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World's Largest' From '64 FairBig Cheese Due HomeCheddar Critics of Display Given Food for ThoughtWisconsin legislators *nd Madison residents will have their first look Monday at the highly publicized “World’s Largest Cheese when it goes on exhibit at the Monona st. entrance to the state Capitol building.Just returned from its 1964 World’s Fair showing, the Cheddar—largest ever made—will bej unveiled in its glass and chrome 45 - foot “Cheesemobile” w h i c h ■ soon will start on a tour of ma-i jnr cities to continue advertising! the Wisconsin cheese and dairy Industry.Promotional Arm The 17W-ton mammoth, which | used 170,000 quarts of milk to pro-1 duce in a continuous 43-hour oper-1 ation at Steve's Cheese near Green Bay. is owned by the Wisconsin Cheese Foundation, 115 W Main st.The foundation Is the promotional arm of the 71-year-old Wiscon- j sin Cheeaemakers Assn., whose| annual convention at Green Bayj Tuesday and Wednesday will be! featured by appearance of the Cheesemobile.The target of considerable criti-1 eism that it was not favorably located at the fair, that it was too | commercial, that it was not well displayed at the rear of the Wis ! consin Pavilion and too close to a steakhouse, the 34,581 * pound; “Golden Giant” nevertheless con- i founded its critics by attracting j more than a million people a month and proving to be one of the fair’s most publicised attractions.Asked to comment on these) criticisms, Roland C. Behle, managing director of the foundation, said the cheese was located at the rear of the privately financed pavilion to draw people through it.Fair Commercial As it was. we had to spend several thousand dollars to build a special road to get the huge, heavy tractor-traller up to the rear of the building, he said. It would have been prohibitive to get it to the front, where no space was available.“As to the pavilion and our exThis Is How Holiday Magazine, in a Summertime Issue, Paid a Humorous Tribute to Wisconsin's Cheesehibit being too commercial, he continued, “the entire fair is commercial. The 1938 fair lost $18 million, whereas this ’commercial’ fair is paying off its en tire $30 million bonded debt the first year.More than 1.5 million people pa tronized the steakhouse, accord ing to Behle, with the result that many more saw the chese than otherwise would have.lie said that several state exhibits are in the red, due to ex cesslve costs, whereas the Wisconsin Pavilion is described by General Potter, assistant to Robert Moses, who planned the fair, as being the most successful ofall the 24 state exhibits at the exposition.Proven SuccessNew York spent $16 million on its project. The Missouri building just across the Avenue of t h e United Nations from the b i g cheese cost $4 million, Behle said. “All of this and much more was taxpayers’ money, but the Wisconsin Pavilion did not costWisconsin citizens a penny.As an advertisement of Wisconsin’s multi-million-dollar c h eese industry, largest in the world, the cheddar has proven to be a success.The foundation’s sera pbook contains so many stories and pictures from newspapers and trade journals that, if they were laid end to end, they would reach the length of three football fieldsTrucking and dairy magazines featured photos of the Cheesemobile on front covers, and Holiday magazine ran a full-page, four-color cartoon drawn by Ronald Searles of Paris and London.Five Buses Carrying 200 Students Pile UpWALLER, Tex, (£5 — Five buses piled into each other at a traffic light here Saturday.There were no serious injuries. State patrolman B. J. Snow saidWomen Gamblers Win Equal Rights RulingYUBA CITY, Calif. (UPI) - A superior court judge has thrown out a city ordinance banning women dealers from card rooms Judge Richard Patton ruled“That cartoon alone.” Behle said, “if run as an advertisement by Wisconsin cheese makers, would have cost over $15,000.Generates InterestMost trade associations are unable to get their product or an industry personality on a nationwide TV show, according to Behle, whose foundation aucceeded in getting Wisconsin chee.semakers featured twice in 10 months on the TV show ’To Tell the Truth.“If we had had to pay for the TV shows and the newspaper and magazine publicity received, we would have spent $260,000,” Behle said. As it was, the world's largest cheese generated so much interest and national attention that we feel its promotion of the Wisconsin cheese and dairy in dustry has been an outstanding achievement and an ex cellent investment.Four per oent of the publicity was unfavorable, according to foundation records — all of it from Wisconsin. Of thousands of comment slips signed by fair visitors, only seven were critical, and six of thess were from Wisconsin.One of these criticized the tinted glass through which the cheese is visible. The tinting is necessary, according to Behle, to keepthe inside temperature down while the Cheesemobile is on tour in the South.Finance BalanceIndustry largely has financed the $150,000 project, which was originated by a Madison insurance executive, J. Addison England, vice-president of Church Mutual Insurance Co. and manager of cheesemakers divison. Bor dens have contributed $50,000, Ford Motor Co. the $25,000 Diesel tractor, Highway Trailer of Edg erton the 35 foot trailer, and Transicold Co. the 10-ton refrigeration unit to keep the cheese edible.Foundation members and Wisconsin cheese and dairy industry and suppliers are financing the balance, aided by a $35,000 grant from the 1963 Wisconsin Legisla ture. The Bordon Co. has contracted to buy the cheese at the end of the 1965 fair.If the World’s Fair and nation-wide tour of our ‘Golden Giant’ can help increase national cheese consumption by only one ounce per person per year, the cheese industry will have to produce 6,000 more tons of cheese annually, Behle concluded, Wisconsin’s share amounts to over $2.5 million additional income to cheesemakers and farmers.
Newspaper Details
Madison Wisconsin State Journal
Madison, Wisconsin, US
Sun, Nov 08, 1964
Page 14
Full Page
Clipped by
Uw -.
WI, USA 12 Jan 2024
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