Best of the Chippewa Valley

Reader Polls

The Best of the Chippewa Valley 2022

The Best of the Chippewa Valley 2023

The Best of the Chippewa Valley 2024

Most Bizarre Local News Story

Are you sitting down? Because these events that made the headlines in 2022 might just make you dizzy. News that an Eau Claire woman (later convicted of drunken driving) was caught on camera driving her car on the Phoenix Park footbridge and the nearby sidewalk in late May hit the sweet spot of overlap between “weird” and “no one got hurt,” landing in the top spot. The No. 2 story was a little more distressing: a woman in the Town of Washington was shot and wounded by an arrow. (No other details came to light, but the woman’s injuries weren’t life-threatening.) The third-place incident was downright grim: A nurse in Spring Valley was criminally charged for allegedly amputating a nursing-home resident’s frostbitten foot without permission. (The man later died, and the criminal case is still pending.) Let’s hope next year’s headlines aren’t so gruesome. –Tom Giffey