Most of you have heard that I announced at our annual meeting in 2023 that I had intended to retire from my role as EVP for the Wyoming Farm Bureau at the end of October this year.  Now that November is upon us, I wanted to take a little time to reflect on all of the things that happened over my 40 + years with the Farm Bureau and also thank all those folks who were and are a part of the Farm Bureau family.

Forty-one years ago I came to work at the Laramie office which at the time was at 21st and Garfield.  Dave Flitner was WyFB president and Larry Bourret had taken the helm of the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation after serving as the Director of the Department of Agriculture.  My wife, Kathy, and I had been working on our family’s ranch in the Big Horn Basin.If anyone remembers those times, they will remember that the 80s were not kind to agriculture.  The chickens had come home to roost as far as overspending by our government.  

The bills for the Vietnam war and excessive spending on the “New Deal” led to strong inflationary pressures and the subsequent rise in interest rates.  Agriculture found themselves looking at 15- 20% interest loans in a business that at the best of times would return  five %.  Something had to give and give it did.  Some of our Farm Bureau leaders I worked with lost their operations and left the agriculture world.  Everyone was searching for some type of  solution but like most problems of this scope there were few, if any, available.  I know the Farm Bureau staff at the time experienced a wide range of emotions and heartbreak when we learned that another member was being foreclosed upon.  

At the same time we were dealing with interest rates, we were working on an instream flow initiative, some endangered species issues (pre-wolves in Wyoming) and some of our long-time members will remember the “sage-brush rebellion” that folks in Wyoming and the West were advancing as a solution to some of our federal lands problems.

I’ve mentioned to folks that it seems that I’ve worked on a lot of the same problems for the last 40 years.   We are still dealing with federal lands issues that threaten those members who graze on federal lands.  

Years ago former Representative Dick Cheney advanced a Wyoming Wilderness Bill that took thousands of acres of Forest Service lands out of multiple use and was passed by Congress and signed into law.  Yet today, we are seeing another attempt to address wilderness designations under a law that stacked the deck against multiple use.  Even though Wyoming has the highest percentage of Forest Service lands with Wilderness designations of any state in the Union, we still find ourselves negotiating for more.

Wolf introduction was advanced as a way to “restore the Yellowstone ecosystem.”  Farmers and ranchers knew that the Department of Interior’s promise of placing wolves in Yellowstone and being happy with them there were, like many of their past promises, merely the beginning of their advancement of a large, efficient predator into the back yards of our members.   At the same time grizzly bears were expanding to meet the recovery goal.  

Today we have a mixed bag all because of a poorly written law that Congress refuses to update. Wolves are considered recovered in Wyoming.  In a September 24, 1990 People Magazine article Norm Bishop, a Yellowstone Park Ranger, assured the Big Horn County Farm Bureau members that the “wolf population will not be allowed to expand beyond 150 over the next 30 years – excess wolves will be shot – and Bishop assures farmers they have nothing to fear.”  While not as blatant as Norm Bishop’s statement, the Department of Interior’s original recovery goal for grizzly bears was 200.  Of course, by then there wasn’t anyone from Interior ensuring that we had nothing to fear.  Instead, we had environmental lawyers and activist judges refusing to let grizzly bears be delisted even though the number was five times higher than the original recovery goal.  And people wonder why farmers and ranchers have trust issues with the federal government.

In 40 years, there have been a number of governors in our state.  Governor Ed Hershler who had served for 12 years was replaced by Governor Mike Sullivan. Governor Jim Geringer was then elected for eight years followed by Governor Dave Freudenthal.  Eight years later Governor Matt Mead was elected who was followed by Governor Mark Gordon.  If you are keeping track of the political split, we’ve had three Democratic governors and three Republican governors during that time. Through all of those governors, Farm Bureau worked with them to bring agriculture’s concerns to their policies.  This meant we agreed with them sometimes and disagreed with them sometimes.  Hopefully, all of them recognized whether we agreed or disagreed, we were carrying the message of our members.

The 70s saw our timber industry fall to the anti-logging campaigns of the environmentalists.  Forty years later we have conflagrations on our national forests and millions of board feet of timber are burned while sawmills remain closed.  One long time “lock things up” advocate is now saying our fires aren’t the result of trees growing old and dying, they’re the result of wind.  And no, I’m not kidding. Meanwhile plastic grocery sacks are being vilified by the same types of folks who vilified paper sacks we used to put our groceries in because we were cutting down trees for them.

Agriculture has made tremendous strides in productivity in 40 years.  We have fewer acres of corn but vastly more corn.  We have fewer cattle, but more pounds of beef.  In 1983 there were about 4.7 billion people on earth.   Now it’s estimated that there are over 8 billion people.  Our population has increased by 70% and yet widespread famines are rare.  Food or lack of food is rarely the problem when famines strike.   More than likely it’s bad government policies and even after watching countries initiate policies that result in hunger and famines, we still see people try to adopt the same policies that result in these catastrophes.  Go figure.   

Robert Delano, Dean Kleckner, and Bob Stallman have led and now Zippy Duvall leads the American Farm Bureau.  All brought their individual perspective to the organization and while they left their imprint on the AFBF, they also worked with the same system set up many years ago to represent our members.  The staff at the AFBF kept things going throughout the presidents and helped carry out their vision.

On the state level, Dave Flitner, Karen Henry, and Perry Livingston have led and now Todd Fornstrom leads the organization.  All of them brought different perspectives and skills to the organization.  

After 40 years, the list of who I would like to thank would be so long it would take up too much space.   The members of county Farm Bureaus have dedicated countless hours to working for agriculture in their county as well as the state and even the nation.  These folks also spend time raising their families in these communities.   They spend their nights, weekends, and holidays working for the kids in the community by being volunteers in their 4-H, FFA, church, school, conservation district and enumerable other groups and organizations.  Some have dedicated their time to running the WyFB and AFBF but all of them have helped support their communities and agriculture.

We’ve also been fortunate to have a dedicated group of folks who work, and have worked, for the organization.  These are the people who have kept the wheels running, changed the oil and fueled the organization up when it was needed.  There really aren’t enough “thanks” for them all.  

After 40 + years of working on issues and problems, I’m very much aware that walking out the door will not result in anything bad happening.  In fact, just the opposite is likely to occur.  I’ve seen a lot of good folks step up to take on the tasks needed.   They will continue to do just that.

Thanks to everyone and thanks for everything.  So long.