Beloit boy bound for Vienna, Austria

BELOIT — Beloit’s new basketball star is proof positive that role models come in all sizes and ages. Eleven-year-old Draylen Fair has been selected to play basketball this summer at the Youth Friendship Games in Vienna, Austria as a People to People Sports Ambassador.

“I’m excited to go,” said Fair, a sixth-grade student at Aldrich Middle School. “I want to meet a lot of people from other countries and I want to do good and represent my country.”

The People to People exchange program was founded in 1956 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and, according to its Web site, “bridges cultural and political borders through education and exchange, making the world a better place for future generations.”

Fair will leave for Vienna June 29, spending 10 days in Europe.

“That’s not long enough,” he said, to which his mother Linda Fair responded, “We’ll see.”

The program is designed to help youngsters achieve personal growth through interaction with coaches and athletes from around the world, and also improve their skills through training.

“It’s a big opportunity for him,” Draylen’s father Andre Fair said. “The culture, people and contacts he makes he will remember for the rest of his life.”

In addition to playing a minimum of five basketball games in an Olympic-style venue, Draylen will also experience Austrian culture with a visit to where a 6-year-old Mozart played for Empress Maria Teresa, and explore the gardens and royal carriage collection at Schonbrunn Palace.

“I want to learn another culture and how the food is,” Draylen said.

He also is a member of the Aldrich Middle School concert choir and plays organized youth football and baseball. He has been a member of the Stateline Boys & Girls Club for five years.

“I’m proud, especially knowing he grew up here in the club playing basketball,” said Fred Buggs, the club’s chief professional officer. “We try to teach skills, respect, character and leadership, and obviously you can tell (Draylen) has that. I’m sure there are kids already looking up to (Draylen), wanting to be like him.”

That includes his 7-year-old brother Trayvon Fair.

“I want to teach him to be good — as good as me,” Draylen said.

Trayvon has even higher expectations.

“I’ll be better than him when I get older,” the little brother said with a big grin.

Of course, Draylen’s European trip is not free.

“That would have been too good to be true,” Linda Fair said.

The cost is $6,000. So far, the Fairs have relied on donations from family and friends, including a sizable donation from Warner Electric, Andre Fair’s employer, to make their initial down payment. The total however must be raised by June 3, so the family has scheduled two fund-raising efforts this month (see related graphic).

The Fairs said they first learned of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for their son in January, when they received a letter informing them Draylen had been nominated. He apparently had been discovered playing in a tournament for his fifth- and sixth-grade youth basketball team, the Beloit Young Knights, but Linda Fair said they still don’t know who nominated their son or where and when it happened.

“They seem very organized and that helps,” Linda Fair said of the People to People Sports Ambassador program. “And we’ve had monthly orientation meetings for the past three months.”

The letter turned out to be just the beginning. Draylen had to go through an application process and interview during which he was asked personal questions like, “Who are my heroes?”

“I told them my mom and dad and Kyle Weaver (the Washington State University basketball standout from Beloit),” Draylen said.

Draylen has been playing basketball since he was four years old.

“He just found a passion for it and will dribble that basketball anywhere,” his father said.

If Draylen’s not at the Boys & Girls Club or a nearby playground, he’s usually taking shots at the hoop in the family driveway.

“I practice a lot on it and I’m good at it,” Draylen said. “I like the shooting around and having the ball in my hand.”

In a little over a month, Draylen will begin a basketball journey of a lifetime, and his parents understandably are excited and a little nervous at the same time.

“I’ve always been a firm believer in God — that he’ll take care of everything — (so) I’m comfortable with him going,” Linda Fair said.

Added Andre Fair, “I’ll be happy to see him go, but I’ll be even happier when he comes home.”

Is new station worth the weight?

By Sarah Zeller
Staff Writer

TOWN OF LA PRAIRIE — After years of controversy, a weigh station constructed on former farmland along Interstate 39/90 is about to open.

Although town officials are resigned to the fact that the facility is there to stay, they still aren’t thrilled.

“We’ve been very stalwart proponents of (agricultural) preservation,” said town board Chairman Mike Saunders. “Anything that disrupts agriculture ... we take very seriously.”

When the project was proposed in 2001, state Department of Transportation officials said the land where the station now sits was the best fit because the facility needs several miles of flat land and is close to Illinois, which will help the state catch 18-wheelers with violations as they enter Wisconsin.

DOT officials hope the La Prairie Safety and Weight Enforcement Facility is ready for use by mid-May. Construction took about a year.

The $8.4 million, 11,300-square-foot facility, which replaces the Utica station near Highway N in Dane County, provides technological and logistical upgrades. The old station was just 300 square feet, and lacked running water and indoor restrooms.

“It’ll be a more efficient weighing of trucks,” said Bob Spoerl, DOT roadside facilities engineer and project manager at the La Prairie site. “(The old station) is functionally obsolete.”

Weigh-in-motion scales have been installed in the westbound lanes of I-39/90 leading up to the new station. Aside from random checks, only trucks that are or could be over weight limits will be pulled off the road for a second check.

If a truck passes the second test, it follows an entrance ramp back onto the freeway. If not, it is weighed on a static scale, and citations may be issued.

The station also features PrePass technology, which authorities use to check truck drivers’ credentials. If everything checks out, drivers often are allowed to bypass the station. About 20 percent of trucks currently use PrePass.

The idea is to keep traffic moving.

“If a truck doesn’t have to report, that’s great, because time is money,” Spoerl said.

Systems that take a random sampling of trucks are inefficient, said State Patrol Sgt. Gary Bauer, who will supervise inspectors at the new facility.

Without weigh-in-motion technology, stations take as many semis as they can, then close the entrance to avoid stopping traffic on the interstate.

“Some of those trucks are empty,” Bauer said of the old system. “In the meantime, when you’re weighing each individual truck, other trucks are going by on the interstate and not being weighed.”

The La Prairie station also provides office space for state troopers, a customer-service counter and 24-hour parking and restrooms for truckers and staff. It also features an indoor, two-bay area where inspectors can look for safety and mechanical issues during inclement weather.

“The facility is more conducive to working,” Bauer said.

Still, technology and indoor inspection bays don’t quell concerns of La Prairie residents.

Town officials wrote a letter to the DOT in November 2005 asking the department to reconsider its plans. Not satisfied by answers given during a January 2006 meeting with DOT officials, the township turned to its legislators.

Last February, Rock County legislators introduced a bill that would have funneled 10 percent of fines levied at the station to the township, and ensured a second weigh station wouldn’t be built along the eastbound lanes inside the township and an interchange never would be built at Town Line Road.

The bill died in committee, but Saunders said the DOT later addressed several of the town’s complaints. The department shrunk the station’s footprint from 35 acres to about 21 acres by placing the facility closer to the highway.

“I guess that, if you are working for the DOT, you don’t tend to think in terms of what works for agriculture,” Saunders said.

State Sen. Judy Robson, D-Beloit, who co-sponsored the legislation, called the changes “a significant victory.”

Another co-sponsor, state Rep. Chuck Benedict, D-Beloit, said he was glad a compromise was reached. Although he would have preferred the facility to be placed south of I-43, he understands the DOT’s explanation that there is not sufficient space available there.

“That’s part of government — coming up with a compromise that makes everyone happy,” he said.

Saunders remains disappointed with some aspects of the project, including the lack of financial benefit for the township.

“All we get is a whole lot of noisy, stinky trucks,” he said.