95.14 Corporations to improve livestock.

(1) Three or more adult persons of this state may form a corporation, without capital stock, to be managed and directed as herein provided, for the purpose of improving the breeding of livestock by such means and methods as may be deemed most advisable, and to receive and manage contributions therefor made from time to time by way of gifts, deed, devise, bequest or otherwise, and to expend the income thereof for the purpose of the corporation. The work of any such corporation shall be entirely educational and designed by practical work with the breeder upon the farm to result in a better understanding and practical application of the scientific and technical principles taught in agricultural colleges and experiment stations, so as to effect the greatest possible coordination between the science and the art or practice of breeding, but such work shall not be merged with the work of any educational institution. Any corporation organized hereunder shall have authority to pay all necessary expenses properly incurred in carrying out the purposes of the corporation, including compensation to employees and to directors for services actually rendered in conducting the affairs of the corporation, but no pecuniary profit shall ever be paid to any incorporator or director.

(2) Any corporation organized under this section shall be managed and directed by a self-perpetuating board of directors of 5 members, consisting of the dean of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who shall be permanent chairperson of the board, and 4 others to be appointed in the first instance by the incorporators; at least 3 of the 5 members shall always be representative livestock breeders of the state. If the dean of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences fails to act as a member of the board by reason of refusal, disability, or vacancy in the chair of the dean, the remaining members of the board shall appoint a representative livestock breeder to act in his or her place on the board until the time as such refusal, disability, or vacancy in the chair ceases to exist. Whenever the dean of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences becomes a member of the board of directors after any such interim, the dean shall automatically become chairperson of the board.

(3) The term of office of all members of the board, except the permanent chairperson, shall expire one each year by lot. The remaining members shall elect a member to succeed the person whose term shall have thus expired. Vacancies occurring during the year may be filled at once by the remaining members.

(4) Any such corporation shall have the general powers of other corporations and its articles of organization shall conform to s. 181.0202 with such modifications as this section requires.

History: 1973 c. 335 s. 12; 1979 c. 32; 1993 a. 184; 1997 a. 79; 2001 a. 103.