Door County Pulse Podcasts

Northern Sky veteran Karen Mal joins Debra Fitzgerald to talk about her upcoming show at the Gould Theater, Dec. 28, 29, 30 and 31, to play some original music, and to talk about her career as a singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/actor. Mal found a community in the Northern Sky team back when it was American Folklore Theater, and their fall season box office line rang in her kitchen in a cottage on Gibraltar Road. She talks about that Door County origin story and how she balances different aspects of her career while raising her daughter in Austin, Texas.

The second in command at the Door County Sheriff’s office, Pat McCarty, Chief Deputy/Undersheriff, will retire Jan. 17, 2025 just short of 31 years with the department. He talks with Debra Fitzgerald about his years in law enforcement, including as a patrol officer, and the changes and differences that have occurred over his three decades in law enforcement.

Sister Bay property owners were shocked when they got tax bills showing a 10.8% increase for village property taxes this month. Debra Fitgzerald joins Myles Dannhausen Jr. to discuss what we know about what mistakes were made when the village promised that taxes would be flat this year during the budget hearings just one month earlier.

Dr. Greg Kleinheinz, director of the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Environmental Research and Innovation Center, has overseen beach-water testing in Door County for more than 20 years. For the past five years, he’s also worked with the County of Door on a well-testing program designed to learn what’s in private-well drinking water. He goes over the cumulative results with Debra Fitzgerald, as well as the most recent testing results released a couple weeks ago. He talks about the hot spots for certain pollutants like nitrates, and what a new tracer program is turning up, and touches first upon how the data-driven beach-water testing program has evolved.

Kayla Larsen spent 25 years working in the restaurant industry before stepping into photography. For the winter edition of Door County Living magazine, Larsen turned her eye toward her old industry, providing a glimpse into the restaurant and food world that most diners never see. She joins Myles Dannhausen Jr. to talk about the project and their love for the rhythms and banter of the restaurant world, including some of the pranks bartenders pulled on each other. "One time, for a very special customer who I thought deserved a little extra, I put in a sauce called Dead Heat instead of Tabasco," she recalled. "This man spent about an hour in the Husby's bathroom running his mouth underneath the faucet. I had a moment of like, what if he's allergic to habaneros or something?" These stories not only offer a glimpse into the vibrant bar culture but also highlight the camaraderie and unexpected moments that make bartending such a unique profession. Pour yourself a drink, sit back, and dive into the world behind

Reconsidering Local Wine and Spirits with Hatch Distilling by Door County Pulse Podcast

Trent Snyder of Bridge Up Brewing Company joins Myles Dannhausen Jr. to talk about the Toys for Kids drive and what it’s like to play Santa. But first, a rundown of this weekend’s coming Christmas festivities in the county.

A new documentary about Wisconsin’s lighthouses premiers on PBS Wisconsin on Dec. 2, and as you’d expect, Door County’s lights feature prominently in the episode. The film’s producer, Jeff Pfeifer, joins Myles Dannhausen Jr. to talk about why these structures have such a pull on our psyche and shares some of the stories he used to bring the historical subject to life.

Baking is a science, according to Peninsula Pulse reporter Eleanor Corbin, who has a long lineage of bakers in her family, and was herself bit by the baking bug as a young girl helping in her mom’s kitchen and pie shops. Eleanor offers some great baking tips, utensils she can’t live without, how to roll the perfect pie crust – and so much more that will be helpful for this baking-mad season (and beyond). She also talks about her reporting on bakers around Door County and what it takes for them to meet the Thanksgiving demand for pies.

Hans Christian, classically trained as a cellist in his native Germany, emigrated to 1980s Hollywood to study bass guitar and pursue a career as a rock musician. More than three decades later, the performer, recording engineer, producer and multi-instrumentalist has lived a fascinating story (complete with famous people like Billy Idol, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Ram Dass, to name just three) – including his serendipitous meeting in San Francisco with Northern Sky’s Doc Heide and Fred Alley, planting the seed about a place called Door County that Christian today calls home. Christian talks with Debra Fitzgerald about his career, his current work at his Studio 330 in Sturgeon Bay – and about being nominated for a Grammy in 2023 for his original music, Ocean Dreaming Ocean, in the category of New Age/Ambient/Chant.

When the Door County Trails group was formed, it turned to urban planner Sophie Parr to create inventory and vision maps for Door County's bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. Parr joins Myles Dannhausen Jr. to talk about the process she used to create the maps and how the future could look for non-motorized transportation in the county. They also talk about her love of maps and what inspired her passion for urban planning.

Despite historic investments in early childhood education in Door County, we continue to lag far behind the number of spaces needed for families in our community. Elliot Haspel spoke at the recent Door County Child Care Summit sponsored by the United Way, reminding local leaders that the struggle is not unique to Door County. The author of "Crawling Behind: the Child Care Crisis and How to Solve It" joins Myles Dannhausen Jr. to talk about why policy-makers have struggled to understand the problem and coalesce around solutions.

Marissa Jablonski, executive director of the Freshwater Collaborative of Wisconsin, talks with Debra Fitzgerald about how her organization is creating a jobs pipeline to strengthen the state’s workforce so that it’s stronger and better prepared to meet the state’s 10 Grand Water Challenges.

Choosing Election Letters and the World Comes to Door County by Door County Pulse Podcast

Musician Cathy Grier joins Myles Dannhausen Jr. to talk about the upcoming tribute to singer and guitarist Sister Rosetta Tharpe coming to the Door Community Auditorium on Saturday. Tharpe was credited as an influence by Johnny Cash, Chuck Berry, Elvis and many others. Grier discusses the show and Tharpe’s legacy, followed by a bit of perspective from one of the show’s performers, Lachrisa Grandberry, about the value of sharing Tharpe’s story on the Door County stage.

With two weeks to go till the 2024 election, we talk to the candidates for U.S. Senate, incumbent Democrat Tammy Baldwin and Republican Challenger Eric Hovde. We discuss some of the top issues in the campaign and ask why each candidate was inspired to run for office.

Do you think you know Fall Fest? Matt Stone joins Myles Dannhausen Jr. to talk about Sister Bay’s big celebration this weekend. They run down all the key times and events, but also take you behind the scenes to talk about what it takes to create the party and how it helps businesses, nonprofits and workers all year long.

Wisconsin’s flagship environmental program, the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund, has invested some $1.3 billion in land acquisitions, trails, outdoor recreation infrastructure and shoreline protection since 1990 across the state – 466 of those projects in Door County alone. But the program is threatened and could go away. One of the state’s primary organizations trying to assure that doesn’t happen is Gathering Waters, Wisconsin’s Alliance for Land Trusts. Charlie Carlin, Gathering Waters director of strategic initiatives, walks Debra Fitzgerald through what happened, why the program is threatened and what people can do to help save it.

Kris Sadur, chair of the Democratic Party of Door County, and Stephanie Soucek, chair of the Republican Party of Door County, meet for the first time when they sit down with Debra Fitzgerald to talk about political unity and party unity and how they’re addressing division within their own party’s ranks. They also talk about their parties’ respective moods, what they do to set the tone for political speech, what’s firing them up and political ads.

UW-Oshkosh women's volleyball coach and Gibraltar High School graduate Jon Ellmann did not take a straight line to his position as the women's volleyball coach at UW-Oshkosh. He joins Myles Dannhausen to discuss his journey from the courts at Nicolet, to design, to business, jewelry and finally back to education and the volleyball court. They talk about coaching youth sports, finding your path, tossing pizza dough and much more.