Allison Geyer
Bucky Badger joined Madison Area Sports Commission President Deb Archer, UW-Madison Vice Chancellor for University Relations Charles Hoslet and MASC vice chair Joe Boucher for a special announcement about a public art project starring our beloved mascot.
After a series of teasing press releases hyping a “big announcement” about a “huge event” coming to Madison next spring, officials from the Madison Area Sports Commission unveiled their plans Wednesday morning. Well, we do live in a university town. And we do adore our beloved mascot, Buckingham U. Badger.
By this time next year, the Madison area will be home to more than 100 statues of Bucky Badger as part of an initiative produced by the Madison Area Sports Commission, with support from the Greater Madison Convention & Visitors Bureau. Bucky on Parade, whose backers include UW-Madison, the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Center, the UW Athletics Department, is similar to the CowParade Wisconsin initiative from the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, which brought a herd of 101 artistically decorated fiberglass cows to locations around Madison, Fitchburg and Sun Prairie. The Bucky statues will be on display from May through September 2018.
“You’ll see them around the campus, the city and other prominent locations in Dane County,” said Deb Archer, president and CEO of the Greater Madison Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Madison Area Sports Commission. “We believe [this project] will bring visitors from all over as well as be a delight to residents who live here.”
Like CowParade, Bucky on Parade is a fundraiser that will benefit causes including Garding Against Cancer, a charity founded by UW-Madison men’s basketball head coach Greg Gard and his wife Melissa to support cancer research and care in Wisconsin, as well as the Madison Area Sports Commission and other local groups. Revenue will come from sponsorships and the auction of selected Bucky statues at a gala event when the exhibition ends. In 2006, the CowParade project raised about $550,000 for the American Family Children’s Hospital, with $363,500 coming from the auction of 44 cow statues.
Joe Boucher, vice chair of the Madison Area Sports Commission, said the event’s purpose is to bring people together, noting that Bucky on Parade is an example of the kind of “mutually beneficial town-and-gown partnerships that make Madison a great place to work and play.”
“And maybe, just maybe,” he added, “it’s time to see Bucky in something other than his red and white sweater.”
