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20th ANNUAL MONROE COUNTY DAIRY BREAKFAST HOSTED BY RADKE & RADKE-RYNES

Thema and I arrived at the Bob & Connie Radke, Mike and Andi Radke-Rynes-Walker & Zoey, HAWK HIGH DAIRY, LLC AT 21130 Cty Hwy T, Norwalk, WI at about 9:00 AM. Already the large parking lot was full of a hundred or more cars. The serving of the 20th Monroe County annual breakfast had begun nearly two hours earlier.

It was a beautiful sunny day and one could easily understand why the Radke, Radke-Rynes named their dairy farm HAWK HIGH DAIRY, for it sat high on the ridge above the surrounding country side and one could almost see forever.

When we arrived there were two long food lines, one on each side of the mammoth tent set up to protect the diners from the sun and rain.

It took us nearly 20 minutes to get down to the place to purchase our $2.00 each tickets for the breakfast. But what a breakfast it was. Big servings of scrambled eggs and ham, toast, cheese curds, sliced cheese, cookies, icecream sunday with cranberry sauce, milk and coffee.

The ground was still a bit wet from the big rain storm on Thursday, but although a bit muddy in some areas of the tent it was not bad considering.

About 10:15 am, after my breakfast, I talked with some members of the Norwalk Lions club who were doing the cooking for the breakfast and got these interesting facts from Wilbur Schwartzel, one of the Lion Club members.

At this time they had already used 700 dozen eggs

  • Estimated they would use another 100 dozen prior to ll:00 closing
  • That each of the two cooking pans took 21 dozen eggs, 5 lbs of ham, 5 lbs of cheese 2 lbs of butter, disolved bullion cubes and as Wilburs says a handful of salt and pepper.

    I had hoped to get back in time yesterday afternoon to talk with Cletus (Pete) Schmitz about the final tally for those attending but did not so will have to go with the estimate of around 4,500 people

    It was a delightful breakfast, a great community event and a lovely sunny day.

    Our thanks to the Radke & Keynes.