Part 12 was published January 7, 2024, and can be found here.

Some activities in the last sixty years:

Seed Cleaner

In the early 1980s, the decision was made to construct a large mobile seed cleaning machine. l spent many, many hours drawing schematics. We put together a large mobile seed cleaning plant in a former Allied moving van. It could be quickly closed up in the event that a storm rolled in. The company who sold us the cleaning equipment that went into this van came to see it when it was completed. They stated that, without a doubt, it was the best they had seen anywhere in the U.S. The cleaner is in use yet today as we sold it to be replaced by a new, even larger one. It is currently at the Wagner bird seed plant at Flagler and in use. Like our house, every motor, auger, and drive shaft were laid out on paper prior to ever beginning construction. We could have probably acquired some kind of a patent to go with our other two patents, but an attempt was not made to do so.

G Marketing Task Force

During my politically active period, I was chairman of the Colorado Ag Marketing Task Force. This group involved one or two reps from all ag groups in the state. We met once a month in the state services building next to the capital in Denver and kicked around ideas that might improve ag marketing. Some of them didn't fly very well. One of those that I still think could have been a good one was the idea to build a grain terminal at Las Animas because there was a railroad track that ended at Las Animas that went straight to the Gulf. At one time, it even went from Las Animas to Kit Carson, but that portion was abandoned many years ago. The purpose of this was to eliminate the 50 cent or more freight charge moving grain east before it ever turned and went south to the gulf. We held a meeting with three Colorado active railroads and, of course, that trackage that we were interested in was Santa Fe. I will never forget the comment of the Santa Fe representative when we finished explaining what and why we wanted to do this. He simply said, "Now tell me why in the world we would want to screw ourselves out of that 50 cents going east first?"

The flipside of this is an idea that I had shortly after leaving the university while Dave and I were running a lot of livestock. That idea was to market cattle by video - show a film of the cattle at a theater and auction them while the cattle are on the screen. This was before the advent of computerized and internet marketing, but it was an idea that the marketing task force took on and researched. A pair of professors with the University of Virginia were playing with the same idea, except they were looking at marketing sheep and hogs. Erwin Witte, Marketing Director for Colorado Department of Agriculture, made contact with these professors and invited them to come to Colorado and work with us on this idea. As time went on, it evolved into video marketing that can be seen on everyone’s computer. We held a meeting that was attended by about 300 Colorado ag producers, including the Montfort’s of Greeley and the Livestock Sale Barn operators from Brush. The two professors from Virginia helped us explain to the producers how this could work. Within a couple of months, Superior Cattle Marketing out of Brush was on the ground and running with the video marketing of livestock.

Due to my involvement with the Ag Marketing Task Force, I have been a witness in congressional hearings, both in the House and Senate in Washington, D.C. I was also invited to meet with the governors of Nebraska, Colorado, and Utah to explain what the Ag Marketing Task Force was all about. Prior to stepping down in 2019, I was chairman of County Planning and Zoning for more than 20 years when Commissioners and I worked hard to save the railroad, and we did.

Next: Bob Hill