NAMES IN THE NEWS : Wisconsin to Royko: ‘Cheese It’

Wisconsin tourism promoters hoping to curdle the blood of sharp-tongued columnist Mike Royko are sending him a cheese carving in his own likeness, designating him an honorary “cheesehead.”

The 45-pound, 2-foot-tall cheddar bust, complete with eyeglasses, is the latest in the tit-for-tat spat between the Fond du Lac tourist bureau and the acerbic Chicago Tribune writer. It began when the bureau made fun of Chicago’s crime problems and Royko bit back by referring to Wisconsin residents as “cheeseheads . . . content to chomp on bratwurst.”

Royko felt a little yellow behind the ears. “They can do whatever they want with their cheese,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer retorted Tuesday.

A Royko column in January described Fond du Lac as a “tranquil” place where residents’ “eyes are glazed, their jaws hang slackly, and a few drooled.”

Ron St. Mary, a chef at the Holiday Inn in Fond du Lac, carved the bust in six hours, using water and heat to mold it like clay.

“I guess it’s just one cheesehead to another,” the chef said.

Royko said he’s thinking of sending back “a cheese corpse.”