Dave Kyle gets ready from one of three milings daily in his new, state-of-the-art dairy barn. Terry Mayer/Photo

33rd annual dairy breakfast Saturday at fairgrounds

By Lynn Greene
Senior Editor

ELKHORN — Derrick Papcke is putting the dairy back in the dairy breakfast this year. As chairman of the annual Walworth County event, he wants to make it a more educational experience.

The Farm Bureau’s dairy breakfast moved to the Walworth County Fairgrounds in 2001, after the outbreak of mad cow disease in the United Kingdom. Before that, the breakfast was held on a  working dairy farm, which gave people an opportunity to see how milk is produced.

“We’ve been having discussions about moving (the breakfast) back to the farm,” Papcke said.

The dairy committee wants to put a renewed emphasis on education, so people who are not familiar with farming can see what goes into a dairy.

“The only way to do that is get people to a real working farm,” Papcke said.

Laurie and Dave Kyle will host a tour of their family farm during the breakfast event.

A charter bus will leave the fairgrounds at 7 a.m. Saturday breakfast with tours continuing throughout the morning.

“My wife will be on the bus talking about the farm on the ride over,” Kyle said.

“We’ll have an informational video running on the bus too,” Papcke added. The new video, hosted by Bo Ryan, talks about myths and misconceptions about the dairy industry.

Diners at the farm breakfast will have plenty to be happy about, too. It’s a big breakfast served up by the farm bureau: pancakes, sausage, scrambled eggs, cheese, milk, juice, coffee and ice cream sundaes.

“This is the one time of year you can have sundaes for breakfast — can’t beat that,” Papcke said.

Saturday’s breakfast also will include informational displays at the fairgrounds. While guests to the breakfast know what they plan to eat, they probably don’t know what a cow eats.

There will be a bee and native pollinator display. The Walworth County Dairy Promotion committee will have a seed-identification contest.

Be sure to keep your ticket for a chance to win a door prize.

It’s all done with volunteers, including many FFA?and 4-H youth who help keep things stocked and ready for guests.

Tags: Activities, Dairy Breakfast