Marshfield woman urges cards, letters for cadets
BY MIKE WARREN
EDITOR
MARSHFIELD – The mother of a Marshfield student enrolled in the Wisconsin National Guard’s Challenge Academy at Fort McCoy is asking for words of encouragement for those who aren’t getting much support from home.
“I want people to write some letters because there’s a lot of kids at this academy that don’t even get letters,” Tiffany (Miller) Fritz told Hub City Times in a recent interview.
Founded in 1998, the Wisconsin Challenge Academy is an alternative education program designed to reclaim the lives of at-risk youth and produce graduates with the values, skills, education, and self-discipline necessary to succeed as adults. The Academy is part of the National Guard Youth Challenge Program, a community-based program that leads, trains, and mentors 16-18-year-olds so that they may become productive citizens in America’s future.
“He was getting horrible grades, not a good attitude,” Fritz said of her son, Alex Koch. “He wasn’t doing good in school, wasn’t following rules, didn’t like rules, not always respectful, and I told him, ‘Here’s your choice: You’re either going to go to the Challenge Academy or you can stay here, stay in Marshfield school, not have a job, not have a vehicle, and I’ll take you back and forth to school and you will get better grades.’ So, he felt this was his only choice,” Fritz added. “I can see the excitement in some of the pictures that they post on their Facebook page. It’s just incredible.”
Fritz knew she made the right decision to send Alex to the Academy as soon as she received two letters from him within his first two weeks at Fort McCoy.
“And I can’t remember the last time he told me he loved me, and he did in the letters,” Fritz told us. “He’s learning discipline, he’s learning how to be respectful, he’s learning so many things there it’s just amazing.”
The Challeneg Academy is a no-cost option which requires cadets to meet certain criteria before admission.
“I think it’s great,” Fritz added. “I think it’ll do a lot for him. We talked about doing military with Alex because he was getting those bad grades. Didn’t want to do the work. But he wanted to work. He had a part-time job at Roehl.”
Alex is currently a member of Class No. 52, and mom says he’s doing very well.
But she also tells us her son has something many kids at the Academy do not – support from back home.
“If I can get some people to write letters to any cadet so the ones that aren’t getting letters get them, if I can do that that would make me happy. It would be so nice to get a huge amount of letters to send to some of these kids that don’t get them.”
Fritz says people can send letters to her and she will pass them on or they can send cards and letters directly to the Academy.
“People can send letters to any cadet there, and they can give information with their address and tell the cadets they can write back, or they don’t have to do that either,” says Fritz. “It’s heartbreaking because some of these kids haven’t even received any mail yet. All they need is a card that says, ‘Cheer up’ or, ‘Hey, you’re doing great. You can do this.’ You know, just words of encouragement.”
Cards and letters can be sent to Tiffany Fritz, 10925 MacArthur Dr., Marshfield, WI 54449 or to Any Cadet, c/o Wisconsin Challenge Academy, 749 E. 12th Ave., Fort McCoy, WI 54656.
The Academy runs two classes a year for 22 weeks each. The current cadets get to go home for a week at the end of May, then go back and prepare for graduation June 19.
“They still have to keep in contact with their mentor (which every cadet needs for enrollment into the Academy) for the next year,” Fritz tells us. “When they come home on that break at the end of May they have homework they have to do here. They have things they have to do here before they go back there and get done,” she added. “They have to have a plan. They can’t just say, ‘Okay, I’m done.’ They actually have to have a plan, whether it’s work, school, joining the military, they gotta have a plan.”
Fritz says her hope for Alex upon his Challenge Academy graduation is enrollment in the US Army.
“He may like all the structure because it is so structured at this school,” Fritz stated. “I’m very proud of my son for choosing to go because you can’t force them to go. They have to choose to go. But once they’re there, they’re there unless they talk a parent into letting them come home. And some parents give in. Some do not. But there’s so many opportunities at this place. I think it’s pretty awesome.”