A dairy good time

SAUK CENTRE, Minn. — On your mark, get set, go. That was the announcement made to runners at the Milk Run held Aug. 9 in conjunction with the Stearns County Fair.

Lisa Wuertz, an avid runner and dairy farmer, came up with the idea to host a run in Stearns County that targeted both dairy farmers and non-dairy farmers as a means of recognizing the dairy industry. Wuertz and her husband, Peter, milk 60 cows near Greenwald.

“I had done the milk run at the state fair a few times, and that was so fun,” Wuertz said. “Stearns County is the largest dairy county in Minnesota, so why don’t we have a milk run here, too? It seemed like a natural fit to me.”

Wuertz reached out to Dana Adams with the University of Minnesota Extension and several agriculture organizations. These included the Stearns County Dairy Advisory Committee, the Stearns County Farm Bureau, Midwest Dairy, Minnesota Dairy Initiative and the Stearns County American Dairy Association.

“We were able to work with many of our local ag organizations to help us pull off this event,” Wuertz said. “The run promotes agriculture, but also, for people who aren’t as familiar with ag, they can learn something by participating.”

Runners at the Milk Run stepped off at 8:30 a.m. at the fairgrounds in Sauk Centre. The top two winners of each age group received a medal and the overall male and female winners received a plaque. All runners who registered by the deadline received a T-shirt, a coupon for a malt at the Stearns County ADA malt stand at the fair, information about the health benefits of milk, snacks and a bag from Midwest Dairy. Stearns County dairy princesses were at the event to hand out chocolate milk as the racers crossed the finish line. Kate McAndrews also brought a calf from her family’s farm near Sauk Centre for participants to take a picture with.

“It was so fun to see people get excited to see and take a picture with a calf and ask questions,” McAndrews said. “It was a group effort and it was great to see everything come together so well.”

Planning for the inaugural event started a year ago after the 2024 Stearns County Fair. Wuertz said the first step was to talk to the Stearns County Fair board to see if they would allow the event to happen during the fair. After that, Wuertz visited with Adams, as well as Sarah Kuechle and McAndrews, who are both Stearns County dairy farmers and members of the Midwest Dairy board.

“We ended up with a really robust group of people helping out, representing dairy in Stearns County,” Kuechle said.

Over the winter, the team held meetings to finalize logistics.

“We bounced around some ideas of doing (the Milk Run) in June for June Dairy Month but ultimately decided to do it during the fair so people can walk around and enjoy the fair too,” Wuertz said.

Dairy farmers were able to register for free thanks to a grant from Midwest Dairy, while non-farmers paid a registration fee.

Dairy farmer participants received different-colored shirts imprinted with “Ask me about my cows” on the back, Kuechle said.

“It was a super fun day,” she said. “As an added bonus, it was a great way to emphasize chocolate milk as a recovery drink.”

Wuertz said their goal was to get 100 people to sign up. Come race day, more than 100 had registered.

“It was really fun to see all the families there and how many kids participated,” Wuertz said. “We had people from all regions of the state come to our event. We had families pushing kids in a stroller, and the oldest person who participated was 77.”

The committee agreed that they hope to make the event an annual tradition.

“We have a few ideas for next year’s run,” Wuertz said. “It was a great way to celebrate dairy.”