This is a big head table. Kind of hard to get into one shot. You’ll have to listen to the audio to hear their introduction by Joe Schuele, NCBA. This is the Cattle Industry Convention Media Forum just prior to our reception this evening. The event was sponsored by Merial.
The event provides an opportunity for the media to ask questions of the leaders from both NCBA and the Cattlemen’s Beef Board. A lot of the questions were about the coalition of groups coming together to provide input and recommendations on the Beef Checkoff. It’s still too early in that process to know what they’ll come up with but it’s clear that NCBA is taking a lead role in the effort.
You can hear the whole press conference here. It’s about 25 minutes long. I edited it down at least some. We had the lights go out in the room 3 times which was a little odd. Anyway, here it is: 
Cattle Industry Convention Media Forum (12MB MP3 File)
Since I’m doing so much coverage of the Cattle Industry Convention and since I couldn’t attend the 
The chairman of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board is Al Svajgr. I caught him for just a couple minutes this morning in the media room. He’s one busy man this week. In my interview Al talks about the new long range plan and what he most wants cattlemen to know about the Checkoff. He also explains why they decided to 
We had a secret mystery guest here at the convention. He’s Sam Elliott. You have hopefully heard his voice on a beef commercial somewhere, sometime. Sam didn’t prepare a speech. He spoke in a very genuine voice about his past, including his first memory of riding a horse. He spoke about how full circle he feels like his career has come to now be the spokesperson for the beef indusry. You can hear his unforgettable words at the end of his remarks.
If you know you’re going to be entertaining clients a lot then why not buy a brewery? That’s what Alltech did. In their booth they are serving some very fine 
There’s all kinds of activities in the booths this year. The Bayer booth had a very amusing pool shark. He had quite a crowd so I guess he was entertaining.
The Cattle Industry Convention Trade Show got underway this evening. Thank you Allflex for letting me set my bags in your booth for a while.
As you probably know I’m also blogging the Cattle Industry Convention for the Cattlemen’s Beef Board on their 
This is the last trade show setup picture.