Although a city boy, Ed Janus spent 2 years milking 30 cows and farming 240 acres in Crawford County in the 1970s. He loved every minute of it - which means he was never a real dairy farmer. Nevertheless, he has been deeply interested in dairying since those days.

In the early 1980s, Ed helped start the Madison Muskies, the first professional baseball team in Madison in over 40 years. He was the general manager of the team. A few years later, Ed started Capital Brewery, which was once named among the top ten breweries in the world! While president of the company, he wrote its business plan, helped sell $1.5 million in shares to the beer-drinking public of Wisconsin, and oversaw the development of its award-winning beers. For these efforts, he was nominated for the Wisconsin Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

For the past 24 years, Ed has been an audio journalist and writer. He has conducted recorded interviews with over 300 people and produced radio programs on agriculture, health, outdoor living, and education. He was editor-in-chief of the Rural Audio Journal, a series of audio documentaries on education in the rural Midwest. His first-person audio book on surviving breast cancer won top honors in 1998. Ed also produced an eight-part audio series on Wisconsin dairy farmers for the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board. In addition he has written for Hoards Dairyman.

Ed has created audiobooks, podcasts and radio programs for broadcasters like "Marketplace" on NPR and internationally on "Voice of America."

Creating Dairyland, his book on dairying in Wisconsin was published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press in 2010. Ed wrote this book to help people learn to "read" Dairyland by understanding how things in the past - things that are unseen today - are still alive in the present. Ed argues in this book that today’s Wisconsin - our very landscape and character - were created by cows and the humans who learned to care for them.

Ed speaks often to historical societies and farm groups about what he calls “the remarkable story of dairying in Wisconsin.” More recently he has traveled the state recording conversations with rural people.

Drinks, hors d'oeuvres and dinner will be served. See the "Event Details" link below for additional information.

Online registration ends Friday, December 7.