Advertisement Every federal politician serving the area sent a representative, Sen. Dan Kapanke (R-La Crosse) and Rep. Lee Nerison (R-Westby) were there. There were also countless members of the county board, financial institutions, economic development reps, officials from cities and other municipalities and a host of others.
Everybody wanted in on what is one of the best pieces of economic news in our area in a while.
Premier Meats is a joint partnership between Dan and Sue Jacobson and Terry Hoyum.
Before the ceremony began, I talked with Hoyum, who I visited with quite a bit last week during a break at the Vernon County Board meeting.
On Monday, Terry said that as the news has come out about the impending construction of Premier Meats, he has received about 150 job applications.
Only if we had 150 jobs for them. As it stands now, Premier Meats’ business plan says it will employ between 12 and 20 people.
While the business plan has been two years in the making, Dan Jacobson said the idea of owning a facility such as Premier meats has been on his mind for 10 years.
Jacobson said he has long studied beef genetics and “the final step of beef genetics is getting it on somebody’s plate.” Premier Meats will go a long way toward making that happen.
The business is to be located at the intersection of Hwys. 14/61/27, Three Chimney Road and Barstad Road between Westby and Viroqua. The business will include 8,000 square feet of space for processing and another 3,950 square feet in retail space. Meat, cheese, wine and other products will be sold in the retail area.
Jacobson said the owners hope to “get as many local products and as much local support as we can.”
Hoyum said the groundbreaking was just one more step in a journey of many leading toward grasping a dream. He did call it a “big step.”
I wish Hoyum and the Jacobsons great success. I applaud the work of Vernon Economic Devel-opment Association Executive Director Sue Noble, who has worked to help Premier Meats get the resources it’s needs to reach this point.
Noble said that the groundbreaking for Premier Meats was another effort in developing a “buy local” culture for all area residents.
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I was sitting on Main Street in La Farge taking photographs of the Fourth of July parade, Saturday morning.
Vernon County Sheriff Gene Cary was standing behind me, providing traffic control.
The ZOR Shriners went whizzing by in their quick little stunt cars, performing nifty turns and maneuvers.
My comment to Gene as the cars zipped off further down the parade route was, “Did you see all of those illegal turns?”
Like a pistol, he shot back, “Did you happen to get a plate number?”
The cars have no license plates.
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The Viroqua Eagles Club had a great crowd for its first annual Fourth of July car show.
There were a lot of nice vehicles on display all along South Rock Avenue.
One interesting vehicle of note — DuWayne “Simp” Hanson had on display a red 1982 Chevy C-10 red pickup, It may have been a bit plain considering the other vehicles, however, the truck had an interesting claim to fame. It was once owned by the Northern Wisconsin Tobacco Pool.
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If you didn’t make it to the Sherry-Butt House for the Fourth of July Strawberry Shortcake Social, you don’t know what you were missing.
The music and the generous bowls of ice-cream-covered strawberry shortcake received two enthusiastic, and sticky, thumbs up.
The Skylighters fireworks were a great way to end the holiday.
E-mail Matt Johnson at matt.johnson @lee.net.
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