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Spooner Sheep Day ends after 64 years
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The late Carl Ryberg, one of many shepherds at the Spooner Agricultural Research Station at Spooner, Wisconsin, is shown with a Southdown ram in this historic photo of the station's sheep-research program. State-budget cuts have resulted in the program's demise.
The Spooner Agricultural Research Station was established in 1908 and is the oldest of the agricultural-research stations operated throughout Wisconsin by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. Sheep were introduced to the Spooner Station in 1936, and the first sheep field day was held in 1953. The Spooner Sheep Day is thought to be the longest-running agricultural field day of those held each year by the college. Due to budget cuts the Spooner flock is being sold; the last Spooner Sheep Day was held Aug. 28.
A sign in the public-events room at the Spooner Agricultural Research Station reminds producers attending the station's last Spooner Sheep Day that the station was founded in 1909.
Contributors to the University of Wisconsin's sheep-research and outreach efforts at the Spooner Agricultural Research Station, Spooner, Wisconsin, bid farewell Aug. 28 to that program at the final Spooner Sheep Day. From left are: Tom Cadwallader, former Spooner station assistant superintendent and shepherd, and emeritus professor; University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences Dean Kate VandenBosch; Yves Berger, former Spooner Station superintendent and emeritus dairy-sheep researcher; Bob Rand, former Spooner Station superintendent; Dick Vatthauer, emeritus animal-science professor, UW-Madison; Woody Lane, former sheep UW-Extension specialist, now owner of Lane Livestock Services of Roseburg, Oregon; Alexa Roscizewki, summer sheep intern at the Spooner station and UW-Madison senior; and Dave Thomas, UW-Madison professor of Sheep Management and Genetics, who will retire in early 2017.
Dairy sheep at the Spooner Agricultural Research Station, Spooner, Wisconsin, lounge on pasture, unaware of the University of Wisconsin's controversial decision to disperse the flock and end sheep research at the station. Spooner's is the only university sheep-milking operation in North America.
Wisconsin State Sen. Janet Bewley, D-25, Mason, Wisconsin, attending the 64th and final Sheep Day Aug. 28 at the Spooner Agricultural Research Station, told sheep producers that the station's sheep research should be restored.
