Six stops left
Utah State University President Kermit L. Hall milked a cow for the 22nd time. This was done in front of 85 second grade students at Dee Elementary in Weber County, Wednesday during his Benchmark Tour of Utah.
“We’re delighted we’re here with you this morning,” President Hall said, greeting the students.
Edgar Guillen and Claudia Hernandez, two students at Dee Elementary, both said they liked seeing the cow being milked. Weber Schools Superintendent Ted Adams, said milking the cow was a great way to introduce USU to inner-city Ogden kids.
“These kids have an urban experience. They don’t have these experiences if we don’t create it for them,” Adams said.
Donna Corby, Dee Elementary principal, said 75 percent of the students at the school are part of a minority.
“They’ll talk about it. For many of them [the students], they have never seen where milk comes from,” Corby said. “It really adds to their experiences and broadens their horizons.”
The cow, Emmy, was provided by MartyMickelson, a Cache Valley resident, and is the fourth Cache cow President Hall has milked during the tour.
Most of the cows have been brought from Cache Valley to be milked, said John DeVilbiss, director of University Public Relations and Marketing.
President Hall began touring the state last spring to meet with schools, alumni and local community and business leaders. To date, he has visited 23 of the 29 counties throughout the state. As part of the tour, he milks a cow at an elementary school and lectures to a high school class on the John F. Kennedy assassination.
His wife, Phyllis Hall, reads to an elementary school class. Reading to the students at Dee Elementary was one of the best stops she has had so far on the tour, she said.
“We were with a group of kids who learned something, introducing them to something new,” Phyllis said.
They met with Weber County community and business leaders and local alumni and political leaders at the Ogden River Parkway, a park provided by USU. Glen Burton, a Weber County commissioner, said it is a great idea to meet with local leaders.
“We welcome him to our county,” Burton said. “We’re looking forward to seeing him more often. We’d like to see him visit every year.”
While speaking to the community leaders and alumni, President Hall said the purpose of the tour is not only to speak about USU but to raise the benchmark for the university to be competitive with other land-grant universities, such as Iowa State and Washington State.
“Our most important product are students,” he said.