Breakfast: June 19- There is an egg casserole in the back freezer, but we need someone to prepare breakfast next week
Speaker: Brandon Harris- Missouri Highway Patrol
We had a light turnout this morning for breakfast, but our speaker brought his wife and two sons to help. Elmer Schaefer also brought his neighbor Robert Cook. President Jan Palmer prepared breakfast, but she was thrilled to get help with cleanup since she had a meeting after our breakfast meeting that she needed to attend.
The Ashland Optimist Board met on Thursday, June 10th. Board Secretary reported that the 2020-21 officers voted to remain in office for another year since this year's schedule was shortened by Covid. The nominating committee chose Bernie Bartel, Bruce Glascock, and Ken Bishop to fill the open Board positions for the next two years.
The Board also approved holding the annual Fishing Derby at the City pond on Saturday, June 19th from 9:00-noon, (right after next Saturday's breakfast meeting!) with John Dougan coordinating as well as the Arcie Sapp Memorial Blood Drive on Tuesday, June 22 from 2:00-6:00 at the Optimist building. We will need several people to help with each event!
Barrett also shared a Thank you note from Blake Dapkus for the scholarship he received from the Optimist Foundation.
Our speaker this morning was Kevin Blake with Pioneer Seed Company. He is also known as the husband of the Boone County Journal's Carson Blake. He attended college at Emporia State to learn about geographic planning. Kevin stated that much of their meetings with farmers during Covid utilized digital formats, such as Zoom and Skype. Fortunately, much of the crop monitoring can be handled through remote cameras, which allowed the seed company to continue to work with farmers on what they needed to have the best returns on their crops. Many seed companies continue to hybridize crops in the field by planting six rows per hybrid, with each 500-foot row of corn requiring 30,000 seeds. All of the seeds that Pioneer works with come from the United States. Kevin currently works with ten different corn hybrids and twenty unique soybean hybrids.
Kevin talked about the fact that newer tractors can drive themselves and that a planting plan can be fed into the onboard computer so that the correct seeds are planted, and the tractor can keep from over planting areas, which help save the farmers money on seed and fertilizer. This is extremely important because similar to many items lately, the cost of fertilizer has gone up. Kevin also stated that commodity prices went up in the fall and are continuing to hold steady.
When Kevin was finished answering everyone's questions, he and his sons drew for the Attendance drawing. Chris Palmer, Cindy Gunter, and Jeana Bishop had their chance at riches, but now the pot has a chance to grow.
Letitia DenHartog