The Brillion News UPDATE: The missing student was found unharmed, the Brillion Police Department stated shortly after 1 p.m. BRILLION - The Brillion Police Department is asking for the public's help in finding a missing fourth grade student from Brillion Elementary School. The boy left the school property wearing light grey pants and a light grey short, approximately four feet tall, with short blonde hair, and is 9/10-years-old. He was last seen walking west on Tesch Street i

By David Nordby The Brillion News BRILLION – Jeff Capelle said he loved every second of being the Brillion girls basketball coach, but it’s time to step away from the role. “It is a difficult decision,” Capelle said. “With my two boys really busy, they’re involved with many things, I just felt this was the right time to step down and be able to focus more energy on them.” Capelle recently completed his 15th season as head coach, an era that included 222 wins. Both his t

By David Nordby The Brillion News BRILLION – Electorates in the Brillion School District voted against the operational referendum in Tuesday’s spring election. The unofficial count was 1,064 (56.5%) against the referendum and 816 in favor of it. The numbers will become official once votes are canvassed. Had it passed, the district would have been authorized to exceed the revenue limit by $2.275 million per year for the next three school years from 2026 to 2029. Voters in th

By David Nordby The Brillion News MADISON – 1946 Reedsville Panthers, meet the 2026 group that lived up to the history that you made 80 years ago. The Panthers are bringing a gold ball home to Reedsville after outlasting Southwestern 56-48 in Saturday’s WIAA Division 5 state championship game at the Kohl Center in Madison. “I told them they’re going to be state champions forever. Nobody can ever take that away from them. It had been 80 years in the making in Reedsville. Pre

By David Nordby The Brillion News MADISON – The collective heart rate of Reedsville was working its way back down late Friday morning. Regardless of what happens in the Division 5 state championship game on Saturday, everyone will remember watching the Panthers erase a nine-point deficit with 5:41 left on their way to a 75-72 win over Sheboygan Lutheran in the state semifinal at the Kohl Center in Madison. With force down the lane that Panthers’ fans have seen so many times

The Brillion News HILBERT - Nathan Wesener will replace the retiring Tony Sweere as the Hilbert Public Schools superintendent. The move was officially approved by the Hilbert School Board on Tuesday night. Wesener, a 2003 Hilbert High School graduate, has served as a special education teacher and is currently the middle/high school principal. "I'm very excited. I think it's a great next chapter from where I'm at and where I come from," Wesener told the newspaper on Thursday.

The Brillion News BRILLION - Sunday's blizzard conditions temporarily put a halt to Ariens Company's operations. The company shut down manufacturing for third shift Sunday continuing Monday for first and second shift plant operations and office employees in Brillion.

By David Nordby The Brillion News OCONTO FALLS – For the first time in 80 years, the Reedsville boys basketball team will compete in the state tournament. The Panthers held off undefeated Tigerton 56-45 on Saturday afternoon in the sectional championship at Oconto Falls after a second half where Reedsville gave up just 12 points. “Beyond excited. This is what we worked for the whole season,” senior Arden Strenn said. “We knew we had a chance from the beginning, but this is

The Brillion News Reedsville is one game away from the WIAA state tournament after Thursday night’s 69-49 Division 5 sectional semifinal win over Elkhart Lake-Glenbeulah at Menasha. The win moves No. 1 Reedsville into the sectional final game, where they’ll meet No. 1 Tigerton at Oconto Falls on Saturday at 1 p.m. This was the third time this season the Panthers beat the Pointers. In Division 3, No. 3 Xavier beat No. 1 Brillion 69-61 at Oshkosh North. Xavier took an 11-po

The Brillion News TOWN OF CHILTON – A 77-year-old De Pere man was killed at the scene of a three-car crash at the intersection of State Highway 57 and Schneider Road in the Town of Chilton on Monday night. The Calumet County Sheriff’s Office received a call for the accident at 8:12 p.m. The preliminary investigation showed that the man was traveling northbound on STH 57 and crossed into the southbound lane and struck two oncoming vehicles. The driver of one of the southbound

By David Nordby The Brillion News No. 1 Brillion never trailed against a feisty No. 4 Little Chute team in a 62-53 win on Saturday night to clinch a Division 3 regional championship. Connor Holly scored a game-high 21 points for Brillion. Colton Larsen added 20. Cooper Effa scored 14 for Little Chute. It is the first regional title for the Lions since 2023, when the team eventually won a state championship. On Saturday, the Lions went on an 8-0 run to start the game and hel

By David Nordby The Brillion News Both the Brillion and Reedsville boys basketball teams will host regional championship games tonight (Saturday) at 7 p.m. after decisive victories in the semifinal round on Friday. The Lions host No. 4 Little Chute. The Panthers host No. 12 Gibraltar. Division 3 No. 1 Brillion blew out No. 8 Ripon 92-68 to advance to the final. The game was close early then quickly turned in Brillion’s favor. Colton Larsen scored the first seven points

This story first appeared in the Feb. 26, 2026, print edition of The Brillion News. By David Nordby The Brillion News Vicki Peterson and John Cowsill are used to being on stage with family members. It just wasn’t ever with a spouse. Peterson, a founding member of The Bangles, and Cowsill, who first played with his family band the Cowsills and later The Beach Boys, have decades of stage experience. For the last few years, it’s been as a duo on stage together, a show that they

By David Nordby The Brillion News BRILLION – It was a whirlwind 24 hours for the Brillion girls basketball team that concluded with cutting down the net to celebrate the team’s first regional championship since 2022. On Friday night, the No. 4 Lions beat No. 5 Seymour 46-41 in a wild game that featured a double-digit comeback by the Lions in the final 10 minutes. To add to the memorable night, Amaya Brooks scored her 1,000 th career point during the comeback. After the sem

The Brillion News Brillion has its first state champion wrestler in 33 years. Junior Colton Klug joined an elite list of six wrestlers in Brillion sports history on Saturday night at the Kohl Center in Madison in the Division 3 individual state championship. Klug defeated Kingston Galetka (senior, Pardeeville) 9-1 in the 150-pound title match. Other state champion winners in history include Dave Krueger (1960), Howard Prizl (1964), Kevin Giese (1990), Rhet Reichardt (1992) an

By David Nordby The Brillion News REEDSVILLE – The Panthers were able to make amends for an early-season loss and clinch their first conference title since 2022 on Thursday night with a 74-62 win over Manitowoc Lutheran. “I think it was kind of a revenge game,” senior Ben Prochnow said. “We knew they were going to come out with energy because the only way they could get a title was to beat us, so I think we just had to match their energy.” The Lancers beat Reedsville 74-57

By David Nordby The Brillion News BRILLION – The Brillion Lions are conference champions. It wasn’t easy on Friday night, but the Lions (19-3, 13-0) fought through a physical grind-it-out defensive struggle against rival Roncalli (17-5, 11-2) to win 45-33 and clinch the conference. “It’s surreal,” senior Heath Cousin said. “It’s obviously a goal that we set out to achieve at the beginning of the year and to do it is just incredible. Words don’t do a good job to describe it.”

The Brillion News REEDSVILLE – Ben Prochnow made history on Thursday night with a drive to the basket down the left baseline. With the score, the senior guard is now the holder of the all-time scoring record in boys basketball. Prochnow entered the night with 1,486 career points, 19 behind the all-time mark. He finished the night with 20 points for a career mark of 1,506, one ahead of the previous all-time leader Brennen Dvorachek. Once he broke the record, Prochnow checked o

The Brillion News Kenneth Manning Nelson is the suspect in the Town of Brillion murder. Nelson was booked into Calumet County Jail on Wednesday, Jan. 21, at 5:33 p.m. The booking came around seven hours after authorities were called to a residence in the W2000 block of County Trunk Highway HR. A 66-year-old man was dead inside residence with blunt force trauma to the head. Nelson, 40, was charged with first degree intentional homicide. Authorities labeled Nelson as a fa

The Brillion News One man was dead and another was charged with homicide after an incident in the Town of Brillion on Wednesday. Calumet County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to a medical call at a residence located at W2000 block of County Trunk Highway HR in the Town of Brillion. The call came in just before 10:30 a.m. Deputies found a 66-year-old male inside the residence who was deceased with apparent blunt force trauma to the head. A 40-year-old male family member w