Dairy Club takes top honors at dairy science conference

The senior Dairy Club team at UW-River Falls has taken top honors for the third year in a row at the Midwest Regional American Dairy Science Association-Student Affiliate Division (ADSA-SAD) Conference hosted by UW-Platteville in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin.

The conference was held from Jan. 30 through Feb. 1. The conference featured many speakers and programs based around the dairy industry, and invited many Midwestern universities to attend. Some of these universities included: the University of Minnesota, North Dakota State University, Iowa State University, and many more.

Some programs and activities held at the conference were educational seminars and speakers, and they also held fun team-building activities such as: a comedian and a visit to the Kalahari water park.

The highlight of the trip was the Quiz Bowl. The Quiz Bowl invited "senior" and "junior" teams to compete in a knowledge test of the dairy industry. Each team had four members, with the senior teams having junior and senior level students with the junior teams having freshmen and sophomore students.

“In the Quiz Bowl there are two phases per round,” said senior Diary Club member Paige Roberts, in an email. “The first phase is individual questions where each member gets asked three questions and if you get it right you get 10 points.”

Roberts also said that the second phase is a speed round where players can win or lose points, similar to the speed round in Family Feud.

“The questions range anywhere from cheese-making to ruminant nutrition, to basic dairy knowledge,” said senior Dairy Club member Eric Zwiefelhofer.

The junior team lost in the first round, but the senior team went on to beat Iowa State and then beat Michigan State University in the final round. Zwiefelhofer said that it's a great feeling to take home the victory for another year.

“We’re going against big schools, we’re going against you know, Madison, Michigan State, Ohio State, and their prestigious schools, but it really shows that our school is just as prestigious as they are,” Zwiefelhofer said.

There were over 500 students that participated in the conference, with many of those students participating in the Quiz Bowl.

“It’s a confidence-builder for all the students in our club,” said Dairy Club Advisor Steven Kelm. “It’s just kind of saying that we’re competing with the very best in the nation in a lot of different ways, and coming out on top means that we are competing very well.”

The Dairy Club is the largest student organization on campus, and hosts many events and fundraisers on campus. Their biggest event being the “Falcon Premier.”

“We collect great dairy animals and have an auction in the spring,” Roberts said. “It’s a lot of work and all the members get involved, but in the end it's worth all the late nights and hard work, because it’s a ton of fun and we raise a lot of money for the club”.

The Dairy Club attends the conference every year, and every year they learn more about their industry and they grow as a club.