PERSPECTIVE OKLAHOMA FARM BUREAU
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February 8, 2013
Legislators share goals, concerns during annual Garvin County Farm Bureau legislative dinner BELOW – Rep. Pat Ownbey (left) accepts baked goods from Garvin Co. Women’s Committee Chair Sherry Schauer. The Women’s Committee baked treats for each of the legislators who attended the dinner.
ABOVE – Sen. Tom Coburn’s field representative Emily Shipley addresses Garvin County FB members during the county’s annual legislative dinner, Jan. 24, in Paul’s Valley. Representation from Sen. Jim Inhofe’s office and several state legislators also attended the event to discuss upcoming state and federal policy issues.
2013 OFB Congressional Action Tour April 14-18 • Washington, D.C.
Registration Deadline - March 11 More information and registration forms are available on the OFB website at www.okfarmbureau.org or contact the OFB Public Policy Division at (405) 530-2681.
Please excuse our error We inadvertently omitted several of our state senators in the legislative preview story featured in the Winter 2013 issue of Oklahoma Country. We apologize for any inconvenience and certainly did not mean to leave anyone out or provide an incomplete resource for our readers. We have included a complete list of Oklahoma legislators in this issue of Perspective. Please feel free to keep this insert as a reference throughout the legislative session. You can also find a complete list with links to each legislator’s website at www.okfarmbureau.org.
Member Benefits • Farm Bureau Insurance – Offers members competitively priced insurance products. See your local county OFB agent today. OFB highlights a benefit in each issue of Perspective as a reminder of the savings available to OFB members. Find a complete list of savings online at okfarmbureau.org.
Valley View Pecans Tour
OFB Calendar Oklahoma Youth Expo March 16-26 • OKC Contact: Chris Kidd, (405) 523-2402 YF&R Legislative Day March 19 • OKC Contact: Holly Carroll, (405) 301-6610 OFB Commodity Tour March 25-27 • Southeast Oklahoma Contact: Chris Kidd, (405) 523-2402
ABOVE – OFB State Director John Grundmann (left) visits with Oklahoma Secretary of Agriculture Jim Reese (right) and State Board of Agriculture member Ed Hurliman during a tour of Valley View Pecans, Jan. 29, in Shawnee. RIGHT – John Grundmann (right) discusses pecans with the Oklahoma State Board of Agriculture, Oklahoma Agriculture Secretary Jim Reese and staff members from the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry during a visit to Grundmann’s Valley View Pecan processing operation. Grundmann and his son, Josh, showed the group how they process pecans. Oklahoma is the nation’s sixth largest pecan producing state.
Oklahoma Farm Bureau Online Monitor the latest Farm Bureau and agricultural news and information online at okfarmbureau.org. Currently online: • Agricultural News – Oklahoma Farm Bureau features a new agriculturerelated story every day on its site. Read about both AFBF and state Farm Bureau news by visiting the homepage. • OFB 2013 Calendar – Oklahoma Farm Bureau’s staff is gearing up for a busy schedule in 2013. From the upcoming legislative session to summer conferences, see our lineup of events!
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The Oklahoma Farm Bureau Leadership Conference is just around the corner, and OFB members are invited to hear from a variety of influential speakers while learning more about the issues affecting Oklahoma agriculture. Sessions on the farm bill, state water issues and social media are planned, and AFBF President Bob Stallman will provide an outlook on upcoming national issues. The two-day conference will end with lunch at the OFB state office and a visit to the state Capitol. For more information, contact the OFB Public Policy Division at (405) 530-2681. A complete itinerary is available online at www.okfarmbureau.org.
Senate Leadership
Sen. Brian Bingman President Pro Tempore
Sen. Mike Schulz Majority Floor Leader
House Leadership
Rep. T.W. Shannon Speaker of the House
Rep. Mike Jackson Speaker Pro Tempore
Oklahoma State Senators Call (405) 524-0126 to contact your state senator or go to www.okfarmbureau.org to find this list with a link to each senator’s website. State Senate District 1 Charles Wyrick (D) State Senate District 2 Sean Burrage (D) State Senate District 3 Wayne Shaw (R) State Senate District 4 Mark Allen (R) State Senate District 5 Jerry Ellis (D) State Senate District 6 Josh Brecheen (R) State Senate District 7 Larry Boggs (R) State Senate District 8 Roger Ballenger (D) State Senate District 9 Earl Garrison (D) State Senate District 10 Eddie Fields (R) State Senate District 11 Jabar Shumate (D) State Senate District 12 Brian Bingman (R)
State Senate District 13 Susan Paddack (D) State Senate District 14 Frank Simpson (R) State Senate District 15 Rob Standridge (R) State Senate District 16 John Sparks (D) State Senate District 17 Ron Sharp (R) State Senate District 18 Kim David (R) State Senate District 19 Patrick Anderson (R) State Senate District 20 A.J. Griffin (R) State Senate District 21 Jim Halligan (R) State Senate District 22 Rob Johnson (R) State Senate District 23 Ron Justice (R) State Senate District 24 Anthony Sykes (R)
State Senate District 25 Mike Mazzei (R) State Senate District 26 Tom Ivester (D) State Senate District 27 Bryce Marlatt (R) State Senate District 28 Harry Coates (R) State Senate District 29 John Ford (R) State Senate District 30 David Holt (R) State Senate District 31 Don Barrington (R) State Senate District 32 Randy Bass (D) State Senate District 33 Nathan Dahm (R) State Senate District 34 Rick Brinkley (R) State Senate District 35 Gary Stanislawski (R) State Senate District 36 Bill Brown (R)
State Senate District 37 Dan Newberry (R) State Senate District 38 Mike Schulz (R) State Senate District 39 Brian Crain (R) State Senate District 40 Cliff Branan (R) State Senate District 41 Clark Jolley (R) State Senate District 42 Cliff Aldridge (R) State Senate District 43 Corey Brooks (R) State Senate District 44 Ralph Shortey (R) State Senate District 45 Kyle Loveless (R) State Senate District 46 Al McAffrey (D) State Senate District 47 Greg Treat (R) State Senate District 48 Constance Johnson (D)
Oklahoma State Representatives Call (405) 521-2711 to contact your representative or go to www.okfarmbureau.org to find this list with a link to each representative’s website. State Representative District 1 Curtis McDaniel (D) State Representative District 2 John Bennett (R) State Representative District 3 James Lockhart (D) State Representative District 4 Mike Brown (D) State Representative District 5 Doug Cox (R) State Representative District 6 Chuck Hoskin (D) State Representative District 7 Larry Glenn (D) State Representative District 8 Ben Sherrer (D) State Representative District 9 Marty Quinn (R) State Representative District 10 Steve Martin (R) State Representative District 11 Earl Sears (R) State Representative District 12 Wade Rousselot (D) State Representative District 13 Jerry McPeak (D) State Representative District 14 Arthur Hulbert (R) State Representative District 15 Ed Cannaday (D) State Representative District 16 Jerry Shoemake (D) State Representative District 17 Brian Renegar (D) State Representative District 18 Donnie Condit (D) State Representative District 19 R. C. Pruett (D) State Representative District 20 Bob Cleveland (R) State Representative District 21 Dustin Roberts (R) State Representative District 22 Charles McCall (R) State Representative District 23 Terry O’Donnell (R) State Representative District 24 Steve Kouplen (D) State Representative District 25 Todd Thomsen (R)
State Representative District 26 Justin Freeland Wood (R) State Representative District 27 Josh Cockroft (R) State Representative District 28 Tom Newell (R) State Representative District 29 Skye McNiel (R) State Representative District 30 Mark Mccullough (R) State Representative District 31 Jason W. Murphey (R) State Representative District 32 Jason Smalley (R) State Representative District 33 Lee Denney (R) State Representative District 34 Cory T. Williams (D) State Representative District 35 Dennis Casey (R) State Representative District 36 Sean Roberts (R) State Representative District 37 Steven Vaughan (R) State Representative District 38 Dale DeWitt (R) State Representative District 39 Marian Cooksey (R) State Representative District 40 Mike Jackson (R) State Representative District 41 John T. Enns (R) State Representative District 42 Lisa J. Billy (R) State Representative District 43 Colby Schwartz (R) State Representative District 44 Emily Virgin (D) State Representative District 45 Aaron Stiles (R) State Representative District 46 Scott Martin (R) State Representative District 47 Leslie Osborn (R) State Representative District 48 Pat Ownbey (R) State Representative District 49 Tommy Hardin (R) State Representative District 50 Dennis Johnson (R)
State Representative District 51 Scott Biggs (R) State Representative District 52 Charles Ortega (R) State Representative District 53 Mark McBride (R) State Representative District 54 Paul Wesselhoft (R) State Representative District 55 Todd Russ (R) State Representative District 56 David Perryman (D) State Representative District 57 Harold Wright (R) State Representative District 58 Jeff Hickman (R) State Representative District 59 Mike Sanders (R) State Representative District 60 Dan Fisher (R) State Representative District 61 Gus Blackwell (R) State Representative District 62 T.W. Shannon (R) State Representative District 63 Don Armes (R) State Representative District 64 Ann Coody (R) State Representative District 65 Joe Dorman (D) State Representative District 66 Jadine Nollan (R) State Representative District 67 Pam Peterson (R) State Representative District 68 Glen Mulready (R) State Representative District 69 Fred Jordan (R) State Representative District 70 Ken Walker (R) State Representative District 71 Katie Henke (R) State Representative District 72 Seneca Scott (D) State Representative District 73 Kevin Matthews (D) State Representative District 74 David Derby (R) State Representative District 75 Dan Kirby (R)
State Representative District 76 David Brumbaugh (R) State Representative District 77 Eric Proctor (D) State Representative District 78 Jeannie McDaniel (D) State Representative District 79 Weldon Watson (R) State Representative District 80 Mike Ritze (R) State Representative District 81 Randy Grau (R) State Representative District 82 Mike Turner (R) State Representative District 83 Randy McDaniel (R) State Representative District 84 Sally Kern (R) State Representative District 85 David Dank (R) State Representative District 86 Will Fourkiller (D) State Representative District 87 Jason Nelson (R) State Representative District 88 Kay Floyd (D) State Representative District 89 Rebecca Hamilton (D) State Representative District 90 Jon Echols (R) State Representative District 91 Mike Reynolds (R) State Representative District 92 Richard Morrissette (D) State Representative District 93 Mike Christian (R) State Representative District 94 Scott Inman (D) State Representative District 95 Charles C. Joyner (R) State Representative District 96 Lewis H. Moore (R) State Representative District 97 Mike Shelton (D) State Representative District 98 John Trebilcock (R) State Representative District 99 Anastasia Pittman (D) State Representative District 100 Elise Hall (R) State Representative District 101 Gary Banz (R)
For more information about OFB’s legislative involvement, please contact the Public Policy Division at (405) 530-2681.
High school students urged to produce videos promoting agriculture By John Collison OFB Vice President of Public Policy and Media Relations As we look forward to 2013 and what Oklahoma Farm Bureau has to offer, it is my hope you will be as excited as we are to begin the year. We start off out of the gates at a dead run with the arrival of the winter issue of Oklahoma Country magazine. It is our hope you will share the contents and good news of this OFB publication with your friends and family. OFB is proud of the magazine, and we want you to be too. We also hope you will notice some of our sponsors on the pages, as they are friends and family. We welcomed back our state legislators with a reception at the OFB state office on Feb. 6. We had more than 70 legislators on the RSVP list, and we enjoyed greeting all of them and welcoming the freshman class to their first year at the Capitol. I have met with this entire class, and let me tell you Oklahoma, John Collison you have sent some great men and women to the Capitol to represent you. Make sure to mark down the week of Feb 18-22. That is the week Gov. Fallin has declared Oklahoma Farm Bureau Week in the state. We will be kicking off Farm Bureau Week with our annual leadership conference slated for Feb. 18-19, at the Skirvin Hotel in Oklahoma City. The conference will feature an absolutely great line up of speakers. Go to the OFB website to see the full itinerary. We will also be inviting you to meet with your legislators at the Capitol that week, as we want to let them know how important agriculture is to the state of Oklahoma. Oklahoma Farm Bureau will once again be hosting a Washington, D.C. Congressional Action Tour set for April 14-18. We will be taking a group of our OFB leaders to the nations’s Capitol to sit down with our members and staff of the United States Congress. We have two new house members who recently joined the Oklahoma delegation from eastern Oklahoma. We are looking forward to getting to know them and their staffs. We plan to be very active this year, so come well rested and ready to work. As you can see we have a busy spring planned, and I sincerely hope you will be able to join us as we work to be your voice for agriculture at the state and federal level.
Ag Connect Expo
Agri-Pulse’s Sara Wyant (center) visits with OFB members Leon Neufeld and Scott Neufeld and OFB President Mike Spradling during the Ag Connect Expo and Summit in Kansas City, Jan. 29-30. Agri-Pulse is a weekly report that focuses on agricultural and rural policy issues.
Oklahoma high school FFA and 4-H members are encouraged to produce creative videos promoting farmers’ care for animals, consumers and the environment in a contest sponsored by Oklahoma Farm Bureau’s Young Farmers and Ranchers Committee. “The goal of the contest is to inform and educate the public with a positive message about farmers’ deep passion and commitment to their animals, the environment, crops and consumers,” said YF&R Chairman Mason Bolay. The contest, “Oklahoma Farmers Care: Doing What’s Right for our Animals, our Environment and our Consumers,” is open to any high school FFA or 4-H member. Entries can be submitted by an individual or by a team of 2-4 members from any Oklahoma FFA chapter or senior 4-H club. Only one video submission per chapter or club is allowed. The deadline is March 15. There will be three rounds of judging with a farmer panel ranking the final three videos May 1. Prize money totaling $3,500 will be awarded to the winners. Find more information and the application form online at www.okfarmbureau.org.
Farm Bureau Week activities planned Don’t forget Farm Bureau Week is Feb. 18-22, 2013. Newspaper ads are still available for counties to use in local media. The ads promote OFB membership and involvement. For more information, contact Kelli Beall at (405) 523-2470. Feb. 17-23 – Food Check-Out Week The OFB Women’s Committee will make food donations to the Ronald McDonald House charities in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, while also talking to consumers about purchasing healthy foods on a budget. Contact Marcia Irvin at (405) 5232405 for more information.
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Perspective/Online News Editor
Traci Morgan, Monica Wilke, 523-2346 523-2303 Perspective/Online News Editor Executive Director John Collison, 523-2539 Sam 523-2347 VP of Knipp, Public Policy and Media Relations Vice President of Communications/PR Chris Kidd, 523-2402 VP of Organization and Membership
Tyler Knipp, Norvell, 523-2402 Sam 523-2347 Vice President of Public Policy Senior Dir. of Corporate Communications Marla Peek, 523-2437 Marla Peek, 523-2437Affairs Director of Regulatory Director of Regulatory Affairs
OFB utilizes social media to share ag messages By Karolyn Bolay OFB Communications Specialist OFB is sharing the agricultural story through a variety of social media accounts. We are actively building audiences on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest, as well as continuing to utilize our presence on the OFB website. Below you will find some tips and tricks for all of our social media accounts to make it easier for you to find us and join the agricultural conversation in the social media world.
www.facebook.com/okfarmbureau or search Oklahoma Farm Bureau on your Facebook account Once you follow the OFB Facebook page, you will see all of our posts in your Newsfeed, which is the main page for you to see information and posts from your friends and pages. Facebook is a great tool to connect with other OFB members and even staff through likes, comments and questions. It is also a great source for events that are happening with OFB and in county Farm Bureaus across the state. Many of our followers on Facebook like to utilize our page to see pictures of events with a mixture of news and other information that is important to our members.
www.pinterest.com/okfarmbureau or search Oklahoma Farm Bureau on Pinterest website Pinterest is a website that is a virtual pinboard for users to “pin” a variety of websites, pictures or tips that they find useful or interesting. Many users pin recipes, household tips, clothing ideas, or even interior design and home decorating ideas. You can use Pinterest to browse different boards by other users to discover new things and to be inspired. OFB mainly uses Pinterest to help spread the word about agriculture through different infographics about the industry.
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www.twitter.com/okfarmbureau or @okfarmbureau if you are already on Twitter Twitter is a platform for you to communicate with other farmers, ranchers and agriculturalists in different parts of the country and even the world. Many Twitter users utilize their accounts to keep up with news and important information. Twitter organizes people’s tweets through the use of a hashtag, which is simply the pound sign (#). Some important hashtags for the agricultural twitter world are: #ag, #agnews, #agchat, #farm and any other commodities, such as, #wheat, #beef, etc. Twitter Talk: When looking through tweets, you might run across some jargon that is specific to Twitter. Here are some of the abbreviations and words you might run into: RT means a retweet, MT means a modified tweet, DM means a direct message, FF means follow Friday (also seen as #FF), TL means timeline, OH means overheard. Some other people to follow include Oklahoma Water Resources Board, @OKWaterBoard; U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance, @USFRA; Brownfield Ag News, @brownfield and Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, @OklahomaAg.
www.instagram.com/okfarmbureau or search “okfarmbureau” on the Instagram app Instagram is an app, for those with smart phones, used to share pictures. It is like Twitter in that it uses hashtags to organize and categorize the pictures you share. It also provides a variety of filters to use on your photos, which just makes the photo sharing a little more fun! We use our account to share photos from different events, such as AFBF Convention in Nashville, or photos from activities happening with our members on their farms and ranches.