What happened in Manawa in 2025?

MANAWA – Time feels like it flies by, but when you actually stop and take a look at everything that was accomplished and all the events over the past year, it doesn’t feel like it passes by nearly so fast.
As 2025 comes to a close here is a look at some of the important stories that have happened over the last year.

Manawa Dam
The dam continues to be the biggest story of the town, with the city unable to secure funding from the state to rebuild.
After historic rainfall led to massive flooding July 5, 2024, the north side embankment of the Manawa dam started to erode until it finally gave way.

News on the dam in 2025 revolved mostly around the funding to replace the dam, quotes and stabilizing the eroded embankment.
This funding process started last spring when the first quotes came back from Cedar Corporation, the city’s engineering firm, for the estimated cost of rebuilding the dam.
The estimate came in at $8.4 million for a dam with a spillway, which was submitted to the Joint Finance Committee in April.
Mayor Mike Frazier said that the project will be bid out once they receive funding which could mean the rate becomes more competitive and under that $8 million dollar mark.
Within that quote a complete dam removal was added, as it was determined that the dam will need to be removed in its entirety before another dam is built, Frazier said it is unclear as to whether or not that will need to be done sooner rather than later.
The city received the disappointing news this last July, when the dam was denied funding through the state.
Currently the city is still looking through avenues to get funding through alternate sources, even down to taking monetary donations to get the project started.
This past fall a group of city officials and former mayors took their dam story to the capital for a sit down meeting with Governor Tony Evers.
In attendance were David Sarna, a former Manawa mayor; John Smith, a former Manawa mayor; Jackie Beyer, the Town of Little Wolf clerk; James Roenz, city council alderman in Manawa and Andrew Skwierawski, an attorney from Milwaukee.
City officials and residents will be heading into 2026 without the funding necessary to rebuild; however, there is no sign of anyone slowing down as they try to restore the Manawa Mill Pond.

Freedom Park
A ten-year project has finally been finished as the Manawa Area Veterans Freedom Park venture finally comes to a close.
In Oct. 2015, John Smith, who was mayor at the time, saw many area communities had Veteran Memorial parks, something he started noticing more once his daughter joined the military.
“I felt as though until you love someone serving your country you have no idea, not of their sacrifices, the sacrifices of the family,” Smith said. “They’re trained to do what they’re doing, they have a job to do, and they’re focused on serving our country, while we are home worrying about them.”
A plot of land behind the Strum Memorial Library and Cline Hanson Dahlke Funeral Home was co-opted and a group of motivated residents came together and the Manawa Area Freedom Park journey began in Manawa.

The project started with the Memorial side of the park, which was finished and dedicated on Nov. 11, 2017, after that the park, splash pad, docks and bridges as well as the shelter house followed.
Fundraising included a winter fishing contest, a spring Freedom Shoot, brat fry’s, a brief-lived triathlon and a few years of “Let’s Be Frank” productions show and dinner at Bear Lake Resort.
The last few projects finished at the park were pickle ball courts, permanent corn hole boards and a pergola.
“In my heart knowing that we did something for our veterans and their families is the biggest reward there is,” Smith said. “The second is listening to other people say what a beautiful park we have.”
In the ten years that park was being built, the veteran’s park committee was able to raise just under one million dollars to complete this project.
The park continues to be an asset to the community with visitors coming from all over to enjoy the park and will continue to be a gathering place for future generations of families.

Snodeo and Mid-Western Rodeo
The greatest show on the snow unfortunately needs snow, but after two mild winters and two years of cancellations, the great State of Wisconsin started acting like the frigid wonderland it is, and Snodeo was back in 2025.
The event began in 2007 as a way to show love and appreciation to the snowmobile industry, which has been slowly suffering under the more common mild winters.
The snowmobile races were not new to Manawa, with the original Mid-Western Snowmobile Derby first held in 1968.

The derby did not last; however, the love of snowmobiling did which made it ripe for a comeback in 2007, with Deb and Dave Sarna, who have been a part of the Snodeo since the beginning, at the helm.
The Snodeo has grown tremendously over the years, and to anyone that knows Dave Sarna knows he is a person that is able to move mountains to make Snodeo fairly unforgettable.
From flyovers, to hot balloons, to breaking world records, to swimsuit runs and drag races, also, of course, good old fashioned snowmobile racing.
The Mid-Western Rodeo was also back up and running this year to massive crowds after the dam breach and historic flooding cancelled all the shows for 2024.
The cancellation was a devastating loss for the Manawa Lions Club, as well as the Manawa community as a whole.
Coincidentally, the rodeo had installed drain tile within the arena, which meant that the arena was ready for their show that Friday night, had the city as a whole not been shut down for the night.
The Mid-Western Rodeo has been a tradition since 1959, filling the city with thousands of rodeo-goers, along with the cowboys and cowgirls that make the show happen as a whole.
The rodeo is continuing to grow, with even more exciting things happening as we head into 2026.