WAUSAU - The Hmong population in Wisconsin didn't really begin to grow until the early 1980s. And when it did, no one really understood who these people were. A former history teacher in Wausau wanted to find out more about their culture.
"The first students came just before I resigned in 1983," said former Wausau West history teacher Rick Lohr. "And I found them to be very good students. And I was very interested in them, and I knew that a lot of them were coming over. And so it'd be a benefit to the community and to the schools if I went over and got some background."
In 1989, Lohr traveled to a refugee camp in Thailand. He wanted to know more about the new group of people that was beginning to make its way to central Wisconsin in the late 1970s.
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