On the Road - February

February may be a short month, but I sure made the most of it!

My first event of the month was the Wisconsin Corn and Soy Expo and their annual Porkapalooza event. I enjoyed visiting with attendees, sharing a few remarks about Wisconsin agriculture, and assisting with the auction to benefit youth in the pork and agriculture industries.

The Brown County Taste of Wisconsin event sure was a delicious and heartwarming one to attend, too! All of the vendors in attendance prepared delicious food and drink options raised and produced right here in Wisconsin, and I loved hearing the stories behind their businesses. The products offered certainly support the local community in Brown County and beyond, contributing to the strength of Wisconsin agriculture while supporting our state’s farmers and processors.

Create Waunakee hosted the inaugural “A Ball of Creativity” event in February. All proceeds from the event, the first and only of its kind in the Waunakee area, will benefit local artists. There are so many different kinds of art, including singing, dancing, drawing, painting, woodworking, live theater, photography, videography, sculpting, and writing, among others. But there is also an art in agriculture, too, such as how we raise our animals, cultivate the land, take care of our natural resources, and produce the highest-quality products. I enjoyed sharing more about Wisconsin’s agriculture industry and how agriculture is an art all its own.

For Valentine’s Day, I celebrated with a homemade charcuterie board and visits to media outlets around the state to promote a handful of Something Special from Wisconsin™ members’ products. This mini campaign, cleverly titled “Something Special for Your Special Someone,” was a great way to share Wisconsin goodies to gift to the ones you love. February 15 was also a special day, as it was Wisconsin Day! This day is a time to celebrate the cheese, cranberries, green beans, ginseng, potatoes, pumpkins, Christmas trees, and hundreds of other plants, animals, and products that are raised and made here in Wisconsin. National FFA Week was also cause for celebration, providing a good excuse for me to take a trip down Memory Lane while sharing the impact the National FFA Organization has on our future farmers, scientists, processors, or consumers. I was able to celebrate FFA Week, the Alice in Dairyland Finals, and agriculture in person with a handful of Door County students too.

All throughout the month, I was visiting schools to share information about Wisconsin agriculture. I visited 10 different classrooms all throughout the state, and while they were all unique and enjoyable, one of them was extra special to me. I had a full circle moment when visiting Zion Lutheran School at Wayside. This is the school where my grandpa, grandma, dad, aunts, and uncles all attended grade school or taught at, and I loved the chance to visit current students and share more about Wisconsin agriculture. During all of my school visits, students learn about everything from the Farm to School program and butter making to specialty crops and agricultural careers!

Not all youth education takes place in a classroom, however, and a recent Girl Scout lesson was the perfect example of that. “Beef, It’s What’s for Dinner: Beef & Beyond,” was a lesson co-created by the Wisconsin Beef Council. The lesson focused on careers in the meat industry, shopping for various cuts of meat, preparing and cooking with beef, and the nutrition benefits of beef consumption. We also had our final installment of the Badgerland Girl Scouts lessons through the program “Adventures in the Milky Whey!” this month as well. This lesson was held at Sassy Cow Creamery in Columbus, where Girl Scouts learned about entrepreneurship and practiced their math skills through building their own ice cream shop. We also made sure to enjoy some delicious ice cream during our time together! While serving this year as the 76th Alice in Dairyland, I have had so much fun meeting Girl Scouts in the Madison area and sharing more about Wisconsin’s dairy and beef industries with these bright and excited young ladies!

On my final day of the month, the Alice in Dairyland team headed up to Door County to prepare for the announcement of the 77th Alice in Dairyland Top Candidates! We stopped by WDOR Radio and Door County Daily News to share more about the upcoming 77th Alice in Dairyland Finals and to recap the adventures I have had in Door County over the last several months. Other excursions on this visit included lunch at the Door County Sandbox, a new restaurant in Sturgeon Bay that opened this past December; and Henschel’s Maple Syrup and Country View Farms Maple Syrup to tap my first tree of the season!

Be sure to view the announcement of the 77th Alice in Dairyland Top Candidates and follow along for the rest of their journey at aliceindairyland.com and on my social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.