The Skogen family has been in the grocery business for almost 75 years, ever since Paul and Jane Skogen borrowed $500 and opened a 3,000-square-foot store attached to their house in Onalaska. In that entire span, nothing even comes close to equaling the turmoil facing society now as people try to come to grips with a global pandemic and economic collapse.

Gundersen Partners has a long history of doing myriad good things for the La Crosse area community, but nothing tops the impact of providing college scholarships, according to Linda Gillette, the organization’s president. It’s an investment that pays dividends far into the future.

A tragedy just as he was finishing his degree in graphic design at Viterbo University helped inspire Derek Fuchsberger to go back to school, enrolling in the School of Nursing. That background in design has served him well in his studies, including creation of medical illustrations that one instructor described as the best he’d ever seen.

Cheyenne Nagle took a somewhat indirect route to enrolling at Viterbo University but said, “Viterbo has allowed me to find my passion for teaching and has reinforced my choice to be an educator. I chose Viterbo because I was looking for a program that really puts their students first. I am older than most of my classmates and needed to feel comfortable in the choice I made. The smaller class sizes and the great faculty in the education department made the decision much easier.”

Viterbo graduate Cassie Wunnicke walked across the Fine Arts Center stage at May commencement into a career she always wanted.

Wunnicke was hired as an advocate for victims with the Gundersen Health System Crime Victims Services Unit and the Jacob Wetterling Resource Center. She had interned with her future employer as a student and had a job waiting for her when she graduated.