MR. WENNER

I get the feeling that Mr. Wenner (Craig) was well-liked by a lot of students. I wasn't one of them. I thought he was an asshole.

The first time I ever encountered him was in 8th grade. I was in Mr. Ashenbrenner's class. But Ashenbrenner wasn't there. So we all kind of milled around a bit. Finally about 10 minutes into class, our substitute charged into class, yelling at the top of his lungs. He alleged that he could hear us from way down the hall. Whatever. He basically told all of us to shut up. He tried to intimidate everyone of us. For the most part, it worked. For the rest of the hour, he was a prick. He was rude and quick to snap at anyone. Ugh. What a guy. I never forgot him though. That was my introduction to Mr. Wenner.

Two years later, the beloved (that was sarcasm) study hall monitor, Mrs. Mull came down with shingles or something. She never returned to school. I believe Mr. Wenner became the full time study hall (and detention) monitor.

After my freshman year, I didn't have any study halls again until the last five weeks of my junior year - the result of getting kicked out of gym class. So I got to experience Wenner then. I found him to still be a total prick. He would proudly walk into the room and yell, "I don't like freshmen." It got a laugh from all the non-freshmen. But still, who was he trying to impress? A bunch of 16-year-olds? Grow up!

My memory is fading a bit. Because I know that Wenner was around for my senior year. But I also remember a study hall teacher named Mr. Lienss (pronounced like Lyons) - or something like that.

As a sophomore, I was sitting in study hall - even though I had no study halls that year. Something must have been going on. Perhaps I was kciked out of some class for a day or something. But anyway, Wenner was taking roll call. When he got to Mike Polich, he said, "Mike Pollock." Yes, Mike had lived with that silly nickname his whole life. But what was a teacher doing saying it? Anyway, several people laughed. Again, Wenner was obviously trying to impress a bunch of kids. But one kid didn't laugh. I forget his name. But he was a group home kid. He had short blond hair. They called him "Ski." His last name was Polish, and ended in those three letters. If someone remembers his name, please share it. People may recall that "Ski" got into a fight with Mike Holschbach. A month or two later, the two apparently became friends, and had a friendly "loser shaves his head" bet over the Marvin Hagler Vs. Sugar Ray Leonard fight. Ski won. And Mike's head was shaved. Anyway, Ski didn't appreciate Wenner's remark. And he shouted, "I don't wanna hear that shit!" The class "oohed." Wenner knew he'd fucked up. But he had an obligation to enforce the rules. Mr. Wood was summoned. And the three of them disappeared into Wood's office - which was in earshot of study hall. There was a lot of yelling. I'm not sure what exactly happened. But the next thing we knew, Ski was walking down the hall. He flung his books in the air, and said something like, "You can take this fuckin' school and shove it up your ass." Ski disappeared, and was never seen in school again. Way to go Wenner! (That's sarcasm too).

In my senior year, someone put a tack on Wenner's chair when he left the room. It stayed there for about five minutes, before class of 1991's Allen Dassey removed it, for fear that he would get blamed. As a trivia note, Dassey's cousin Brendan has been charged with murder in the Steven Avery case, in Manitowoc County. As another trivia note, Brendan's father was a friend of a friend. I've been in the same room as Brendan - although he was very young at the time. Nonetheless, it's still creepy.

Something tells me that Wenner was into photography. But I could be wrong.

Today Wenner still teaches at the high school. I believe he's a special education teacher. He lives in Manitowoc, and appears to be a fan of old TV shows. It also looks like he's a fan of ballroom dancing!