It was only a few days after Donald Hying had been installed as the Madison Catholic Diocese’s new bishop that the priest at Immaculate Conception in the Grant County hamlet of Kieler, population 500, called him up and invited him to the parish’s July 4 picnic.
Not only did Hying become the first diocese bishop to attend the annual, 65-year-old event; he also stayed for more than two hours and “cleaned off all of our plates for us,” Rev. Bernard Rott said.