Chris Ison: Here's hoping this town can still be the same

The beautiful thing about Crandon, Wis. (pop. 1,890), is that you can still drive the county roads for miles without seeing another car.

Stop in to the coffee shop at the Crandon Hotel, and you have to shake hands with 10 or 12 old friends before you can sit down -- even if you've lived 200 miles away in Minnesota for 30 years. It's the same if you drive the boat over to the Water's Edge bar and restaurant on Lake Lucerne.

You can get anywhere in town in less than a minute. And there are no stoplights. That's part of what draws me home at least once a summer, long after I left to be a newspaper reporter in the city.

Some are saying Crandon will change in the wake of the rampage on Sunday that left six dead and one hospitalized, followed by the death of the apparent shooter. They worry that Crandon, known nationally for its world championship off-road race, will now be defined by tragedy.

But it's a place that has escaped change in large part. Surrounded by national forest land and nestled among big, clean lakes, Crandon has remained mostly a lumber and tourist community, even as Fleet Farms and Home Depots moved into nearby places like Rhinelander and Antigo.

When one of the richest copper and zinc deposits in the Midwest was found near Crandon in the 1970s, opponents -- many from outside of town -- fought the mining proposal that followed, fearing it would harm the environment and lead to a boom-bust economy. The battle with Exxon and subsequent mining companies raged for nearly 30 years -- often covered by national media.

The proposal died, and with it hopes for jobs, growth and maybe even a Wal-Mart or McDonald's. But some locals quietly took comfort. No boom needed, thank you.

The town did yield to "progress" a few years ago, with the addition of a Subway restaurant tucked into a corner storefront, and, this summer, a Best Western near the old railroad tracks. But there is still just one hardware store, one grocery store and a few gas stations. The big entertainment in town is still high school football and basketball, and the water-ski shows two nights a week in the summer.

Mayor Gary Bradley is a national figure this week, but to townsfolk he's still "G.B.," a lumberjack and nearly famous competition log sawyer who can tell a bar story with the best of 'em. Sheriff Keith Van Cleve is on the network news. But to me, he's an old classmate and the twin brother of Kenny -- both better than average football players in their day -- quiet and polite, but guys you'd want on your side in a fight.

The dead are students of a friend of mine, grandchildren of my mom's friends.

On Sunday night, as facts and rumors about the shooting continued to trickle through town, the locals still gathered at Water's Edge to have a beer and watch the Packers. It was a quieter crowd, and the talk was different, owner Roger Hillberg said. But he believes the town will move on, like it always has.

"There's been other murders here in the last 30 years," Hillberg said. "I moved here in 1960. What's changed? It's stayed the same. I'm not saying people get used to it. But maybe they block it out. It's not forgotten, but I don't think it changes a town forever."

For a reporter who's covered plenty of tragic stories from a safe, professional distance, seeing old friends struggle changes my priorities. It's not likely, but I hope the reporters pack up the satellite trucks soon, so the town can move on. I hope Crandon never installs a stoplight. And that my hometown heals.

Chris Ison is an associate professor at the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and a former reporter and editor at the Star Tribune.