University of Wisconsin Digital Collections: Bunny Berigan, Fox Lake's Own

Link to December 17 Beaver Dam Daily Citizen article, "Digital collection gives access to Berigan history".

Excerpt: Bunny Berigan was a well known trumpet player who grew up in Fox Lake, and went on to have a career in New York and playing with such bands as Benny Goodman, the Dorsey Brothers and Paul Whiteman in the 1930s and 1940s.

The work was made possible by a Library Services and Technology Act grant awarded to the Fox Lake Public Library. This collection is now part of the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections.

Melissa McLimans, digital services librarian at the UW Digital Collections Center contacted the library when the project was done.

"The material on the site is great and the pictures are just wonderful," McLimans said. "I cannot wait to begin the publicity on this awesome collection. You and your people did an excellent job."

Applying for the grant was first proposed by Rhonda Puntney, who works for the Mid-Wisconsin Federated Library System of which the Fox Lake Public Library is a member.

She had taken a vacation in New Orleans and while there had a conversation with some musicians who asked her where she was from. When she told them Wisconsin they immediately said Bunny Berigan was from Wisconsin.

She told them "I am a member of the Bunny Berigan Jazz Jubilee committee that puts on the three day event in Fox Lake, every year."

That planted a seed in her mind and when she returned home she contacted the Fox Lake Public Library to ask how many things about Bunny could be included in a digital collection. Upon making a personal visit to the library and seeing the scope of the materials she decided that there were at least 1,000 pages of written material about Bunny and probably 200 pictures.