NAFB Blog

After 36 years with Kansas and Oklahoma Farm Bureaus, Sam Knipp retired September 29, 2015. “After a few days, I hungered for continuing advocating for agriculture. American Farmers & Ranchers (AFR) offered me the opportunity to feed that urge. AFR has a 110-year history in Oklahoma as a general farm organization and insurance company servicing rural Oklahoma. Today, AFR has over 100,000 family members and is licensed to provide insurance in 24 states.

Monte James is host of a new start-up radio network called Your Ag Network. He grew up on a ranch on the northern borders of the sprawling Sandhills of Nebraska. His family raised cattle and farmed the Niobrara River Valley in Keya Paha County. His radio career started at a small station in O’Neill, NE, doing everything from hosting the Polka Show to local news and markets. Monte’s “tour of duty” included stops at KSCJ (Sioux City, IA), where he served as morning show host and farm director. Then, he went on to WHO (Des Moines, IA) as part of the Marconi Award winning air-staff, as well as serving a lengthy stint at WNAX (Yankton, SD).

Howard Hale (KSIR, Minatare, NE) and Emily Pile are two western Nebraska residents who were recognized by The University of Nebraska Panhandle Research and Extension Center for their decades of service to agriculture and Extension. The Service to Panhandle Agriculture Award was presented to Howard Hale and The Service to Panhandle Extension Award was presented to Elaine Pile of Gering, NE.

On November 28, NAFB President Brian Winnekins, owner of WRDN Radio (Durand, WI) hosted a reunion of past staff members. Fifteen staff members dating back as far as 1972 joined Brian and Martha Gingras on air to reminisce about their time working at WRDN. Just like now, agriculture was an important part of the broadcast day at WRDN and many of the staff members remember having to fill in to do the Farm Report. For many of the former staff members, working at WRDN was a stepping stone to larger radio markets or new careers in television.

A special election to fill an unexpired term was held for a seat in the Kansas House of Representatives on December 10 and Ken Rahjes (AgView.net) won the election. On January 11, he will become one of 125 members who will represent the constituents of the 110th District. Ken will continue to do three daily ag business reports to the affiliate radio stations in Kansas and Nebraska and will soon to be expanding to other states. He will also do daily updates on AgView.net and social media.