This is a melancholy presidents report. Callie is moving on to a wonderful opportunity. Through my many years with Kansas Farmers Union I have had the great privilege of working with 3 truly talented and capable office managers, Marylyn, Debbie, and Callie. Each time one moved on we wondered how in the world we could [...]
By Tom Parker Courtney White and Gail Fuller were talking the same talk but they were coming at it from different backgrounds and different geographical directions, so it was understandable that there should be some minor differences of opinion. That it centered on the sequential order of three little words was all the more remarkable [...]
By Tom Parker As an opening act for a discussion on cultivating healthy rural communities, Rosanna Bauman’s stunt with a big pitcher of water and a small drinking glass were hard to beat. As members of the Kansas Farmers Union kept one eye on Bauman and the other on their lunch, the crisp clatter of [...]
Bad cows are bad influences, smart cows never forget and other insights into handling cattle for women By Tom Parker Cows are big and beefy and muscular and most women aren’t, so for the latter to manage the former it helps to not only understand how cows think and socialize, but also how cows remember [...]
Kansas Farmers Union Tracks Agriculture and Food Bills One good thing about the budget crisis in Kansas is that it pretty well focuses our legislature on paying the bills while we have much less income coming into state coffers. It doesn’t give them as much time to mess with our lives on the farm that [...]
By Tom Parker It’s one thing to sit inside a heated conference room for two days listening to experts, visionaries, politicians and entrepreneurs discuss new farm policies that boost entitlements and profits to big corporate farms while lessening support for family farms, the state’s tempestuous budget and how rural Kansas will bear the [...]
By Tom Parker To the average Kansas resident living in a metropolitan area, water is a given. Turn on the tap and water flows out. The water is clear, free of impurities and, apparently, infinite in supply. It’s more complicated in rural Kansas. Turn on the tap and water flows out, but it isn’t always [...]
By Tom Parker In 2013, Kansas lawmakers considered amending the current Kansas Corporate Farming Law with two bills, one for each legislative branch, that would have removed restrictions for agribusinesses with certain forms of ownership structure—corporate, in other words—to operate within the state. Among other changes, the Kansas Agriculture Growth and Rural Investment Initiative, as [...]
Just before the new year, staff and board moved 40+ years accumulation of Kansas Farmers Union history to a location near downtown. The newly renovated office is a block east of Main Street and a block north of the post office on Kansas Ave/Hwy 56, about 1 square block from the heart of downtown McPherson. [...]
It is with mixed feelings that I will be resigning as Office Manager of Kansas Farmers Union on May 13th. I was offered a new position at a well-respected accounting firm here in McPherson and, after MUCH consideration, I just cannot turn down the offer. I have thoroughly enjoyed my last 5 [...]
