As a new year begins, we wrap up the 125th anniversary celebration of Hoard's Dairyman. In our June 2010 issue, we chronicled how Hoard was instrumental in launching many endeavors far beyond his magazine. One such program he helped initiate celebrated its 100th anniversary last year . . . it was a program he called "Experimental Breeding."


Hoard was a student and a teacher all his life, a successfully well-educated man, as noted by the University of Wisconsin Department of Genetics. His peers recognized this passion for education. Nearly two decades after holding the office of governor, the state legislature appointed Hoard to the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents. It was during this time that Hoard brought great influence to bear upon the development of agricultural education in Wisconsin.

Hoard believed in science. Just like feeding, he thought breeding dairy cattle should be a scientifically controlled operation. So, during his term as president of the Board of Regents, Hoard helped establish the Department of Experimental Breeding whose name would later be changed to Genetics shortly after Hoard's death. Hoard had great enthusiasm for heredity and wrote about the subject often because he was looking for assistance of any kind that a dairy cattle breeder could use to improve the production of his herd. To read more about Hoard's passion for genetics, go to http://centennial.genetics.wisc.edu/node/18