Ray Kuehl has been selected as the 2012 Beaver Dam Unified School District Wall of Fame recipient.

He will be honored at the 16th annual wall of fame banquet on April 1 at Beaver Dam High School.

The outstanding alumni award which Kuehl will receive is given annually to a graduate of the Beaver Dam district in recognition of exceptional accomplishments.

Kuehl is a 1952 graduate of Beaver Dam High School and has worked in the dairy industry for 60 years.

He has been a leader for dairy producers in Dodge County, the state of Wisconsin, and around the world. After graduating from high school, Kuehl worked on his family dairy farm and attended UW-Madison for a year while farming.

In 1970, he went to work for the U.S. Holstein-Friesian Cattle Breeders Association in Vermont as a cattle classifier, field representative and an international marketer of dairy cows. He returned to Wisconsin in 1979 to start his own dairy cattle consulting business. This led him to become a partner of American Genetics, where he served as a farm manager and marketed cow embryos around the world. Due to an agriculture related medical condition, Kuehl had to make a career change so he began selling real estate, eventually beginning his own business. He is also started an auctioneer business.

Kuehl was instrumental in the creation of the World Dairy Expo, which is held annually in Madison. When it was announced that the U.S. National Dairy Cattle Show would be discontinued, Kuehl and a few other cattle breeders developed a plan to hold the show in Wisconsin. The Expo is now the largest dairy industry exposition in the nation. Kuehl brought state-wide focus on Dodge Countys dairy industry when he chaired the Alice in Dairyland competition, held in Beaver Dam in 1964. He was appointed by Governor Tommy Thompson to the World Dairy Center Authority, which chose sites for the new State Department of Agriculture and the World Dairy Center buildings in Madison.

Kuehl served on numerous local and state dairy and farming organizations and has received many awards and other recognition. He has also helped thousands of dairy farmers become successful dairy animal producers. Kuehl is dedicated to the youth in the dairy cattle industry and has been instrumental in raising money to promote agriculture education in schools. He also willingly gives of his time and returns to Beaver Dam High School to encourage, inspire and challenge young FFA members to set their goals high and respect others.

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Wall of Fame recipient announced