Friends, colleagues recall Knox with fondness, respect

By Ryan Whisner
Daily Jefferson County Union regional editor

By Ryan Whisner
and Pam Chickering Wilson
Union staff writers

Friends and colleagues today were mourning the death of W.D. “Bill” Knox, a national leader in the dairy industry and president of W.D. Hoard & Sons Co.

The Fort Atkinson resident died Friday at age 85.

Those who knew Knox best this morning recalled his contributions to agriculture and Fort Atkinson in general.

“Dad was a wonderful guy who was truly blessed,” said Brian Knox, executive vice president of W.D. Hoard & Sons Co. and publisher of its 135-year-old newspaper, the Daily Jefferson County Union.

One of the elder Knox’s four children, Knox noted that there are not a lot of people who spend their 85th birthday on June 9 as his father did, putting in a full day at the office.

“He truly loved what he did and the people he served,” Knox said. “There are probably not a lot of people who can look back at 64 years of work and say that.”

He said that his father believed that, more and more in today’s world, magazines and newspapers are owned by just a few giant organizations focused on short-term financial results instead of maintaining their long-term reason for being: providing readers with the essential information they need to help them make the crucial decisions in their lives.

“He very much believed in the diversity that comes from having independently owned and operated publications,” Knox said, noting that Hoard’s Dairyman magazine is really the last independently owned national farm magazine and the Daily Union is one of just four independently owned dailies in Wisconsin.

“Much of his thrust the last few years was to make sure that we could continue on as an independently owned, editorially driven, organization after his death,” Knox said. “The family totally supports that attitude and intends to do everything we can to follow his wishes.”

He also recognized the strong support of the people around his father who counseled him through the years.

“A partial list of those would include my mom, A.J. Glover, Bill Hoard, Florence Dollase, Dudley Godfrey, Gene Meyer and, most particularly, Mark “Bud” Kerschensteiner,” Knox said. “Dad was a gentleman and man of quiet and thoughtful advice.
Speaking for both the Knox family and the Hoard family of employees, we’re going to miss him terribly.”

Retired Hoard’s Dairyman advertising manager Mark “Bud” Kerschensteiner was one of the first Fort Atkinson residents to meet and befriend Bill Knox in 1941.

The longtime friends first met when Knox drove up for a tank of gas after being interviewed for a position at W.D. Hoard & Sons. Kerschensteiner was the station attendant that day.

“He stopped to get a tank of gas and we’ve been very close friends ever since,” Kerschensteiner said, noting that they talked for nearly a half-hour. “I don’t think he ever paid me for it (the gasoline).”

At the time, Knox was fresh out of college and was thinking about coming to Fort Atkinson.

“He wanted to find out all he could about the town, the people and the job,” Kerschensteiner recalled.

With the onset of World War II, both served in the armed services, Knox in the U.S. Navy and Kerschensteiner in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Knox and Kerschensteiner both were stationed at Okinawa during World War II.

Through coded correspondence between Kerschensteiner, his father and Knox, the two friends were able to briefly unite while stationed on opposite sides of the island.

“We spent an afternoon together,” Kerschensteiner said.

While visiting on the naval vessel, Knox told Kerschensteiner that he could have all the fruit he could carry off the ship to take back to his Marine unit. The catch was that he had to carry it down a 20-foot rope cargo net.

“We hadn’t had any fresh food in quite some time,” Kerschensteiner said, referring to his Marine unit. “He gave me all the food I could hold.”

To the best of his recollection, Kerschensteiner actually did make it back to the Marine encampment with some fresh fruit and other items he managed to stuff in his pockets and socks on the way down the net.

He said Knox always had a great sense of humor.

“I always called it a dry humor,” Kerschensteiner said. “He never stood up in front of the crowd and told jokes, but he had a sense of humor.”

Knox once orchestrated a practical joke involving a bet on a UW-Madison and Michigan State football game, Kerschensteiner recalled. He apparently had retired Daily Union sports editor Don Johanning mention to Kerschensteiner that an All-American halfback had broken his leg and would not be playing.

Kerschensteiner said he rushed into the Dairyman’s editorial office and asked Knox if he would like to bet $5 on the game. Knox was not willing to bet that much, but settled for $3.

On Saturday morning, Kerschensteiner scanned the morning Wisconsin State Journal for news of the football player’s injury, but there was no mention of it.

“I’d been trapped,” Kerschensteiner said. “I was afraid to go to the office the following Monday.”

He said Knox and the rest of the editorial department ribbed him for some time after that.

“Bill was behind it,” Kerschensteiner said. “Bill was a great guy. I’m certainly going to miss him.”

Knox, Kerschensteiner and the late Eugene Meyer, retired Hoard’s Dairyman managing editor, all resided on the north side of town at one time and each only had one car, so they would take turns carpooling to work every day.

“That went on for about four or five years,” Kerschensteiner said. “It wasn’t to save money; it was so our wives would have the car to get around town in.”

The three were close friends.

“Gene once said that when Bill gets a headache, I get one too,” Kerschensteiner said of Meyer, who died in May. “He admired Bill a great deal.

“The dairy industry and City of Fort Atkinson owe Bill Knox a lot,” Kerschensteiner said. “He was a tremendous influence on both. I say without hesitation that he is one of Fort Atkinson’s greatest all-time citizens and should be remembered as such.”

Continuing, Kerschensteiner said he had the utmost respect for Knox as a person and a colleague.

“We worked together very well; we were a good team,” he said. “I wish it could have gone on a lot longer.”

Hoard’s Dairyman magazine managing editor Steve Larson said this morning that “no other individual had greater impact on the dairy industry during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

“It was then that he was most active as editor of Hoard’s Dairyman, a tireless and highly sought-after speaker throughout North America, trusted counsel to the dairy industry’s policymakers and a respected advisor to the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations.”

He said the scope and breadth of Knox’s influence was unprecedented.

“He had national and international impact in animal health affairs, milk quality, international trade, self-help programs for dairy farmers and merging of dairy co-operatives to give dairy farmers more bargaining power,” Larson noted.

In addition, under Knox’s leadership, Hoard’s Dairyman reached its peak circulation of more than 360,000 in the early 1970s. With its current circulation of 81,000 in the U.S. and Canada and some 70 different countries, Hoard’s Dairyman could be called the most influential agricultural publication in the world.

“Under Bill’s watchful eye, Japanese and Spanish editions of the magazine were launched ... extending even further the reach and influence of what Governor Hoard started 120 years ago,” Larson said. “Thanks to the foresight, tenacity, dedication, and skillful management of Bill Knox and his family members, Hoard’s Dairyman remains one of only two family-owned agricultural publications in the U.S.”

Knox became editor of Hoard’s Dairyman in 1949 at age 29. He followed A.J. Glover, who served in that post from 1918-49. W.D. Hoard was editor from the time he founded the magazine in 1885 until his death in 1918.

“We know of no other commercially-successful publication in the world with that longevity at the editorial helm,” Larson said, referring to the Dairyman having three editors in 120 years. “Bill Knox truly was one of the giants of the dairy industry. He was recognized for his achievements and contributions by more organizations at a younger age than just about anyone else in the dairy industry.”

Retired Hoard’s Dairyman art director James Baird this morning recalled his first visit to the Hoard’s Dairyman Farm in 1948 with Knox, Meyer and W.D. Hoard Jr. Hoard took a memorable photo of the three men standing atop the hill overlooking the farm north of Fort Atkinson.

“We always had a lot of fun with that picture over the years,” Baird said, recalling that the three had jokingly reposed for the photo at his retirement party in 1992.

“He’s certainly going to be missed by a lot of people, especially in the dairy industry,” Baird said of Knox. “He was a great man and a good friend.”

Baird also described Knox as a “great leader” in the dairy industry.

“He encouraged me and probably had a lot to do with my success,” he added. “I really thought the world of him and I will miss him.”

Former Hoard’s Dairyman associate editor Jim Cavanaugh of Columbus, Ohio, said that he and Knox stayed in touch throughout a great part of their lives.

Both came to Fort Atkinson at the same time, arriving in the first week of June 1941, and then both went into the service at the same time, serving from November 1942 to November 1945.

“I left and came to Jersey (the American Jersey Cattle Association) in 1945, but we kept in touch,” said Cavanaugh, who later headed up the American Jersey Cattle Association.

“It’s quite a thing for Hoard’s to lose both Bill and Gene in a relatively short time,” Cavanaugh said, referring to retired Dairyman managing editor Eugene Meyer.

Cavanaugh said that Knox will be greatly missed.

The former associate editor said that at the height of his career, Knox was “probably the most influential man in the dairy industry.”

“Hoard’s was so prominent,” Cavanaugh said of the magazine. “It only had three publishers, going straight from W.D. Hoard to A.J. Glover to Bill Knox. Although he (Knox) stepped down from most of his responsibilities, he kept the title. That’s quite a legacy.”

In conclusion, the former associate editor recalled a recent conversation in which he asked Knox, “Why not retire?”
“Why? What would I do then?” Cavanaugh quoted Knox as replying.

Former Hoard Dairyman columnists Louis Longo and Lee Allenstein also praised Knox’s knowledge of the dairy industry.
Longo, who now resides in Connecticut, called Knox “one of the greatest men I ever met,” saying that without Knox’s encouragement, he never would have succeeded in the field as he did.

The retired columnist recently was nominated to receive an award from the National Dairy Shrine this fall.
“If not for Bill Knox, I never would be there,” Longo said.

Longo, who authored “The Business Side of Dairy” column for Hoard’s Dairyman, said he met Knox in 1960 at a national convention of the Milk Producers Federation. Knox asked him to dinner and proposed that Longo write a column for the magazine, and Longo said he’d give it a try.

“I couldn’t believe he would ask me,” Longo recalled.

The columnist said that Knox did a great deal for the dairy industry and also for the community of Fort Atkinson.

Meanwhile, Dr. Allenstein of Whitewater, a 30-year veterinary columnist with Hoard’s Dairyman, called Knox “a very learned man,” saying that his knowledge extended not only to journalism, but also to the minutiae of the dairy industry, veterinary science and the science of herd health.

“He contributed much to the control of livestock cattle diseases, not only in Wisconsin, but throughout the world,” said Allenstein, who wrote the column “Cowside Practice” for more than 30 years until retiring about a decade ago.

“He was a great man, but he was also a businessman,” Allenstein, who also served as Hoard’s Dairyman Farm veterinarian for many years, said of Knox. “He believed everything you did had to pay for itself, not only in publishing, but also on the farm. We couldn’t make a change on the farm without his OK.”

Allenstein said he also carries a great debt to Knox. He said Knox did more for him than almost any other man in the world, exposing him to the greats of the dairy industry and world dignitaries, as well.

Just the other night, Allenstein said, he had the opportunity to reread a speech Knox had made introducing an award Allenstein once received, and he could not believe this “great man” had such fine things to say about him.

While recognized for his contributions nationally in the dairy industry, Knox also made his mark in Fort Atkinson, in part as a member of the Fort Atkinson Rotary Club.

A member for 58 years and a past-president of the service organization, Knox initiated the Top 20 Scholars banquets recognizing academically talented high school freshmen and seniors. In 1987, he was recognized by the club with its top recognition, the Honorary Paul Harris Fellow Award.

“We’re always saddened by the loss of a Rotary member,” Rotary President Dean Brown said this morning. “Bill was always a dynamic community leader, so we’re sorry to lose him.”

Al Haukom, retired president of Nasco and a fellow Rotarian, said he cherished the friendship that he and his wife, Wilma, had with Knox and his wife, Jane.

“They were wonderful people,” Haukom said. “I admired him very greatly and appreciated his friendship.”

During a Rotary program in the past few years, Haukom was asked to talk about his own personal achievements and background in relation to his service to the Rotary Club; however, he instead chose to honor Knox, whom he admired so much.

He presented a broad list of accomplishments and achievements of his good friend. Upon concluding his presentation, one Rotarian stood and noted that Haukom was supposed to have spoke about himself, but had only discussed Knox.
“I’m proud of being a combat Marine in World War II, I’m proud to be a Fort Rotarian and I’m most proud to be a friend of Bill Knox,” Haukom recalled saying, noting that he promptly sat down after concluding his statement.

“All along the way, I’ve admired what Bill has done,” Haukom said today.

When Knox resigned from the School District of Fort Atkinson Board of Education in 1959, he was influential in selecting Haukom as his successor. Haukom ultimately served seven years on the board, following in Knox’s footsteps.

Haukom said he greatly appreciated Knox’s efforts in shaping his time as president of Nasco.

He noted that when James Baird was called up for duty in the U.S. Army, Knox hired artist Grant Cummings as art director in his absence.

“They were very pleased with him, but they had to find something suitable for him upon Jim’s return,” Haukom said.
Knox was aware that Haukom was seeking an artist as a major element in the Nasco catalog department and suggested Haukom interview Cummings.

“He knew I was looking for an artist to be a major element in our catalog department. I hired Grant and he was a tremendous plus, as far as I was concerned,” Haukom recalled.

In addition, he described Knox as a “real down-to-earth person with tremendous talent.” However, he emphasized, Knox never used that intelligence in a way that showed any ego.

“He was a common, ordinary guy with all of us that were associated with him either socially or business-wise,” Haukom said. “I’m most sincere in my appreciation for Bill Knox and I’m sure going to miss him.”

Another fellow Rotarian and longtime friend, Ken Pattow, said he came to know Knox through his job at James Manufacturing Co. and as a parish member at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church.

“I’ve known Bill ever since I came to Fort Atkinson 50 years ago,” he said.

“I found him to be a first-class gentleman who was nationally recognized,” he said, noting that he at times would encounter Knox in airports while he was in transit working as a national agriculture adviser.

“He had a tough job to fill,” Pattow said of Knox’s role as W.D. Hoard Jr.’s successor in company ownership. “He kept the thing going just as smooth as Bill Hoard.”

The two men’s children grew up together in Fort Atkinson.

“I have all the greatest respect for Bill Knox,” Pattow said. “He’s one of the real pillars of Fort Atkinson. I know he will be missed by a lot of people both here in Fort Atkinson and around the country. I sure will miss him.”

Retired Fort Atkinson City Manager Robert Martin also fondly recalled Knox.

“It was a pleasure to work with him; he was a gentleman and a great community leader,” the fellow Rotarian said. “I’m very sad to hear of his passing and Fort Atkinson will miss him.”

Dianne Hrobsky, executive vice president of the Fort Atkinson Area Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber joined the city and dairy industry in mourning Knox, whom she described as “another icon in Fort Atkinson’s business community.”

“Through the historical landmark Hoard’s Dairyman Farm and its award-winning dairy herd and publishing the Hoard Dairyman, he has perpetuated the visibility of Fort Atkinson throughout the world of agriculture,” she said. “Fort Atkinson has become a ‘must stop’ for World Dairy Expo visitors.”

In addition, Hrobsky noted that area residents sometimes take for granted the value of having a daily newspaper (the Daily Jefferson County Union) in a community the size of Fort Atkinson.

“It continues to keep us connected and informed,” she said. “Thankfully, Bill knew the power of publishing. We will miss his wit and wisdom.”

In 1987, Knox and his family endowed a scholarship through the Fort Atkinson Community Foundation in his wife, Jane’s, name to help women who had been out of high school for a while before going to college. The scholarship, known as “Adopt-a-Student,” was a cause near and dear to Jane Shaw Knox, a member of the local chapter of the American Association of University Women. It helped women at a sophomore standing for five years, or until the student completes her bachelor’s degree.

“My primary contacts with Bill were as a result of the scholarship fund,” said Helen Rose, program administrator at the Fort Atkinson Community Foundation. “He was always interested and wanted to know who the women were that the scholarship helped.”

Among Knox’s contributions both nationally and in Fort Atkinson was bringing the National Dairy Shrine to Fort Atkinson. Today, officials in that organization were recalling Knox with fondness.

“You certainly lost two real giants in the dairy industry,” said Maurice Core of Columbus, Ohio, executive director of the National Dairy Shrine, referring to Knox and Meyer.

“The two of them, Bill Knox and Gene Meyer, had the greatest influence on the National Dairy Shrine Board of Directors in making the decision that Fort Atkinson was the right location for the visitor’s center,” Core said, noting that everything had virtually been moved to Madison.

However, when Fort Atkinson was mentioned, the board reconsidered.

“Bill and Gene were the two real leaders that got the job done in making the decision to locate in Fort Atkinson,” Core said.

Knox was president of the National Dairy Shrine in 1960 and recognized with the organizations highest award as its “Guest of Honor” in 1967. Until his death, he had been the oldest living past recipient of the Guest of Honor.

Core said that in addition to serving as president and being recognized, Knox was always one to get out his checkbook and financially contribute to the Shrine.

“He was, in my lifetime, one of the truly great dairy leaders,” Core said, noting that like Hoard before him, Knox supported anything in Hoard’s Dairyman that was good for dairy farmers.

Hoard Historical Museum director Sue Hartwick said today that the staff and volunteers at the Hoard Museum and Dairy Shrine also will miss Bill Knox.

“Bill was also a great and loyal friend to the Hoard Museum,” she said. “Losing him just a few months after losing Gene Meyer is tough to take, but his work made us stronger and his family has been a great gift to this city.”

Hartwick noted that many would be able to speak of Knox’s contributions to the dairy industry.

“Our archive contains citation after citation about the awards and honors that came his way for his contributions to American agriculture,” she added.

“I’d like to extend our deepest sympathies to the Knox family and to the W.D. Hoard & Sons publishing firm that he led so well,” Hartwick said. “Bill Knox loved that company and Hoard’s Dairyman magazine. Everyone who watched him continue to come into work despite his health problems can attest to that.”

In addition to the National Dairy Shrine, Knox and Hoard’s Dairyman magazine had a profound impact across the entire dairy industry. His knowledge and leadership was felt by those involved in dairying across the nation.

John Campbell, the former dean of agriculture at the University of Illinois, former president of Oklahoma State University headquartered in Stillwater and now emeritus professor of the Animal Sciences Department of the University of Mississippi-Columbia, said he has “the ultimate respect” for Knox, whom he called a man “of great depth of thought, fairness and integrity.

“We both worked in the dairy industry,” Campbell said. “We both believed in the dairy industry and in the people in it.”
“I admire him so much,” the professor said, recalling Knox as a very articulate person who received many invitations to give major speeches around the world.

Unlike many people in the public eye, however, Knox never accepted a stipend or honorarium, Campbell said, stating that Knox chose his speeches according to what he wanted to say and to whom rather than how much engagements paid.
“He wanted to be able to speak freely,” Campbell said. “He even paid his own expenses to get there.”

Since the days he worked closely with Knox, Campbell has authored major books, including “The Science of Providing Milk for Man,” and he co-authored others.

“I’m not sure if I quoted him for that, but I certainly quoted W.D. Hoard,” Campbell said of “The Science of Providing Milk for Man.”

Campbell characterized Hoard, the founder of Hoard’s Dairyman and the Daily Jefferson County Union, as a man of ideals rather than practical politics, and said that Knox followed Hoard’s philosophy in that way.

Others within the dairy industry agreed.Truman Graf, a former professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s agriculture economics department, said that he and Knox worked together on “a myriad of problems and issues in the dairy industry for close to 50 years.”

Graf worked in dairy research and also with the University of Wisconsin-Extension, both in which Knox was closely involved.

Graf called Knox one of the true leaders of the dairy industry throughout his life, characterizing him as intelligent and analytical, as well as personable.

“The fact that he had Hoard’s Dairyman as an outlet was a plus, but even without the magazine, he would have been a leader in the field,” Graf said. “He really had a lot of clout.”

Meanwhile, Bob Walton, retired president of the American Breeders Service in DeForest, called Knox “one of the great, great people” in his field.

“He was truly a giant of the dairy industry, whose leadership both in person and with his pen have had a tremendously positive influence over the past 60 years,” Walton said.

Additionally, Walton characterized Knox as a man “whose counsel on emerging issues has been sought at critical times throughout his long tenure at Hoard’s.”

Although Walton himself could only speak to 40 of those years, the former ABS president called the passing of Knox “a great loss,” for the industry and for the people who knew him, stating,
“He just made an unbelievable contribution."He just made an unbelievable contribution."