Campus Connection

John Medinger, '70 & '72, will receive the Community Leader Award during the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Celebration at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 16, at the Viterbo University Fine Arts Center. The featured speaker at this year's event will be Nucleus Johnson of Dallas, who has since age 7 captivated audiences with his powerful renditions of King’s speeches. Admission is free. Medinger has been involved in public work that reflects Dr. King’s ideals for more than 40 years. He began serving the country through VISTA, Volunteers in Service to America, created by President Lyndon Johnson to fight poverty. His witness in Virginia to the impacts of Jim Crow laws profoundly motivated Medinger’s later anti-poverty and civil rights work. Medinger served in the Wisconsin State Assembly from 1976 to 1992, two terms as La Crosse Mayor from 1997 to 2005, La Crosse County Board 2006-2012, and as a staffer to U.S. Senators Feingold, Kohl and Baldwin. As an associate lecturer of state and local government at UWL, he required students to study King’s 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail” recognizing the urgency of nonviolent resistance to racism, or other oppressions, and stressed to students their duty to vote and be active citizens. Medinger viewed his responsibility as mayor not only to voters, but everyone. His work enhanced La Crosse’s neighborhoods and he established the city’s first anti-racism task force. As mayor, he facilitated the first La Crosse MLK community commemoration, attended by about 100 people. Drawing on his longtime commitment to ecumenical religious values, Medinger worked hard with church leaders and progressive community members to begin entry of the Hmong community over several decades. He put his own career on the line to recruit a Hmong leader to run for school board at a time when it was hard to imagine a person of color in La Crosse public office. As author of one of the Wisconsin Legislature’s first domestic violence bills, he was an early champion of safe shelters and their funding, and an advocate for the police department to make domestic violence calls a high priority. Despite protestors, he participated as mayor in the city's first PRIDE Fest and tried to block the city council from formally sanctioning one religious belief system over another. Medinger continues to be active in the community and volunteers with the Place of Grace Catholic Worker House, Hmoob Cultural and Community Agency, and others. Married to Dee (Wallin) Medinger, he has two step-sons, Chris and Justin, and two children with Dee, Emily and Johnathan. Medinger’s impact, as noted by a nominator, is measured not just in his many accomplishments but the manner in which he governed and serves as role model helping others recognize their abilities. He looks for real opportunities for true power sharing to take La Crosse forward in its relationships with people of color. He never shies from a good fight. He exemplifies the true character of King’s quest to build “Beloved Community” through the often painful and dedicated work it takes to make a more welcoming, loving and supportive community.