Sharing dairy’s story

This past month was filled with activity. I made many classroom visits, met with local radio stations and saw my gopher friends from the Minnesota State Fair again.

January started with a radio interview at KCHK of New Prague, Minnesota. At this interview, I shared some of the things that I have been doing as Princess Kay. I also reflected on my coronation and state fair experience.

January was filled with classroom visits. I visited nearly 800 students. I started at an elementary school in Minneapolis where I spent the day presenting to students from first to eighth grade. The highlight of this visit was when the students and I went on a virtual tour of a dairy farm from the Midwest Dairy website. It was fun to see how many questions the students had about dairy farming. They were excited to see all the cows, and just like any tour of a dairy farm, the calves were their favorite.

During the next two days, I visited an elementary school in St. Paul, Minnesota, with the first through fourth grade students. We read about the jobs we do on our dairy farms to make sure our cows are happy and healthy. We also played a game to help us define and identify dairy products. With all the classes that I attended, we finished off the visit by making a postcard to review what we learned. On the front of the postcard, the students drew a picture of one thing they wanted to remember from the activity, and on the back, they wrote a sentence about what they learned. These postcards are a perfect opportunity to share the dairy presentation with their families when they get home.

I visited Zion Lutheran School Jan. 29, in Mayer, Minnesota. I visited students from preschool to fourth grade. I read a book about how dairy products are made, and we talked about the importance of dairy for our health. Tippy the cow from the Carver County Fair also joined me during this visit, and we handed out cheese sticks to the students at lunch. One of my favorite experiences during this visit was in the fourth-grade class. There were two boys who both grew up on farms and loved farming. As I was reading the book, the boys raised their hands and asked questions, or they shared more information with their classmates. They were great dairy ambassadors, even at this age.

On Jan. 27, I visited the St. Paul Winter Carnival where I joined Fairborne and Fairchild, our Minnesota State Fair mascots, in the King Boreas Grande Day Parade. It was great to see all the people who came to enjoy the abnormally warm weather we were having for the end of January. Being a brave Minnesotan, it was fun to wear a dress for the parade rather than bundling up in my snow pants and jacket.

My favorite part of January was getting to see all the support the Princess Kay program has across Minnesota through my parade, radio and school appearances. I met three of Princess Kay’s biggest fans at the Zion Lutheran School visit. My visit was the idea of three daughters of a local dairy farmer. Their parents told me all about their love for the Princess Kay program and how the girls dressed up as Princess Kay for Halloween. I met the girls on my visit, and it reminded me of how lucky we are to grow up in the dairy community. We get to see our parents’ and grandparents’ love for the dairy community as we grow our own passion. Perhaps I met three future Princess Kays that day.

Princess Kay of the Milky Way, Emma Kuball, serves as the Minnesota dairy community’s goodwill ambassador. Kuball grew up in Waterville, Minnesota, working on her family’s sixth-generation dairy farm. She attends the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, studying agriculture education, and looks forward to becoming an FFA advisor. She enjoys reading, crocheting and baking. Her parents are Nate and Shannon Kuball.

Princess Kay is active doing school visits, representing dairy farmers and sharing the importance of dairy farming and dairy foods at appearances across Minnesota.