Spirit Day

Prize: Cooler from M&I Bank, T-shirt from Sconnie Nation

Meridith Berghauer is a fish janitor — or at least that’s what she tells the students she works with in her side job as a swim coach.

In fact, the 2002 graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison is an aquarist at the Discovery World at Pier Wisconsin in Milwaukee. And she has a lot of Badger spirit. So much spirit that she won the prize for “Most Creative Show of Spirit” during the annual Badger Spirit Day photo contest sponsored by the Wisconsin Alumni Association (WAA).

Berghauer, who has worked at Discovery World at Pier Wisconsin for the past four years, donned a Badger hockey “Crease Creatures” T-shirt and dove into one of the tanks of fish to show her spirit.

“I figured no one had ever done that before,” she explained.

Her dedication to Bucky goes beyond the tanks filled with Lake Superior trout and rare coral from the Florida Keys. When she purchased her home in Milwaukee, a white house with red shutters, the basement was painted in maroon and gold — Minnesota Gopher colors.

She quickly remedied that unacceptable décor with some red and white paint, and now has the perfect room to display the Wisconsin Badger merchandise she won in the photo contest.

Prize: $100 gift certificate from University Book Store

John and Steff sent this photo from Sydney, Australia — more than 9,160 miles from Madison.