Talking cows, learning life lessons

MADISON, Wis. — Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union. “Back to the Future,” “The Goonies” and “The Breakfast Club” all came out in theaters, and the popular comic strip “Calvin and Hobbes” began its long-standing run. Whitney Houston released her debut album and the average cost of a gallon of gas was $1.09.

The year was 1985 and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s dairy judging team topped World Dairy Expo’s National Intercollegiate Dairy Cattle Judging Contest.

The team — consisting of Bill Hageman, Gayle (Furchtenicht) Benedict, Steve Armbruster and Greg Stumpf — was coached by university professor Dr. David P. Dickson. The team was the first UW team to win under his tutelage.

“He had some pretty good teams, but like the proverbial playoff teams that could never make it over the hump to the championship game, they couldn’t quite get there,” Stumpf said. “To be his first winning team, that was special — even more so, we won 25 years after he himself was the high individual in the national contest. That meant a lot to him.”

The announcement of placings that year was a nail-biter for all involved, recalled Benedict and Hageman. They said their favorite memory of winning the contest was the anticipation that built throughout the banquet.

“I remember Dr. Dave saying, ‘Add it again, add it again — are you sure it’s tied?’” Stumpf said. “He was smoking a cigarette, like he was going to blow a gasket at the banquet.”

The team did indeed tie for the overall top spot with California Polytechnic State University, but they came out victorious thanks to their outstanding oral reasons win being utilized as the tiebreaker. The UW team had won the oral reasons portion of the contest, besting Cal Poly by 16 points.

Stumpf and Hageman led the team as third and fifth overall, respectively, while Hageman placed second in reasons, followed by Stumpf in third and Armbruster in ninth.

The UW team placed in all six breeds, winning the Guernseys, Holsteins and Milking Shorthorns, and placing third in Jerseys, seventh in Brown Swiss, and 10th in Ayrshires. Stumpf won the Guernseys as an individual.

The success the team had was built on the foundation of practices the team attended.

“We became good because we saw so many cows, week in and week out,” Benedict said. “More than how we saw cows, it was the work on reasons — that is where it really mattered. Reasons are what can set you apart.”

Benedict recalled how Dickson made them more than better judges; he made them better communicators as well.

“Dr. Dave didn’t allow us to tell any lies in our reasons; he’d call you out on that,” Armbruster said. “We could get creative, but there were times he drew the line and told us, ‘We don’t need to hear that again.’”

Benedict agreed.

“He wouldn’t let us get away with anything that wasn’t accurate,” he said. “Being honest and accurate was the most important thing.”

The 1985 team was a bonded one from the get-go, judging together as a unit throughout their UW judging careers. They culminated their collegiate judging careers by winning the prestigious national championship after earlier successful outings in both Waterloo, Iowa, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

The quartet agreed that Dickson was the glue that made the team what it was, making the experience of competing as a team for three years about more than just judging cows.

“We focused on judging cows, sure, but we were allowed to have fun,” Hageman said. “When you’re driving all those miles in the van, there are a lot of life lessons you pick up on. You have conversations about things other than judging cows.”

Traversing the country, traveling to farms for practices and to various contests to compete, the group bonded, both with each other and with their mentor. Those bonds have held strong for decades.

The last time the group gathered together was more than 15 years ago, when they visited their mentor for the last time, who was in the hospital with cancer. That last gathering is one the group said they will forever cherish because of what Dickson meant in their lives.

“We all learned a lot from the way Dr. Dave carried himself,” Hageman said. “He took being a coach, a professor, a mentor for young people to heart. He didn’t have any kids, so we were his kids. I think we all benefited from the relationships we had with him.”