How sadly appropriate that the very week David Letterman pulled the plug on his late-night show and Vice President of Advancement Wayne Webster announced he is leaving Ripon College, we learned that our cookie factory’s assembly line will be shut down for good. It was 20 years ago this spring that a confluence of similar players — Letterman, Ripon Foods and a Ripon College development officer — gave Ripon one of its prouder moments. That year, Ripon College major gifts officer Teri Tomaszkiewicz visited the Letterman show in New York City, carrying 400 wrapped Rippin’ Good Cookies. The King of Late Night himself promised audience members a cookie if they behaved themselves during taping. He then not only held up packs of Rippin’ Good Cookies, he gave one to a guest, Samuel L. Jackson. The movie star declared for all of Ripon and millions of other viewers: “Mmmm, Mmmmm. Rippin’ good!” That Ripon is losing this point of community pride pales compared to the personal devastation suffered by those who staked their families’ futures in the belief that their employer on Oshkosh Street would keep its doors open for another 85 years. Nothing can alleviate their loss, grief, anger and fear. But this community needs to get its chin up off the factory floor. To hell with the Bremners, Ralcorps and ConAgras who turned the Bumby family’s enterprise into a puny holding in their multi-billion dollar portfolio. ... Twenty-two years ago, this paper had the audacity to suggest in a publisher’s column that Riponfest be renamed, “Cookiefest,” and be rebuilt around the wholesome romanticism of freshly baked cookies. The sad-sack publisher’s opinion was lambasted for two weeks, with most of the dozen letters-to-the editor writers agreeing with editor Jody Fraleigh that, collectively, “We are identified not by our jobs but by our town.” ... For several weeks, folks took the newspaper to task for daring to highlight the product of a single local industry when Ripon is so much more than a dessert to be eaten with a glass of milk. There’s that college on the hill, they said, and washing machines, the GOP birthsite, schools, pickles, hospital, downtown, police, preschools, service clubs, food pantries, library, etc. The people had spoken and, as usual, they were right. ... Ripon is so much more than cookies. As long as community pride endures, we don’t have to say good-bye to Cookie Daze. We can still drop packaged cookies from a fire truck. Or we can drop lollipops. Or packs of M&Ms. It was never the cookies that made Cookie Daze a hit. It was the ideas, energy and can-do spirit of the organizers and volunteers. No billionaire companies can dampen that. Mr. Jackson was right. This community remains “Mmmm, Mmmm. Ripon good!”