.
[00:01:58] Pete Rettler: West Bend, Kewaskum, Slinger.
[00:02:14] Fuzz Martin: And then the funds that we’ve raised from the sponsors, and we’ve had some amazing, generous sponsors. I don’t mean some, we have a ton of amazing, generous sponsors who are going to, uh, they’re giving their money to the memorial, and in turn, we are going to help. Fund school buses to get field trips to the memorial so that future generations can learn about September 11th, which is something that it’s cost prohibited for a lot of schools to get a bus to the memorial.
You’d think, oh, you know, maybe from Slinger it’s, you know, 20 minutes, but that’s about a 500 bus trip.
[00:02:47] Pete Rettler: It’s, it’s, it’s so interesting, the cost of busing. And, and when we found out that was the biggest obstacle, This has been, I’d have to say, Fuzz, of any, any, uh, benefit I’ve ever done, this has been the easiest one to find sponsors for because when people realize the mission of the memorial is to educate and never forget what happened and the barrier is busing, uh, we’ve, I think we’ve surpassed our thirty sponsors or we’re getting
[00:03:14] Fuzz Martin: close.
Yeah. So. Yeah, definitely. And, and this all culminates with the Rettler Run, which we’ll talk about in a little bit. Thanks But I want to dig into, you know, we’re coming up on a week of your runs, the first week of the 30 runs to remember, and I want to talk about who you’ve run for so far and who’s sponsored that.
So, you started off this past Saturday, right? Correct.
[00:03:35] Pete Rettler: December 2nd. Everybody’s like, Even this morning, I’m like, what day is this? And she goes, uh, Sarah’s like, it’s the sixth. And she goes, but it’s only the fifth run. And she goes, how can that be? And I said, cause it started the second, it’s 30 days. So yes, we started last Saturday, December 2nd.
We ran at the VFW hall. There’s a difference that we learned between the VFW and the Legion, uh, but, but they, they all get together and create one honor guard, and it was super cool, uh, we did it at 11 o’clock, the honor guard did a little performance for us, or the present, presentation of the flags, I believe, I was so, uh, honored that they all took the time to be there, there, uh, anytime there’s a military funeral in the area, the honor guard is there to help.
Um, even, even the fact is getting a flag to put on a coffin.
[00:04:28] Fuzz Martin: Yeah.
[00:04:28] Pete Rettler: Uh, John Klein, Klein Maus was the one that this lady had found. So pretty, pretty cool. Sponsored by, uh, Craig’s Sadanico, Craig and Joe Sadanico. I never. I should say her name more often. Craig and Joe, they’ve been sponsoring since year 20 of my run, and so they had the kickoff American Companies, and it was a good time, actually spent some time with Craig after that, and we had a good, we had a nice visit.
[00:04:53] Fuzz Martin: Yeah, so that was, uh, that was day one, and then the next day you were at Enchantment of the Park. Uh, in West Bend’s Ragnar Park, which is going on now through Christmas Eve. And that day he ran in honor of Daniel Song, who’s a West, uh, excuse me, a Wisconsin, former Wisconsin resident. So he grew up in South Korea.
He immigrated to the U. S., moved to Appleton. Went to James Madison Middle School, then went to Appleton East, eventually after college, moved out to New York, became a broker, uh, lived with his, he and his brother lived in New York, and he unfortunately was in the North Tower of the World Trade Center. He and 657 of his, uh, co workers, uh, were killed in that, in the 101st, I think, through 105th floor, I might be mistaken on those floors, but it was above where the plane hit, and none of them survived, and that’s just a Unbelievably tragic story and just like, reading about that was gut wrenching, because, just think about how many lives and
[00:05:53] Pete Rettler: West
[00:05:59] Fuzz Martin: Bend, Kewaskum, Slinger, Kewaskum, Slinger, West Bend, Kewaskum, Slinger, Kewaskum, Slinger, Um, but, so that was day two, and that was again in honor of Enchantment in the Park.
And, and Lori
[00:06:15] Pete Rettler: Yar and I had a nice little time. We sat in a Santa Claus chair. I saw that, yeah. And we did a little interview there, so that was, that was fun.
[00:06:23] Fuzz Martin: And you can follow along on social media. Pete’s been posting videos from each of his runs every day. And you can see where he’s running, meet the people that he is running with, and, and hear about who he’s running for.
Alright, next
[00:06:36] Pete Rettler: day three, uh, Alpha Custom Apparel, which is Christina Ongert’s, uh, business that she has down in, uh, downtown West Bend. A relatively new business, uh, ran in honor of another, uh, native Wisconsin person, John Chada. And John was, was one of the people killed at the Pentagon. And it was interesting today in a conversation.
Somebody’s like, you forget about the people that were in the Pentagon that got killed that day. And, uh, uh, John, uh, part of the story was he, he survived two tours of Vietnam, but then was working in the Pentagon that day and, and didn’t survive that day.
[00:07:14] Fuzz Martin: Yeah, it’s just, again, all of these stories are tragic when it comes to that, and, you know, to survive that horror of Vietnam and only to come back and, you know, be killed in a terrorist act is, uh, Again, terrible and, uh, but glad for the memorial in places like this to honor his memory.
But again, John was a Milwaukee native, uh, again, who worked at the Pentagon. And Tina
[00:07:43] Pete Rettler: Angert is a very good runner. That’s what you said, yeah. Yeah, she ran with, uh, my son Drew and I and pretty much set the pace and, uh, and she was coming back off an injury and she’s run marathons in the past and I was, Blown away.
It was a, it was a good visit. Did Mayor Ongert run as well? Mayor Ongert did not run. Okay, I think he was
[00:08:04] Fuzz Martin: wearing
[00:08:04] Pete Rettler: running gear in the video though, wasn’t he? I think he pretended,
[00:08:07] Fuzz Martin: but I, we, he did not run. It was just, uh. I didn’t know that was an option. I would have done that myself. So the 9 11 Memorial has been being put together since I believe it was 2014, maybe even a little earlier, but one of the founding board members of that was Tom Fabbits of Kewaskum.
Tom has been just at the Memorial all of the time, lining up donors, lining up, uh, you know, he’s been the one in charge of the flags, raising and lowering the flags, um, making sure that all the pieces are in place and that we have the volunteers that we need showing up at every event. And unfortunately, he developed pancreatic cancer a couple of years ago, very aggressive, uh, thought that he got through it, uh, and, uh, pancreatic cancer morphs into a whole bunch of things, and it’s very hard to, uh, really survive pancreatic cancer, and unfortunately, Tom lost his battle with cancer on Thursday, a.
Last week, uh, November 30th, and, uh, it was, uh, liver cancer that, uh, uh, developed from that. And so, Gordon and Kathleen Haberman, which were Tom’s really good friends, and obviously Gordon and Kathy are, are very, uh, involved with the memorial. Uh, they sponsored a day in honor of Tom, uh, and you ran that yesterday at the memorial,
[00:09:25] Pete Rettler: right?
Yeah, we went last night and ran it from the memorial, and, um, I remember Tom would show up at all of my runs when I, the New Year’s Eve day run, and he’d sell, uh, uh, bricks and stuff for it. He was always, he was always available, so. Very, very fine man of the community, the community lost a big asset there.
[00:09:48] Fuzz Martin: Agreed. Um, so then, uh, today as, uh, we’re talking about this, but yesterday as you’re listening, uh, you ran in the morning at Kewaskum Family Dentistry. 7
[00:09:57] Pete Rettler: o’clock a. m., that’s when Kewaskum Family Dentistry opens up, and, uh, met with Dr. Sarah Klozinski, and Sarah and I served together on the Boys and Girls Club board, and, uh, She, her husband is a firefighter in Greenfield, and she wanted to honor the 343 fallen firefighters at the World Trade Center, so we visited with her for a little bit this morning, and she talked about why, why she wants to, to sponsor this, and I even met her dog named Gib.
Oh, Gib. Alright, did Gib run with you? Gib did not run with us, but he was very, he was actually better behaved, uh, sitting in the chair than my granddaughter was the night before. Oh,
[00:10:39] Fuzz Martin: that was cute, though. Your granddaughter was getting a little antsy at the memorial, but that’s, uh, that’s what, she’s what, two?
Uh, three. Three, okay. That, yeah, you know, three nager. So, uh, next run is going to be at Federated Insurance. Paul Wilkie, tell us about who you’re running for. So, actually met
[00:11:00] Pete Rettler: with Paul and Dr. uh, uh, T. J. Benda today at, uh, we had a, we had a lunch at Gary’s Place. Learned a little bit about Dr. Benda. Dr. Benda, many, many of you West Benders, uh, he probably worked on your feet.
Uh, he, for 40 years, he, uh, served the community as a podiatrist, but also served in Vietnam and shared some stories with us today. And my son Jack is writing that up as we speak. Tomorrow we’ll be going out to Federated Insurance. Paul Wilkie has a lot of thoughts on why people need to visit the Memorial and he’ll be sharing those with us tomorrow.
[00:11:41] Fuzz Martin: All right, very good. And then rounding out our Week, uh, the first week of the 30 runs to remember, uh, will be at Moraine Park Technical College. Um, so that run is, you’re gonna run that earlier in the morning, I believe, right? So, so what we’re doing that day,
[00:11:57] Pete Rettler: my, uh, my mother unfortunately passed away last Saturday.
She’s, uh, in a better place. She, she suffered from dementia the last few years. So, uh, like I said, she’s in a better place. So we have a funeral in the afternoon, but actually, uh, Moraine Park is going to have an activity with the honor guard showing up, uh, with, uh, Steve Pepper, who is our military, uh, relations type person at Moraine Park.
We are going to honor all of our Our student and our uh, uh, employee veterans and talk about why Marra Park, uh, technical college is a military friendly school and what you need to do to, to get that designation. I’ll be stopping by earlier in the day with, uh, probably a whole bunch of my family and we’ll probably do our run on the Eisen Baum earlier in the morning.
[00:12:46] Fuzz Martin: Great. And, uh, thank you. Tomain Park Technical College for that. And also our, of course, condolences to you, Pete, and your family for the loss of your mom. Thanks, Fuzz. Um, so, coming up, I’m gonna run through some of the sponsors that we have coming up, and we’ll talk more about those on another bonus episode of this show on the way, but West Bend Friends of Park and Rec, again, Laurie Yar, uh, the, uh, the Reindeer Run at Enchantment of the Park is coming up on December 9th, you can get signed up for that, go to enchantmentpark.
org to find out more. Uh, Gordon Haberman is sponsoring another, uh, Individual, Heberer Brothers Home Improvements, Epic Creative, where we’re recording this right now, Deco Precision Tool, uh, Austin Weber and team over there, Stadler Sachs, Mike Nowak of the Nowak Group, Scott Hanson of Baird, Westbury Bank, C.
D. Smith, the West Bend Sunrise Rotary Club, Rochelle Best of the Right Way Group, uh, West Bend Professional Firefighter Charities, Candyman on Main, Wiesler, Ronald Bureau Heating and Air Conditioning, Delta Defense, Doug Braun, Uh, The Rettler Family, Quick Trip, Julie Freund, uh, in honor of her father, and Julie and Troy Haberman Osmus are going to also be sponsoring some days.
And again, coming up on December 31st at the Annex Building in Kewaskum, sponsored by Schlemmer Law, it’s the annual Rettler Run, and this is the Anniversary run every year. Yeah. Let’s just be clear with this. It’s
[00:14:08] Pete Rettler: a bourbon raffle. It’s a bourbon raffle. It’s a bourbon raffle. Disguised as a run. Disguised as a run.
Although last year we did have a lot of runners and we’re trying to, I got feedback, we want to make it a little bit more of a serious run this year. I got to talk to, uh, to, uh, Adam Gitter and maybe the village president to see if we can fire a shotgun to start the race this year. Uh, we’ll see if that goes over, but, uh, We’ll have to talk to, uh, Police Chief Bishop to make that happen, I think he’ll say.
Alright, maybe he’ll come shoot it for us, so. But, uh, yeah, so we’ll have this year, uh, once again, uh, two runs in one, so you’ll have the mine, if I make it, 30 years, so it’s 30 to enter my run, but that gets you an entry into the bourbon raffle. The bourbons are incredible this year. We also took some feedback from people, and we Uh, the first ten prizes, you’ll be able to either pick a, a bottle of bourbon, or a couple bottles of wine, all Wisconsin wine, all provided by Piggly Wiggly, uh, Aaron Latch in Kewaskum, uh, is going to take care of all of that for us, uh, the bourbon prizes are phenomenal, so.
I’ll mention one, Blatton’s Gold is gonna be one of the prizes, so it should be pretty cool. Jack and his, uh, this is year two for him, two bucks to enter his race. Uh, and, and that you can enter at, at Piggly Wiggly in Kewaskum. We’ll have, have them all set up for that. And what are the prizes on Jack’s Run this year?
So we know what the first prize is. Again, it’s going to be the Mobile Whiskey Shack loaded with some Old Fine, and some Blade Bow, and Eagle Rare, and enough Jim, Jack, and Bullet to get you having a good party, and a 30 pack of PBR. And that’s a two hour party that That, uh, if you want to know how that goes, talk to Jackie Gambucci, she won it last year.
We still have not decided what we’re going to do for his second prize. Okay,
[00:16:03] Fuzz Martin: alright, very good. And again, that, uh, that mobile whiskey shack is a, is an ice shanty, essentially, right? That, uh, well, it’s like a mobile trailer that you’ve, uh, Decked out, but the floorboards come out and you can, uh, ice fish in there.
You could actually ice fish. It’s never been on a
[00:16:15] Pete Rettler: lake, but you could do it, you know. Would
[00:16:17] Fuzz Martin: you put it on a lake at this point?
[00:16:19] Pete Rettler: If the ice was thick enough, it would go on a lake because I just want to experience that. Okay.
[00:16:24] Fuzz Martin: All right. Perfect. We should, uh, we should try to make that happen for you this year.
I at least want to see some video. So, again, you can go to RettlerRun. com, R E T T L E R run. com. And that will get you to where you can sign up for, uh, Pete’s portion of the Rettler Run and get your, uh, entries into that. And again, at Latches Piggly Wiggly in Kewaskum, you can, uh, you will be able to sign up for Jack’s Run for that mobile whiskey shack for two bucks.
And again, you can also buy Jack’s Run, I think, like, right up until the time we draw, right? You can
[00:16:57] Pete Rettler: go and run into fuzz someplace and say, Hey, I want to. I want a hundred dollars worth of Jack’s Run. Yeah, and we’ll get you all
[00:17:05] Fuzz Martin: signed up and get
[00:17:06] Pete Rettler: some tickets there.
[00:17:07] Fuzz Martin: So, I have some buddies who are definitely signing up for that night.
We’ll of course throw some in as well. So, Pete, thanks for all you do. Again, uh, this has been wonderful. Echo what you said about never having this sort of response when I’ve asked people for money before, but we greatly appreciate everybody who’s sponsored and all who support the 9 11 Memorial, and uh, thanks to you for dedicating yourself to this.
And thanks for all your
[00:17:30] Pete Rettler: help too, Fuzz. Shhh. Snoring Dog Media.
