Commodity Classic 2014.
Haylie Shipp (Northern Ag Network, Miles City, MT) has accepted a full-time position with her hometown radio station, KLTZ/KLAN (Glasgow, MT) while remaining a part of Northern Ag Network and on their regional airwaves in Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota weekly. She will host a daily "tradio" program, managing a number of the station's sales accounts, and doing some voice-tracking. “Outside of that, they've given me the flexibility to start any and all ag programs I want on the stations,” she said. “As an affiliate of Northern Ag Network, the stations will continue to carry those programs, but I'll now have the opportunity to make this station even more of a financial and agricultural powerhouse.
What's more, the station has given me the power to ‘own’ the ag programming that I do for them,” she added. “This means that I'll have the opportunity to market those programs to other radio stations or networks that may want to ‘amp up’ their agricultural coverage.” Haylie said, “Some ideas that I have include a ‘consumer question’ program where we focus more on talking to the consumer about where their food comes from (i.e. what exactly is a GMO, why do we have farm subsidies, why and when are antibiotics administered, etc).” She continued, “I'd love to do a ‘look back’ show to reminisce with some of the old time ranchers/farmers about where they came from and instill in our listeners the rich heritage that agriculture has.” She adds, “I've always loved to write, so I'm also going to explore making these stories into print articles for freelance web/print journalism.” All of this new opportunity will be done just 20 miles from her family’s ranch. “We're currently at the first rung of the transition planning ladder and are now working towards moving the multi-generation ranch from my dad to my brother and me.”
Haylie grew up on the family cattle ranch near the Canadian border, north of Glasgow, MT. She graduated from Glasgow High School in 2003 and from Montana State University in Billings in 2008 with a major in mass communications and a minor in biology. She started working with Northern Ag Network as an intern in 2006 and received the NAFB Foundation Glen Kummerow scholarship. Also, she’s received the Horizon Award and is serving as a new member on the NAFB Foundation Board. She’s helped Northern Ag Network deliver radio/television/web ag news to a four-state region for the past eight years. Haylie also launched the network’s social media, interacting with listeners, readers, and followers on a daily basis.
