Point of View

On a dreary day in mid-April, a crowd gathered in a street-level space in an old brick building. A mix of youngish, middle-aged and even elderly visitors tuck white, numbered paddles under their arms. Some nose through a thick, glossy catalogue of items. Others wander, gazing and touching items in the room. Eventually, Leslie Hindman, 58, steps to the auctioneer’s podium, her emerald ring catching the light. After a brief introduction sprinkled with her dry wit, she begins with a pair of upholstered Danish armchairs, her voice remaining even-pitched as she rolls through bids. When one bidder remains, the sale…

Photo by Adam Ryan Morris He may not have the following of Bob Uecker nor the mustache of that guy named Bernie, but in his own way, 91-year-old Lou Montgomery has become a Milwaukee Brewers fixture. At every home game, you’ll find the longtime usher and tour guide stationed beside a press box door, swapping pleasantries and baseball stories with media members and fans alike. And he professes such love for his job that it sounds more like a second marriage. His first one – to wife Marian in 1946 – has delivered two kids, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren,…

How would you describe your hometown of Tell City, Ind.? A small town on the Ohio River. Named after William Tell. When I left there, it was about 7,500. Everybody knew most everybody. What do you remember about growing up there? Well, quite a few things. But one of the things that really stands out is, I had two cousins and we lived within four blocks of each other. So in the summertime, we were always together, and we’d play Cowboys and Indians. We played a lot of ball when we could get other guys to play with us. We…

Photo by Adam Ryan Morris Non-Catholics might say the church has a PR problem, but John Paul Shimek, a 31-year-old Brookfield native and former assistant to two Milwaukee archbishops, identifies secularization – what he calls a kind of “amnesia” about the importance of faith – as the denomination’s greatest challenge in the northern hemisphere. Now a doctoral student at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., Shimek dubbed himself a “pilgrim journalist” earlier this year and traveled from the nation’s capital to Rome to write for The Catholic World Report and other outlets amid the election and early days…

Photo by Adam Ryan Morris From removing gum and graffiti to planning Downtown Dining Week and overseeing large-scale economic development plans, Beth Weirick, formerly Nicols (as she’s billed everywhere these days), describes herself as a juggler. Her professional title, however, is executive director of Milwaukee Downtown, BID #21. For 14 years, she’s held the post, becoming an encyclopedia of Downtown history with an unparalleled passion for the city. But don’t just talk ideas with this 49-year-old. Get to implementing or get out. She’s here to get things done. Queen of Downtown Photo Gallery How did you get here? When I…

Photo by Adam Ryan Morris This is an extended version of the interview that appeared in our March 2013 issue. He doesn’t remember the fifth-grade joke, just the big laughs it got. “And I went, ‘Oh, they like me.’” Now 68, Dick Chudnow turned funny into a lifetime pursuit, eventually creating Milwaukee’s ComedySportz improv theater, which has outposts in 21 cities. He graduated from Shorewood High class clown to UW-Madison college cutup. And he was a founding member of Madison’s legendary Kentucky Fried Theatre, moving the show to Los Angeles with fellow funnymen Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker…

Photo by Adam Ryan Morris In the hours after the Aug. 5, 2012, shooting at Oak Creek’s Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, one person was in charge of the sprawling response: Teresa Carlson. One of the FBI’s most prominent women – and only the second to ever serve as special agent in charge of the Milwaukee Division – Carlson left a national security post in New York in late 2011 to come to Milwaukee, where she oversees a statewide team of agents. She previously headed up the white-collar crime divisions in New York and Birmingham, Ala., where her unit investigated the…

Photo by Adam Ryan Morris When Haiti’s president visited New York City last year, it was Samuel Dalembert who hosted an evening reception. He’s no politician, nor does he wish to become one, nor would most even consider him a big NBA star. But the 6-foot-11, 31-year-old new Milwaukee Bucks center is very much an unappointed Haitian ambassador. When the 2010 earthquake shook Haiti’s already-fragile core, he was the NBA’s face for relief efforts, just as the league’s lone Haitian-born player has stood tall for so many charities, including UNICEF, Feed The Children and Project Medishare. Through his own Samuel…

Photo by Adam Ryan Morris Hannah Rosenthal is a friendly yet forceful communicator and one of those singularly committed public figures Wisconsin has a reputation for producing. A former director of the Wisconsin Women’s Council and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs in New York, she left a post at the U.S. State Department in October – where she served as the special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism – in awe of Hillary Clinton and the grueling lives led by political appointees. (“It’s really exhausting,” she says.) Equal parts activist and administrator, Rosenthal is the new president and CEO…