From the Holstein President’s Pen

From the President’s Pen

Michigan Holstein Association

President, Michigan Holstein Association 989-553-4333 • bren_haven@yahoo.com

Hello All,

I would like to first start by saying that this will be the last column I write to you as the president of our association. I would like to “Thank” all of you for allowing me to serve as your president. The last three years have not always been a “smooth ride” but with the diligence of our membership and board, we sailed through many obstacles that confronted us!

In hindsight, 2022 was a year full of changes, most of all positive ones. Your board decided to try out an exciting new raffle, the Golden Ticket Opportunity. At first, I was doubtful that we could sell all the tickets, but in the end we did. We sold tickets not only in Michigan, but also, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, & Texas. I think this raffle brought a lot of needed excitement to our organization.

This spring brought us back to the MSU Pavilion for our Great Lakes Spring Show, it was a nice feeling to be back to normal. Our summer show followed in July, and it was a great show and high quality animals.

Your Board of Directors and membership committee are diligently working on plans for our annual meeting that for the first time in a long time will be a stand-alone event and will not be with the Great Lakes Dairy Conference. In my opinion this will be a meeting you will not want to miss; they have some great things planned and it will be a fun and interesting time! I hope to see you all there! It is important that you are there as we will hold our annual elections for board and officer positions.

I would like to take a second and congratulate the breeders and exhibitors of Michigan cattle that competed at any of the fall national shows, if you watched any of them in person or kept track of them online, you saw that Michigan bred and or owned cattle of various colors held there own at some very competitive national shows. Congratulations to all!

Writing this column and thinking about the last 11 years (the extra year, thanks to Covid), makes me reflect on when I first joined your board of directors and was asked to sit on the executive committee at the time the Michigan-Indiana Holstein News magazine was dissolving and at the time, I wondered what I had gotten myself into. We pulled together as a board and decided we still needed a magazine for our membership and thus the Michigan Dairy Cattle News was born, and with the great work of our editor, it has been the best magazine our organization has had in many years! Thank you, Melissa!

Moving forward a few years I was fortunate enough to be on the board during the planning and hosting of our National Holstein Convention, which Michigan hosted in Traverse City. At first, I thought we would never get our stuff together and pull this off, but we did. We worked as a team and to this day I hear comments of what a great convention we had from people all over our industry. I have had the pleasure of serving on this board with many people that I look up too and respect as people, business owners, dairymen and woman and industry people and that is what I am thankful for the most, the opportunities to work with these great people!

I look forward to seeing where this organization, that we are so passionate about, goes in the next few years. We have the right people to take this organization in the right direction and that’s to serve you, the membership of the Michigan Holstein Association. Again, thank you for allowing me to serve this organization in various roles over the past 11 years.

Until next time…

Brent