Pete Rettler, Dean of Moraine Park's West Bend Campus, joins me today to talk about his 30 Runs to Remember event to benefit the Wisconsin 9/11 Memorial & Education Center. For 30 days in the month of December, Pete will be running in honor of someone with ties to September 11th, the Memorial, the military, first responders, fire and EMS.

Pete has been on this show a few times before to talk about his running streak. This year marks the 30th anniversary of his run. To honor that, he's raising funds for the Memorial. Funds raise will be used to help subsidize the cost of busing field trips to the Memorial, which sometimes exceed $500.

As the president of the Memorial's board of directors, I am very proud of this initiative and extremely thankful to Pete for all of his support and dedication. Of course, I speak for the entire board when I say we are equally thankful to each of the sponsors for making this initiative possible.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Rettler Run 5K - Wisconsin 9/11 Memorial & Education Center

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You've been running for 30 years with this, I think is the third time talking about your running streak in the three ish years that this show has been running, and it's still going on. You're coming up on 30 years, right Pete?

Yes.

And now I wouldn't kill for an eight minute

You'd think, oh, you know, maybe from Slinger it's, you know, 20 minutes, but that's about a 500 bus trip.

Yeah. So. Yeah, definitely. And, and this all culminates with the Rettler Run, which we'll talk about in a little bit. Thanks But I want to dig into, you know, we're coming up on a week of your runs, the first week of the 30 runs to remember, and I want to talk about who you've run for so far and who's sponsored that.

So, you started off this past Saturday, right? Correct.

We ran at the VFW hall. There's a difference that we learned between the VFW and the Legion, uh, but, but they, they all get together and create one honor guard, and it was super cool, uh, we did it at 11 o'clock, the honor guard did a little performance for us, or the present, presentation of the flags, I believe, I was so, uh, honored that they all took the time to be there, there, uh, anytime there's a military funeral in the area, the honor guard is there to help.

Um, even, even the fact is getting a flag to put on a coffin.

He immigrated to the U. S., moved to Appleton. Went to James Madison Middle School, then went to Appleton East, eventually after college, moved out to New York, became a broker, uh, lived with his, he and his brother lived in New York, and he unfortunately was in the North Tower of the World Trade Center. He and 657 of his, uh, co workers, uh, were killed in that, in the 101st, I think, through 105th floor, I might be mistaken on those floors, but it was above where the plane hit, and none of them survived, and that's just a Unbelievably tragic story and just like, reading about that was gut wrenching, because, just think about how many lives and

And, and Lori

Alright, next

Somebody's like, you forget about the people that were in the Pentagon that got killed that day. And, uh, uh, John, uh, part of the story was he, he survived two tours of Vietnam, but then was working in the Pentagon that day and, and didn't survive that day.

But again, John was a Milwaukee native, uh, again, who worked at the Pentagon. And Tina

It was a, it was a good visit. Did Mayor Ongert run as well? Mayor Ongert did not run. Okay, I think he was

Tom has been just at the Memorial all of the time, lining up donors, lining up, uh, you know, he's been the one in charge of the flags, raising and lowering the flags, um, making sure that all the pieces are in place and that we have the volunteers that we need showing up at every event. And unfortunately, he developed pancreatic cancer a couple of years ago, very aggressive, uh, thought that he got through it, uh, and, uh, pancreatic cancer morphs into a whole bunch of things, and it's very hard to, uh, really survive pancreatic cancer, and unfortunately, Tom lost his battle with cancer on Thursday, a.

Last week, uh, November 30th, and, uh, it was, uh, liver cancer that, uh, uh, developed from that. And so, Gordon and Kathleen Haberman, which were Tom's really good friends, and obviously Gordon and Kathy are, are very, uh, involved with the memorial. Uh, they sponsored a day in honor of Tom, uh, and you ran that yesterday at the memorial,

Yeah, we went last night and ran it from the memorial, and, um, I remember Tom would show up at all of my runs when I, the New Year's Eve day run, and he'd sell, uh, uh, bricks and stuff for it. He was always, he was always available, so. Very, very fine man of the community, the community lost a big asset there.

Oh, Gib. Alright, did Gib run with you? Gib did not run with us, but he was very, he was actually better behaved, uh, sitting in the chair than my granddaughter was the night before. Oh,

Uh, three. Three, okay. That, yeah, you know, three nager. So, uh, next run is going to be at Federated Insurance. Paul Wilkie, tell us about who you're running for. So, actually met

Uh, he, for 40 years, he, uh, served the community as a podiatrist, but also served in Vietnam and shared some stories with us today. And my son Jack is writing that up as we speak. Tomorrow we'll be going out to Federated Insurance. Paul Wilkie has a lot of thoughts on why people need to visit the Memorial and he'll be sharing those with us tomorrow.

She's, uh, in a better place. She, she suffered from dementia the last few years. So, uh, like I said, she's in a better place. So we have a funeral in the afternoon, but actually, uh, Moraine Park is going to have an activity with the honor guard showing up, uh, with, uh, Steve Pepper, who is our military, uh, relations type person at Moraine Park.

We are going to honor all of our Our student and our uh, uh, employee veterans and talk about why Marra Park, uh, technical college is a military friendly school and what you need to do to, to get that designation. I'll be stopping by earlier in the day with, uh, probably a whole bunch of my family and we'll probably do our run on the Eisen Baum earlier in the morning.

org to find out more. Uh, Gordon Haberman is sponsoring another, uh, Individual, Heberer Brothers Home Improvements, Epic Creative, where we're recording this right now, Deco Precision Tool, uh, Austin Weber and team over there, Stadler Sachs, Mike Nowak of the Nowak Group, Scott Hanson of Baird, Westbury Bank, C.

D. Smith, the West Bend Sunrise Rotary Club, Rochelle Best of the Right Way Group, uh, West Bend Professional Firefighter Charities, Candyman on Main, Wiesler, Ronald Bureau Heating and Air Conditioning, Delta Defense, Doug Braun, Uh, The Rettler Family, Quick Trip, Julie Freund, uh, in honor of her father, and Julie and Troy Haberman Osmus are going to also be sponsoring some days.

And again, coming up on December 31st at the Annex Building in Kewaskum, sponsored by Schlemmer Law, it's the annual Rettler Run, and this is the Anniversary run every year. Yeah. Let's just be clear with this. It's

Although last year we did have a lot of runners and we're trying to, I got feedback, we want to make it a little bit more of a serious run this year. I got to talk to, uh, to, uh, Adam Gitter and maybe the village president to see if we can fire a shotgun to start the race this year. Uh, we'll see if that goes over, but, uh, We'll have to talk to, uh, Police Chief Bishop to make that happen, I think he'll say.

Alright, maybe he'll come shoot it for us, so. But, uh, yeah, so we'll have this year, uh, once again, uh, two runs in one, so you'll have the mine, if I make it, 30 years, so it's 30 to enter my run, but that gets you an entry into the bourbon raffle. The bourbons are incredible this year. We also took some feedback from people, and we Uh, the first ten prizes, you'll be able to either pick a, a bottle of bourbon, or a couple bottles of wine, all Wisconsin wine, all provided by Piggly Wiggly, uh, Aaron Latch in Kewaskum, uh, is going to take care of all of that for us, uh, the bourbon prizes are phenomenal, so.

I'll mention one, Blatton's Gold is gonna be one of the prizes, so it should be pretty cool. Jack and his, uh, this is year two for him, two bucks to enter his race. Uh, and, and that you can enter at, at Piggly Wiggly in Kewaskum. We'll have, have them all set up for that. And what are the prizes on Jack's Run this year?

So we know what the first prize is. Again, it's going to be the Mobile Whiskey Shack loaded with some Old Fine, and some Blade Bow, and Eagle Rare, and enough Jim, Jack, and Bullet to get you having a good party, and a 30 pack of PBR. And that's a two hour party that That, uh, if you want to know how that goes, talk to Jackie Gambucci, she won it last year.

We still have not decided what we're going to do for his second prize. Okay,

You could actually ice fish. It's never been on a

I at least want to see some video. So, again, you can go to RettlerRun. com, R E T T L E R run. com. And that will get you to where you can sign up for, uh, Pete's portion of the Rettler Run and get your, uh, entries into that. And again, at Latches Piggly Wiggly in Kewaskum, you can, uh, you will be able to sign up for Jack's Run for that mobile whiskey shack for two bucks.

And again, you can also buy Jack's Run, I think, like, right up until the time we draw, right? You can

We'll of course throw some in as well. So, Pete, thanks for all you do. Again, uh, this has been wonderful. Echo what you said about never having this sort of response when I've asked people for money before, but we greatly appreciate everybody who's sponsored and all who support the 9 11 Memorial, and uh, thanks to you for dedicating yourself to this.

And thanks for all your