MONROE — Green County Cheese Days is hoping to shatter the Guinness Record for World’s Biggest Polka at the festival on Saturday, Sept. 21 at 2 p.m., on the Historic Courthouse Square in downtown Monroe
The current record, set in Crailsheim, Germany, in 2013, was only 802 dancers.
“We’re going to dance the shoes off of those Germans and their silly record,” said Terry Goetz, one of the instigators of the record-breaking idea.
Polka tunes will be blasted all around the festival grounds in downtown Monroe, so dancers can polka while waiting in line for deep fried cheese curds, polka while watching a big wheel of Swiss cheese being made — the old-fashioned way — in a giant copper kettle, or polka while someone else holds their beer. The warm-up practice will be to the sounds of that ubiquitous polka tune “Roll out the Barrel.”
“Polka here, polka there, and polka everywhere,” said Cheese Days Director Noreen Rueckert, who successfully organized more than 100 accordions to play the Cheese Days Song back at the festival’s 100th anniversary in 2014.
The timing for the record-breaking attempt couldn’t be better, as 2024 marks the 30th anniversary of the polka becoming Wisconsin’s official state dance. The proclamation was signed into law by Governor Tommy Thompson in April 1994.
Lending authenticity to the event will be DJ Shotski (aka Stacy Harbaugh) whose love of spinning vinyl records set the stage for her fun gig as host of an all-polka radio show (on air WVMO-FM 98.7, and streaming on various stations). DJ Shotski enthusiastically specializes in Dutchmen-style polka recordings from Wisconsin and the upper Midwest, and welcomes the opportunity to “share that vintage polka sound with a whole new generation of listeners.”
Green County Cheese Days is currently inviting dancers to express their interest in taking part with the pre-signup online, at cheesedays.com.
To be officially counted, however, dancers must sign in, in person, the day of the event. The Polka Registration Station, to be located on the northwest corner of Monroe’s downtown Square, will operate from 8:45 a.m. until 1:59 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 21. Commemorative “World’s Biggest Polka” buttons will be available for the first 3,000 dancers who register day of the event.
“Get ready for an oompah-licious time,” said Gary Neuenschwander, board president of the Cheese Days Festival.
Cheese Days is billed as oldest food fest in the Midwest, with the first festival dating back to a one-day event in 1914. Today’s three-day celebration features Wisconsin’s only parade led by a herd of Brown Swiss cows. For more information, visit
cheesedays.com.
