Carl and Jan Aschoff were on their first date when a patrolman stopped the young man’s car near North Bend.
“Have you been drinking?” the patrolman asked Carl.
Aschoff picked up a milkshake.
“Only my milkshake,” he said.
Years later, Jan chuckles about the milkshake conversation, which perhaps was fitting for a couple who’d spend years serving and promoting the dairy industry and encouraging future generations of dairy herdsmen and women.
This month, the Aschoffs will be honored as grand marshals of the Fremont 4-H Expo from July 12-15. It will be a posthumous honor for Carl, who died in November 2022. Jan will present awards to the grand ambassadors at the expo’s community business luncheon on July 14 and participate in the John C. Fremont Days parade on July 16.
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“They have been the dairy show superintendents for as long as I can remember,” said Jay Schroeder, expo co-manager. “They’re very deserving of this honor.”
Jan was 7 years old when she first showed dairy cattle. She participated the Dodge County Fair in Scribner and Fremont 4-H Fair. Carl was about 8 when he got a brown Swiss calf that he named “Klim” – which is “milk” spelled backward.
Both showed dairy cattle at the Nebraska State Fair and Aksarben.
Carl and his dad, Anthony, began a business of breeding cattle for other farmers. After high school, Carl took an 18-month dairy course at Iowa Lakes Community College.
Jan became one of the first women to graduate with an agri-business degree from Northeast Community College in Norfolk.
Carl became a dairy herdsman at Boys Town in Omaha, teaching youth there how to milk cows with a machine. He kept in touch with some of those youth years later.
After Boys Town, Carl worked for the Dairy Herd Improvement Association (DHIA). As a supervisor, he went from herd to herd, collecting and sending milk samples to a central lab, where they were tested for quality.
He was collecting samples at the farm where Jan lived – in between North Bend and Scribner—when he asked her out on a date.
Carl later proposed at about midnight on Valentine’s Day in the North Bend park and they married in 1994.
By then, Jan—who’d also worked as DHIA tester—had quit that job. She moved to Carl’s home place by West Point. Carl continued his testing job and she milked about 40 Holstein and Ayrshire dairy cattle via machine. She also began working at a greenhouse in Columbus.
Already a 4-H leader by the time they married, Carl stressed an important lesson about showing cattle to the youth he mentored.
“It didn’t matter what kind of animals you had as long as you worked hard to do your best at presenting them to your and the animal’s best ability,” Jan said.
Jan noted that when she was young her family had good dairy cattle, but not the real expensive ones.
“Ours were all home-raised,” said Jan’s sister, Joyce Glodowski. “We didn’t buy anything outside the herd.”
Soon after they married, Carl took over as superintendent of 4-H dairy cattle at the Fremont 4-H Expo.
Carl and Jan started the “Cream of the Crop” dairy show in 1999 in West Point to help prepare youth for showing cattle at county and state fairs. The event continues to be made possible via donations.
The Aschoffs later sold their herd after feed costs soared and milk prices dropped. Carl began selling dairy bull semen in Nebraska and Colorado for Semex USA.
They continued coordinating “Cream of the Crop.” Jan said 90 head of cattle were part of the show on June 17.
“The most we’ve ever had was 124 (head of cattle),” she said.
That was in 2020 when many other shows were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We thought about canceling it (Cream of the Crop), but so many people wanted it – their own shows were canceled – so we went ahead and had it,” Jan said.
Jan believes dairy farms are important.
“Too many people don’t know where milk and cheese and ice cream comes from,” she said. “It’s getting to the point where nobody has a grandpa or an uncle who had a dairy. It’s consolidating. It’s big dairies and not many small dairies.”
Jan and Joyce laugh at memories of bottle feeding calves that would head-butt the container and pop off the nipple.
“All that milk will splash everywhere and just coat you,” Jan said.
Joyce recalled: “We got in trouble several times for being late to school, because these little things would come up.”
Jan remembers when she was glad to be a bridesmaid at their brother’s wedding. After the ceremony, Jan and Joyce went home to milk cows.
It was the middle of winter and cousins from Omaha were helping with the cattle. That’s when one cow butted another one, knocking the 1,400-pound animal upside down into a wooden feeder.
“They ended up cutting the feeder in half so they could get her (the cow) out,” Jan said.
Jan almost missed attending the wedding reception. Joyce never made it.
While sharing recollections, Jan notes how kids benefit by working with animals and participating in shows.
“You learn respect for the other kids and the cattle and you learn how to get along with other kids and help each other,” she said.
Kids learn responsibility by caring for the animals, too.
Carl spent years teaching many lessons to kids. He was 62 when he died and few months later, Schroeder asked if Jan and Carl (posthumously) would be grand marshals.
She agreed.
“Carl knew so many people,” Glodowski said.
Jan agreed adding that Carl could meet someone once and remember their name and hometown years later. He’d recall the lineage of a bull back five or six generations.
Carl loved history, too. He gathered materials and got people together to create a book commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Cuming Fair in 2022.
Jan has many fond memories of Carl – who got a warning ticket on their first date, only because she thinks the patrolman spotted him drinking something and assumed it was alcohol.
Carl was good-natured with or without a milkshake.
“He was always smiling,” Jan said. “He was good with kids. His main concern was always keeping kids involved so they had something to do.”
Jan was surprised and honored when asked if she and Carl would be grand marshals.
“He always looking for a way to improve things, to get people involved with stuff,” Jan said. “I think he’s missed by a lot of people.”