Southern peanut growers know the place to party and this week that’s Panama City, FL. While I get ready to go west to Denver, Cindy is attending the Southern Peanut Growers Conference. In this week’s program you can hear several of her interviews. We’ve got Randy Griggs, Alabama Peanut Producers, several guys from Trimble and Ag Technologies, the companies sponsoring the conference blog we built and Wesley Powell, past president of the National Peanut Buying Points Association. Wesley talks about grilling peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
The program this week ends with music from the Podsafe Music Network. Since we’re talking peanuts, you get to listen to “Peanuts” from one inch from midget. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 179 (18 min MP3)
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If you’re used to going to the NAMA Agribusiness Forum or already have it penciled in on your calendar then make a correction. It’s now the Trends In Agriculture. To learn why and what it means I spoke with Kenna Rathai, KBR Communications this morning. The meeting will be held, November 11-12 at the Hyatt Regency Crown Center in Kansas City. The conference logo was designed by Beth Burgy and her buddies at Broadhead+CO. Why the name change? “We wanted to re-energize our fall meeting and felt that by focusing on trends in our industry, we could keep the information fresh, interesting and exciting each year,” according to Kenna Rathai, KBR Communications and chair of the Trends in Agriculture committee.
This year, Trends in Agriculture will focus on rural lifestylers, which is a significant growth market for many NAMA members. Sessions will cover some of the new research on this target audience, digging into their purchase drivers and motivations, and a panel will discuss their successes and pitfalls in marketing to rural lifestylers. There will also be speakers outside of agriculture who have faced similar challenges in shifting some of their focus to capturing a new audience in a changing marketplace. Stay tuned to the NAMA e-News for the latest information on the fall Trends in Agriculture meeting.
The program this week ends with music from the Podsafe Music Network. Since we’re talking trends, you get to listen to “Trendsetter La La La” from Love=Action. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 178 (11 min MP3)
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If you’re planning on traveling with a horse then you might want to check into the advice and help of some experts. The experts at Horse Travel Network. This is a new venture which was just announced at the National Appaloosa Show. They’re not tied to just one breed either by the way.
Mark Hardy is the President of Horse Travel Network. This morning he and I sat down and wound up talking far longer than I think we planned but he’s an interesting guy and this new venture sounds like it’s got some great potential. One of the things I find most interesting is how they’re totally internet based and have already got over 700 people signed up and it’s brand new! Word of mouth is working for them big time. The site will include advice, forums, blogs and of course, listings. It’s going to take advantage of some social networking applications which are really popular today.
The Horse Travel Network is a new sponsor of the Appaloosa Horse Club and offering their members a special deal right now of a free membership.
The program this week ends with music from the Podsafe Music Network. In the spirit of traveling I chose “Travel Ditty Guitar” from Acoustic Rosh. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 177 (13 min MP3)
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This week’s ZimmCast is a little late I know but I wanted to wait until I got to Jackson, MS and the National Appaloosa Show so we could learn about how they’ve handled a major move to a new city with a show that’s been held in another location for a long time.
So this week you can hear Appaloosa Horse Club Executive Director and master blogger, Steve Taylor, tell us all about it. Steve is pictured on the right of the ring announcer.
He says the plan to make the move started before he joined the organization 2 years ago. Some of the reasons for the move included making sure they’re getting the best bang for their buck and allowing some new people in a different part of the country to have an opportunity to participate that couldn’t before.
Steve says the move also allowed them to look at how they’re marketing the show. He says they’ve received very good coverage from local media and that the organizational members themselves have been doing a great job of word of mouth. While they’re here in Jackson, his staff and members are doing a lot of local shopping and they’re even making sure they personally invite community members to the show.
The Appaloosa Horse Club also has its own magazine, website, blog, e-newsletter and during their shows they have one or more live webcams.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 176 (14 min MP3)
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Biofuels have been making headlines all over the place lately. I’m sure the weather in the central United States is going to continue to fuel the issue. It’s also taking us out on the road a bit this month. Cindy’s at the Fuel Ethanol Workshop and later this week I’ll be at the Iowa Indy Corn 250.
You may not be familiar with Farm Foundation or this series of programs they’ve been hosting on the subject of a Bio Economy. To learn more myself, I spoke with Foundation Vice President, Steve Halbrook, pictured. He says that Farm Foundation is a non profit organization that works in agricultural and rural policy issues. They bring together industry, government and academic leaders to focus on the challenges facing our food system and rural communities.
Steve says this event will have a special focus on biofuels since it affects all facets of ag and rural areas, especially ethanol in the mid west. He says that leaders from several government agencies, including USDA, approached them hoping that the Foundation could help them better understand this issue.
The program this week ends with music from the Podsafe Music Network. In the spirit of “bio” I chose “Biodiesel Willie” from 2012AM. I’ve played it before but I really like it in all the versions I’ve heard it, including live. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 175 (21 min MP3)
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My latest road trip ended at the Michael Peterson/New Holland Celebrity Tractor Race in Nashville, TN. So this week’s program has been produced there and includes an event wrap-up with Michael.
Michael Peterson has become a good friend after I’ve had so many opportunities to work with him since this event started 3 years ago. Today he got the crowd fired up as they enjoyed the competition and seeing some of their favorite artists get up on a tractor and for the most part, do real well.
Michael got on the tractor himself at one point so I recorded that so you can watch him drive. I think his time was actually the fastest but he can’t win.
Special thanks go out to not only Michael but also Gene Hemphill and Dawn Fox at New Holland as well as Holly Fritz at H.B. Fritz & Associates who did so much work to put this event on.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 174 (8 min MP3)
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The week Cindy will be attending the World Pork Expo in Des Moines with our coverage sponsored by Novus International. I was in their office last week to meet with Jeremy Lutgen and Scott Fleetwood. I did an interview with Scott, who is their Executive Director of Marketing and Products. In it you’ll learn a lot more about the company.
Scott and Jeremy are pictured outside their office in St. Louis. Scott says they’ve got facilities in 25 locations globally and serve customers in 80 countries. They take pride in “performance through innovation.” Cindy will be working out of their booth at Pork Expo where Scott says they’ll be helping educate producers about how to improve production through the enhancement of animal nutrition.
When it comes to sponsoring our coverage he says that these types of partnerships are important to establish relationships and help transfer knowledge out to the market place. Cindy will be doing her best to do just that.
This week’s program concludes with music from the Podsafe Music Network. Since both Cindy and I will be on the road I picked a song titled, “Travelogue” by George Wood. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 173 (14 min MP3)
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Next week’s on-location activities for ZimmComm New Media start off at the Corn Utilization & Technology Conference, CUTC, in Kansas City, MO. I’ll be there producing content for Corn Commentary as well as right here on AgWired.
If you don’t know anything about CUTC then you will after you listen to this week’s program. I was in the NCGA offices yesterday and spoke with Nathan Fields, Director, Research & Business Development. Nathan explains that the CUTC is held every other year and focuses on the corn processing industry. They focus on the opportunities coming up in the next couple of years and attract public and private researchers, government people and those directly involved in the industry.
He says that program elements will focus on improving corn wet milling efficiency as well as more this year on the dry grind ethanol process. There will be exhibits from companies that produce equipment for the industry as well as government and seed producers.
This week’s program concludes with music from the Podsafe Music Network. It’s a song titled, “Burnt Popcorn” by a band called general fuzz. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 172 (17 min MP3)
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Michael Peterson is helping young people get real in their life. He’s on the “My Real Life - Strong for America Tour” and I’ll be joining him this week in Lincoln, NE. During the week I’ll be posting frequently from the various events taking place on this last leg of the current segment of the tour.
I spoke to Michael today about the tour and got a preview of what we’re going to experience this week. It sounds to me like a great opportunity for companies and organizations to get involved to support our youth who will be tomorrow’s leaders. You can click on the picture for a larger one.
A Real Life Tour stop is a week long event that includes multiple school assemblies like the one you see Michael in above. It’s all about reaching the students and as you can see from this picture, they love Michael. In fact, from what Michael’s told me the activities that make up an assembly program really hold these kids attention.
This week’s program ends with a little bit of Michael Peterson performing “Down on the Farm.” I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 171 (18 min MP3)
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AgWired coverage of My Real Life Tour is sponsored by:
To build strong relationships with journalists BASF is once again conducting a media summit in Washington, DC. This year the theme is “Innovate 08, From Research to Reality.”
I got a preview of the program from Ray Gilmer, Group Communications Manager, BASF by phone. He’s already there getting ready for the dozens of media representatives who will be attending along with me. Besides traditional ag journalists we’ll be getting to know some for more mainstream media as well. Ray says that the program features some key BASF executives like Dr. Stepfan Marcinowski, Executive Board Member, BASF SE and Dr. Hans Kast, President & CEO, BASF Plant Science Holding GmbH among others. We’re also going to hear from Bruce Knight, USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory programs. It’s going to be a full day on Tuesday.
Tomorrow evening sounds like fun though as we have a wine tasting that features Katja Schweder, 2006-2007 German Wine Queen. You can hear Ray talk about it and why BASF conducts this program in the program.
To go with a windy day in Missouri as this program was produced, this week’s program ends with music from the Podsafe Music Network. It’s called “Cold Haily Windy Night” by Silverwheel. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 170 (14 min MP3)
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AgWired coverage of the BASF Media Summit is sponsored by:
At the National Association of Farm Broadcasting Washington Watch program there is a session called the Issues Forum in which ag groups make representatives available for interviews. During this session I interviewed Sarah Olson, Communications Coordinator, National Milk Producers Federation. Sarah is relatively new to NMPF and says that as they look to the future, communications will change. For example, she says they’re taking a close look at social communications mechanisms like blogs.
Besides my interview with Sarah, this week’s program ends with music from the Podsafe Music Network. It’s called “Song Writers With No Issues” by The Dubois. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 169 (13 min MP3)
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This week I’m attending the National Association of Farm Broadcasting, Washington Watch program. It will kick off this afternoon as will my coverage here on AgWired.
This morning I’m doing some media production training with American Farmland Trust. We’ve been talking about editing audio and video since they’re in a podcasting mode. In this week’s program you’ll hear from one of the people in our session, Gretchen Hoffman, AFT intern. Gretchen explains the work that AFT does and says that she’s an art major and very interested in the production side of web-delivered information. So besides learning how to edit a file and upload it we’re also talking about story development for a video clip as well as an audio file that may accompany text on a web page. She says they’ve got their own YouTube account now and have found the number of views compared to a video clip posted to their own webpage has increased fourfold.
I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 168 (8 min MP3)
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This is a fun week for ZimmComm New Media. Cindy and I will be exhibiting at the NAMA Connection Point for the 4th year in a row. You can hear what we have planned at the convention in this week’s program.
We’re also very excited about our AgWired Mobile service. We publicly launched it this morning. In case you missed it, all you have to do is text the word “agwired” to 46786. Then you’ll be subscribed to get headline news and stay up to date on what’s happening in the world of agricultural marketing.
AgWired Mobile is powered by Commodity Update and I chatted with owner, Joel Jaeger, about how they’re doing and about our new service. Joel is a forward thinker and new media pro who is changing how farmers get their market prices. I think you’ll be interested to listen in on our conversation.
The National Association of Farm Broadcasting is holding its annual Washington Watch program at the end of April and for the first time in a few years I’ll be attending. On this week’s program we’ll learn about it from program chair Lindsay Hill, BARN.
I know I’m a little late this week but maybe I can get back on my Monday schedule next week.
Washington Watch is all about farm broadcasters getting together in DC to meet with the Secretary of Ag as well as a lot of Under Secretarys and others at USDA. Lindsay says NAFB will be doing something new this year by busing everyone out to the Ag Research Center in Beltsville, MD.
Also on the agenda is an Issues Forum where various ag groups provide representatives to talk about the big issues of the day facing agriculture. I think you’ll enjoy our conversation.
This week’s program ends with music from the Podsafe Music Network. It’s called “Barnside Shed” by Justin Gordon. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 165 (12 min MP3)
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In just a few weeks we’ll be attending the 2008 National Agri-Marketing Conference and Trade Show. ZimmComm will have a booth there so stop by and see us. In this week’s program you can learn all about the trade show from committee Chair, Rosemary Schimek, Corporate Marketing Manager, Farm Progress Companies.
Rosemary says that this year’s trade show is the largest in years. If your company hasn’t pulled the trigger on joining then you still can. Listen to the program to find out how. You can also hear about the activities planned for the trade show this year. It’s got a western theme so there will be cutouts you can have your photo taken with as well as some kind of calf roping thing which ought to be fun to see after a few drinks.
This week’s program ends with music from the Podsafe Music Network. It’s called “Charge” by a band called Seven Thousand Miles. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 164 (20 min MP3)
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On National Ag Day we’re going to learn more about it from the Vice Chairman of the Agriculture Council of America, Greg Webb, State Governement Relations, Archer Daniels Midland. The Council is the organization that hosts Ag Day and all its related events.
In talking to Greg I learned that this year the theme was “investing in people, policies and programs to enhance consumer’s choices for a healthy world.” He says the website contains a wealth of information that speaks to how American agriculture is accomplishing this. Greg also encourages companies and organizations to hold their own local Ag Day event and use the Council as a resource for ideas and materials.
Ideas for how you can do something in your area include:
Farmer’s Markets
Ag Day Breakfast
Mall Exhibit
Fair
Pizza Party
Adopt-A-Legislator
Adopt-a-Classroom
Petting Zoo
School Lunches
Library Display
Point-of-Purchase
Here’s some “ADVICE FROM THE FIELD:”
“One of our favorite events is a pizza party held for more than 700 4th grade students. We work with different commodity groups, ag businesses and organizations to demonstrate how agriculture affects their everyday life. This not only helps educate the children, but also their siblings, parents and the entire community.” Diane Olson, Missouri Farm Bureau
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 163 (13 min MP3)
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There’s going to be a new publication in the ag communications world coming soon from AGRIpr. It’s going to be the FINDERBINDER Agricultural Media Directory. This morning I had a nice chat with owner Cory Cart. You can listen to our conversation and learn all about it.
Cory is a native of Binger, Okla., and is the marketing and public relations coordinator for the Stillwater Convention and Visitors Bureau and is principal of AGRI Public Relations. He says the initial response to the new directory is extremely positive, perhaps even surprisingly so. He says the directory will be useful for any level of farm or farm targeted company and is being priced to be very affordable. I think it sounds like it will be the most comprehensive directory of its kind. The target is a summer release. You’ll notice that I don’t have a web link here (yet). That’s because the website is in its final stages of development. I’ll update you when that becomes available.
Each FINDERBINDER® Agricultural Media Directory will come with six updating newsletters. Frequently provided with these newsletters are new pages for the directory. These pro vide readers with information on new media or media which have had major changes. Each year the number of changes in the me dia will make past issues obsolete.
The listings include names of editors, advertising managers, media owners, addresses and phone numbers, circulation figures and open rates for print media, public service announcement data for radio and television stations, radio and television talk show and interview format programs, and much more.
Publications, radio and television stations must direct a majority of their efforts toward an agricultural or rural audience to be included. Publications must produce two or more issues a year and newsletter format publications will not be included.
This week’s program ends with music from the Podsafe Music Network. It’s called “Traveling Song” by the Ryan Meyers Band. I picked this song since I’m in the traveling mode. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 162 (34 min MP3)
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There aren’t too many people in agricultural marketing who don’t know Gene Hemphill, Industry Affairs, New Holland. You probably know that we honored him at the media reception at Commodity Classic. This week’s program expands on that theme. Gene is a friend as well as a client and beloved by all of us in the media who have worked with him for so long. For all the attention he’s getting for “partially retiring” I can’t wait to see what happens when he really retires!
I promise you this isn’t too long (since I cut him off) but you can not only listen to Gene’s comments at the media reception but you can also watch them in this video. The lighting was kind of funky and at one point we went to full dark but it works. You’ll see Emcee Mike Adams, AgriTalk, introduce Gene first.
Before hearing Gene’s comments in this week’s program you can hear Pam Fretwell’s (WTAD) story about how she met Gene. It’s a good example of the stories we heard at the reception. I did record the full presentation which I’m sending to Gene on a disk so he can show it to his wife and kids.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 161 (17 min MP3)
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AgWired coverage of the 2008 Commodity Classic
is sponsored by: and
I know I’m a little behind with the program this week but what better venue to introduce a new image icon for the ZimmCast than Commodity Classic. We’ve got 4,300 people registered already and more walk-ins will show up I’m sure. There’s also 128 registered media here so far. Both of those are records according to media room manager Bob Callanan, American Soybean Association.
In this week’s program I talk to Bob about the media room then I wandered around and asked around 20 media representatives what they were excited about and planning on covering here at the conference. For the most part it’s a serious set of answers but we also had fun with it. The interviewers aren’t usually the interviewees if you know what I mean. Prices, the farm bill, how grain growers are dealing with their recent successes financially are just some of the topics you’ll hear mentioned. You’ll hear some of the most recognizable voices in the business from farm broadcasters to magazine and web editors. I hope you enjoy it.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 160 (23 min MP3)
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Like Cindy, I want to thank BASF and New Holland for once again being our sponsors of our coverage of Commodity Classic. We’ll have lots of feature content on their involvement with the show as well as other interesting news and show coverage as we find it.
AgWired coverage of the 2008 Commodity Classic
is sponsored by: and
If you’ve never attended the National Farm Machinery Show then you really owe it to yourself to wander around the largest indoor show of its kind in the world. I mean it’s big. I didn’t stay for the whole show this year but I think I covered some ground anyway.
While there I spoke with Dan Smaldone, Media Manager for the Kentucky Fair Board which is the organization that manages the facility. In our discussion he talks about how they market the show which includes the fact that 850 different companies and organizations are on display and they are all doing there best to get people there. He calls it a “must exhibit” show for companies in the farm machinery business. With over 300,000 people going through there during the show I understand what he means.
As I’ve mentioned before, this year Dan was able to set up a great media room with some of the fastest internet access I’ve found anywhere. Boy does that make our jobs easier. My coverage of the show was sponsored by John Deere and Precision Pays where you’ll find additional interviews than the ones posted on AgWired, some of them still to be posted later this week.
This week’s program ends with music from the Podsafe Music Network. It’s called “Little Bit of Sunshine” by the Dr. Mic and the Brain Ninjas. I picked this song since I’ll be in Florida later this week. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 159 (18 min MP3)
Or listen to this week’s ZimmCast right now:
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The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired which you can subscribe to using the link in our sidebar. You can also subscribe in iTunes
Southern peanut growers know the place to party and this week that’s Panama City, FL. While I get ready to go west to Denver, Cindy is attending the Southern Peanut Growers Conference. In this week’s program you can hear several of her interviews. We’ve got Randy Griggs, Alabama Peanut Producers, several guys from Trimble and Ag Technologies, the companies sponsoring the conference blog we built and Wesley Powell, past president of the National Peanut Buying Points Association. Wesley talks about grilling peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
ZimmCast 179 (18 min MP3)
Why the name change? “We wanted to re-energize our fall meeting and felt that by focusing on trends in our industry, we could keep the information fresh, interesting and exciting each year,” according to Kenna Rathai, KBR Communications and chair of the Trends in Agriculture committee.
Mark Hardy is the President of Horse Travel Network. This morning he and I sat down and wound up talking far longer than I think we planned but he’s an interesting guy and this new venture sounds like it’s got some great potential. One of the things I find most interesting is how they’re totally internet based and have already got over 700 people signed up and it’s brand new! Word of mouth is working for them big time. The site will include advice, forums, blogs and of course, listings. It’s going to take advantage of some social networking applications which are really popular today.
Steve says the move also allowed them to look at how they’re marketing the show. He says they’ve received very good coverage from local media and that the organizational members themselves have been doing a great job of word of mouth. While they’re here in Jackson, his staff and members are doing a lot of local shopping and they’re even making sure they personally invite community members to the show.
Next week I’ll be attending Farm Foundation’s program titled, 
Michael Peterson has become a good friend after I’ve had so many opportunities to work with him since this event started 3 years ago. Today he got the crowd fired up as they enjoyed the competition and seeing some of their favorite artists get up on a tractor and for the most part, do real well. 
Scott and Jeremy are pictured outside their office in St. Louis. Scott says they’ve got facilities in 25 locations globally and serve customers in 80 countries. They take pride in “performance through innovation.” Cindy will be working out of their booth at Pork Expo where Scott says they’ll be helping educate producers about how to improve production through the enhancement of animal nutrition.
He says that program elements will focus on improving corn wet milling efficiency as well as more this year on the dry grind ethanol process. There will be exhibits from companies that produce equipment for the industry as well as government and seed producers.
A Real Life Tour stop is a week long event that includes multiple school assemblies like the one you see Michael in above. It’s all about reaching the students and as you can see from this picture, they love Michael. In fact, from what Michael’s told me the activities that make up an assembly program really hold these kids attention.
Ideas for how you can do something in your area include:
Cory is a native of Binger, Okla., and is the marketing and public relations coordinator for the Stillwater Convention and Visitors Bureau and is principal of AGRI Public Relations. He says the initial response to the new directory is extremely positive, perhaps even surprisingly so. He says the directory will be useful for any level of farm or farm targeted company and is being priced to be very affordable. I think it sounds like it will be the most comprehensive directory of its kind. The target is a summer release. You’ll notice that I don’t have a web link here (yet). That’s because the website is in its final stages of development. I’ll update you when that becomes available.
and 
As I’ve mentioned before, this year Dan was able to set up a great media room with some of the fastest internet access I’ve found anywhere. Boy does that make our jobs easier. My coverage of the show was sponsored by 
Peanut producers are meeing in Panama City, FL and Cindy has them covered.
