Shawano Municipal Utilities customers will start paying more for electricity next month, though how much more depends on what class of customers they are. The Public Service Commission on Tuesday issued an order granting SMU a rate increase sufficient to provide the utility with a 6 percent rate of return. The increase will start to show up on September bills covering usage for the month of August. Residential customers and the largest industrial

It was the kind of day when nothing goes right: you almost get shut out, you give up a seven-run inning, you break a bat and your ninth — and last — player gets injured. That’s how it went for the Menominee American Legion baseball team Wednesday in the opening game of the American Legion Class A Region 3 tournament in Marion, a 13-1 loss to Manawa. “They showed up to play,” Menominee coach Brandon Frechette said of Manawa.

A small but impassioned crowd of people gathered outside the Shawano County Courthouse on Wednesday evening for a pro-democracy rally aimed at exposing the influence of big money in American politics. Their chief target in particular were the Koch brothers, Charles and David, oil industry billionaires who have spent the last few years pumping money into the campaigns of candidates who support what critics say is the Koch brothers’ ultra-conservat

The storybook “Why Should I Protect Nature?” will be read at the Holtwood Sporting Complex, 115 Holtwood Way, on Friday, July 25. This is the third and last storybook walk in Oconto this summer. Ribbon cutting will be at the complex at 10:30 a.m. with the storybook walk to follow. Participants can enjoy a walk and the playgrounds and learn why it is important to protect nature. Two other storybook walks are available at Oconto parks this summer.

In spring, Debbie and Kyle Roeser, of Green Bay, pulled a heavy white pine floater out of the water near the boat landing on Reservoir Pond in Townsend. It had a U and a D clearly marked in two places, leading to its identification as an original log from the (Uri) Balcom and (Devillo) Holt Lumber Company.

The Holt & Balcom Logging Camp Museum in Lakewood completed its restoration project in 2013. The restoration took over seven years and cost over a hundred thousand dollars.

Sturdy wooden boxes painted in Tiger black and red hold treasures for readers of all ages in Gillett. Five Little Libraries were hammered together this spring, then installed the first week after school let out as a way to keep kids reading over summer vacation. Three more Little Libraries went up last week. Each library contains books for toddlers to adult. The goal of the project is to offer books free of charge to whomever wants to read.

Elmer Giese, 87, Green Bay, formerly of Suring, died peacefully Monday morning, July 21, 2014, at an area hospital. He was born Jan. 27, 1927, in the town of Breed to Louis and Myrtle (Ramsdell) Giese. Elmer grew up in the Suring area, where he attended school and learned to become an auto mechanic. As a young man, he served in the U.S. Air Force, 5th Airborne Division, during World War II. On Aug. 6, 1949, he married Laverne Nicholas in Abrams.

Anita N. Wehrle, of Shawano, formerly of Port Washington and Milwaukee, entered eternal life on Friday, July 18, 2014, at her residence at The Cottages on Golden Pond Assisted Living in Shawano. She was 97 years old. Anita was born in Milwaukee on Feb. 23, 1917, daughter of William Hoppe and Ida Dallmann Hoppe. She attended and graduated from Girls’ Trades and Technical High School in Milwaukee in 1935. On Feb.