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Triumph, tragedy peppered the decade's local news

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Gazette files

Rob Matzke, center, stands with his mother, Susan Matzke, left, and Hannah Lewis in his backyard at 331 W. Walnut St., Janesville, after a tree fell during the Aug. 5, 2000, storm.

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Gazette files

The day after a $70.8 million Janesville schools referendum was approved by voters in November 2006, Craig High School put up this sign.

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Gazette files

Workers crowd around the end of the Janesville assembly line and the last SUV to be made at the plant. Many workers took the opportunity to follow the vehicle as it made its way through final assembly Dec. 23, 2008.

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Gazette files

Rock County Sheriff’s deputies investigate the triple-murder scene at Lot 37 in Janesville Terrace mobile home park on Highway 51, on the south edge of Janesville, on Jan. 12, 2007.

JANESVILLE — Tragedies and triumphs are the stuff that news is made of.

So a newspaper's top stories of the year will always feature the worst of the bad news and the best of the good news.

But what about the top stories of a decade in our little corner of Wisconsin? People will differ on their meaning, but no one can argue that these terrible and terrific events had an impact.

Let's tour some of the top local stories of the past 10 years, as voted on each year by members of the Gazette news staff.

The pattern of the Gazette's top stories is a lot like other decades: Murders and natural disasters. Heroes and championships. The ugly underside of society and the very best our communities offer.

You'll see those events reflected in newspaper photographs, too: scowls and smiles. Tears of both grief and joy.

Storming

The Gazette staff voted a summer thunderstorm—rated by some as the worst storm of any kind in at least 35 years—as the top story of 2000. That year also saw the Janesville Parker girls basketball players storm their way to the state championship.

The Parker girls won it again in 2001, and their heroics were on the list in 2002 even though they lost in the state semifinals.

The schools also provided a negative, long-running story: A spate of more than 30 bomb threats plagued Janesville Craig and Parker high schools made both the 2000 and 2001 lists of top stories.

Strife

Civic controversies were normal throughout the decade, but perhaps no more so than in 2002. The Janesville City Council banned smoking in restaurants. Protests sparked a state investigation of Janesville property assessments. Protesters tried to stop Janesville city efforts to drive away or kill geese that fouled the parks.

That theme continued in 2003, when voters twice reject school referendum questions calling for $37.22 million to be spend on school upgrades and expansions. Those "no" votes turned into "yeses" in 2004, when voters approved a smaller referendum, $16.99 million for work on five elementary schools, and in 2006, when voters approved what was then the most expensive school building referendum in state history: $70.8 million to expand and remodel the two high schools.

Sports

Sports triumphs pepper the top 10 lists. A Janesville team that combined players from both high schools, the Bluebirds, united the city in 2005 as it put together an improbable winning streak at year's end to advance to the state hockey semifinals.

Other sports triumphs from the decade included Janesvillian Travis Kvapil's win on the last lap of the last race of the NASCAR Craftsmen Truck series in 2003, and the UW-Whitewater football team winning the Division III national championship in 2007. The team repeated that feat in 2009 but didn't make the list.

Weather

Weather rained its way into the top 10 list in 2008, when flooding led to carp swimming down Janesville's Main Street and hardships for landowners around much of the state. Vicious, school-closing snowstorms also pepper the top 10 lists.

Economy

The rise and fall of the economy is also on the lists.

Remember the long journey of the Janesville Wal-Mart Superstore and Sam's Club? Those stores opened in 2006 after years of controversy. And of course, the economic mainstay of the area, the Janesville General Motors plant, was in most of the top 10 lists over the decade, right up to the end of production just before Christmas 2008 and beyond.

Heroes

Many a hero passed away over the past 10 years: Indy car driver Stan Fox died 2000. Popular Janesville teacher Jennifer Judge was murdered by her estranged husband in 2002. Rock County's first death in the Iraq war was Pfc. Sean Schneider, who fell in 2004. The accidental death of local billionaire and philanthropist Ken Hendricks made the list in 2007.

Tragedy

Murders are always news, but the top two stories of 2007 were particularly tragic.

No. 1 was the triple murder of Danyetta Lentz and her two children, Nicole and Scott, in their home just south of Janesville.

No. 2 was the slaughter of five people in a Delavan duplex, apparently a crime of passion by Ambrosio Analco, who then took his own life.

Beginnings

There were grand beginnings, too. Remember the 2003 groundbreaking ceremony for the Janesville Performing Arts Center after years of fund-raising? The start of construction of a new hospital in Janesville made the 2009 list.

And what about Edgerton native Steve Stricker's rise to become one of the top golfers in the world—that didn't make the 2009 list. In fact, a lot of stories that didn't make the Gazette's lists would certainly be on different people's personal lists.

That's the way news is: It means the most when it hits closest to where you're standing.