Remember when Fond du Lac had a dedicated youth center through the 1990s? Here's the story of Woody's.
FOND DU LAC — A hazy neon dance floor, pool tables and occasional theme nights may sound like a nightclub, but it describes a teen space Fond du Lac once had.
Woody's opened in 1990 at the Woodworth Building, which at the time was closed as a middle school, and offered a dedicated space for middle and high school students within the Fond du Lac School District, including private and parochial school students, according to The Reporter archives.
Guy Jensen and Dave Kolstad were co-chairmen of the Organization of Parents for Youth Center, advocating and fundraising for Woody's conception as a supervised drug- and alcohol-free youth center.
In its early days, the center was open Friday nights for middle school students, Saturday afternoons for middle and high school students, and Saturday nights for high school students, providing sport and video games, pizza, dancing and more for a yearly membership fee of $5 plus a nightly fee of 50 cents.
Many parents and donors had been part of the generation that hung out at Hamilton Building in its youth center heyday of the 1970s, and were happy to support something new for this era of teens.
Woody's also hosted sports tournaments, Halloween costume parties, swim parties at the county pool, charity events and, eventually, trips to parks like Noah's Ark and Great America.
While some had thought members wouldn't like the extent of adult supervision as they played basketball or danced amid the fog machine, Woody's success came from the cooperation between students, community members and parents. A parent-teen board would come up with themes and activity ideas and evaluate rules, and many of the students involved liked that adults were there to break up fights and keep the center from "getting wrecked," according to archives.
In fact, the center was so successful in its first few years that it was used as a model by the governors for other youth centers in Wisconsin.
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One of the first road bumps to Woody's appeared about a year-and-a-half after its opening, when some students started leaving for other activities, often causing disturbances, then returning at closing time for their parents — who thought they were safe at Woody's the whole time — to pick them up.
As a result, a new policy didn't allow seventh- and eighth-grade students to leave before 10 p.m. unless they were immediately being picked up by a responsible adult.
Attendance among high school students started to dwindle in 1992, and many told The Reporter at the time that they were "burnt out" on the space and there were too many rules, but board members said none of the high school students would tell planners what they wanted.
Some had told The Reporter they wanted a big-screen television, while others said they simply don't have time on the weekends.
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By 1993, Woody's started closing for summers, and by the end of the 1990s, membership was limited to only students in seventh through ninth grade.
The Woody's era ended in 2004 because of poor attendance, though students updated the space for a brief revival as "Da Spot" a few months later.
More history: It happened this week
April 24, 1976: Two firemen were treated for smoke inhalation after battling a fire that severely damaged Park Cheese Co. on Division Street. Most of the fire was in the refrigerated rooms with aging cheese, causing the extensive smoke, but it originated from rubbish in the stairwell, likely from a cigarette.
April 21, 1981: The Fond du Lac County Historical Society surprised then-society president Donald Blakely with the announcement that a new museum on the Galloway House and Village grounds would be named after him. Blakely had been president for 10 years.
April 26, 1991: A city business came under investigation for allegations it was violating child labor laws after Goodrich High School officials made a complaint that one of their students was working while truant from school. The business wasn't named, but was later identified as a quick lube when it appealed with a claim that it had an agreement with the school to employ one of the students, and a second student was allegedly enrolled in an alternative night school program.
April 26, 2000: City and railroad officials ceremoniously removed a railroad spike on a 1.5-mile stretch of tracks on Brooke Street, marking the end of 100 years of railroad history in that area. Before the removal, several railroad workers, Department of Transportation officials and Waters School representatives were part of the final train ride that took two passenger cars and an engine back and forth on the track. A few children were on board, including a pair of 7-month-old twins.
"Remember when ..." is a bi-weekly column from Streetwise Reporter Daphne Lemke that looks back at businesses of Fond du Lac's storied past. Tell her what you'd like to see next by emailing dlemke@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Fond du Lac Reporter: Woody's in Fond du Lac was a teen hot spot from 1990 to 2004
