Out Of 4 Words On WI Road Sign, 3 Are Misspelled

Rothschild Village President Neal Torney says he's used to people misspelling his first name, but on Friday, such carelessness left him baffled.

Or perhaps we should say Rothschield Prezident Neil Torney was baffled, since those are the types of mistakes currently directing southbound travelers to his community.

The state just erected a new sign on Interstate 39, and the only word spelled correctly on the giant, green billboard is "exit," a fact that has local officials and residents dumbfounded.

"How do I politely say it shows some incompetence on someone's part?" Torney said in between laughs over the sign, which reads "Exit 185 Buisness 51 Rothschield Schofeild."

Greg Frank, general manager at Decker Supply Co. of Madison, the firm that manufactured the sign for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, said the company takes full responsibility and will pay to make the I go before E in "Schofield" and make other fixes.

"I can't offer anything more than it was just a mistake made; just poor, poor work on our part," Frank said.

David Vieth, director of the bureau of highway operations for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, said the DOT verified that the information sent to Decker was correct. Frank said the company might have entered the information incorrectly into its computer system and workers subsequently failed to notice the errors.

The misspelled words went up sometime last week, when the sign was replaced after the original was damaged, Vieth said.

Janice Nelson, a branch assistant at the Marathon County Public Library's Rothschild site, said the mistakes remind her of students who write in online shorthand -- a practice that's become popular on e-mail, instant messaging and other online communication.

"I just know that spelling doesn't seem to be a real priority anymore," she said after chuckling at the news.

Frank said the company is working to have the sign corrected today. The cost of removing and rearranging the lettering will be minimal, he said.

He also promised to double-check the work before hanging the repaired sign.