You might see them out on Wisconsin’s roadways this weekend!  It’s the 34th annual Highground Veterans Memorial Park bicycle tour, and it hits highways all around the state starting Friday and running through Sunday.

Executive director Jon Weiler, says the Highground’s biggest fundraiser of the year commemorates the bike ride that Tom Miller took more than 30 years ago to start The Highground.

“In 1984 Tom Miller was trying to raise awareness of the Vietnam veteran issues, so he decided to do a bicycle tour around the State of Wisconsin, 1,244 miles, which is the number of KIAs and ‘Missing in Action’ from Wisconsin in Vietnam,” Weiler explained.

“Last year we raised just over $50,000,” Weiler said, “but the most important thing is to raise awareness of all veterans and their struggles and their sacrifices.”

Bike routes start in all four corners of the state and riders range from young teenagers to Vietnam vets in their seventies, and they all have one thing in common…  arriving at The Highground on Sunday.

“They start on Friday, they stay somewhere Friday night, Saturday night, and then they roll into The Highground around Noon on Sunday afternoon,” Weiler explained.

“If people are interested in coming here to see that, we try to greet them. We stand in lines on both sides of the road, we hold flags, and we’ll greet them as they enter The Highround.”

Organizers say spectators, volunteers, and other motorists are a big part of the annual ride; helping to feed, house, and safely greet riders as they traverse the state.

If you still want to register for the event, go to https://www.thehighground.us/events/ for more information.

WSAU

The international visitor’s tent at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s AirVenture has been called the United Nations of Oshkosh by some.

Thousands of people from all over the world come to the convention.

But it’s more than just a tent.

Visitors and tent volunteers say it’s its own community…And it’s a community that keeps on growing.

”It’s a whole group of people; like-minded people who just want to camp and experience aviation in Oshkosh, which is nothing else like it in the world,” said Neil Bowden organizer for the South Africa AirVenture group.

For the past 22 years, Neil has organized the AirVenture travel packages from South Africa.

But this year, he tells FOX 11 his crew of South African aviation enthusiasts arrived in Oshkosh with the largest group ever.

Last year, they set a record of 163 people…this year, 237 people are filling the 162 tents at Camp Schoeller.

The South African group is also the first there to ever have a permanent small shed on their site.

“We’re part of the whole Camp Schoeller/Oshkosh camping area, and it’s great because people – our neighbors – camp next to us, they come and mix with us, they come and talk with us, and I just feel like part of the whole scene.”

“They make connections and friendships that, outside of Oshkosh, maybe wouldn’t be possible,” AirVenture International Visitors Tent chairwoman Michel Bryson said.

“Here, there’s not politics, there’s no religion, it’s just airplanes and friendships.”

The number of visitors checked-in at the tent is already up.

The international tent has seen 200 more guests than it did this time last year.

For another international visitor, it seems nothing will stop him from attending AirVenture, not age or even cancer.

Eighty-eight-year-old Australian Dave Thomas has been making the trip to Oshkosh since the 70s.

He tells FOX 11 his passion for aviation has done more than keep him coming back each year.

“The only love in life, the only thing keeping me alive is flying airplanes, and talking about airplanes to people – these lovely people here,” Thomas said.

Over 2,000 people are representing over 70 countries, all speaking the universal language of aviation.

WTAQ

Stevens Point is turning to high tech methods as it wages a war against foreign invaders: Canada geese.

The worst problem with the geese is near the city’s band shell, according to city parks director Tom Schrader.

“People put their towels down and blankets and chairs, or they want to sit on the grass and sit and listen to the music, and the grass happens to be full of fecal matter.”

UW-Stevens Point researchers will be deploying new deterrents including noise disruption devices and pyrotechnics.

Schrader says the city hopes it’s more effective than their current methods. “Coyote cutouts and green laser pointers, the owl hoots up in the trees and the streamers.  They were fairly successful, but the coyote cutouts had to be moved every day, so it’s kind of time consuming.”

People have been feeding the geese over the years, which only attracts them to places they’re not wanted.

“The more you feed them, they just keep coming back, and once the young get used to that area, as they get to be adults they come back to the same area.”

If the new methods aren’t effective, the city will turn to its backup plan and have local hunters and volunteers continue to use the current methods until the geese take the hint and move elsewhere.