MERRILL – On Friday, May 1, the auditorium at Prairie River Middle School (PRMS) in Merrill was filled with eighth graders and a veritable who’s who in the legal field in Lincoln County and beyond, all there for the annual Law Expo.
The Law Expo is a community tradition hosted by the Merrill Optimist Club since 2000 – and one that earned an Optimist International Award for civic programs right out of the gate.
Formerly known as the Law Fair, the event is designed specifically for eighth graders, with students from Merrill and Tomahawk public schools, as well as area parochial school students all invited to attend. It is intentionally built into the eighth grade curriculum, giving students dedicated time to interact with professionals from every corner of the legal system and to consider careers they may never have thought about before. Putting it together is no small task.
The Merrill Optimist Club leads the charge, alongside PRMS eighth-grade teachers, planning committee members from the Optimist Club and the Department of Corrections, and members of the Junior Optimist Club from Merrill High School, who help haul in equipment, set up displays and tear everything down at the end of the day.
The guest list this year was remarkable. On the federal and state level, students were able to talk to and interact with Chadwick Elgersma, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin; Anna Ringstad, Area Representative for U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin; and recently retired Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court Ann Walsh Bradley.
State-level professionals included Stephanie Diepenbrock, a Controlled Substance Analyst for the Wisconsin State Crime Lab; Melissa Marchant, Program Coordinator for the Amber Alert Missing Persons Clearinghouse; and Special Agents Xai Vang and Debbie Lique with the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI.
Locally, the turnout was strong. Lincoln County Circuit Court Judges Galen Bayne-Allison and Jessica Fehrenbach were on hand, along with Lincoln County Administrator Renee Krueger, District Attorney Kristopher Ellis and Brady Loos, Attorney with the State Public Defender’s Office in Merrill and Secretary of the Lincoln County Bar Association.
From the City of Merrill, Mayor Steve Hass, Police Chief Corey Bennett, Fire Chief Josh Klug and newly appointed Municipal Judge Tom Hayden all made time to connect with students.
This list wasn’t even all-inclusive. Many other notable professionals within the legal profession were also on hand for the event, including Lincoln County Coroner Valerie Caylor and representatives from the State of Wisconsin Juvenile Corrections, the Sex Offender Registry, the State Coordinator for Wisconsin Operation Life Saver, an organization for railroad and highway safety crossings in Wisconsin, the President of North Central Technical College’s Criminal Justice Club and others too numerous to list.
Focus on the C.O.R.E.
The morning session centered on a keynote address from Alan Karr, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)’s Milwaukee Field Office, which oversees the entire state of Wisconsin.
Before taking the helm of Wisconsin operations in Jan. 2026, Karr led the Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. He started out, he told the students, as a local police officer. His message cut through the noise of every crime drama the kids have probably ever watched. Yes, the FBI has cool technology. No, that is not what it is really about.
“The core of all the work behind all of these folks is a model of service,” Karr said.
He walked students through an acronym he called C.O.R.E. – four pillars he challenged them to build their lives around. Community came first.
“When you decide to be honest, to help a classmate, to look out for someone who is being treated unfairly, you are strengthening your community,” Karr said, noting that trust is earned “one good choice at a time.”
On the subject of Opportunities, he offered a reality check. Opportunity, he said, “is often disguised as hard work,” and the students who land the best ones will be the ones who show up on time, keep their word, and have the character to back it up.
Role models was next – and he turned the idea on its head. Rather than asking students who they look up to, he challenged them to think about who might be looking up to them.
“Having a strong core means choosing to be the kind of person you would want to follow,” Karr said.
He closed the acronym with Excellence, and was quick to clarify what that word actually means.
“Excellence is not about being perfect,” Karr said, acknowledging that even FBI agents make mistakes. “But excellence is a habit. It’s the refusal to settle for good enough when you know you could be doing better.”
After the assembly, students moved row by row – pencils and learning packets in hand – across the hall and into the PRMS fieldhouse for the hands-on portion of the afternoon. Booth by booth, they met the professionals they had just heard about, seeing the vehicles, gear and equipment those professionals use every day and learning firsthand what a career in law, enforcement or public service actually looks like.
It was, by design, bigger than any one booth or any one conversation. The whole point of the Law Expo has always been to show students that being a person of character means recognizing you are part of something larger than yourself – and that the choice to build that character starts now. And that, within a life built on character, a multitude of career options await within the legal field.
At a time when eighth graders are finishing their academic year and looking toward high school, the Law Expo plants the seeds of career ideas within the minds of students. If the interest and aptitude are there, those seeds might one day bloom with students pursuing a career in the field and an area graduate becoming the next Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court or Special Agent with the FBI. Or perhaps more graduates will pursue careers as attorneys, police officers, deputies or court reporters.
With so many options to choose from within the legal field, the Law Expo does not ask students to have all the answers at 14. It just asks them to start paying attention – to the people doing the work, to the paths that are possible, and to the kind of person they want to be when they get there. It’s food for thought for all the eighth graders in attendance.
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