I”ve been trying to think of a logical reason
To jot a few lines for this Holiday Season.
As we near Y2K, you”ve seen lists, I”ll allow,
Of the century”s finest, but not the best cow.

Top athletes and movies and music and such —
But what of the bovines who offered so much
That people remember and know them by name?
I”ll give you my picks for the Cow Hall of Fame.

Which Ayrshire should be at the top of my list?
There are likely a dozen or so that I”ve missed,
But my candidate could jump over the moon,
She”s Ada the Ayrshire, that matchless cartoon!

I”ll offer the name of a Champion Brown Swiss,
A bovine no student of Swiss cows would miss.
Her beauty and grace set dairy heads turnin”!
For no one who saw her forgot Jane of Vernon.

Any aerospace cow would create quite a scene,
But a Guernsey was first in a flying machine.
I”m decking this pioneer bovine with holly.
And opting to honor the great Elm Farm Ollie.

Hundreds of Holsteins are worthy of note —
Yet Charity”s getting my black and white vote.
But, Felicia May Fury or Black Rose or Ella
Would be Supreme Champion for many a fella!

To name my top Jersey was really a breeze,
There”s one special cow we remember with ease.
We”ve seen her in pictures for sixty years now —
And know her as Elsie, the Borden folks” cow.

But what about Shorthorns, bred to give milk,
Or boldly marked cows of the Dutch Belted ilk?
Red and Whites, Dexters, breeds old and new,
Might argue we ought to consider them, too.

So, you be the judge, make a list of your own —
Of cows that you milked or maybe have shown.
And remember those bovines whenever you say,
“Merry Christmas to All, Have A HappY 2K!”

— DAVE DICKSON, 1999

This is a bonus holiday poem by Dave Dickson, poet laureate and emeritus professor of dairy science and dairy extension at the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Now that I”m retired, it seems like there”s more time to try to be creative,” he says. Dickson will celebrate (or suffer) Y2K at his family”s dairy farm near Everson, Washington.