Under the warm glow of the setting sun, Kaukauna High School’s Class of 2024 prepares to close a monumental chapter of their lives at the 2nd annual Senior Sunset event hosted by Student Council President Reese Brooks. As they gathered on the Bank of Kaukauna football field on May 24, 2024, seniors enjoyed a night of yard games and memories watching the sun tuck its glow behind the Earth.
Closing out a significant part of their journey together at Kaukauna High School, the Kaukauna Alumni Foundation generously gifted can koozies to the attending seniors as they now have transitioned into esteemed KHS Alumni. This thoughtful gesture not only provides a practical keepsake but also serves as a poignant reminder to stay connected to the spirit of KHS. With the Galloping Ghosts’ spirit coursing through their veins, they carry forward the legacy of their alma mater with pride and passion.
What was known at River View Middle School as Gym B and is known to many Kaukauna High School graduates from the mid-60s and earlier as the “the gym” and those after that as the “old gym” now has a new name.
The Kaukauna Area School District held a dedication ceremony for the Ken Roloff Gymnasium on June 16 at River View Middle School.
Emcee Jack Pautz, who made the nomination to the board of education, said Roloff was a gifted athlete, dedicated educator and coach, community-minded server, and a respected family man.
“In terms of being the person to have this gymnasium dedicated to him, Ken Roloff checked all the boxes,” he said.
Pautz told a story of how he learned about Roloff from one of his former colleagues when he taught at Pulaski, Fred Kestly, who was two years behind Roloff at UW-Stevens Point.
Kestly told him what an outstanding classmate and collegiate athlete Roloff was when they played together, but he never heard any of that from Roloff himself.
“He realized he had special gifts but never was boastful or full of pride,” Pautz said. “Instead, he used what was given to him to pay it forward to benefit other young people in their lives.”
Pautz also pointed out that Roloff was kind, one of the more significant dispositions we should strive for in our lives and one of the most important qualities we should model for others.
“He had such an amazing positive outlook on life from my experiences,” Paultz said.
Ken’s son Chris thanked the crowd of about 60 people for attending what was a happy and joyful day.
“You’re either here because you had history with my dad or thought enough of him or you’re here to support my mom and I,” he said.
When his mother came to him with the idea, Chris could not think of a better space or place to do it than this gym.
“My dad boxed in there when he was a freshman in high school. It is where he played three years of varsity basketball … and he played numerous post-graduation basketball games with some of the really good basketball players who came through Kaukauna High School over the years.”
He often came out on top of those games and one-on-one matches.
Al Borchardt said Roloff beat him both left-handed and right-handed.
“It’s also where he was based for teaching phy ed,” Chris said. “In all those years he taught phy ed, this place was near and dear to his heart. It’s where his office was.”
He explained the office was dark and cave-like with every issue of Sports Illustrated from when it started publishing until that week.
“He loved that place. That was truly his home away from home,” Chris said.
Chris asked if the gym was dedicated to his father because of his athletic ability, coaching, teaching, or personality traits.
“I think the answer is yes, yes, yes, and yes.”
Fred Barribeau, who came to Kaukauna in the 1940s, once told him around 1990 he had never seen a more pure athlete come out of Kaukauna than his dad.
As a coach, his highest profile was 1969-74 when he was the varsity football coach and the teams were known for being tough.
“My dad did have a gift for offensive scheme and between his offensive game plans and people executing them, like Karl Mueller, like Warren Hacker, and Reed Giordana for his entire tenure here, his scheming and their execution were quite a formidable opponent,” Chris said.
He noted his dad loved teaching kids who never were in school sports after school or had outstanding talent.
His curriculum was diverse and challenging, but line dancing was gone by the time Chris got to high school.
Chris thought his dad’s personal qualities were why so many people were there for the ceremony.
“Personal qualities, integrity, and a caring demeanor are what relationships are really built on,” he said. “There are a lot or relationships here in this room with my dad in this room.”
Barb said he had heard more about her husband that day than ever before.
“You have all been so great to be here to share this with us, and I’m so proud of the relationships I have with all of you,” she said.
She thanked Pautz for his hard work to get this done and offered hugs to everyone who came to pay tribute to her late husband.
She said Chris perhaps knew more about Ken than she did but she pointed out she was rolling on the mats in the gym in 1936 when she was 3 years old.
Brian Roebke photos
Chris Roloff spoke at the Kaukauna Area School District’s dedication ceremony to name a gym after his father, Ken Roloff, on June 16 at River View Middle School.
Barb Roloff spoke about her late husband when the gymnasium known as “Gym B” at River View Middle School was named the Ken Roloff Gymnasium.
Gene Wenzel, Betty (Leick) Vander Wyst, and Lois (Lettau) Derfus.
Class of 1954 — 70 years
Front: Tom Nytes, Joann (Driessen) Yingling, Virgie (Killian) Meulemans, Janice (Wierschke) DeBruin, Mickey (Mangold) Vanevenhoven, Mary Carla (Runte) Bossert, Kay (Killian) Vandenberg, Celine (Ryan) Voris. Back: Nancy (Mayer) Jansen, Jerry Vande Loo, Dick Jaeger, Dot (Coenen) Schmidt, John Schuh, Marion (Van Eperen) Kobussen, and Marilyn (Hartjes) Coonen.
Class of 1959 — 65 years
Front: Lee LaRock, Eanie (Campbell) Nytes, Sharon (DeBroux) Lettau, Donna (Schaefer) Vanden Heuvel, Karen (Hahnemann) Lenhart, Bridget Kurth. Back: Doug Micke, Lance Goetzman, Don Feldkamp.
Class of 1964 — 60 years
Front: Joy (Piepenberg) Lambie, Pam (Tepolt) Van Dera, Marilyn (Mischler) Kavanaugh, Karen (Hermsen) Broeren, Kitty (Collins) Verhagen, and Mary Bongers. Middle: Barb (Nack) Vander Zanden, Ken Arps, Tom Yingling, Reg Van De Hey, Dennis “Squirrel” Kiffe, Luann (Schmalz) Christian, and Maggie (Landreman) Calmes. Back: Nancy (Britten) Diedrich, Joan (Biese) Hagens, Jim Lorenz, Dale Mooney, Don Verhagen, Dan Biese.
Class of 1969 — 55 years
Dick Vandenberg, Jesse James Weiland, Carolyn (Van Lanen) Muir, Judy (Jaeger) Schmitt, Ken Kilgas, Marie Pratt.
Class of 1974 — 50 years Front: Diane (Deering) Anton, Pete Bootz, Jane Lang, Debra Helein, Joyce (Nagan) Petersen, Mary Marx, Pat (Kunz) Beyer, and Edie (Vander Wyst) Schneider. Row 2: Mark Specht, Cathy (Brown) Matask, Grace (Coonen) Pable, Terri (Betters) Maas, Bev (Berken) Lamers, Lynn (Kuepper) Martin, Sandy (Meehl) Weiland, Dave “Furg” Nagan, Jane Nelessen, Deb (VanDeHey) Vander Heiden, Diane Lamont, LuAnn Vondracek, Joan (Bodde) Huss, Betty Zondag, Betty (Weyers) Skweres, Kathy (Nagan) Micke, and Dan Jansen. Row 3: Bill Newhouse, Jerry Schneider, Sue (Robach) Kress, Debbie Daanen, Tom Nack, Kevin Kavanaugh, Bill Jansen, Tom Deering, Jeff Hacker, Bob Steger, Chuck Huss, Donna (Doering) Besaw, Mary Lee (Kieffer) Spitz. Back: Reed Giordana, Joe Haen, Laura (Brochtrup) Haen, Paul Mueller, Dave Killian, Randy Kroll, Rich Diffate, John Knapp, Dennis Flanagan, Joan Keberlein, and Sue (Mischler) Mader. Class of 1979 — 45 years
Front: Jackie (Zondag) Van De Hey and Kyle (Vandenberg) Brush. Back: Bruce Lamont, Bruce Van De Hey, Greg Eiting, and Craig Kandler.
Class of 1984— 40 years
Front: Amy (Gerow) Schroeder, Bridget (McGinnis) Wirtz, Sarah (Gertz) Larsen, and Sue (Seif) Jansen. Back: Janet (Lenz) Sager, Jane (Lenz) Eiting, Mike Cronin, and Anne (Merbach) Krautkramer.
Rallymasters
Barb (Little) Roloff, Jim Kobussen, Ron Van De Hey, Bill Newhouse, Joe Jacobson, and Kay (Killian) Vandenberg.
Teacher and former teachers
Janet (Lenz) Sager, Robert Lamont, and Barbara (Little) Roloff.
Kaukauna Alumni Association: Celebrating Our Legacy and Future
2024 Rally Awards
We came together to celebrate our cherished memories and the remarkable achievements of our fellow graduates and announced the highlights of this year’s alumni gathering. This event is not only a time to reconnect with old friends but also an opportunity to honor those who have significantly contributed to our community.
Rallymaster: Inspiring the Next Generation
This year’s Rallymaster was Bill Newhouse. Known for his infectious enthusiasm and unwavering school spirit, Bill has been a beacon of motivation in building a sense of unity and pride for Kaukauna. Rallymaster speech
2024 Rallymaster, Bill NewhouseDot Schmidt was a “class mom” to many members of the Class of 1974 and she was one of the guests of the
rallymaster, Bill Newhouse.
Paper Dedication: KHS Alumni Foundation Website
We dedicated our annual paper to KHS Alumni Foundation Website
We are proud to announce Van Abel’s of Hollandtown as the recipient of this year’s Alumni Award. This prestigious award recognizes Van Abel’s and co-owners, Chris Coonen and Anne Coonen Golden as a partners with the alumni association. Van Abel’s has hosted the Rally for the last 88 years.
Co-owner Chris Coonen receivs the 2024 Alumni Award on behalf of Van Abel’s of Hollandtown as his sister/co-owner, Anne Coonen Golden looks on.
Chairman of the Board: Leading with Vision
Our Alumni Association continues to thrive under the exceptional leadership of Kristine Landreman, our esteemed Chairman of the Board. Kristine’s vision and dedication has been instrumental in strengthening our community and advancing our mission.
Bill Newhouse to serve as rallymaster for Kaukauna Alumni Foundation
By Brian Roebke
Editor, Times-Villager
Kaukauna Alumni Foundation Chairperson of the Board Kristine Landreman has selected Bill Newhouse from the Class of 1974 as the rallymaster for the 88th annual rally on Saturday, June 15, at Van Abel’s of Hollandtown.
Fifty years after graduation, he was surprised to be asked to be the rallymaster.
“It certainly was an honor when I got the call from Kristine,” he said. “My first question was how many people turned it down before you got to me.”
However, as he thought about it, through and after high school and college, he was always a “rally guy” who liked to get people together, including an ongoing online chat with 15-20 classmates. He gets them together for the Wednesday night music in the summer in Kaukauna. “I just like the reunions so much that I kept trying to create those little mini-reunions both with high school and college friends,” he said.
Thus, it made sense that he was selected to be the rallymaster when the class is recognized for 50 years out of high school at the rally. “We had a lot of good kids in the class, a lot of classmates that stayed very connected throughout all these years as lifelong friends.”
Newhouse made a name for himself as a receiver for quarterback Reed Giordana from the Hollandtown Raiders all the way to UW-Stevens Point, where he studied forestry. “Woody,” as his friends call him, spent his working career in the forestry and paper business and in later years, environmental engineering.
A southsider, Newhouse thinks the closeness the class has maintained means they enjoyed their years at Kaukauna High School. He hopes a lot of his classmates can attend the reunion and he guarantees it’s going to be a lot of fun. He promises to make his speech in June very interactive.
He’s asked classmates for some of their memories to include in his speech. “Mine was primarily school and sports,” he said. “I played three sports all four years of high school, so a lot of my memories come from locker rooms and on the court or on the fields with fellow teammates but others might not have that opportunity to play sports so they don’t want to hear about all that.”
While at Kaukauna, he played football, basketball, and baseball, with football being the sport he was most successful at.
“I had some great classmates with Giordana and Scott Lunda in basketball, football with a whole bunch of the guys, Jerry Schneider, Tom Deering, and Mark Specht,” he said. “We had some good times and fortunately three of us went into the hall of fame at the alumni rally, which was kind of a fun night a few years back.”
Newhouse and Giordana had several good seasons together at UW-Stevens Point, where they are both in the UWSP Hall of Fame as well as the KHS Athletic Hall of Fame.
Newhouse received second-team AP Small College All-American honors, and was named NAIA All-American honorable mention in 1977.
He graduated with a forestry degree and worked for the forest service in Utah for a year before getting a job as a forester and buyer for the Thilmany mill in Kaukauna.
He moved to Marinette to open an office for the forestry program there. “We managed woodlands and then bought wood from the loggers to supply the mill with pulp wood,” he said.
They would work with the loggers to get certain amounts of tree species depending on the type of paper they were making.
“When we were buying wood, there were about 105 semis a day that would deliver to the mill,” Newhouse said. “With 10-12 cords on each semi, and if you think 100 a day, where is that all coming from.”
Most of it came from Northern Wisconsin or Upper Michigan, with some from Minnesota and some on rail cars.
“I don’t think many people in Kaukauna actually realize that there’s 100 semis every day that go through the town carrying logs to the mill,” he said.
Now you know why his buddies called him, “Woody.”
He was then convinced to join Thilmany’s sales force and he and Jeanette moved to Cincinnati from 1986-93. International Paper then purchased the mill and closed all the outside sales offices, so he took a job in Green Bay working for an environmental and civil engineering firm in business development, dealing in renewable energy sources.
While he was in Cincinnati, he got a master’s degree in business, since it looked like his forestry employment had ended and he needed to know more about the business world.
With background in both forestry and business, it helped him get his last job, retiring after 20 years.
He partially retired when he turned 60 and fully retired at age 63 five years ago.
He said he stayed close to many of the coaches after graduating, including Dave Hash, Ron Margelofsky, and Ken Roloff. Some of his classmates’ dads were teachers and coaches as well, so he got to know men like them as a different kind of person, not just a teacher or coach.
Newhouse lives in De Pere with his wife, Jeanette, from the Class of 1976.
They met each other when they were working at Thilmany. Jeanette was the oldest of six Birschbach siblings.
Married for 40 years, they ended up with three “fairly adventurous kids.” Son Andy is 35, daughter Jenna is 33, and son Evan is 29.
His sons both live in Seattle and his daughter lives in Steamboat Springs, Colo.
His brother Dan is the oldest in the family, while his sister Cheri (Nagan), and his brother Ken are younger.
Growing up as children of Carl and Dorothy (Buechler), they went to visit grandma and grandpa Buechler at their bar in Wrightstown that was also well known for its hamburgers.
“I blame them for why I became a partier and a drinker through high school and college,” he said. “We were always going to the tavern when we were 5 years old.”
His dad, who was from Freedom, also worked for Thilmany after graduating from St. Norbert College through the ROTC program and became an officer in the military, going through the Army Reserve program, working his way to a 2-Star General.
Bill and his dad even periodically worked together when they were employed by Thilmany.
Going back to his childhood, he grew up in the Glenview Acres subdivision.
“When we moved there they were all brand new ranch houses and all the kids were growing up at the same time. I’m not exaggerating if I said there had to be 200 kids plus or minus a couple grades from my classes in that neighborhood,” he said.
He remembers a couple Vanderloop families, Muellers, Hashs, Nagans, DeBruins, Krolls, Diffates, and so many more.
They wouldn’t have any problem getting any kind of sports game organized in that neighborhood.
He has great memories of summer sports through the Kaukauna Recreation Department and then the Catholic School League. When he got to high school, he became friends with kids from the different grade schools in the city. “It was kind of fun to be on the same team instead of being against each other all the time,” he said.
Newhouse said he’s happy with what he did when he was young it’s great to still be healthy so he can enjoy being active in retirement.
“The biggest thing is that you always want to be remembered for something, and I would hope to be remembered by being the guy that always got the group together,” he said.
He’s done that long before this year’s class reunion as he has organized weekends golfing up north, class reunions, and team reunions.
“It’s great to have a group of old friends together,” he said.
His wife has always had to deal with being married to the social organizer but she put up with it for 5 years before they were married. “All my other friends were married and I thought I better get married because there’s nobody else to do anything with anymore,” he said jokingly.
He’s enjoyed both family and friends over the years and looks forward to seeing a lot of people at this year’s rally, whether he’s seen them at one of his social events or hasn’t seen them in decades.
The Lang Trophy is the oldest and most coveted award presented on Class Night at Kaukauna High School. The trophy, known as the “Lamp of Learning,” was first presented in 1922 and is awarded annually to the graduating senior most demnonstrating leadership ability, academic success and community involvement, all the while being an unselfish giver to the school.
The Lang Trophy is facilitated and presented through the Kaukauna Alumni Foundation.
2024 Lang Trophy winner Sophie Mader daughter of Douglas and Cheryl Mader
We extend our heartfelt gratitude for your generous contributions to the Kaukauna Alumni Association. Your support has made it possible to provide high school scholarships to deserving students, helping them achieve their academic dreams.
Your impact lightens the financial burdens for outstanding students and builds a stronger community by investing in future leaders. Your generosity exemplifies the spirit of our alumni network. Thank you for making a difference!
The dedication ceremony for the Ken Roloff Gymnasium is scheduled for Saturday, June 15, at 2 p.m. at River View Middle School. This is the same day as the Kaukauna Alumni Rally at VanAbel’s of Hollandtown. The dedication ceremony is open to the public. What is now known at River View Middle School as Gym B is known to many Kaukauna High School graduates from the mid-60s and earlier as “the gym” and those after that as the “old gym.” Born and raised in Kaukauna, Roloff attended Kaukauna schools, played for the Galloping Ghosts, and later taught physical education and coached several sports at Kaukauna High School after a hall of fame athletic career at UW-Stevens Point.
