91 years old. Still planning the dairy breakfast. That wasn’t dedication—that was just Duane.
Here’s the detail that keeps coming back to me.
He was still serving on the Sauk County Dairy Breakfast planning committee at 91 years old. Still showing up to meetings. Still contributing ideas. Still doing what he’d been doing since Heatherstone Farm hosted the very first Sauk County June Dairy Month Breakfast decades earlier.
Most people that age have earned the right to rest.
Duane kept showing up.
That single fact tells you everything about the man who turned a Baraboo industrialist’s farm into one of Wisconsin’s most respected Holstein breeding operations.
From Cameron Farm Boy to Baraboo Legend
Duane came into this world on October 23, 1934, in Cameron, Wisconsin. Elmer and Frances Hegna raised him on a dairy and hog farm—the kind of upbringing that either breaks you or builds you.
It built him.
By the time he graduated from Cameron High School, he was Prom King, Basketball Team Captain, Baseball Team Captain, and “Turk” the trumpet player. The kind of young man who didn’t just participate. He led. And there was something else about him, too—a willingness to take a chance when the moment called for it.
Here’s my favorite part of his story.
While serving as an usher at a cousin’s wedding, an attractive young lady caught his eye. Carol Jean Nelson of Barron. What did Duane do? He dared to pinch her when seating her.
That lady became his wife of 70 years. Seventy years from one pinch at a wedding. Duane always did know when to take a chance.
Building Something That Outlasts You
In 1960, Duane and Carol Jean—everyone called her Jean—packed up and moved to Baraboo. Norman Sauey, a local industrialist, had just built a new dairy farm and needed someone to manage it. That someone was Duane.
The farm was called Heatherstone Enterprises.
By the mid-1960s, Duane and Jean could see what Sauey’s operation could become. They didn’t just dream about it. They purchased it. And then they spent the next 25 years building what would become a world-renowned genetic herd of registered Holsteins.
The farm sat at the foothills of the Baraboo Bluffs and Devils Lake State Park—the kind of Wisconsin landscape that makes you understand why people stay. Duane kept every inch of it meticulously maintained. “The farm has long been admired by passersby and fellow dairymen,” his family wrote. Anyone who drove past understood. This was a place where someone truly cared.
His son-in-law Mike Holschbach—who married Duane’s daughter Valerie in 1984 and eventually took over the operation—found the perfect words for it. He called Heatherstone “the welcome mat of Baraboo.”
That wasn’t marketing talk. That’s exactly what it was.
The spreadsheet tells one story. The farm itself told another.
Nine consecutive years winning the Progressive Genetics Award. Premier Breeder and Exhibitor at the Midwest Fall National. Seventy-one Excellent females bred on the farm. Twenty-two Gold Medal animals carrying the Heatherstone prefix. A rolling herd average of 27,734 pounds with 4.5% fat and 3.3% protein.
Numbers don’t capture the 3 a.m. calvings. The breeding decisions that didn’t work out. The years when milk prices made you question everything. But Duane kept at it. Day after day. Year after year.
Here’s what those numbers really mean: Excellence isn’t a moment. It’s a decision you make every morning for 25 years.
Duane made that decision. Every single day.
The Quiet Leader Nobody Could Miss
Sharon Maffei worked at the Wisconsin Holstein Association office. She knew a lot of dairy people over the years. When she heard about Duane’s passing, she said it simply: “Always enjoyed Duane’s visits to the WHA office. Sympathy and prayers to all of you on the passing of such a nice man.”
That was Duane. He showed up. He served. And people remembered him for it.
Look at his decades of service—and I mean really look at it. 4-H Dairy Project Leader. Wisconsin Holstein Association Board of Director. Wisconsin Forage Council Board of Director. National Holstein Association Member and Delegate. Baraboo Elks and Lions Club member. Red Cross Blood Drive volunteer. World Dairy Expo volunteer.
He wasn’t one of those guys who took titles for the resume line. He actually did the work. He organized the Sauk County Dairy Breakfast. He showed up at the Red Cross. He volunteered at Expo. And when someone asked him to help with something else—well, look at that list. You can draw your own conclusion.
And then he kept doing it. For decades. Right up until 2025, when he was 91 years old.
In 1985, Duane and Carol Jean received both the Wisconsin Master Agriculturist Award and the Wisconsin Outstanding Holstein Breeder Award. The Master Agriculturist program dates back to 1930—one of the longest-running career-achievement honors in American agriculture. To receive both awards in the same year? That was recognition of what everyone in Wisconsin dairy already knew.
Kay Thiessen Cummins, who’d known the family since childhood and 4-H days, remembered: “Your Dad was always so cheerful and happy to help. I remember your parents and of course you from childhood and 4-H. He will be remembered fondly.”
Mary Moffit put it this way: “He was a very kind, generous and funny man and will be greatly missed.”
Cheerful. Helpful. Kind. Generous. Funny.
Those aren’t the words you usually see in dairy industry obituaries. But they’re the words that kept showing up when people talked about Duane Hegna.
The genetics mattered. But the man mattered more.
Legacy in Three Generations
Duane and Jean raised their daughter Valerie on the farm. In 1984, Valerie and her husband Mike Holschbach joined the operation as herdspeople.
Anyone who’s been through a farm transition knows that’s where a lot of families come apart—the older generation letting go, the younger generation finding their footing, everyone trying to figure out whose farm it really is. Somehow, the Hegnas made it work. Eventually, Mike and Valerie purchased the enterprise and continued building on the foundation Duane had laid.
Mike went on to serve as President of World Dairy Expo. In 2018, he received the A.C. “Whitie” Thomson Memorial Award. But when asked about his approach to dairy farming, Mike’s answer reflected Duane’s philosophy perfectly: “Do the best you can do every day.”
That’s it. No complicated formula. No secret system.
Just show up. Do the best you can do. Every day. For 25 years. For 60 years. For a lifetime.
Mike and Valerie raised their three children—Brienne, Chase, and Chelsea—on the farm. Duane got to watch his grandchildren grow up in the barns where he’d spent his life. Brienne married Clay Carlson, and they gave Duane three great-grandchildren: Mason, Elin, and Isla.
That’s four generations now, if you’re counting.
In April 2019, after more than 60 years of breeding registered Holsteins, Heatherstone held its complete dispersal. The catalog opened with words that captured what Duane and Jean had built: “Our herd dispersal is the finale and culmination of over 60 years breeding quality Registered Holsteins. We give pause to reflect on the journey that has brought us to this day. We cherish so many memories throughout the years.”
More than 750 people marked themselves as interested or attending on Facebook.
People showed up. Because Duane had spent a lifetime showing up for them.
What We Lost
The dairy industry doesn’t just lose genetics when someone like Duane dies.
We lose institutional knowledge—the kind you can’t find in a database. Duane remembered when AI was the revolution, not genomics. He knew which cow families held up under Wisconsin winters and which ones looked good on paper but broke down by third lactation. That kind of knowledge doesn’t transfer in a spreadsheet. It lives in someone’s head until one day it doesn’t live anywhere at all.
We lose servant leaders. The men and women who don’t just hold board positions but actually show up and do the work. Who volunteer at Expo. Who organize community events. Who never say “that’s not my job.” The ones who keep saying yes until they physically can’t anymore—and even then, find ways to contribute.
We lose bridges between generations. Duane was born in 1934. He watched Holstein breeding evolve from visual appraisal and production records to genomics and IVF. He connected the generation who built modern Holstein breeding to the young people making mating decisions on their smartphones today. Those bridges matter more than we realize until they’re gone.
And we lose examples of what it looks like to pursue excellence without losing your humanity.
But mostly? We lose the people who made this industry feel like a community.
Duane and Carol Jean Hegna were responsible for developing the foundational Heatherstone registered Holstein herd. Duane was a steward of the land. A steward. That’s exactly the right word.
Duane didn’t just own a farm. He stewarded it. He took what Norman Sauey built in 1960, purchased it in the mid-1960s, and over 25 years turned it into something that mattered. Not just to his family. To the breed. To Wisconsin dairy. To everyone who passed by on Highway 12 and saw what a dairy farm could look like when someone truly cared.
And then he handed it to the next generation and trusted them to carry it forward.
Services
Duane passed away at Meadowview Memory Care in Baraboo following a brief illness. He was 91 years old.
He’s survived by his wife of 70 years, Carol Jean; daughter Valerie (Mike) Holschbach of Baraboo; grandchildren Brienne (Clay) Carlson of Verona, Chase Holschbach of Baraboo, and Dr. Chelsea Holschbach of Fitchburg; great-grandchildren Mason, Elin, and Isla Carlson; and sister-in-law Sharlot Nelson of Barron. He was preceded in death by his parents; his sister, Beverly Norwick; and his brother-in-law, Charles Nelson.
Funeral services will be held at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, January 7, 2026, at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Baraboo, with Pastor Donald Glanzer officiating. Visitation begins at 10 a.m. Inurnment will be private.
Memorials may be made in Duane’s honor to Lions Club International, Sauk County Fair Society, or St. Paul’s Lutheran Church.
The family thanks the staff at Meadow View Memory Care and Agrace Hospice for their compassionate care.
A Final Word
The welcome mat of Baraboo won’t greet visitors the same way anymore.
But what Duane built behind it—the herd, the family, the example—that’s not going anywhere.
The next generation of Wisconsin breeders will carry his lessons, whether they know his name or not. The farms he helped through 4-H leadership. The associations he served on. The community events he kept organizing right up until the end. All of it continues.
That’s what stewardship means. You build something worth passing on. And then you trust others to carry it forward.
Duane Hegna did exactly that. For 91 years.
If you have memories of Duane to share, the community welcomes them in the comments below. Let’s honor him by remembering not just what he built, but who he was.
