Colby Dairy Breakfast Coordinator and FFA Alumni Member Discuss Sunday's Colby Dairy Breakfast

Monday, June 23rd, 2025 -- 12:00 PM

The Colby Dairy Breakfast was held on Sunday at the Verhoef Family farm on Pecan Road in Colby.

Dale Erickson attended the event and spoke with coordinator of the event Jeannie Tesch, as she discussed the work that goes into the event, and Colby FFA Alumni Liz Bier as she discussed the FFA Alumni’s involvement in the breakfast

Listen to the interview with Jeannie and Liz here!

(AI assisted transcription of the interview by Otter.ai):

Dale: "A lot goes into hosting an event like this. We've had a lot of people here already this morning. Can you tell us a little bit about all the preparations that have been done?"

Jeannie: "Oh, absolutely. So, I start January 1st, right after the holiday season. I contact the farmer, we come down and sit down with them and we do an interview. I say, 'Hey, this is what it entails. You can say yes or no' and the Verhoefs were super excited."

"They started right away. They fill out sponsor sheets for me of who they do business with. These are the businesses that help support this event. I reach out to them so there's different businesses every year, so the same businesses aren't getting hit up year after year."

"I talked to them about donations and this year was phenomenal. I can't say thank you enough. We have over 95 sponsors for this event, from monetary donations to physical donations to even their personal time here, or the busses, for example. So, it is amazing what has happened today and what people get to enjoy. Absolutely amazing."

Dale: "The alumni is bringing a lot of people here to get this project done today."

Jeannie: "Absolutely, we have a lot of volunteers from the club here, a lot of core members that work year after year, and other members that come and help where it's needed. So, we've got our ice cream stand here and members there. We've got our fried cheese curd stand going with members there and then everybody that needs to flip pancakes and cook sausage and all that fun, good stuff."

Dale: "The proceeds from our breakfast today go to the alumni and to support the Colby FFA. Can you tell us a little bit about some of the things that your alumni sponsors with your FFA?"

Jeannie: "So, this is our biggest fundraiser and we use this money to help with agriculture, education and the local chapter, if they need additional funds to go to leadership conferences or to the FFA national or state conventions, we help them so that the children, the kids in the clubs, are able to go and not have to spend all of their money to get there."

Dale: "Your alumni does other activities as well throughout the year. Can you tell us a little bit about those?"

Jeannie: "Sure, every other year we do a donkey basketball. So, I think we should be coming up on doing that again this year. We also have an ice cream stand at the Athens fair and the Colby Cheese Days as well. So, we raise money from there to sponsor the local FFA as well as we raise money for our annual scholarship for those going on in ag education or any anything in the ag field."

Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.