This past week’s NAMA Convention was Eldon White’s last one as the Executive Director/CEO. I think he’s been with NAMA for almost 16 years. Hard to believe it’s been that long. It seems like just yesterday Rex Parsons was there. Doesn’t it?
Eldon will be moving on to the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association and has already made it clear he’ll be a NAMA member. Let’s see how quickly he gets involved! At the end of the convention on Friday I sat down for a little quiet retrospective with Eldon on his time with NAMA. I think you’ll hear why he’s made a great association staff leader. For one thing he believes the staff is there to serve and that the members are the leaders. That sort of unselfish attitude always came across to me and I’ve always enjoyed my relationship with Eldon. I’m sure many would echo that.
We’re sorry to see him leave NAMA but congratulate him on his new opportunity since it sure sounds like a new challenge. Now is a good time for NAMA to look at itself and evaluate its needs as a search will probably soon commence to find a replacement. Good luck Eldon and see you at a NAMA meeting somewhere, sometime. The picture is of Eldon in the NAMA board meeting last week, diligently taking notes.
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I haven’t finished posting everything I’ve got from the National Agri-Marketing Conference & Trade Show so expect some more to show up in time. I just thought I’d take a moment to say thanks to everyone I met this week. This was probably the busiest convention I’ve ever had. I wish I could have spent more time just visiting with friends and colleagues. For those of you who made a point of stopping by the booth just to say how much you like and appreciate AgWired and what ZimmComm New Media is doing I can’t be more grateful. You’re the people I’m doing this for because I love what we do and have always wished we had some more interactive place to showcase what we do. Your support makes it all worth while, even when it’s not easy.
I’m trying to catch up on some of my posts from the past week but you might need to give me a couple days. Here’s a story that came in late last week about 
This is Lee McCoy, 
This announcement came out earlier this week during NAMA. It looks like a very 
With the launch of DTNAg.com, DTN expands its coverage of agriculture markets and weather and introduces in-depth coverage of farm business, production and agriculture policy issues. The portal enables producers to interact with DTN analysts, industry experts and other top producers in real time in order to gain access to the information they need to make better marketing, production and business management decisions.
It seems like I have to go places to find out who the latest hires are at 
I don’t know how many NAMA conventions I’ve attended since the early 1980’s and as several of us discussed one night this week, “we really don’t want to know.” One of the things we all agreed on was how important it is to show up and see friends and clients. Like me here with my friends (and client) Pat Morrow, 
The Brownfield party was a “good one.” I’ve been to quite a few and this one gets good marks. I went over thinking I’d just do a walk through and head back to the hotel. That’s not what happened. It’s tough to leave a good party.
The NAMA Bombers made it to the convention and posed with the autographed movie poster they donated to the ABEF Silent Auction. I know there was good bidding activity on the poster.