Latest news with #WesternTechnicalCollege
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Daily Mail
Dark history of town where college student, 22, was found dead is revealed as her family issues heartbreaking statement
The college town where a 22-year-old graduate student died after falling into the Mississippi River following a night of drinking has a dark history of eerily similar deaths stretching back nearly three decades. Eliotte Heinz vanished early Sunday while walking home from a night out in downtown La Crosse, Wisconsin. She was last captured on surveillance camera walking alone at 3:22am near the Mississippi River waterfront. A four-day search for Heinz ended in tragedy on Wednesday morning when her body was found floating downstream near Brownsville, Minnesota - more than 10 miles from where she was last seen. It's unclear how Heinz ended up in the river. La Crosse PD said their investigation will remain active as they await autopsy results for an official cause of death. In a heartbreaking statement issued Thursday, Heinz's family remembered her as a 'beautiful person' who was smart, funny, caring, and loved by all who knew her. 'We don't know why we were so blessed to have her as a daughter or why we are unable to keep her. She is amazing and would have continued to amaze us. We are devastated that she is no longer with us. Our family will forever have a missing piece,' her family wrote. 'Eliotte's walk home is finished. Unfortunately, our family's walk down this new hard path is just beginning.' In a still taken from a security video, Heinz is seen dressed in a white t-shirt and denim shorts. She appears to be holding something in her hand, possibly a cellphone Concerns about the lack of safeguards around the Mississippi in downtown La Crosse have been prevalent for some time. La Crosse is a college town with nearly 20,000 students across its three major institutions: University of Wisconsin–La Crosse, Western Technical College, and Viterbo University, where Heinz was enrolled in the mental health counseling program. Between 1997 and 2006, La Crosse was plagued by a spate of alcohol-related accidental drownings that claimed the lives of at least eight college-age students. By 2017, some reports placed the number of deaths at more than a dozen. For a time, speculation was rife that the deaths were being caused by a serial killer dubbed 'Smiley Face,' but those baseless claims were refuted by law enforcement, who determined each of the deaths was the result of excessive drinking, combined with close physical proximity to the river - and not homicide. In 2006, the New York Times reported that local officials had debated for years how to better prevent drunken students from falling into the Mississippi, but 'solutions have so far eluded this community'. La Crosse is renowned for its rich nightlife culture - and even at one point held a Guinness World Record for the most bars and nightclubs on a single street. Numerous bars line the riverfront near Riverside Park, but there are few safeguards in place to prevent intoxicated revelers from falling in. Taking matters into their own hands, students from La Crosse's three largest universities launched Operation: River Watch in 2006, a volunteer program in which students patrol the riverbank on Friday and Saturday nights to steer revelers classmates from the water's edge. The following year, the city placed gates, rails and chains at three entrances to a levee at the city's Riverside Park, close to where one student died in 2006 - but some locals wanted more comprehensive measures. Following Heinz's death, the La Crosse City Vision Foundation is proposing that more safety cameras be installed along the riverfront and on key travel routes between downtown and the river to more quickly alert law enforcement to an unfolding emergency. Heinz's body was found by a fisherman just before 10:30am local time in Brownsville, Minnesota, on Wednesday. Her body was floating face down and wrapped in duckweed, a local business owner told Fox News. Heinz spent her final hours with friends at Bronco's Bar in the city's downtown area, leaving at 2:30am Sunday, when the bar closed. She was then spotted walking alone near the Courtyard Marriott Hotel by a surveillance camera at 3:22am. Where she spent the 50 minutes between leaving the bar and being captured on the hotel's security feed is not clear. The bar and the hotel are just 0.4 miles apart. In a still taken from the security video, Heinz is seen dressed in a white t-shirt and denim shorts. She appears to be holding something in her hand, possibly a cellphone. According to her mom, Heinz was walking back to her apartment at the time the image was captured. The journey should've taken 30 minutes, but she never made it back. A map shows Heinz's last known whereabouts before she was reported missing on Sunday Heinz's cellphone was later found near the hotel by friends who went out looking for her after numerous calls went unanswered, the Daily Mail previously revealed. Her family said they were trying to 'stay positive' as the search for her stretched into a fourth day on Wednesday. However, within hours, a tragic discovery was made in Minnesota. 'This was not the outcome we had hoped for throughout this search,' said La Crosse Police Chief Shawn Kudron, announcing Heinz's death. 'Our thoughts are with Eliotte's family, friends and all those who knew Eliotte.' Heinz's alma mater also released a statement, mourning her passing. 'There are no words that can ease the pain of losing someone so young, with so much life ahead of her,' said Viterbo University President Dr. Rick Trietley. 'Our hearts go out to Eliotte's family. We hold them in our prayers and stand with them in their grief.' Viterbo will hold a memorial service in Eliotte's honor this fall, in coordination with her family, once students return to campus, the school said. The investigation into Heinz's death remains ongoing.
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Dr. Jill Underly visits with La Crosse students in honor of Career and Technical Education Month
LA CROSSE, Wis. (WLAX/WEUX) – Wisconsin State Superintendent Dr. Jill Underly visited students and staff at Western Technical College and La Crosse Central High School to explore career and technical education opportunities. This comes after Dr. Underly proposed $60 million in investments to expand those types of programs through her biennial budget request. Dr. Underly explains, 'Career and Tech Ed is important for us to fund in our schools for a variety of reasons. When you think about a well-rounded learner you think about keeping kids engaged, hands-on opportunities. There's aspects of it that are going to help the workforce in the long run, but the purpose of school is we want kids to discover their passions, to be engaged and to learn those other skills.' La Crosse Supervisor of Career and Technical Education, Britta Rotering. Says the school district believes it is important to provide students with many different career learning opportunities, 'We want our students to experience everything that they may have a chance to continue to progress in. We want our students, while they're within our system, to have a safe and comfortable place to be introduced to areas that may be difficult or something that they haven't been exposed to.' Dr. Underly toured through innovative student programs that cover technology, marketing, consumer sciences and more, she said that La Crosse provides plenty of opportunities to students, 'I'm really impressed by how La Crosse partners with, not just the technical college, but with the employers in the community. They place so many students who are in youth apprenticeships and job shadows with employers here in the community. That is what is going to grow the workforce of our community is this partnership between k-12 and high schools as well as our local employers' The school district is also pleased to hear about the proposed investments toward education programming. Rotering explains, 'It feels like someone sees us. They hear us. They recognize our needs. They recognize the work that is being done in the k-12 districts, especially with the career pathways. They're standing behind us to advocate with the role and opportunity they have to provide us more of what we need so we can keep providing incredible opportunities to our students, families and community.' Wisconsin is just one of six states that do not have ongoing funding dedicated to career and technical education programs in public schools. Dr. Underly, Brittany Kinser, and Jeff Wright are running in the nonpartisan primary for Wisconsin's Superintendent of Public Instruction on February 18th. The top two finishers will then run in a General Election on April 1, 2025 Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
