A Message from the President

As I write this, we have just finished up with our State Holstein Convention. First of all, I would like to thank the convention committee and especially Lisa Mangun for organizing the convention. I thought it went very well. We appreciate Don and Danette Simpson for assisting in the convention planning.

Friday kicked off with a sale at the Simpson’s farm. Plainfield Farms has long been known for excellent cattle in Eastern Ohio. This sale showed the time that they spent in developing their breeding program over the years.

The convention tours included the Cain family farm located just south of Plainfield farms. This fully automated robotic dairy featured some innovations I had not seen before. They had a robotic feed mixer. They stated that this mixer would mix feed 10-12 times during the winter months and 6-8 times during the summer months. This was interesting technology and possibly a snapshot of what the future holds.

By Chris Lahmers

Once the farm tours finished up in the afternoon, we had Hors D’oeuvres at the hotel before the Convention sale. Managed by Daniel Brandt, the sale brought a mix of genomic and type lots and grossed over $100,000 on 31 lots. That evening brought a lot of fellowship that lasted well into the night.

Saturday started of with good discussion and election of the officer team. During the awards luncheon, a new Ohio Holstein queen was named. Congratulations to Aubree Topp being crowned as queen and Tess Neville as first runner-up. The Buckeye breeder awards went to Bill Indoe and Damon Bertke. Also recognized were the winners of the All-Ohio and Junior All-Ohio awards. It was exciting to see Jim and John Spreng be recognized for their distinguished service to The Ohio Holstein Association. Spreng Long Acre was one of the first farms I got to know when I was a youngster getting into the purebred business. I always thought a lot of them so I was happy to see them be recognized.

Spring will be busy in Ohio this year. We have several sales coming in April; The Ohio Holstein Spring Sale will be April 21st in Wooster, followed by the Triple T sale on April 22nd, and Quietcove on April 24th. Make sure you get out and enjoy these sales and take advantage of the great genetics offered in our state.