MONROE — Swiss singing, Swiss heritage and Swiss roots: Bert Digman and Sherry Anderegg share a common love of all things Swiss. This pair of longtime friends will serve as marshals for The Swiss Colony Cheese Days Parade in 2018.

Cheese Days has been part of Digman’s life since childhood. The daughter of Frieda (Schenkel) and Ben Jenny, she grew up on a 200-acre dairy farm near Monroe. Her father was always in the Cheese Days parade and joked that if a cow walked by, that was a parade. She fondly remembers a holstein from their herd named Dolly, who she would show at the fair. Dolly was also the parade cow, and Digman’s father would “cobble something together” and come up with a theme for Dolly who then was hitched to pull a two-wheeled cart. In 1940, a teenage Digman borrowed a fancy dress from her aunt and helped distribute sample boxes of cheese and crackers to the crowds at the festival.

She got more involved with Cheese Days back in the 1980s when Sherry Anderegg recruited her to be on the retail committee, which she co-chaired for many years. She also took part in the “bar hopping group” made up of revelers from the Cheese Days committee who would make the rounds to area bars and restaurants in advance, to promote the festival. Digman worked at various places in the community: the bank, the clinic and Bruni Miller, where she did everything from bookkeeping to sales. 

Sherry Anderegg, daughter of Ted and Geraldine (Hauser) Ott, also grew up on a dairy farm and worked many years at Moore Business Forms, now RR Donnelley, and Monroe Clinic. Anderegg was recruited by Walt Rufener and Jan Benkert to co-chair the retail committee. She also co-chaired the entertainment committee several times with Clayton Streiff. She went on to serve as vice president of the Cheese Days board and currently chairs the History and Archives Committee, a labor of love that she took on after Kathryn Etter passed away. 

One of Anderegg’s most prominent Cheese Days memories is from 1988, when a small group from the Swissair Band made plans to visit and entertain at the festival. She was tasked with finding homes in which they could stay. Interest in making the trip grew, and the group from Switzerland kept getting larger and larger, with eventually more than 100 people planning to take part. Local Monroe residents began avoiding Anderegg, turning away when they saw her in the grocery store and at church, because they knew she’d be asking if they had a spare room for a band member or spouse to stay in. However, she kept trying and opened her own house to the director and several band members.

Both Digman and Anderegg have been members of the Swiss Singers. Both are involved with hosting the Heart of Cheese Days Swiss Heritage exhibit that the Monroe Swiss Singers present at Turner Hall during the Cheese Days Festival. Both have been to Switzerland and would go back without hesitation. Digman has family roots in Glarus and Berne, and Anderegg has family roots in Glarus. Look for these two women to be celebrating their Swiss heritage and leading things off at the Swiss Colony Cheese Days Parade Sept. 16.