Brownfield

Indiana Ag Youth Awards Program kicked off in Wayne County

The Indiana Ag Youth Awards program kicked off Friday as Brownfield Ag News teamed up with affiliate radio station WKBV to recognize and honor four 4-Hers at the Wayne County Fair.  This is a summer-long program that has become a tradition at county fairs across the Hoosier state. 

Categories of recognition include outstanding showmanship, champion animal, and oustanding 4-H member. Recipients are awarded a beautiful engraved 4-H buckle.  We are excited to continue this tradition in partnership with affiliate radio stations and county 4-H programs.  Listen to interviews with the youth and check the calendar for presentations on the Ag Youth Page of the Brownfield website. 

Dave Russell traveled to Wayne County Fair Friday to assist Chris Nolte, WKBV, in making the presentations to Wayne County 4-Hers Josh Wampler, Joey Carr, Tyler Klein, and Kaitlyn Culy.

Summer "vacation??"

You have seen her byline on the Brownfield website.  You might just hear her voice on Brownfield programs this summer.  Katie Allen has been working with the Brownfield Ag News staff for the past few months while she wrapped up her senior year at University of Missouri.  Now a grad with a degree in Ag Journalism, Katie will be spending more time on the job as a Brownfield reporter this summer before heading to Texas Tech for grad school.

Welcome Katie!

Today is Katie Allen's first day with Brownfield Ag News.  As a Senior Ag Journalism major at the University of Missouri, Katie is a great addition to the Brownfield team.  Her skill set includes experience in radio and television.  She's also done some blogging and freelance writing for a number of publications.

Katie ALSO has a strong production agriculture background.  She grew up on a farm in northern Missouri where her family raises cattle, sheep and hogs as well as row crops.  A former Missouri State Beef Queen, Katie is the current Missouri State Fair Queen. 

In addition to exhibiting livestock, Katie is a past member of the MU Livestock Judging Team. 

You'll hear more about our new intern Katie in coming weeks.

Lesson plans and teaching tools

I remember the first time I put together an agricultural news and market program for the local radio station where I worked as Assistant Farm Director.   As a recent grad who had just wrapped up 12 weeks of student teaching in agriculture education, preparing for the radio program was much like preparing a lesson plan to teach a class.   

You can imagine how much I appreciate that the product the Brownfield Ag News team produces each day for our website and Brownfield's Ag Today e-newsletter is being utilized in classrooms by ag teachers at the high school and college level.  Promotions Coordinator Kari McKinney forwarded an email to me this morning from an agricultural science and business teacher in Charlottesville, Indiana who uses our website daily in his classroom:

Thanks for asking about the students and I use the Brownfield site. The major benefit of the Brownfield site is the up to date information you can find on the site. As an example, today I am using the information from the site that discusses the release of the Humane Society video surveillance at the California packing plant. This allows me to open up on a wide variety of topics from public perception, government regulations, consumer demand, work place ethics, and the list can go on and on.

We also use the site to prepare students for career development events. We have been fortunate enough to have the state winning extemporaneous public speaking winners the past two years. We encourage the students to look at this site daily to gain knowledge and information. I find it a reliable, easy to use resource for our agriculture program.

Scott Jacobs
Eastern Hancock Schools

Fair queens

I've judged a variety of competitions in my professional career.  From 4-H and FFA public speaking at the local, regional and state level to county beef, pork and fair queen pageants to chili cook-offs - I've judged more than I can remember!  I spent January 17 - 20 as one of 5 judges charged with selecting Miss Illinois County Fair Queen during the Illinois Association of Agricultural Fairs (IAAF) Annual Convention in Springfield, Illinois. 

Miss Illinois County Fair Queen represents the IAAF and becomes a summer employee of the Illinois Department of Agriculture.  She works with the Bureau of County Fairs and Horse Racing to promote local and state fairs and helps incresae awareness of the importance of agriculture in the state of Illinois.  She'll travel about 12,000 miles, spekaing before the Illinois House and Senate, State FFA Convention, and visit numerous county fairs.

Miss Georgetown Fair, Molly Reeves of Danville, was crowned Miss Illinois County Fair Queen at 10pm Sunday night. 

How many FFA members does it take to carry the items you bought at the auction?

The "opening event" for the Missouri Governor's Conference on Agriculture was called a "Taste of AgriMissouri" which was an absolutely delightful and diverse array of Missouri's finest foods and beverages. From beefalo meatballs to elk summer sausage, it was on the menu at this event. 

Immediately following the reception, an auction was held to benefit Missouri 4-H Foundation, Agriculture Future of America, Missouri FFA Leadership Fund, and Agricultural Leadership of Tomorrow.   There were many great items on the block tonight, including a great "camping kit" of items from Bass Pro Shops, which is currently sitting in my hotel room.  Auction Emcee Dale Ludwig, Executive Director/CEO of the Missouri Soybean Association and the Missouri Soybean Merchandising Council arranged for me to have some help carrying the camping package to my room.  As it turns out, it took 5 state Missouri FFA officers to carry all of the items included in the kit to my room.  I snapped a picture of the group (all students at the University of Missouri) once their work was finished.

FFA Way

Dave Russell has been B-U-S-Y this week covering numerous agricultural activities going on in Indianapolis, Indiana.  The town is painted blue and gold for National FFA Convention.  Tune in to a Brownfield affiliate radio stations to listen to Dave's coverage or check it out online on our website.

Georgia Street in downtown Indy becomes "FFA WAY" during National FFA Convention.  Dave took this picture of FFA members strolling down Georgia Street/FFA Way on their way to the convention center.

FFA contest judge

National FFA Convention is underway in Indianapolis this week.  Brownfield's Dave Russell has been busy covering various aspects of the convention for Brownfield Ag News.  This morning he put the microphone away and judged the national ag sales competition.   

Pictured interviwing an FFA member are (left to right) Craig Spray, Beck's Hybrids and Dave Russell, Brownfield.

What it's all about

About halfway through the process of finding sponsors for Nebraska Master Showmanship Contest, I wonder if it is all worth it.  Of course all of the sponsorship monies go to the youth participating in the contest.  Along with Nebraska Department of Agriculture, Brownfield and Waitt Agribusiness cover the costs of promotions, signage, postage, and everything else.  Our sponsors are wonderful, generous companies and associations who believe in our youth, but finding sponsors that do want to invest and be a part of this event, typically means you have to make contact with several that do not.  Yesterday I was reminded exactly why we invest our time and backing into the contest, when I received a nice letter from a young man from McCool Junction, Nebraska:

Thank you so much for your support of the 4-H program during the Nebraska State Fair.  This was my last of 11 years in 4-H and what an honor it has been to be a part of a great organization.  Doing something that I truly enjoy;  working with my 4-H animals.  Having a couple of calves and pigs each year has really allowed me to be up to date on the latest in animal structure, feed and nutriton in my animals.

It was truly an honor to be selected to participate in the Nebraska Master Showmanship Contest druing the Nebraska State Fair.  I had a great experience, met new friends and learned a lot more about sheep, pigs and calves that day.

I am currently attending the University of Nebraska Lincoln on East Campus in Animal Science and Agricultural Economics.  I am very involved in school and activities and really enjoy college.

Thanks again for your support.

Spencer Bolte

Preparing to be the best

As a company, Brownfield is a big supporter of FFA.  Individually, members of the Brownfield staff support it as well. 

Just this morning, Dave Russell joined the staff of the Indiana Beef Cattle Association, Dr. Jen Greiner of Elanco Animal Health and Sarah Sargent of Indiana Pork in an exercise to help Tyler White of the Eastern Hancock FFA prepare for the Extemporaneous Public Speaking Contest coming up later this month during National FFA Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana. 

Dave explained that this is the first of 4 practice sessions Tyler will go through before the national contest.  Scott Jacobs is Tyler's Ag Teacher at Eastern Hancock.