I have been following the threads and felt to jump in for the first time just to give some working knowledge of Northern/central Wisconsin town life that doesn’t seem to have been covered that I can see. I am sorry this is a book.
UW- Barron County: this is not a college town nor a large school. It is a satellite school in the UW system. Generally student population is low - 500 or less, mostly a commuting school. Traditionally the satellite schools allow for an associates to be earned and/or allow for college bound students to get their core classes completed toward a BA/BS and live/commute from home and then transfer into any of the UW schools (UWMadison, UWSP, UWEC etc) to complete their programs. Usually most satellite campuses in the state do not have dorms associated with them.
As for UWEX - this is generally the offices that contain the County 4-H program, county Agriculture services etc. These are programs that fall under the University of Wisconsin services/umbrella offered to each and every Wisconsin county community. UWEX stands for University of Wisconsin Extension, this is not a college or university with students, usually only an office with staff of 10-12.
Small town, rural Wisconsin: I live in one a few south of Barron County. It’s not uncommon for most of the town emergency teams, less police/sheriff departments to be all volunteer (fire, EMS etc). In my community when there is a fire call the 911 call triggers the tornado sirens to go off but the tone is different - an up/down tone vs a tornado siren of a constant tone. - so not only do the teams get paged/notified but the sirens are a secondary method of notification within the community. This may prompt those who look to chase the sirens.
Not everyone has a scanner - a lot of us have a scanner app on our devices we can turn to. My county is one that has live feeds, but not all Wisconsin counties do.
As for rural gunshots: it is not gun deer season yet, that opens Saturday 11/17 . In general if you hear gunshot during any gun season (deer, black bear, goose, duck etc) it’s usually more common at first or last light to the day that these animals cross hunters paths. And if your anywhere near a rod/gun club range (normally right outside a town center), in daylight hours it’s not uncommon to hear shots as people sight their guns or target shoot. In the middle of the night is rare, but refer to the WI DNR website for what is acceptable for hunting or firing a gun at night in rural areas - not normally a common occurrence in my area.
Small towns in general in this area - people turn out for help when there is a need. No doubt about - we love our neighbors but good when there is need for help. We had our own situation and the city/people became protective of us which is not uncommon we have found. We had worked w our local LE after, they did extra swing-bys of our property daily and we found out a week later they had put a camera on our house to monitor. Sure we got the looky-loos for a few days but that got cut short with the LE frequency - no more gawking. Also - most small towns in this area you can go from a cluster of housing and a downtown area and be completely rural in a matter of minutes. Most small Wisconsin towns have a post office, bank, hair salon, a few churches, bars, mom and pop restaurant (or subway) a Kwik Trip and maybe a Dollar General. If I recall, most shopping stores like Walmart are in Rice Lake. And in this area there has been a revival of train traffic due to the frac sand industry hauling and mining in nearby areas.
As for religion class: If Jayme was a parish member with Mom at St. Peter’s, it’s not uncommon in rural Wisconsin that she would attend CCD classes on a Wednesday night. If her Parish or Parish cluster offered classes, this is usually a common day in the Diocese. Sometimes Parishes offer them on Sundays after Mass, but generally in rural Wisconsin, Wednesday nights are church nights so no school /club activities or sporting events are held past 5pm on this day to accommodate for this no matter the faith.
In regards to sex offenders: Barron happens to be the county seat. I am not too knowledgeable on this topic, but from what I understand and see in my own county - usually the halfway housing after jail release is located in our county seats, close proximity to county jail/courthouse and parole officers. So to me it does not seem unusual to see a larger number of sex offenders in the town of Barron, I don’t think in general the town has that many - think all county wide offenders all in one spot until their after sentencing changes with time/good behavior and movement into the general community population or their home towns occur.
I am sorry if this has been discussed in old threads - I kept seeing things pop up and thought I’d give a bit more information/clarification on those things we have in our state.