New bill seeks to make Colby the state cheese

By Kevin O’Brien

The effort to make Colby cheese Wisconsin’s official “state cheese” has been restarted by two lawmakers who represent the Colby area in Madison.

State Sen. Kathy Bernier (R-Lake Hallie) and Rep. Donna Rozar (R-Marshfield) introduced a bill last week to make the town of Colby’s namesake cheese the one representing all of Wisconsin.

“We are thrilled to introduce this bill to honor Colby cheese as Wisconsin’s State Cheese,” said the lawmakers in a joint statement. “Colby began as a farm family recipe dreamed up by a young man on the floor of his father’s small wooden cheese factory Today, it has gone on to become world-famous and one of America’s most popular cheeses.”

A spokesman for Sen. Bernier said Friday is the deadline for other lawmakers to sign on as co-sponsors, and after that, it will be assigned to one or more committees for deliberation.

A bill to make Colby the state cheese was first introduced in 2019 by Sen. Bernier, then-Rep. Bob Kulp and other cosponsors, but it did not make it out of committee for a vote in either the Senate and Assembly One of the biggest advocates for that bill was Colby resident Matt Oehmichen, who helped rally support for designating

See COLBY CHEESE/ Page 10 Colby as Wisconsin’s official cheese. He and several others testified before the Assembly Committee on Agriculture in November of 2019 in an attempt to win over lawmakers who were hesitant to make the designation official.

Oehmichen educated lawmakers on the history of the namesake cheese, which was first produced just a mile north of his family’s farm at the Steinwands’ Colby Cheese Factory. The original building was torn down in 2015, but he said the spot is still “hallowed ground” for Wisconsin’s dairy industry.

Also testifying before the committee was Michael Luckey, the great-greatgreat- grandson of Joseph Steinwand, the man credited with inventing the process for creating Colby cheese in 1885. He read words written by his mother, Ann: “I take pride in my family’s history, but I know this is not just about my family,” she wrote. “It’s not even just about the cheese. It’s about the recognition of a hardworking farmer, a Wisconsinite through and through, who created a good product and it has since become a national symbol of good food — something we can all take pride in.”

In January of 2020, members of the Colby Coalition show choir traveled to Madison to perform “The Colby Cheese Song” in front of lawmakers who were considering the bill. The song lyrics were included as part of the official testimony presented to the Senate Committee on Government Operations, Technology & Consumer Protection. Several students from Colby Middle School also submitted handwritten notes to lawmakers, many of which were illustrated with drawings of cheese wedges and cows.

Unfortunately, the community efforts didn’t result in the bill becoming law.

Oehmichen said he’s been staying in touch with Bernier’s office to make sure the initiative is not forgotten as a novelty.

“This is more than just about cheese, it’s about highlighting all that is best about being a Wisconsinite, because the heart beat of our state comes from its rural communities, and small hometowns like ours,” he said. He said he’s impressed by the efforts of Bernier and Rozar to keep the proposal going.

After introducing their bill, the two lawmakers sent out an email to fellow legislators, asking them to throw their support behind a product “dreamed up by a young man on the floor of his father’s small, wooden cheese factory in the rich farmland of central Wisconsin.”

Read the full email from Rozar and Bernier to other legislators on page 3.