The last few months have been exciting here for Linn/Benton Chapter. Our April meeting was held at Kristi Miller’s house. Of course one of our big topics was the OWA Auction. We had a guest speaker, Teri Plagmann. She is running for Linn County Circuit Court Judge, District 23, Position 3 seat.
It was fun to see so many members at the OWA Auction, both friday for setup and Saturday for the big event! I know everyone I saw that evening was having a great time. As always the food was amazing!! I wanted to publicly thank Helle Ruddenklau for the email she sent out thanking everyone who was involved in making Auction what it is. It couldn’t have been a small task. It meant a lot to me and I know a lot of others as well.
Our May meeting was held at Betty Jo Smith’s house. I think it was the quickest chapter meeting I have been to since joining. Everyone was on point with their reports and we flew through the meeting. After the meeting ended we put together cookie boxes for the oyster cookers who helped at the auction. Everyone brought a couple dozen cookies. We worked together to get the boxes filled and a bow tied around them. Thank you to everyone who was there to help. A big thank you to Virginia Kutsch who did all the thank you notes for each box.
May 19th was the Powerland Heritage Park, “Fun at the Park” day. From the stories I have heard it sounds like our OWA display and activities were a hit. Thank you to all who had a part in putting it together.
June brought our Chapter Social. There were around 45 ladies that attended. Betty Jo Smith and Virginia Kutsch were our main speakers. They gave a history of OWA and how/why it was started. They continued their story into what we are doing today. Myself, along with many others enjoyed hearing everything they shared. There are many of us that had not heard much of what they had to share. It make me even more proud to part of this amazing group of women. We had one lady join that evening. I will be following up with all the other guests who attended. We did a special raffle for the ladies that came as a guest. We drew two names and the prize was their first year membership paid. Our hope is they will renew for years to come. So technically three new members 😉 Overall I think it was a really great evening and a fun time to get to know each other a little better.
Our scholarship committee decided on three winners. Congratulations to: Brittany Mills – $1,000 for ag major, Keaton Corrado – $500 for ag major and Julia Toews – $500 for child/grandchild.
Looking Forward to State Fair-
Dona Coon, Kristi Miller, Jessica Jansen, Laurie Schrock and myself have been making plan for our county fairs and State fair. Our theme is, “Many Hats a Modern Farmer Wears”. “Conventional Farmer” seems to be a bad word nowadays. We want to focus on the term “Modern Farmer”.
We have three different activities planned for the State Fair.
-The spinning wheel for questions. This will have to be run by our volunteers.
-A big tool box representing a “modern farmer’s” tool box. We will have questions and inside each drawer will be the answer. The questions and answers will have a focus on how farmers use modern tools and technology to use the least amount of resources and get the best yield. To show how “sustainable” a “modern farmer” is. Some of the drawers will have flyers, activities and different things people can take with them.
-A seed identification display. Fair goers can do the tool box Q&A and seed identification display by themselves. Of course with our volunteers there to answer questions or talk with.
We will also have a decorative, metal tree that we will hang hats on. The hats being the different “hats” a “modern farmer” wears. Each hat will say something different on it. The last thing is a new banner that shows a history of how many people one farmer could feed in then compared to now. We are very excited about what we have going on in the booth. Keep an eye out for State Fair volunteer sign up.
Katie Glaser, President