President's Message

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Dear Friends and Members of WAHS,

2025 has been an exciting year for WAHS! We did four school visits for Syttende Mai, had summer "Open House" hours, and the 10th Annual Sweet Rides & Sweet Pies was a HUGE success! We surely hope you have been able to enjoy one of these! 

The 2025 Syttende Mai week was very busy! The Westby Elementary School Librarian, Mrs. Schroeder, and 4th-grade teacher, Mr. Henchen, at the Coon Valley Elementary School helped us with our Grandparent of the Year nominations. Home schoolers were also eligible to submit a nomination. Fourth graders study the history of Wisconsin, and we present a program about the immigration of Norwegians to our area that fits beautifully with their classes. The Thoreson House Museum and Genealogy Center was open on Syttende Mai Saturday, and we sold lefse/pølse at our usual corner on Saturday and Sunday. We were excited to celebrate our heritage during Syttende Mai week!

Our 10th Annual Sweet Rides & Sweet Pies happened on Saturday, July 26th. We welcomed TV celebrity DENNIS GAGE from My Classic Car! Saturday, July 26, 2025, was our best and biggest event yet! We had more than 300 cars and sold out of 600 pieces of pie with ice cream! It was a great day with special guests and a celebration of the Main Street Construction Project!

We continued our summer Party on the Porch on the second Tuesday of the month in June, July, August, and September. We had Summer Open House hours on weekends. We continued our Cemetery Stone Cleaning Workshop in the Spring and the Fall, and we hosted two Norwegian tour groups. In October, we were contacted by a research team from the University of Stavanger and hosted them as they interviewed 16 people of the 20 - 25 they were hoping for their project! 

WAHS has had lots of events and activities to celebrate, so we hope you have been checking our Facebook page and reading our newsletter for updates! To make things easier, we have added a dropdown to our ABOUT US tab above. If you click on it, you will see a menu item that will take you to an archive of our 8 most recent newsletters.  YOu can see what we have done and what is coming up – all in one place!

Thank you for your continued support of the Westby Area Historical Society during all these wonderful 2025 events. If you would like a tour of the museum or need help with your genealogy research, please contact us. We have so much to offer to our friends and members! 2025 has been a wonderful year for WAHS, and we hope you can join us for our meetings and activities!

Blaine Hedberg

WAHS President