Door County Pulse Podcast

The 2025 NFL Draft comes to Green Bay April 24-26. Aaron Popkey, public affairs director for the Green Bay Packers, joins Myles Dannhausen Jr. to talk about NFL draft preparations, what visitors to the city can expect, and what the Packers hope the big event will bring to the organization and the city. Popkey addresses some of the misconceptions about the draft and a few rumors swirling online abo...

He spent 25 years working in kitchens, operating a beloved Ephraim soup bar, and defending local service workers from uppity outsiders, but now Paul Wanish is one of the voices of Door County’s oldest radio station, 93.9 WDOR. Wanish joins Myles Dannhausen Jr. to talk about how a guy goes from kitchens to the hallowed grounds of Eddie Allen and Roger Levendusky’s mic at WDOR.

The Department of Natural Resources closed the Potawatomi State Park Observation Tower in 2017 and planned to demolish the structure – until Christie Weber took up its cause and the Sturgeon Bay Historical Society Foundation (SBHSF) put its weight behind a fight that would take seven years and end with a fully restored, historic tower. Weber and Chesla Anschutz, another former SBHSF member, join D...

For 55 years Jim Ingwersen has been one of Door County’s most-acclaimed and prolific artists, painting portraits of Supreme Court Justices, contemporary artists and hundreds of other commissions from his studio on Old Stage Road outside Sister Bay. As he nears his 96th birthday, he has reached an agreement to donate his gallery, hundreds of paintings and home to the Peninsula School of Art to serv...

Cam Ehlers-Kwaterski from Destination Sturgeon Bay joins Myles Dannhausen Jr. to fill us in on everything going on for St. Patrick's Day in the city on Saturday. Plus, the Pulse was honored with 30 awards at the Wisconsin Newspaper Association Convention last week. Myles shares his thoughts on who's to thank – the readers who support our work.

Debra Fitzgerald talks with Keren Cotter and Jen Aldrich from Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northeast Wisconsin about the life-changing work they do matching adult mentors (Bigs) with young people (Littles) in our communities, including Door County. We dive into the organization’s mission, the positive impact these mentoring relationships have on kids, and their new recruitment campaign, the Big Dra...

As Gibraltar High School prepares for the next stage of its big renovation, the community is gearing up to celebrate its rich history with The Last Dance. The event aims to honor the memories made in the old gym, a cornerstone of the school since its construction in the 1930s. The Last Dance is not just a farewell; it's an invitation for alumni and community members to come together, reminisce, an...

Owen Alabado joins the podcast to discuss this weekend’s Northern Door Pride Cabaret at Northern Sky’s Gould Theater. The founder of Northern Door Pride chats with Myles Dannhausen Jr. about bringing locals together for the show on stage and in the audience, the Knobs, and why he’s been so driven to do community work from the day he landed in Door County almost five years ago.

Debra Fitzgerald talks with Wisconsin Rep. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay) about his priorities as chair of the Assembly Committee on Education, and a new bill he’s introduced that would ban cell phone use in K-12 classrooms. They also talk about immigration policy and how it would impact Wisconsin farmers; priorities for crafting the new, biannual budget this year; and how some federal orders comi...

Door County is in an electrical region that is considered high risk for shortfalls occurring at normal peak conditions this summer and for the next 10 years based on assessment data. Door County resident Roy Thilly, who spent a career working in the electricity sector – attorney, CEO of WPPI, board member and chair of NERC – talks with Debra Fitzgerald about the factors causing the risks and what...

TJ Klune, author of The House in the Cerulean Sea, talks with Debra Fitzgerald about his (extremely well-written) book that was selected for this year’s Door County Reads program, which began Jan. 18 and runs through February). Klune talks about his writing process, why he writes, who he writes for – and life on a remote 10 acres in Washington state. The Lamda Literary Award-winning author Klune h...

The craft beer industry is at an inflection point. Many upstart breweries have shuttered not long after opening, and even some of the original stars of the craft beer scene have gone bottoms-up in the last couple years. But one of the original craft breweries and most famous is doubling down. New Glarus, brewers of Spotted Cow, Moon Man and some of the most appreciated beers in the country, announ...

The husband-and-wife filmmaking team of Zach Melnick and Yvonne Drebert join Myles Dannhausen Jr. to discuss their new documentary film, All Too Clear, which explores how quadrillions of tiny invasive mussels, known as quaggas, are re-engineering the ecosystem of the Great Lakes at a scale not seen since the glaciers. To capture this epic change, they spent more than 150 days filming underwater, m...

The Town of Gibraltar has finally closed on its purchase of the 118-acre Redmann property to expand Fish Creek Park. Administrator Travis Thyssen joins the podcast to talk about property and discuss what the process will look like as the town embarks on trail and park improvements for what will now be a 150-acre public space.

Most public “input” sessions aren’t actually designed to put constituent feedback to use. John Kamp and James Rojas, authors of the book “Dream, Play, Build” argue that most of these sessions are used simply to tell the public what has already been decided. The sessions are usually intimidating to the average resident and aren’t designed to build community and generate ideas, but to meet statutory...

Door County Land Trust Executive Director Emily Wood talks with Debra Fitzgerald about the organization’s record year of land conservation in Door County (17 projects concluded in 2024); the role the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund plays in accomplishing the organization’s mission; and how they balance conservation with other priorities, such as economic development

Ryan Mueller talks with Debra Fitzgerald about his frequent UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena) sightings in Ellison Bay; his evolving ability to summon their appearance; his theory about what they are and how that relates with the heightened drone activity on the East Coast (and around the world); and what he believes these sightings and experiences are teaching him – and us – about the past, pre...

Northern Sky veteran Karen Mal joins Debra Fitzgerald to talk about her upcoming show at the Gould Theater, Dec. 28, 29, 30 and 31, to play some original music, and to talk about her career as a singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/actor. Mal found a community in the Northern Sky team back when it was American Folklore Theater, and their fall season box office line rang in her kitchen in a cott...

The second in command at the Door County Sheriff’s office, Pat McCarty, Chief Deputy/Undersheriff, will retire Jan. 17, 2025 just short of 31 years with the department. He talks with Debra Fitzgerald about his years in law enforcement, including as a patrol officer, and the changes and differences that have occurred over his three decades in law enforcement.

Sister Bay property owners were shocked when they got tax bills showing a 10.8% increase for village property taxes this month. Debra Fitgzerald joins Myles Dannhausen Jr. to discuss what we know about what mistakes were made when the village promised that taxes would be flat this year during the budget hearings just one month earlier.

Dr. Greg Kleinheinz, director of the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Environmental Research and Innovation Center, has overseen beach-water testing in Door County for more than 20 years. For the past five years, he’s also worked with the County of Door on a well-testing program designed to learn what’s in private-well drinking water. He goes over the cumulative results with Debra Fitzgerald, as we...

Kayla Larsen spent 25 years working in the restaurant industry before stepping into photography. For the winter edition of Door County Living magazine, Larsen turned her eye toward her old industry, providing a glimpse into the restaurant and food world that most diners never see. She joins Myles Dannhausen Jr. to talk about the project and their love for the rhythms and banter of the restaurant w...

Reconsidering Local Wine and Spirits with Hatch Distilling by Door County Pulse Podcast

Trent Snyder of Bridge Up Brewing Company joins Myles Dannhausen Jr. to talk about the Toys for Kids drive and what it’s like to play Santa. But first, a rundown of this weekend’s coming Christmas festivities in the county.

A new documentary about Wisconsin’s lighthouses premiers on PBS Wisconsin on Dec. 2, and as you’d expect, Door County’s lights feature prominently in the episode. The film’s producer, Jeff Pfeifer, joins Myles Dannhausen Jr. to talk about why these structures have such a pull on our psyche and shares some of the stories he used to bring the historical subject to life.