What your local Kansas Livestock Association is up to!

We had a great meeting the other night for our Leavenworth Co KLA group.  It's always full of great information, motivation and camaraderie.

Since Hoag has gone full time on the ranch, we're feeling even more inspired to get involved in any way we can. Of course, time does not always allow that and with baby Hoag on his way, it takes careful planning and consideration when signing up for committees.  So these meetings always help us come up with great things we can do locally and immediately to help the AG industry. 

It takes a great team to put on these meetings.  Cale Wiehe is our Co director but he is one busy busy guy so he enlisted Ms. Katie Yunghans to help run the show.  It all came together without a hitch!

As with all good meetings, we got some good grub from  Bichelmeyer's and more information than we knew what to do with!

( And don't worry, I'll be sharing more about all these hot topics as time goes on)

First up, Dave Webb.  He spoke to us about Brand History and a great program they have online to tell the history of your ranches.  Super interesting. He also does a lot of land auctions around the area to help ranchers who are looking to expand their places get the fair prices they deserve.

Next was Mrs. Audrey Monroe with the Kansas Beef Council who was hot on the case of beef nutrition and all its benefits ( you know I'll be hitting this one hard) The most intriguing study they did was a case comparing 4 different diets but essentially the "twig and berry" diet that was high in nuts, grains and very low on meat lowered LDL ( bad cholesterol levels) the same as a diet with 4 1/2 oz of lean red meat every day!

After that we heard about one of my favorite topics, Ag advocacy from Mrs. Scarlett Hagins.  She always gets me so fired up about using social media to combat HSUS and other enemies of Ag.  I think once baby Hoag gets here, we'll be getting much more involved in the schools here locally and doing ranch tours which will be a huge advantage.  One great aspect of living here is we are so close to KC, MO with the intercity kids.  If we can reach out to them to teach them about ranching, nutrition and how it all plays together, I feel like we'd reach more people than we'd ever imagine.   More to come on that as well!

Finally, Ryan Higbie who is the director of Membership marketing and services for the KLA came to chat with us about the benefits of being members ( if we weren't ones already) the programs the KLA are providing for us and how we can get even more involved.  Tempting, Mr. Higbie, but we'll see what Baby Hoag has to say about all that.