WHITEHALL — Last October, Wayne Dahl typed out 56 training courses. Erica Koxlien typed out four references, two of them described in her own words as people she had arrested.
Neither was campaigning yet, though Koxlien’s letter said plainly that she intended to. Sheriff Brett Semingson was retiring, and Gov. Tony Evers had opened the vacancy to applications. Four people applied. Two of them are now the reason there is a primary.
What makes those files worth reading nine months later is that nobody wrote them for a campaign audience. There were no yard signs yet, no Facebook comment sections, no Flock cameras on the ballot. There was an online form, a request for a cover letter and a résumé and three professional references, and a half-hour Zoom interview on the Friday before Thanksgiving.
Both of them had to sit down and put in writing why they should get it.
What’s in the file
The Pioneer obtained the application materials through a request under Wisconsin’s public records law, returned by the Office of the Governor. The response runs 238 pages and includes both candidates’ résumés, cover letters, reference lists, letters of recommendation, the governor’s office correspondence scheduling the interviews, and the appointment letter itself.
Everything quoted below comes from that return. Where a candidate is describing their own record, it is their description — the file contains no indication that the governor’s office verified the résumés, and neither did we, beyond confirming the documents are what the state produced.
Four people applied: Dahl, Koxlien, former state Rep. Chris Danou and Ronie Molitor. All four were interviewed.
Wayne Dahl: 34 years, one county
Dahl’s résumé is six pages, and most of it is a list.
He graduated from Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau High School in 1989, earned 84 credits in auto mechanics at Winona Technical College between August 1990 and May 1992, and went through the 400-hour Wisconsin police academy at Chippewa Valley Technical College in the summer of 1992.
He went to work for the Village of Trempealeau Police Department that June, the same month he started the academy, and stayed nearly eight years, listed as assistant chief by the end. From May 1993 to August 1994 he also worked law enforcement at Perrot State Park for the DNR. Before all of it, he pumped gas and turned wrenches at the Conoco station in Trempealeau, from February 1986 to May 1992.
In March 2000 he moved to the Trempealeau County Sheriff’s Office, and he has been there ever since. The résumé tracks the climb in six lines:
Patrol deputy, 2000 to 2004. Patrol sergeant, 2004 to 2011. Patrol lieutenant, 2011 to 2018. Patrol captain, 2018. Administrative captain, 2018 to 2022. Chief deputy, 2022 to present.
That is 34 years in law enforcement, 26 of them in the county office, and it is the single most important fact in his file. Nobody else who applied had held command rank in the department they were asking to run.
He was on the county’s Emergency Response Team — the SWAT unit — for 21 years, from 2001 to 2022, and in his cover letter he lists the ladder there too: operator, team leader, assistant team commander, team commander.
Then there is the training list. It fills roughly five of the résumé’s six pages — 56 separate entries, starting with robbery response training in October 1992 and ending in 2021.
The recent end of it is command-track material. In 2021 he completed all three courses of the FBI-LEEDA leadership series — Supervisor, Command and Executive — the three-course sequence law enforcement agencies commonly treat as a command credential. The year before, he took FBI-LEEDA’s internal affairs investigations course. In 2015 he listed SWAT commander training through the National Tactical Officers Association, and separately the Badger State Sheriff’s Association’s Ethical Leadership Academy. From September 2006 to May 2007 he went through both units of Leadership in Police Organizations, listed on the résumé as an International Chiefs of Police Association program run through UW-Platteville.
The older end is the working list of a rural patrol career: radar operator, breath test, field sobriety, hazardous materials, chemical spray, lidar, drug interdiction, rail incidents, death investigation, FBI interview and interrogation, FBI criminal investigative analysis.
Under “additional professional activities,” Dahl lists three things: team commander of the county Emergency Response Team; grant writing, listed as “Bullet Resistant Vests, Click It and Violence Against Women Act”; and, in his own words, “experience in budgeting, participating in public meetings and being involved in the interview process for hiring.”
The application gave him a free-text box labeled “Professional Biography,” and he opened it with training — 25 years of it, in management, leadership, ethics, internal investigations, emergency management, crisis intervention, death investigations, background investigations and jail conferences. The administrative material came second: everyday jail operations, internal investigations, open records questions, patrol and investigative services and grant writing, plus work with the County Board of Supervisors at monthly law enforcement meetings, union contract negotiations and budget preparations.
He closed that box with one sentence: “I have a goal to try and be as knowledgeable and helpful as possible.”
His cover letter, dated Oct. 22, runs six paragraphs and makes the continuity argument directly.
I have had the privilege to serve Trempealeau County Citizens during my law enforcement career and am very excited at the possibility of continuing to use my management, leadership and interpersonal abilities to lead the office as Trempealeau County Sheriff and to help support and drive our continued organizational success. My goal as Sheriff would be to maintain the professional service with integrity that Trempealeau County citizens deserve.
Wayne Dahl, cover letter to Gov. Evers, Oct. 22, 2025
Two details in that letter do not match his résumé. He describes himself as having become chief deputy in 2022 and “ultimately being sworn in as Undersheriff in January of 2023”; the résumé lists the post only as chief deputy, and the two titles are commonly used for the same role in Wisconsin sheriff’s offices. He also lists “Investigative Captain” in his rank ladder where the résumé says administrative captain. Neither variance changes the underlying record.
He listed three references, all from inside county government: Semingson, the retiring sheriff; County Administrator Rebecca Glewen; and Jail Captain Joan Koval.
Erica Koxlien: 10 years, and a different argument
Koxlien’s résumé is one page.
She came to law enforcement late and sideways. An associate degree in paralegal studies from Western Wisconsin Technical College in 2004. Substitute teaching in the Osseo-Fairchild School District from 2011 to 2014. A bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from UW-Eau Claire in 2012. She was hired as a patrol officer by the Trempealeau County Sheriff’s Office in December 2015 and moved to investigations in 2017.
That is a decade in the badge, and it is the number her opponents will use.
What the page does with that decade is the part worth reading. Her caseload description is specific: death investigations, narcotics, sexual assault, child maltreatment, financial crimes. She lists herself as a certified forensic interviewer and a certified general instructor through the Department of Justice.
Then the committee list, which is unusually long for a detective: the Recovery Court team, the Child Death Review team, the School Critical Threat Assessment team, the department’s Peer Support group, and head of the Child Maltreatment Multidisciplinary Team.
Her résumé does not name the assignment, though it does list her teaching other officers how to investigate drug endangered children cases. The reference letter in her file is more direct: it says she served as the department’s Drug Endangered Children officer, and spends a full paragraph on it.
Unlike Dahl, she does not itemize training courses at all. There is no five-page list. Readers should not take that as an absence of training — the two résumés simply follow different conventions, one cataloguing coursework and the other cataloguing roles. It does mean her file gives a county resident less to check.
Since February 2025 she has taught part time in the law enforcement academy at the Sparta campus of Western Wisconsin Technical College, the name used on her résumé. Since July 2025 she has also taught for Nine Six One Strategies, instructing working officers on investigating drug endangered children cases. In 2021 and 2022 she took master’s-level coursework in clinical mental health counseling at UW-Superior.
In the application’s 120-word box, she led with programs rather than rank.
She wrote that she implemented “Handle with Care” in Trempealeau County, which in her description “alerts school staff if a student experienced a traumatic event that may impact their behavior or performance in school the next day.” And she wrote that she developed a youth education program called BADGES — Building Alliances, Delivering Guidance, Educating Students.
Her cover letter, dated Oct. 27, does something Dahl’s does not. It says out loud that she wanted the elected job.
I am excited for the opportunity to submit my application for the Interim Sheriff position in Trempealeau County. This opportunity aligns with my goal of becoming the elected Trempealeau County Sheriff for the term beginning in 2027.
Erica Koxlien, cover letter to Gov. Evers, Oct. 27, 2025
The rest of the letter is a change argument, and it does not hedge.
“Trempealeau County is rapidly changing and, as law enforcement, we need to change with it,” she wrote. “Remaining status quo leaves us falling further behind.” She listed four priorities: building a relationship between law enforcement and the county’s growing Hispanic community, breaking generational cycles of criminality through education and mentorship, reducing mental health stigma in the community and in law enforcement, and changing how people with substance use disorder are treated in the criminal justice system.
She described what she brought as “a desire to break the ‘way it’s always been done’ mentality.”
The application asked for three references. She gave four.
Sgt. Andrew Bilski of the sheriff’s office. Lori Whelan, superintendent of the Osseo-Fairchild School District. And then two more, each identified on the reference page in the same words: “Recovering Adult that I’ve arrested and subsequently supported during recovery.”
Her cover letter says she included letters from both. The records return does not contain them; the only reference letter the state produced from her file is Bilski’s.
“Some of my greatest accomplishments in life have been playing a role in someone changing their life trajectory for the better,” she wrote in the cover letter. “Law enforcement can be, and should be, more than just enforcing laws.”
What the reference letters say
The return includes letters of recommendation for three of the four applicants. The two that matter here — one for Dahl, one for Koxlien — are both from inside the sheriff’s office, and both are from sergeants.
Dispatch Sgt. Todd Roessler wrote for Dahl on Oct. 24. He had known Dahl personally for more than a decade and professionally for three years. The letter’s central claim is a project: Roessler credits Dahl with serving as lead for the transition and upgrade of the county’s Emergency Communication Center. “His leadership throughout this complex project ensured a smooth transition, improved operational efficiency, and enhanced emergency response capabilities for the entire county,” he wrote.
The rest is about temperament. Roessler describes an “unbiased approach to decision-making,” decisions “grounded in facts, and free from personal bias,” and a leader with “a rare and valuable ability to listen, mentor, guide, and direct staff.”
Patrol Sgt. Andrew Bilski wrote for Koxlien on Oct. 26. He writes that she has been “an integral member of our department for 10 years” and puts the weight on her drug endangered children work — “a role that requires exceptional sensitivity and a deep understanding of how substance abuse impacts children and families.”
The letter also contains a thesis about the job, which Bilski attributes to her rather than to himself: that her work in that area “underscores her belief that effective law enforcement extends beyond enforcement — it also involves prevention, education, and community collaboration.”
He closes: “She has my full confidence and support.”
Read together, the two letters are a clean summary of the choice. One is a letter about running a department. The other is a letter about what a department is for.
Where the files actually diverge
Strip out the adjectives and four differences remain.
Tenure and command. Dahl has 34 years in law enforcement to Koxlien’s 10, and at least 22 of those years in supervisory or command rank to her zero before December 2025. At least: the résumé lists him as assistant chief in the Village of Trempealeau before 2000 without giving a start date for that title. He has run patrol, run administration, sat in on union negotiations, and built budget requests. On the résumés alone, this is not close.
Formal education. Koxlien has a bachelor’s degree and an associate degree and master’s-level graduate coursework. Dahl has a high school diploma, the 400-hour academy, and 84 college credits in auto mechanics. Wisconsin sets no college-degree requirement for the office.
Documented training. Dahl’s file catalogues 56 courses across 29 years, including all three courses of the FBI-LEEDA leadership series. Koxlien’s file catalogues none, listing instead certifications and instructor credentials. The most recent dated entry on Dahl’s list is from 2021.
Specialization. They are not the same kind of cop. Dahl’s career is patrol, tactical, and administration — SWAT, civil process, dispatch, jail, budget. Koxlien’s is investigative and child-focused — forensic interviewing, child maltreatment, death review, drug endangered children. A voter who thinks the sheriff’s job is mainly running an organization and a voter who thinks it is mainly running cases will read these two files and reach opposite conclusions, both defensibly.
How the governor decided
The file does not say why. It says what happened, and the order matters.
The four interviews ran back to back by Zoom on the Friday before Thanksgiving, Nov. 21, in slots 25 minutes apart. Dahl went first at 9:40 a.m., then Danou at 10:05, Koxlien at 10:30, Molitor at 10:55. Each was told to expect about half an hour. Steven Roets of the governor’s office, who ran the scheduling, asked an outside participant, Jeff Skatrud, to help conduct them; the file gives no title or affiliation for him beyond his reply, “I’d be glad to help.”
Two weeks later, one name moved forward.
At 4 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 5, Roets wrote to Koxlien: “You have been selected for a final interview on Tuesday, December 9th at 9:30 am. The interview will be conducted virtually by Zoom, should last approximately 30 minutes, and will include the Governor.”
No other candidate in the return received that email. Koxlien confirmed 12 minutes later.
The sequence is worth pinning down, because it runs the opposite way from how it might otherwise read. On Monday, Dec. 8 — three days after Koxlien had already been named the sole finalist — the governor’s constituent services staff logged a call from Rich Anderson, himself a former Trempealeau County sheriff and a sitting member of the County Board, registering support for Dahl. It was routed to the governor’s political office. By then the decision was effectively down to one person, and it wasn’t Dahl. Nothing in the file suggests the Anderson call was answered, considered, or shown to anyone making the choice.
The interview was calendared for 9:30 to 10 a.m. At 10:20 a.m., 20 minutes after it was scheduled to end, Roets wrote to Koxlien: “First and foremost, congratulations on your appointment as Trempealeau County Sheriff.” He asked for two quotes and a headshot, and noted that because she already worked in the department and lived in the county, and the vacancy had existed since the previous Friday, she could start whenever she liked.
She answered at 1:14 p.m. “I am ready to get started as soon as possible so as soon as everything is set on your end, I’m ready to go.”
The unsuccessful applicants were told at 10:01 a.m. on Dec. 12, in a form email: “I write to inform you that the Governor will be appointing another candidate.” Dahl’s copy and Danou’s are both in the return, sent at the same minute.
Dahl answered 54 minutes later, with five words and his first name. “Thanks for letting me know.”
The appointment letter went out that afternoon. Koxlien took office Dec. 15, filling the remainder of a term that ends in January 2027.
In the press release announcing it, Evers said Koxlien was “a respected law enforcement officer, who has served her community well for a decade.”
Dahl stayed on as chief deputy — a fact that comes from the Pioneer’s own reporting, not from this file, which ends in December. He has spent the past seven months as second in command to the person who beat him for the job, and he is now running against her.
What this means in August
Three Republicans are on the Aug. 11 primary ballot: Koxlien, Dahl, and Blair Police Chief Kent Johnson. No Democrat filed and no third-party candidate qualified, so the primary decides the office.
Johnson did not apply for the appointment. The governor’s office listed four applicants in its records response, and he was not among them. The Pioneer summarized his background — in law enforcement since 2002, chief in Blair since 2020, Navy service during Desert Shield and Desert Storm, instructor certifications in firearms, tactical response and casualty care, and a 2022 suspension on a complaint that was later withdrawn — in its July coverage of his reversal on the county’s Flock cameras.
The Flock contract runs to April 8, 2027 and renews itself absent notice about March 9, and that has been the loudest issue of this race. It is not the only one, and it is not what these files are about.
Nine months ago, before any of that, both of the county’s inside candidates sat down and made their best written case to a governor in Madison. One handed in 33 years and five pages of training courses. The other handed in 10 years, a plan to change how the office thinks, and the names of two people she says she arrested.
One of those files got the job in December. In August, the county grades them again.