MONROE — With Cheese Days a mere two months away, organizers have named the king and queen of the 2024 festival and announced their intention to seek a world record for the largest number of polka dancers on September 21 during the event’s run.
The news came during a kickoff last Monday at the Swiss Center North America in New Glarus.
“…It’s time to officially meet Tony and Esther Zgraggen, who will reign as king and queen of the 2024 festival,” said a press release from event organizers. “Their strong connections to Switzerland and the local cheese industry make them an ideal fit for this royal honor.”
Event organizers also named other “royalty” for the 2024 run, which is billed as the oldest food festival in the Midwest: Breanna Brooks was named Cheese Ambassador, while Reid Krueger was named Prince and Stella Doyle, Princess.
As for the polka record, Cheese Days officials will pipe polka music throughout the festival on the loudspeakers, and at 2 p.m., all attendees will be asked to stop and polka right where they stand on the square. They need 850 dancers to break the world record.
The current record is 802 dancers, held by Crailsheim, Germany, in 2013.
Participants, meanwhile, are encouraged to register online ahead of time or sign up on the day of the event to ensure everyone is counted toward the record.
Reacting to the news of his coronation, Tony told those gathered for the event that he feels fortunate to have the honor in his adopted home country and community, and to have his wife by his side.
“I called her a queen, but now it’s official,” he said.
Esther also thanked community leaders for the honor.
“We love Green County, we have everything we need here,” she said.
According to a biography provided by Cheese Days organizers: Tony was born in Uri, Switzerland, where the Zgraggen family name has been registered since the year 1321. He can trace his personal lineage back to 1609, and Zgraggen remains a common surname in the area.
Tony’s parents, Alois and Berta, raised their family on a dairy farm, and he has fond memories of accompanying his father to buy the big washed-rind wheels of Alpine cheese when the herds of dairy cows came down from the Alps after the grazing season.
While growing up, Tony always liked singing. When pop tunes by the Beatles flooded the airwaves in the late ’60s, he found that while he appreciated their music, he also enjoyed traditional folk music and yodeling on the radio. Inside the local cheese factory, where he worked scrubbing tanks and milk cans, there was a large open-tiled area. The acoustics in the open-tiled area of the factory were perfect for an echo, like the echo created by the open space of valleys between the mountains in the Swiss Alps. He often sang while working alone, and taught himself to yodel.
In 1978, he made his first trip to the United States, and spent a summer learning about crops like peas and soybeans at UW Madison’s Arlington Farm. A year later he was back with a student visa, and found a job milking cows and cleaning barns at Crave Brothers Farm.
In 1980, Tony returned to Switzerland to finish school but always had the goal of establishing himself in the United States. After responding to a newspaper want ad for a farm laborer in the New Glarus Post, Tony was hired on the spot to work at Voegeli’s Brown Swiss Farm in Monticello. Howard Voegeli told him to report for work the following Monday, but he ended up starting a day early when he was called in on Sunday morning to assist the veterinarian with vaccinating heifers.
Tony returned to Switzerland to get married and this time returned to the United States with the official designation as a “registered alien.”
“He and his first wife bought a herd of Brown Swiss cows, but times were tough in the dairy industry and things didn’t work out,” said the press release. “His siblings back in Switzerland helped financially to get him started in renting another farm.”
Esther (Fuss) Zgraggen grew up on a small dairy farm in Längenbühl near Thun, Switzerland, in the canton of Bern. The family also grew crops including cabbage, potatoes, carrots, and sugar beets.
After two-year grocery store apprenticeship, Esther’s goals were to learn another language and to come to the United States. But her path to the United States was not exactly straight, and for a while she worked as an au pair in the French-speaking region of Switzerland.
Esther’s opportunity to come to the United States was as an FFA exchange student through an agricultural school in Langnau. Many years earlier, her grandmother’s half-brothers (surname Wenger) had worked in a small cheese factory in Thierachern, near Thun. The brothers immigrated to the United States, with several working in the Wisconsin cheese industry, so Esther was somewhat familiar with the region. She flew to New York for an orientation. The remainder of the trip was by bus, and traveling with her was another Swiss exchange student who was lined up for a job on the Wegmueller Farm in Monroe.
Tony and Esther met in New Glarus and married in 1989. The milk from the farm they lived at went to Roth Cheese Factory in Monroe, which meant having an opportunity to sell cheese at the Dane County Farmers’ Market in Madison. They wanted to buy the farm, but the owner was not interested in selling. They briefly considered a move to a farm they visited in Washington state, but ultimately decided Wisconsin would be their home.
The pair tried different jobs, including hotel and restaurant management, and insurance sales. For several years, Esther worked at Robert’s European Imports in downtown New Glarus. She bought the business in 2006, changed the name to Esther’s, and moved it down the street across from the New Glarus Bakery. The couple learned that just as with many things in life, the jobs they tried did not exactly lead in a straight line to where they knew they wanted to be.
Bruno Hodel, an acquaintance and Swiss native, had been operating the Alp and Dell Cheese store in Monroe. He was looking to make a change, and asked Tony and Esther if they knew of anyone who would be interested in taking over.
Tony said, “I think I know someone.”
Tony and Esther took a chance, took out a loan, and bought the business in 2009. They learned about the origins of the cheese and the local factories. Together, the pair built on their life experiences and skills learned at other jobs — like selling cheese at the farmers’ market, and Esther’s background in marketing and merchandising.
“Things started to take off, radio advertising helped, and it’s been a good business,” said Tony, who loves coming to work at the cheese store in Monroe and loves going back home to New Glarus, too.
Much to the delight of cheese shoppers and tourists visiting Alp and Dell Cheese Store, Tony will often oblige when asked to yodel. A few years ago, he yodeled on a commercial for the Wisconsin Department of Tourism. He has been a member of the New Glarus Yodel Club since 1980, and was recently elected president of the North American Swiss Singing Alliance.
Tony and Esther are not ready to retire, but they wanted to have a succession plan in place. Frequent shoppers at Alp and Dell Cheese Store have likely met Nora Koller, a longtime employee who formed a business partnership with the Zgraggens in 2023. Their other business, Esther’s European Imports, has transitioned from online plus brick and mortar to being completely online. These changes allow flexibility for travel and to spend time with grandchildren. Together, the couple has four children and 11 grandchildren — with families as close as Verona, Wisconsin, and as far away as Sevelen, Switzerland.
Tony and Esther have been busy with television and parades to promote the cheese industry and the Cheese Days Festival. Their calendar is filling up with appearances and social events this summer. Along with the rest of the royal family, they will serve as official hosts to welcome the crowds during the festival in September.
In a world often divided, Esther points to Cheese Days as a positive force bringing people together for a connection to Swiss culture and traditions, and a love of cheese.
“At the end of the day, when everyone comes together to celebrate, you can always enjoy a good piece of cheese,” says Esther.
— Gary Mays
