Wisconsin Ag Connection - UW-Platteville Establishes Dornink, Sonneburg Memorial Scholarships

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UW-Platteville Establishes Dornink, Sonneburg Memorial Scholarships
Wisconsin Ag Connection - 10/15/2018

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville's Pioneer Dairy Club is using the proceeds of this year's Pioneer Dairy Classic consignment sale to honor the legacy of two alumni who recently passed away. The club announced it will establish the Jeff Dornink and Kayla (Dolan) Sonnenburg Memorial Scholarships.

The Dairy Classic will be held October 20 at the Grant County Fairgrounds in Lancaster. Organizers say Dornink and Sonneburg, who both passed away over the summer, had a tremendous influence on the agriculture and dairy industries in Southwest Wisconsin and beyond.

"They were really important to the industry," said Dr. Tera Montgomery, associate professor of dairy and animal science and advisor of the Pioneer Dairy Club. "I knew we had to do something to honor them. I mentioned the idea to the students, and said 'I know you probably didn't know them,' and there turned out to be an amazing number of our students who actually knew them directly. A lot of students told me how much they impacted them."

Dornink was a 1985 graduate of UW-Platteville's agriculture program. He managed the dairy enterprise at Pioneer Farm for many years before becoming an agriculture instructor at Southwest Tech.

Sonnenburg graduated from UW-Platteville in 2011. She was a former president of the Pioneer Dairy Club and also met her husband, Ryan, through the club. Post graduation she worked as a sponsorship manager for the World Dairy Expo.

In addition to the memorial scholarships, the club also plans to provide support to the family of Julie (Meinnert) Mentink, another alumna in the dairy industry who was killed last January as a result of a snowmobile accident.

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