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A career worth celebrating Franke provides life lessons one cow at a time
By Abby Wiedmeyer abby.w@dairystar.com
HILLSBORO, Wis. –Joel Franke has a lot of numbers to consider.
Franke has been breeding cows for more than 40 years and, during that span of time, has had 17 vehicles and driven more than 4 million miles; he has hit 59 deer and taught more than 300 students how to breed cows.
And while Franke is approaching a milestone of breeding 100,000 rstservice cows, he will be the rst to say his career is about more than the cows.
“My customers are like family to me,” Franke said. “I’ve gotten to meet some pretty important people.”
Franke is an A.I. technician with CentralStar Cooperative Inc. and has been breeding cows with the company since 1989.
Franke said his decadeslong career has been enjoy- able due to the opportunities that have stemmed from his on-farm interactions.
Franke’s customers are mainly small farms in western Wisconsin with a few larger dairies sprinkled in. The largest dairy Franke has worked with was home to 3,600 cows. The 60-year-old said the differences in farms adds variety to his work.
Franke used his skills to instruct A.I. classes for 20 years. His mother, who taught in a one-room schoolhouse, gave him the advice to never teach the lesson but rather to teach the student. Franke took his mother’s advice to heart and learned to watch students’ eyes when teaching them how to breed cows.
“If their eyes lit up, they got it,” Franke said. “You might have to teach the same lesson six different ways, but I could see it in their eyes if they got it.”
His youngest A.I. student was 8-years-old and his oldest, 75. The 8-year-old had to stand on a milk crate and practice on Jersey cows, but the year after she learned how to breed cows, she bred her family’s entire beef herd.
“If they have an interest, push that interest until they either want to do it or they decide they want to do something else,” Franke said. “But either way, it’s knowledge that they’ve gained.”
Franke’s instruction also expanded to the fairgrounds.
By working with families, Franke became involved in the Elroy Fair and served on the board for almost 18 years. He also implemented a junior fair board for the Elroy Fair. Franke said the junior board made improvements to the fairgrounds under his supervision. One year, they tore down the fair ofce and built a new one twice its size in two weeks before the fair.
“That was a unique group of kids at a unique time,” Franke said. “They could accomplish anything.”
Many of the same kids he worked with in Elroy also attended the Wisconsin State Fair, so Franke supervised the state fair trip as well. For 17 years, Franke was a chaperone for Juneau County junior dairy exhibitors, and for 10 years, he was supervisor of night barn duty.
One year, kids and chaperones collected donations to have a commemorative brick dedicated to Franke. The brick was placed in the courtyard of the Tommy G. Thompson Youth Center at the Wisconsin State Fair Park in West Allis.
The brick reads, “In honor of Joel Franke, junior state fair dairy night barn supervisor. With admiration and appreciation for his humble service and dedication to the youth and for life lessons taught.”
While at the fair, Franke noticed that on occasion a cow or heifer would come into heat. He started bringing his breeding kit and tank with and was the only technician available to breed cows at the fair for many years. He offered the service as a volunteer effort to help the kids advance their herd.
“People would ask why I bothered to breed those cows if I didn’t get paid to do it,” Franke said. “But nobody wants their cows to be in heat at the fair, and they got a lesson in genetics. Besides, where is our next generation of customer going to come from?”
Franke’s dedication earned him the 2006 Heritage Award from the International Association of Fairs and Expos. Prior to that, Franke served as the president of the Wisconsin Association of Fairs.
Franke’s travels carried him farther from home.
In 2004, Franke ventured to Turkmenistan in Central Asia through the Farmer-to-Farmer Program where he volunteered to help establish agricultural projects in the area’s schools. One of Franke’s former fair youth accompanied him, and together, they spent two weeks helping kids grow crops and raise small livestock, such as chickens.
A year later, Franke returned to see how the children’s projects had developed. One girl had raised 10 chickens. Because her father had provided the feed for the chickens, he was allowed to keep one of the project chickens for himself.
“That father was so proud of what his daughter had accomplished that he cooked a chicken and fed the family and neighbors,” Franke said. “The school-based projects had a big impact on students and families.”
Franke said he enjoyed learning the culture and the experience made him appreciate the difculties others go through.
Franke said the opportunity in Turkmenistan was the most inuential of his career, because he married the project translator he met while there. After 10 years, in 2019, Mahrijemal joined Franke in America.
When reecting on his career, Franke said the kids are what stand out the most.
“There’s just so many of these kids that have went on to become something,” Franke said. “Through the news and farm papers, I have been able to follow them and have the opportunity to say I knew them back when. And, they remember me.”
Franke spends his spare time studying local history and tinkering with projects. Oftentimes, he will take on a project to help the farmers he works with. If there are things the milk inspector marks down like a broken screen or door, Franke will take the time to x what is broken.
“The farmers have noticed the little things I do,” Franke said. “I enjoy what I do because it’s never the same day twice. God has blessed me with the opportunity to be involved in many different things, and by doing so, it has strengthened my faith that He has a plan for each of us.”
