Rick Haines (KMON, Great Falls, MT) reports that spring has finally come to the Salmon River Valley after what even the old timers called a harsh winter.  “As you see from the picture, things are greening up, and I currently have two mating pair of geese, two otters, thousands of birds including the Western Meadow Larks and Robins, Hungarian Partridge and elk, deer and bear to join me as I do radio from my front porch!” 

Rusty Halvorson recently marked 20 years at the American Ag Network (Fargo, ND). His broadcasting career is rooted in family tradition. As a young boy, Rusty sat beside his father, Lee, in the sports broadcast booth and watched as his dad announced countless radio play-by-play broadcasts across North Dakota.

Have you been to Washington lately? Some of you routinely travel there, especially to accompany farm organizations on their D.C. visits this time of year. And I have found those trips to be good experiences in that they can bring you closer to your farmers and to lawmakers in Washington. With a Farm Bill to be written a few months down the road, there are a lot of views being shared, and that means a lot of news for your broadcasts.

Dedicated to delivering agriculture news to U.S. farmers and ranchers, farm broadcasters provide daily news coverage on topics critical to the industry. Farm broadcasters are up before the sun, providing stories focused as much on production ag as helping to bridge the gap between farmer and consumer, lending insight and knowledge to their listener. 

Mayor KayDee Gilkey (Ag Information Network of the West, Fairfield, WA) puts down her gavel as mayor to pick up her mike as a farm broadcaster.