AgWired

Outgoing National Association of Farm Broadcasting president Pam Jahnke – the one and only “Fabulous Farm Babe” – was honored and roasted by fellow members at the annual president’s banquet Friday night.

Pam was teased by her colleagues about all the things we love about her – from her boisterous personality to her undying love for Brett Favre. Let’s just say she took a huge amount of grief from her friends in Minnesota like Mike Parry. Party favors supplied by World Dairy Expo friends included Farm Babe Bobbleheads and Pam Fans.

Pam was joined by her saintly husband Buck and the rest of her family, including nephew Jayden – who seemed to find the Auntie Pam bobbleheads kind of scary!

Here’s a YouTube video with a few highlights from Pam’s roast – make sure to check the photo album for the pictures!

The National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) has named Ken Root of WHO as the 2009 Farm Broadcaster of the Year and Meghan Grebner of WMBD in Peoria is the Horizon Award winner this year.

The winners of the NAFB’s high honors this year are also great friends of ours. Ken Root was president the year we became members of NAFB in Florida and was one of our earliest friends in the business. Meghan’s only been in the biz for less than three years but she has already made close friends with her outgoing personality. She fit in with this group from the start.

Congratulations to both Ken and Meghan!

Brownfield Ag News Farm Director Cyndi Young was expecting another Brownfield reporter to win this year’s New Holland Oscar in Agriculture Award, so she was pretty surprised when she won for her “Doing It Right” farm tour series.

Our friends from New Holland, Gene Hemphill (retired but still involved) and Dawn Fox, were happy that Cyndi was selected by the judging panel at Kansas State University.

It was a big day for the Brownfield team. Reporter Tom Steever was elected Vice President of NAFB – we’ll have more on new officers later. The entire eight member on-air Brownfield team was in attendance at this year’s NAFB meeting for the first time.

The man who took away the blue sheets with overlapping circles and put ag media research at your fingertips was honored by the National Association of Farm Broadcasting for Meritorious Service last night.

Ron Claussen, president of AG Media Research (AMR), was praised by his long-time friend Roger Olsen for the work he has done over the years to help farm broadcasters show their value to advertisers.

Congratulations Ron!

Two great farm broadcasters and people we are proud to call close friends were inducted into the NAFB Hall of Fame Thursday night in Kansas City.

NAFB’s own “Real McCoy” was honored posthumously with the award. Lee McCoy passed away last year after a valiant battle with cancer. His brother, son, daughter and namesake grandson accepted the award in his honor. We are proud to call Lee a close friend throughout his career as a farm broadcaster in Oklahoma, Texas, and finally Georgia where he was part of Southeast Agnet for many years.

Our buddy Evan Slack was also inducted, joining many fellow long-time NAFBers and former presidents who are still active after more than five decades in the business. Evan made a point to tell everyone how important his iPhone is in continuing to do his job as a busy farm broadcaster!

I will be getting caught up with posting here today, hopefully. Since Chuck abandoned me to head out a day early to hunting camp, I spent most of the day yesterday taking pictures for NAFB. The photo album has updated with lots of great pictures from last night’s awards dinner. I am taking the morning off from the trip out to the Ag Hall of Fame this morning to get some posts done.

I can’t let Cindy be the only one to get her working photo on here today. I think I did 20 Trade Talk interviews at the NAFB Convention. I’m about talked out. For the moment.

In this photo I’m interviewing Annalisa Clarke, who manages I Love Farmers, They Feed My Soul. We were in the AEM AGCONNECT Expo booth. I’ll feature my interview with Annalisa later. Right now I’ve got a mtg. to go to before heading out on the highway. Support I Love Farmers with some of their great stuff.

Cindy will be here through the end of the NAFB Convention so you’ll be seeing more coverage as it happens.

Combined NAMA Trends In Ag/NAFB Convention Photo Album

Here’s the @FarmPodcaster, Cindy Zimmerman, working in the NAFB media room. AgWired is on the scene and as usual posting is light today due to the annual Trade Talk session. It’s an interview frenzy. I’ve done about 10 so far and have at least a half dozen left to go.

I just updated the photo album so see if your favorite farm broadcaster is there.

Later today I’ll be heading out to my annual deer hunt which is my 6 days of “rest.” I will have internet access but using it on a pretty limited basis but you can still expect to see lots of what’s new in the world of agribusiness on AgWired.

Combined NAMA Trends In Ag/NAFB Convention Photo Album