If you've been reading our blogs, you know that Kohl's Cares for Kids is having a school popularity contest that will earn 20 schools $500,000 each, once the votes are tallied.
I wrote about it in July and Jeff Sherman wrote about it a couple weeks later, too.
Today, reader -- and St. Marcus parent -- Mellissa Ribares tells us that St. Marcus, 2215 N. Palmer St., is taking its campaign to win the half-mil to a higher level ... literally.
"Administrators from St. Marcus and Pius XI and Mitchell Middle School have taken to the roof at St. Marcus School in Brewer's Hill and are not coming down until each school earns enough votes to reach and stay in the top 20 schools in the nation for the Kohl's Cares contest on Facebook!
"Their intent is to not only call attention to this contest and ask Milwaukee to vote, but to make a broader statement about education! No matter if you are a choice school, private school or public school, working together can accomplish amazing things for our kids!"
To vote in the contest, you must first "like" Kohl's Cares for Kids on Facebook. You then get 20 votes to share among your selected schools. You can give up to five votes per school.
As of this writing, Pius XI is No. 43 and St. Marcus is one place behind, with 17,464 and 17, 080, respectively. Racine's Mitchell Middle school is No. 47 with 15,576 votes.
Holding down the 20th position is Bais Chaya Mushka School in Los Angeles, with just under 72,000 votes.
So, the local schools really need to get the vote out to leap up into the top 20 winners' circle.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
