A Superior effort.

Byline: Maria Lockwood

Feb. 19--A sense of disconnect and a missing link led to the first Superior Days event in 1986. "It was 1985," said Geof Wendorf, one of the Superior Days founders. "We were running double digit unemployment." Northwestern Wisconsin was stuck in recession as the rest of the state recovered. Area leaders met and decided the best way to stimulate the local economy was by linking to the state and nation via a four-lane U.S. Highway 53. At the time, a 44-mile "missing link" of two-lane highway created a transportation stumbling block, and state administrators proclaimed it would never be a four-lane expressway. "Because we feel so far away, isolated, removed, we can either complain or we can do something about it," said Sen. Bob Jauch, D-Poplar, who was a state assemblyman at the time. A state committee had recently stopped by Superior for a meeting, he said, and been impressed by the area and its people. Since the state wouldn't pay to transport the entire …