Cactus Club

American Dairy Assoc. of Illinois

Dairy Princess Carol Willer

In 1970 I was hired to manage the ADA of Illinois. This organization took voluntary contributions from dairy farmers to promote the sale and use of milk and dairy products. It had many facets...including a Dairy Princess Contest. The entrants had to live on a dairy farm in Illinois and then they were assigned a chaperone and certain paid personal appearances as the "dairy spokesperson". The following photos are a small sample of things we did to stretch the dollars that dairy farmers entrusted to us. We silk-screened a lot of signs...made our own awards and supplied 4-H clubs with free materials and a contest to see who could be the most imaginative. We moved the association's headquarters from a run-down street in Joliet to a small country town in Central Illinois. This organization has since merged with Mid-West Dairy Association and is funded by Federal mandate instead of voluntary contributions.
Our feeble efforts were the best we could do with a very limited amount of money and a 27 man Board of Directors. Lois and I left in 1977 to go into business for ourselves. "TWICE WARMED IS HE WHO CHOPS HIS OWN WOOD"

Slideshow

The Butterknife Award. We presented restaurants with a Golden Butterknife Award when we learned that they served real butter as opposed to margarine.
Billboards. We sponsored radio and tv commercials plus a series of billboards which we designed.
Grocery store signs. We screen printed much of this material ourselves in addition to buying it from the national office, American Dairy Association in Chicago.
Farm Signs. Dairy farmers owned land and we made metal farm signs with their name on them. Some of these can still be seen in rural Illinois!
Mr. Keith King of Oneida, IL. This dear man was one of our directors.
More farm signs. We bought the metal in Chicago from a scrap yard and borrowed a room at Select Sires in
Southern Illinois to screen print these.
Sign making. We were really using Band Aids and Bubble Gum. There were 4 of us on staff. We did all the work ourselves.
Another sign.
Professional Store Merchandising. Our fieldmen, Bud Boyd and Morris Cole, spent many days driving around Illinois and hanging these professionally made in-store merchandising signs in grocery stores near the dairy case.
Our first big project was the Dairy Products Building at the Illinois State Fair.There was much more we did, but this gives you and idea of the effort. I must mention that we had a jewel named Mary Pack who did all the bookkeeping. She was a widow and spent many years in the service of ADA.

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