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Locals to be inducted into Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame in February Press release

Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame & Western Heritage Center announced the 11th class of inductions into the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame including local inductees. The inductees were chosen from a field of candidates nominated by the general public. Inductees are honored for their notable contributions to the history and culture of Montana. The MCHF & WHC will honor these inductees during the annual Circle the Wagons gathering Feb. 8 and 9 , in Great Falls at the Best Western Heritage Inn. More information on this event will come later in the year.

2018 Hall of Fame Living Award: Joseph Louis “Joey” Malsam District 4 — Blaine, Chouteau, Liberty and Hill counties Joseph Louis “Joey” Malsam was born Feb. 25, 1938, to Joe and Mary (Marsden)

Malsam in Havre, Montana. He spent his childhood living on the family ranch north of Havre near the U.S. Air Force Station and Canadian border. From first through third grades he attended St. Jude’s Catholic school in Havre. His fourth- through eighthgrade at the Miller and Cottonwood schools near his home, then he completed high school back at St. Jude’s Havre Central High School, where he played basketball. From the time Joey could walk, he was out helping his dad with chores. Being the oldest of five boys, he had the responsibilities of showing his little brothers how things were to be done around the place. Joey helped feed around 100 head of cattle with a team of horses. For entertainment, he, his brothers and friends would pull each other around on skis by horseback, go riding and, when his father wasn’t looking, jump on the back of an unsuspecting cow to see who could ride the longest. This led up to Joey’s rodeo career. Joey entered his first rodeo at the Chuckwagon Days in Harlem when he was in eighth or ninth grade and was soon

hooked. In 1962, he became a member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association and began his rodeo career excelling in bareback and saddle bronc. His first win was in Elkwater, Canada, in which he won $72. That was the start of his savings to later put toward a ranch of his own. Some weekends he’d win up to or more than $500, all adding to his ranch funds. When he wasn’t on the road competing, he was working at the local grain elevator in Havre to also help with his dream of someday owning his own ranch. On June 22, 1963, Joey married Darlene Jenkins. They traveled the rodeo circuit for a few years then in 1966 they bought the Del Brinkman ranch about seven miles east of Chinook in the Milk River Valley. He’d saved up about $20,000 from his winnings and paychecks for that long-awaited down payment. The first ranch came with about 200 head of cattle and the machinery needed for haying and farming. Joey’s parents gave the young couple 12 head of black Angus cattle as a startup gift. As time went on with expanding in mind, they bought Helen Brown’s ranch and feedlot in 1976 up the

Bagen Road northeast of Chinook which became their current home. In 1978, he sold the ranch in the Milk River Valley to buy Chauncy Flynn’s half of the Flynn Ranch. That same year, he leased Chauncy’s brother Floyd’s half. In 1982, Joey bought Floyd out and has ranched and farmed there ever since. Joey and Darlene have four kids and 10 grandkids and are currently still helping when needed on the ranch. Joey has handed the reins over to the boys and is enjoying some long-awaited and well-deserved vacation time. When asked why Joey gave up the rodeo life in his prime, he said, in his opinion, “You can only do one thing at a time and do it well.” So Joey Malsam chose ranching because that was his true passion in life and the best way he knew to take care of his family. Joey is a caring man and has always lent a helping hand to anyone in need. Time spent in the rodeo arena and the ranching lifestyle has slowed him down over the years, but he is still one of the last remain-

www.havredailynews.com Attributing this hardship entirely to the president’s trade policies, though, is difficult. For one, fewer soybeans were produced in the state this year than in 2017. With fewer beans to take to market, farmers have less

FARM & RANCH product to sell and thus less money to make. Government programs are in place to mitigate losses, however insufficient McCaskill or others feel they are. According to Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute figures,

if fully doled out, this aid will close much of the gap in Missouri. Harder to quantify is the effect of the promotion program intended to help farmers find new markets, but it exists.

Iowa dairy unveils rare beef cattle breed By KRISTIN GUESS Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier HUDSON, Iowa (AP) — Blake Hansen loves beef, but admits he is quite particular about the quality of meat he chooses to consume. So, when he sampled a steak he could cut with a spoon, he was hooked. “It’s like butter,” he told the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier . The beef he sampled is called wagyu, and some say it’s the finest beef in the world. One of four brothers with Hansen’s Dairy Farm in Hudson, Hansen quickly got to work acquiring the rare breed for his farm. Wagyu meat has an extreme marbling, boasts health benefits and a “melt in your mouth” level of tenderness. “(The full-bred wagyu) was good, but it was just too rich for me. It’s pretty powerful stuff,” he said. “I could only eat maybe 4 to 5 ounces.” With more than 150 Holstein dairy cattle outside his front door, Hansen decided to crossbreed his Holstein dairy cattle, which also are known for their fine marbling, with a wagyu. “It turned out to be fantastic,” he said. The prepared beef is available exclusively at the Table 1912 restaurant in Cedar Falls. Chef Jim Nadeau of the Western Home Communities was one of Hansen’s first customers when the retail stores opened in 2014. At Table 1912, the chefs have a “Farm to Fork” program where they use as much food from area farmers as possible. “We need to be unique here in order to draw people in, and it’s a special product,” Nadeau said. “For us to be the first place in Iowa to be able to use it basically right from farm to fork is phenomenal.” Hansen recently rolled out the Cedar Valley’s first Holstein-Wagyu hamburger at Hansen’s retail stores in Waterloo and Cedar Falls, with the rest of the cuts available for sale privately

through Hansen. For those daring enough to try the full-flavored Wagyu, the full-bred beef will be ready near the end of 2019. Costs for the Wagyu-Holstein beef vary from $100 for a one-pound filet down to $8 for one pound of hamburger. Full-bred Japanese Wagyu beef can cost anywhere from $120 to $200. Pronounced “wag-you,” the larger and meatier breed is derived from Japan. “Wa” can be translated as Japanese, and “gyu” means cow, according to the American Wagyu Association. The wagyu breed came to the U.S. in the 1980s. Hansen said monitoring the rare breed in the U.S. can be difficult, but some say there are less than 30,000 full-blood wagyu in the United States. Hansen was able to purchase reproductive material from the Tajima strain from Japan, which are fattened longer, taking about 26 to 32 months to create the supreme marbling. Other U.S. beef cattle can take only 18 months to mature for consumption. “Supposedly, this Tajima line is one of the best Wagyu lines in the breed,” Hansen said. A Holstein also creates a fair amount of marbling and requires a similar low-energy diet. While still boasting the wagyu’s rich flavor, the Wagyu-Holstein crossbreeds produce a more palpable taste. Wagyu has three times the amount of monounsaturated fatty acids compared to other beef breeds, meaning it’s higher in unsaturated fat and oleic acid, which is said to be responsible for the rich flavor. Oleic acid also is found in olive and canola oil and, according to reports, can help lower bad LDL cholesterol. Typically, wagyu breeders will send the highend quality cuts to the east and west coasts, Hansen said, but he plans to keep all of the meat in Iowa. “I’d like to keep everything here in the state,

let alone the Cedar Valley, just to have people around us enjoy good cuts of meat and not getting rid of it to the coasts.” Hansen said the best way to cook a WagyuHolstein steak or burger is rare to medium rare at about 135 degrees. “You can definitely taste a difference when you’re eating it in a patty,” said Hansen’s wife, Jordan. “Other seasonings can dull the rich flavor.” Jordan Hansen said she considers the hamburger to be 90 percent lean. “If you over cook it, it’s like any other hamburger then, there’s nothing special to it because it gets dry and loses the flavor,” she said. Hansen said he is unsure how popular the beef will be in the Cedar Valley, but he plans to continue breeding and raising the special cattle well into the future. “Being that it takes 30 months to get one raised and ready for slaughter, you just don’t want to stop now because if the consumer likes what they eat, then they’re going to have to wait for another 30 months before they get another one,” he said. “There’s going to be a continuum of Wagyu-Holstein cattle coming down the pipe from here on out. I know that I’ll be eating some good quality meat for the rest of my life. If you are a beef eater, you are going to want to try it at least once.”

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FACT CHECK: How bad off will soybean farmers be this year? By Andrew Withers Columbia Missourian (AP) — Sen. Claire McCaskill doesn’t care for the president’s trade fight with China. She made that clear in her second debate against Republican Attorney General Josh Hawley on Oct. 18. McCaskill, the Democratic incumbent, framed Trump’s tariffs as the main reason for the struggles of Missouri’s soybean farmers. “Our economy is so dependent on the exporting of agricultural goods. These tariffs have killed commodity prices. There’s not a bean farmer in Missouri that’s going to come out even this year,” McCaskill said. Soybeans are indeed a big deal in Missouri. In 2016, soybeans were the state’s biggest agricultural export, according to the Missouri Department of Agriculture. In 2012, more acres were dedicated to soybean farming in Missouri than any other crop, according to the most recent U.S. Census of Agriculture data from that year. One of the stiffest retaliatory measures China has taken in response to U.S. tariffs is a 25 percent tax on American soybeans. It is typical for roughly one in every three rows of soybean produced in Missouri to be exported to China annually, according to Missouri Soybean Farmer magazine. Our ears perked up at the sweeping nature of McCaskill’s statement — is it true that, thanks to Trump’s tariffs, no soybean farmer will end up in the black this year? Since the statement is a prediction and we won’t know for sure until the year is up, we decided to not apply a rating to this statement — hence the lack of a Truth-o-Meter rating at

the end of this article. Still, with tariffs, agriculture and the economy dominating a fair chunk of campaign rhetoric ahead of Missouri’s election, we decided it was worth taking a closer look. Let’s talk tariffs. Since the tariffs were announced in June, the going rate for U.S. soybeans has fallen from roughly $10.50 to $8.46 a bushel as of Oct. 21, according to Markets Insider. Across the country, production of soybeans is up 6.9 percent over 2017, according to the University of Missouri Food and Agricultural Policy Research Center. But the total value of America’s 2018 soybean crop is actually $700 million less than last year due to the drop in price per bushel, according to the same data. Patrick Westhoff, director of the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute, said that while it is difficult to attribute economic trends to any one factor, the tariffs certainly deserve blame for these dropping soybean prices, and that has been reflected in farmers’ bottom lines. “Yes, it has affected U.S. prices. Certainly, the lower prices have reduced income levels for every producer,” Westhoff said, adding that a Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute report from August projected the market year average price at $8.73 per soybean bushel, the lowest since 2006. “Prices are down roughly 20 percent over the last six months,” said Christine Tew, director of communications for the Missouri Soybean Association. Compounding the tariff pinch in Missouri is the state’s below-average yearly yield for soybeans, Westhoff said.

Taken together, the tariff-induced price drop and a 2018 Missouri soybean yield that’s 7 percent smaller than 2017 have combined for a loss of $319 million in crop value, according to the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute. An MU Extension simulation from July 2018 calculated the “ripple effect” a 10-cent drop in soybean bushel price would have on Missouri’s economy. Missouri Soybean Farmer magazine extrapolated the study to a $2 drop — roughly equivalent to the actual decline since June — and found an expected effect of “more than $212 million in lost earnings for workers and business owners, and 3,000 fewer jobs.” McCaskill’s campaign Communications Director Meira Bernstein referenced this simulation as well as multiple articles as evidence for the Senator’s claim. One was a St. Louis Public Radio story from early July of this year in which Missouri Soybean Association President C. Brooks Hurst is quoted as saying, “When you’ve lost 15 percent off your price, you gotta understand, that’s like, all of our profit. So all of us have gone from maybe a small profit in that field of soybeans we planted to now just basically hoping to break even.” Bernstein also pointed to a St. Louis roundtable McCaskill held in August with Missouri farmers and businesses affected by the tariffs. In a transcript of the meeting, former president and current Missouri Soybean Association board member Mike McCrate said: “So I looked on the way up here, Lansing Grain was at 7.70 for November delivery. Break even in the Bootheel, 45 bushel average, is $10.50, so we’re

literally going to be manufacturing below cost.” Government to the rescue OK, so lower prices and yields are affecting soybean farmers in Missouri and across the country. But will they all lose money on the year? Turns out, it may not be all doom and gloom. One of the relief programs announced by the USDA in late August is the Market Facilitation Program. This program offers a payout of $1.65 per bushel of soybeans on 50 percent of a farmer’s crop, up to a maximum payout of $125,000. According to a Food and Agricultural Policy Research projection, the initial Market Facilitation Program payments will add back roughly 9 percent to both the Missouri soybean crop value and the nation’s total crop value, with the possibility of a second round of payments to be announced in December. After factoring in these government payments, Missouri’s soybean crop value for 2018 is only 7 percent less than in 2017 — a year featuring a larger state yield and no Chinese tariffs. Nationwide, factoring the payments in actually pushes the 2018 soybean crop value above that of 2017, even with the tariffs in place. Additionally, the USDA has allocated $200 million for its Agricultural Trade Promotion Program, designed to help American farmers find new markets abroad and “mitigate the adverse effects of other countries’ restrictions,” like China. The big picture Clearly, the situation is quite bleak for Missouri soybean farmers, and the tariffs deserve much of the blame.

www.havredailynews.com ing genuine cowboys of his time.

2018 Hall of Fame Legacy Award: Marion Laureeen (Kearful) Vercruyssen (1903-1989) District 4 — Blaine, Chouteau, Hill and Liberty counties Marion Laureen (Kearful) Vercruyssen was born at Clear Creek, in Blaine County, 15 miles south of Chinook, Montana, on Sept. 13, 1903, to Jerome A. and Flora M. (Tibbits) Kearful. She spent her entire life in Montana, making significant contributions to our western heritage. Marion taught students for 25 years in a rural one-room schoolhouse, assisting countless students in acquiring the skills needed to be successful on farms and ranches, which greatly improved life in rural communities all over northern Montana. Marion grew up as a real pioneer on lands that her father and mother had each homesteaded in the foothills of the Bear Paw Mountains on Clear Creek. These homesteads were combined to establish the Eden Ranch. She and her sisters, Phoebe and Josephine, lived with her parents in a log cabin built by her father with logs from the nearby mountains. In 1916 at the age of 13, her family purchased and moved into a Sears and Roebuck prefabricated house on the ranch. This was the same home that Marion would live in when she moved back to the ranch in 1947. During the winter of 1916, her sister,

FARM & RANCH Josephine, passed away. Marion’s family raised cattle, sheep and garden produce which they sold door to door in the surrounding communities. Marion maintained a passion for education all her life, partially acquired from her father who was instrumental in pioneering the rural school in their area. After completing her primary education at Ada School near her home, she enrolled in Havre High School to obtain her secondary degree. Marion worked as a maid for her room and board to enable completing her high school education. Working to achieve her dream to become a teacher was not the only difficult time she faced. In 1921, a junior in high school, Marion was diagnosed with breast cancer and traveled by train to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, for surgery. Her strong will and determination overcame this hurdle, and she graduated in 1922. Marion’s educational career started immediately after graduation as she began teaching at rural schools in Blaine County with an emergency elementary state certificate. She rode horseback to her first teaching assignment, where some of the students she taught were older than she. Marion’s entire first-year teaching salary was $100. Marion married Gus Vercruyssen in Havre on Oct. 4, 1926, at St. Jude’s Catholic Church. The young couple’s first undertaking was to manage the Mission Ranch on Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. Later, they owned and operated their own ranch on Clear Creek near the Eden Ranch. Rural work during this era was labor-in-

tensive and required numerous hired hands. Feeding the men was a full-time chore which meant preparing and cooking food most of the day. Marion was well-known for her delicious meals and friendly hospitality and enjoyed keeping her kitchen open in the evenings for all crews in the surrounding area to gather and feast on her baked goods. The Vercruyssens had four daughters, Flora, Fay, Joan and Laureen. Marion and Gus divorced in August of 1942 which brought on her greatest challenge of supporting her youngsters. With the tension of the marriage behind her and an incredible resilience, she returned to teaching in the rural schools and cooking on a neighboring ranch where she lived. Realizing the need for more education to better instruct her students Marion enrolled at Western Montana College in Dillon in 1952. Through correspondence and various short courses at Western, she obtained an elementary school standard certificate in 1954. Marion taught at several schools in a 100-mile radius of her home, one in Hill and eight in Blaine County, including the Ripley School near the Canadian Border. The teacherage at Ripley was poorly equipped and run down with only enough space for her and the two youngest girls who joined the other students and were taught by their mother. Many evenings, Marion and her girls visited families of children from the school for dinner and to stay over in better living quarters. Teaching school in the Bear Paw Mountain area meant she often had to battle 30 miles of unpredictable roads or live in a shabby teacherage. Many of the schools

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Marion taught at lacked resources and equipment and needed supplies. However, she was very creative and managed not only to teach her students the basics but enhanced their curriculum far beyond what was required. Marion was well liked by her pupils and their parents and thus the pressure was put on her to keep on teaching even at retirement age so she agreed to take students into her home for their lessons. By 1947, Marion’s parents had passed away and it was at this time that she returned to run the Eden Ranch in conjunction with teaching. Arthur “Churnie” Peugh became her partner and helped her to manage the place. They raised registered Hereford cattle, horses, pigs, sheep, goats, geese, chickens, turkeys and peacocks. Marion was very resourceful — one time she found a cracked turkey egg and needing every turkey she could to sell, she taped up the egg and placed it under a hen where it hatched. She planted a half-acre garden, of which the produce won many awards at the county fair. Even when working in the garden, Marion reflected the image of a true pioneer woman, bare foot and wearing a dress she walked behind the horse and plow. She loved to fish in Clear Creek with a willow pole, a string, hook, and worm once catching a 24-inch-long rainbow trout out of the swimming hole. Realizing that some people might not believe her, she laid the trout out on a piece of cardboard and traced it for proof of her catch.

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Hall of Fame: Vercruyssen and Malsam were pioneers of North-Central Montana’s past ■ Continued from page A1 Marion’s talents included writing short stories for local area newspapers and western stories for The Montana Farmer magazine. Her creative and humorous stories, which included titles such as “The New Farm Hand,” “Ma Goes to Church” and “Cows and Romance,” were all written about her take on ranch life. Marion often provided advice for her family — one time a grandson called upon Marion regarding a decision to be made about two jobs he was considering. She was quick and to the point “Take the one that pays the most.” One of Marion’s favorite pastimes was attending rodeos and watching her daughters barrel race or sons-in-law participating in wild cow milking contests. Marion truly loved and embraced her western way of life living on the Eden Ranch which remains in operation today by two of her grandsons. Marion Vercruyssen passed away on

March 26, 1989. Her incredible ambition and unwavering commitment to live and to help others in rural northern Montana has earned her a well-deserved resting place in the Calvary Cemetery in Havre, Hill County, Montana, not far from the Eden Ranch. Resources: Family notes and memories from Marion’s children and grandchildren. —— Full biographies for past inductees are available on the MCHF & WHC’s website at http://www.montanacowboyfame.org. This year’s inductees will be added to the website soon. The mission of the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame & Western Heritage Center is to “honor our cowboy way of life, American Indian cultures and collective Montana Western heritage.” We exist to serve as a resource to all who wish to see this way of life passed forward to the next generation.

Courtesy photo Joey Malsam stands in a field in front of a herd of cattle. Malsam is being inducted into the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame in February.

Charles and Tami Good run the family wheat farm near Carter and own MaxAg of Montana. They have two sons, Jayden and Landon.

MFU works for family farms through legislation, education and cooperation. Just ask members Charles and Tami Good.

Courtesy photo Marion Vercruyssen sits at a stream bank. Vercruyssen is being inducted into the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame in February.

“There’s 2.2 million farmers in the U.S. so anyway we can grow and band together to gain power or get a voice it’s important.” – Charles Good

Find out more about our advocacy efforts and education programs at: montanafarmersunion.com

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