Kurt Chandler | Page 5

Kurt Chandler

Kurt Chandler began working at Milwaukee Magazine in 1998 as a senior editor, writing investigative articles, profiles, narratives and commentaries. He was editor in chief from August 2013-November 2015. An award-winning writer, Chandler has worked as a newspaper reporter, magazine writer, editor and author. He has been published in a number of metro newspapers and magazines, from The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle and Minneapolis Star Tribune, to Marie Claire, The Writer, and Salon.com. He also has authored, coauthored or edited 12 books. His writing awards are many: He has won the National Headliners Award for magazine writing five times. He has been named Writer of the Year by the City & Regional Magazine Association, and Journalist of the Year by the Milwaukee Press Club. As a staff writer with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, he was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and chosen as a finalist for the Robert F. Kennedy Award. In previous lives, Chandler worked construction, drove a cab and played the banjo (not necessarily at the same time). He has toiled as a writer and journalist for three decades now and, unmindful of his sage father’s advice, has nothing to fall back on. Yet he is not without a specialized set of skills: He can take notes in the dark and is pretty good with active verbs.


December 19, 2011Feature Story

The Hot Seat

Photos by Adam Ryan Morris It was in May 2003 that Milwaukee Art Museum officials met with Sheldon Lubar and asked him to take the lead in bailing out the museum’s crushing $30 million debt. He and his wife, Marianne, had already given generously for the construction of the $125 million Calatrava addition, and she didn’t like the idea of her husband taking on more responsibility. So the Lubars said no. But overnight, Sheldon stewed about it. Somebody had to take charge. “Goddammit, I’m gonna do it,” Lubar decided. His first call went to Michael Cudahy, another major contributor to…

August 22, 2011Feature Story

The Tree of Life

Birds can be the bane of Ken Weston’s life. They peck at his apples and knock his cherries to the ground. Weston is up in the trees one June afternoon, standing gingerly on a mechanical lift, inching his featherweight body to the edge as he fastens an electronic alarm to a branch. “This one keeps the starlings away,” Weston says. “You want to hear it?” With the flip of a switch, the simulated screech of a distressed starling pierces the air. The shrill calls warn off other starlings and protect the trees. At 82, it’s something of a battle for…

July 15, 2011Feature Story

Where the Wild Things Are

This article originally appeared in the August 2011 issue of Milwaukee Magazine.  For a gallery of photos from the magazine, click here. For our reader-submitted photos (or to submit your own), click here.  *   Getty Images. They were just back from a vacation Up North, a four-day trip to a resort near Minocqua, where Karen and Ed Rudolph had kept a watchful eye out for wildlife. They were hoping to see a bald eagle or a wolf, maybe even a black bear lumbering through the dense majesty of the North Woods. But nothing. Not even a coyote. But a day…

July 11, 2011Archive

Me Myself and I

Few are more well-versed in state politics than Margaret Farrow, the former lieutenant governor and longtime legislator. But she was stumped recently when a fellow Republican asked her a simple question about Scott Walker: “So who is the inner circle that guides the governor?” Farrow had no answer. “I haven’t a clue,” Farrow says. “That’s the mystery. That’s the $64 million question.” Almost overnight, Walker has become nationally famous – and an inspiration to other Republicans – for his dramatic political agenda: killing high-speed rail, slashing state spending, cutting employee benefits and drastically curtailing the ability of public sector unions…

April 19, 2011Feature Story

Easy Prey

  This story appears in the May 2011 issue of Milwaukee Magazine. He’s a smooth talker with a sly smile. He’s got dollars in his pocket and an apartment, maybe a car. Years out of high school, he’s been around. He knows things, he’s done things, he’s a man of the world. She’s young and naive, 16, 15, even as young as 12 or 11. She’s turned off by the immaturity of boys at school. All her life, she’s been told to look pretty and to grow up. And now she wants to, desperately. They hook up at a friend’s…

March 16, 2011Feature Story

The Vigilante

  Photo by Adam Ryan Morris. photo by Adam Ryan MorrisThis story appears in the December 2010 issue of Milwaukee Magazine. by Kurt Chandler Two or three times a week, Karren Kraemer would get up at 3 or 4 in the morning, fill a thermos with strong coffee, and drive from her home near Oconomowoc to one of Milwaukee’s toughest neighborhoods. With grim determination, Kraemer would walk the lonely, early-morning streets, papering the neighborhood with fliers bearing the face of her 23-year-old daughter, Becky. “Please help us find Becky,” the fliers implored. “Missing/Endangered since December 13, 2003.” Kraemer believed Becky’s…

Tender is the Night
March 10, 2011Feature Story

Tender is the Night

This story appears in the March 2011 issue of Milwaukee Magazine. On that Saturday summer night, Daniel and Katherine Gute made the short drive from their River Hills home to the Milwaukee Country Club for an early dinner. They held hands walking into the restaurant and sat at a table near a window overlooking the Milwaukee River. They sipped chardonnay and shared a bowl of vichyssoise, a favorite soup of theirs, having a quiet, romantic evening. But they must have known it was their last meal together. It was July 17, 2010, just four days after their 53rd wedding anniversary.…

September 11, 2010The Daily Mil

Thoughts from Kurt

The two brick smokestacks at the west end of the Menomonee Valley were torn down last week because they had become too costly to repair and preserve. I won’t miss ’em. Architecturally and structurally, they were interesting enough, I suppose. But as “memorials” to Milwaukee’s industrial heritage, they represented the Valley’s worst – an era of filthy rivers, contaminated garbage dumps and black coal dust spewing from dozens of stacks.                 “There was a permanent pall over the Valley, and housewives learned not to hang their wash outside when the wind blew from the wrong direction,” wrote Milwaukee historian John…

September 11, 2010The Daily Mil

Fun Press Releases

Reporters get a shipload of press releases. Usually they end up in the trash bin faster than you can say “flack.” But occasionally, for cheap amusement, I’ll hold on to the ones that are written with flair or just wacky. Here’s a few that grabbed me:                 – “Milk-Bone, America’s favorite dog snack, celebrates its 100th anniversary. That’s 700 in dog years!”                 – “National Clean You Home Office Day is March 13.” (Who knew? Who cares?)                 – First rescue center for gorillas to open in Eastern Africa.” (A little far flung for Milwaukee Magazine.)                 – “Sorry for…

February 10, 2010Feature Story

Past Imperfect

Kenosha native Thom Bierdz ran from home to become a Hollywood star. But his brother’s brutal murder of their mother forced Bierdz to confront his troubled past.