Steve Hannah was a reporter, columnist and Managing Editor at the Milwaukee Journal for 18 years. He wrote a syndicated column called “State of Mind” for 12 years after that and spent 11 years (2004-2016) as CEO of The Onion.

Former Onion CEO Pens Book About The 'Kind, Graceful' People Of Wisconsin

Steve Hannah was a reporter, columnist and Managing Editor at the Milwaukee Journal for 18 years. He wrote a syndicated column called “State of Mind” for 12 years after that. He also spent 11 years (2004-2016) as CEO of The Onion, Wisconsin’s single greatest contribution to the mental health of America. His new book, Dairylandia, was just published by the University of Wisconsin Press. A refugee from metropolitan New York, it describes his four-decade love affair with the people of Wisconsin specifically, and the Midwest in general. He has had a home on the Wisconsin River in Sauk County for four decades. We caught up with him between book events.

Matt Geiger: Why didn’t you write a book about The Onion?

Steve Hannah: Did you read the preface to the book? I spoke directly about why I wanted to write about my love affair with my adopted state, in the world between NY and LA, and why I didn’t want to do a book about The Onion—at least at this time.

MG: I did read that. I read the whole book! I was just pulling your chain.

SH: Well, it worked.

MG: So, how would you describe Dairylandia? And why did you want to write it now?

SH: The simple premise is that, in this utterly confused, polarized, dysfunctional world we inhabit today— our politics are utterly broken, the culture has been coarsened and phony social media has replaced real human relationships—there are still really good people in the world. They are just not…loud. I met so many of them in Wisconsin. Kind, graceful, genuine, brave and humble with an instinctive understanding of what small role we all play in the grand scheme of things. Much of the book is about those people. We should be more like them.

Why now? Because I am getting older and I’ve got to get things done. I took a religion course in college. Martin Luther said that we are all beggars desperate to tell other beggars where we found bread. Probably doubly true for writers. I found good bread in Wisconsin and I wanted to tell other people where they could find bread, too. Plus, I have had good fortune and I felt I had some bread to distribute. That’s a little grand but you know what I mean.

MG: You are from the East Coast and accidentally ended up settling in Wisconsin, where you found so many of the fascinating characters and ideas that you write about. I wonder about your ability to see things that make this region unique. Did being from somewhere else help you to appreciate the Midwest?

SH: I’m spent my formative years in New Jersey, culturally about as far from Wisconsin as possible. Where I grew up it was fast-paced (overrated), hyper-competitive, unbridled ambition was prized, running over people was applauded. I got here and, in short, I found a much more civilized society. I liked it better. Yes, the contrast was very interesting and very appealing to me. I wondered if I could ever be like these civilized people? I’ve been trying—Michael Perry called me the “perpetual newcomer” in the introduction to Dairylandia—to get there. So, yes, being from someplace so dramatically different gave me a different perspective. At first I thought it was kind of sweet; over time I learned it was genuinely good to be in the middle of the country. It’s balanced.

MG: Your columns jump pretty effortlessly between humor and gravitas. One minute you are telling a funny story about a Norwegian farmer from Clear Lake or escaped elephants, the next you show your readers a guy who lost his legs in Vietnam and later opened his home as a sanctuary for Vietnamese refugees arriving in Wisconsin. The next moment it’s the world’s most prolific frog-catcher going on about frogs he has known, followed by your own connection to the Jeffrey Dahmer case.  All humorists are more serious than people realize, and most serious writers are funnier than people think, but combining the two can be treacherous. How do you do it?

SH: I think the book just tracks some of the most significant moments in my life. I haven’t marched much of a linear course—really good, life-affirming events and people have been followed by the darker side of things. I think that’s just the way life is laid out, or certainly the way my life has played out. Some of it is warm and fuzzy and truly meaningful. Other parts of it are tragic. That’s life—at least as I know it. Sometimes I’m pretty funny and sometimes I’m deadly serious.

MG: Which of the stories in the book is your favorite?

SH: On the lighter side, I love the story about the funny guy who painted Mona Lisa on the barn in northern Wisconsin and I also loved going rattle-snake hunting with Mr. Woodrow Wilson Roberts of Barneveld. As for stories that have a deeper truth to convey, I loved writing about the poet Ellen Kort and the Laotian refugee Joe Bee who landed in Eau Claire and the pure, unadulterated dignity of Gov. Tommy Thompson’s “younger, smarter brother, “ the late Eddie Thompson. He was a wise man who was not afraid to reveal himself. Lots of lessons in the lives of extraordinary ordinary people. I loved most every one.

MG: You seem so interested in other people’s stories. Is that something you worked to develop, or have you always seen the world that way?

SH: I learned that at my mother’s knee and, as she used to say, “other joints.” She was an extraordinary person. She could answer a wrong number and spend 45 minutes on the phone with a stranger and emerge with their life story. She was a skilled, gentle interrogator. And a great listener. She always said there was nothing in the world more interesting than the personal stories of regular people and, as she reminded me because she worried that I might someday stray far from home, “you don’t have to go to Timbuktu to find a person’s story.” I learned from watching and listening to my mother. 

MG: What was it like revisiting so many people and places that you had uncovered decades earlier in your professional life?

SH: It was enormously rewarding. First I tracked them down because I needed to bring the book up-to-date. But when I reconnected with them or their families, it was like homecoming. It was thrilling. Made many of my days. Made me really happy, too. 

MG: What’s next for you?

SH: I have a six-month old Labrador puppy named Poppy. She wants to go for a walk. After that I’m going to try and finish a book that I started before Dairylandia. It’s a book about growing up. It’s called, Busy Boy, which is what my mother used to call me. After that, I’ve been toying with the idea of doing something about The Onion. We’ll see. 

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