Update - Kimberly’s last remaining paper mill closing, taking 475 jobs (July 31, 2008)

Great two-part series by Barry Adams in the Wisconsin State Journal, Paper mill jobs disappearing; stunned workers look for alternatives, and in this morning’s Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, we read the news, Midwest Airlines to cut 1,200 jobs.

I grew up in Wisconsin Rapids and spent two summers at a mill working as a summer replacement employee (SRE), when I was a student at UW-Madison.

It was work, and a 20-something art history undergraduate woman was not always treated with immense kindness by long-time colleagues.

But Adams' articles capture well the devastation wrought far and wide. Few who grew up in the Rap don’t know at least one friend or family member who hasn’t lost a job in the last several years.