Wood County

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Nestled in Wood County is a farm that has stood the test of time.

D&J Cunninger Farm is recently recognized as a century farm here in the state of Wisconsin.

Husband and wife John and Dorothy Hardesty are here to tell us the story of Dorothy's family farm.

Rub the crystal ball a little bit for me.

What do you see down the road for the farm?

Well, we since we've gotten control of the farm again, our grandkids our oldest grandson is seven and a half and our daughter grew up showing cows at the local fairs and she never really stopped ever when she became an adult she just started going to the open shows so our grandson has been attempting to show cows for three or four years already i think he was actually four years old he was leading a calf around a spring calf around um the district show here in wood county and last year we bought him a registered red and white hosting and now this spring we bought him another register so he now has his owner of two animals the older one is here on the property they have a stall in the barn fixed up for it to go in and out of the barn and out in the collier and back of the barn so we're hoping to get some animals back on the property um at the moment a neighbor crop farms all the land rents it from us so we just don't have the time to monkey around trying to raise crops between work and family we don't know what it would be like trying to get crops in so it's easier to just have him do it but our grandson he definitely has the farming bug he definitely wants to be involved in farming some way so hopefully in the future they'll be able to take over and at least hobby farm and raise some animals and have their family here eventually and do something like that but he says he wants to try to farm so that that's hard in this the way things are nowadays and even 100 acres isn't a whole lot to try to crop farm so maybe he can try to crop farm and find a good job someplace else too and but the main thing is just to have them on the property that so many generations have been on is important to us and hopefully it'll be important to them when the time comes.

Well, you're being good instigators like any good grandparents.

Um, th- there's another wrinkle in here, and I wanna get, uh, your feedback on this for both of you.

The Wood County Sheriff's Office, uh, found a creative way to help.

This story talks about it.

It, uh...

In March of 2023, the county started getting court permission to search and eventually seize money at crypto ATMs where the victim h- was reportedly defrauded.

Uh, the protocol eventually spread to other law enforcement agencies throughout Wisconsin.

Uh, and then in June of 2024, Coinhub sued Wood County, accusing the, the county of wrongful seizure of the cash from its kiosks.

Uh, Coinhub argued that the county skipped necessary steps in, uh, in the legal process before they seized the money.

I'm Melissa Kay, bringing you news in our community.

During this interview, I'm talking with Wood County Sheriff Shawn Becker on Wednesday, October 7th, 2026.

Thank you for joining me, Shaun, to bring the community an update from Wood County.

Thank you for having us, Melissa.

Uh, we always appreciate being here.

You know, you, you look at one of those unfortunate incidents that, um, you know, law enforcement responds to, um, frequently, you know, and that's, uh, always a heightened awareness thing for law enforcement, um, to go to that call to service.

[coughs] Excuse me.

You know, we'll go through that, that call, you know, help out the victim, and then, you know, what I wanna highlight are the, the services that we have here in Wood County, here in Wisconsin Rapids, um, you know, a, a strong partner with the Family Center.

Um, I know there is...

So in that general direction, that was when I, I was also living in Wood County at the time.

Uh, that general direction would've been like, uh, Babcock.

So I was like, "Well, could it have been some kind of military activity at the Hardwood Bombing Range?" Uh, never was able to really get a good answer.

I consulted a very web point, web 1.0 website at the time, which was, uh, I think UFO Wisconsin.

I think it might still be up, uh, where people would write down all of their, um, all of their UFO sightings from Wisconsin, and there was several other ones from right around Wood County.

Okay.

You could, you could search by Wood County as well as the month or the year, and there was people that were seeing this triangular shaped light formation, and really no explanation, just a, a lot of wonderment.

So, uh, we've got a lot going on here in that- in that period, like, say, from 1820 roughly through 18- 1860.

Now, when we're talking about this, I want us to think about geography a little bit, and I want us to think about, uh, going down south into Coosa, almost to the Wood County border.

Mm-hmm.

And I want us to look, turn around and look north up the river, and then picture going all the way up to Wausau.

And of course, he gets released again.

Then on February of 2010 in Wood County, Wisconsin, a woman tells police he got in an argument with her.

He shoved her to the ground and grabbed her throat.

The charges that he is charged with are strangulation and suffocation, as well as criminal damage to property and battery for this.