My Father-in-Law, Friend of the Cow

Please excuse a little personal note here. As most of you, my wife's father died a couple of weeks ago. The funeral and everything else happened soon after, but just today the Minneapolis Star Tribune published a "news obituary," separate from the one that the family provides and has to pay for with the basic information. Anyway, it was so nice, and amusing in a way my father-in-law would have appreciated, that I just had to share it.

I sometimes have to ask students for documentation when they ask to miss tests or get extensions because of deaths in the family -- grandparents and uncles really seem drop like flies right around mid-terms some years -- so consider this some documentation for the day of class I missed.

Veterinarian Al Kunkel, friend of the cow

He was an early proponent of organic dairy farming, believing more exercise and less stress meant more milk.

By Ben Cohen, Star Tribune

Last update: October 01, 2007 – 9:51 PM

Dr. Alphonse Kunkel was a proponent of organic dairy farming long before it was a part of the modern agricultural landscape.

Kunkel, a veterinarian, died of lung cancer at his Cold Spring home on Sept. 17. The longtime St. Michael resident was 79.

Kunkel grew up on his family's farm on Pearl Lake in Stearns County. A few years after graduating from the University of Minnesota's College of Veterinary Medicine in 1952, he established a practice in St. Michael.

"He was organic before there were people talking organic," said his longtime veterinary partner, Dr. Tom Hagerty of St. Michael, who joined Kunkel's practice in 1959.

In the 1970s and '80s, Kunkel's position was a "little bit revolutionary," said Hagerty. "He was a true missionary. He argued his point with many noted nutritionists in the region."

Kunkel believed that more exercise and roughage and less corn made for a healthier herd. Over the life of the cow, it would produce more milk, avoiding stress and metabolic diseases, he said.

Hagerty said that Kunkel, an Army veteran, was an excellent veterinarian and teacher.

"He was the type of person who saw all the best in people, and the best in livestock," he said. "The welfare of the animal was of utmost importance."

In the early 1980s, Kunkel left veterinary practice to serve as a nutritional consultant for dairy farmers. His work took him to Guyana, Poland and Russia, said his daughter Katherine Lefebvre of St. Michael.

"He was a maverick," said his daughter. "He connected with vets around the world."

In 1976, Kunkel served as president of the Minnesota Veterinary Medical Association. He is the author of the book "Profitable Dairying." He also served on the St. Michael City Council from 1966 to 1979.

He sang choral music and through his church, St. Boniface Catholic Church of Cold Spring, helped immigrants in their new lives in America.

His wife, Joan, died in 1994.

In addition to his daughter Katherine, he is survived by his second wife, Joyce of Cold Spring; two other daughters, Mary of Apache Junction, Ariz., and Karen Pasley of Columbia, Mo.; a son, John of Pine River, Minn.; three sisters, Lorraine Jones of Tacoma, Wash., Donna Grams of Mesa, Ariz., and Sylvia Winkleman of Brooklyn Center; three brothers, Andrew of Pearl Lake, Richard of Fairfax, Va., and Jack of Burlington, Vt., eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Services have been held.

Ben Cohen • bcohen@startribune.com

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