Jefferson County Cattlemen receive Agricultural Award

FAIRFIELD — The Jefferson County Cattlemen have had a great year of promoting local beef producers, promoting the beef industry and providing the community with local beef at several grilling events.

The organization received special recognition for its outreach efforts in April when it won the Agricultural Award at the Fairfield Area Chamber of Commerce Awards Banquet. The group’s president, Zoe Moritz, said the honor was a pleasant surprise since an organization had not won the Agriculture Award for several years.

“We were very honored to be considered for that,” Moritz said. “It made us realize what we do for the community, and how important it is. We thank the chamber board for that consideration.”

The award gave Moritz a chance to reflect on the successes of the organization since it was resurrected about 10 years ago after having been dormant since the 1980s. Moritz said the county had a cattlemen’s association at one time, but it went extinct during the farm crisis.

After Moritz moved back to Southeast Iowa after living elsewhere for 20 years, her father, Donald Atwood, encouraged her to rekindle the cattlemen’s association. They would go to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines to eat at the restaurant Beef Quarters, which had a map of the cattlemen’s organizations helping to serve that day.

“Dad would always say, ‘You’ve got to get Jefferson County involved here,’” Moritz said. “When I moved back here, I had a sense that I never felt before, about what I was going to do for the community. I thought I could get the [association] started again.”

In 2012, Moritz had a meeting with Dan Delaney and Adam Ledger, and together those three restarted the Jefferson County Cattlemen. Today, the board consists of 12 members: President Zoe Moritz, Vice President Adam Ledger, Treasurer Brittany Glandon, Assistant Treasurer Justin Reed, Secretary Sara Syfert, Assistant Secretary Justin Engwall, Sentinel Cole Reighard, Reporter Shelby Adam, Jake Louth, Dan Delaney, Jordan Morris and Tristan Ledger.

The board meets on the first Tuesday of the month, and Moritz said membership is “strong.” She said Jefferson County has 58 members in the Iowa Cattlemen’s Association, which is about average for a county its size.

“There are a lot of counties in the 50-90 range,” Moritz said. “We try to grow our numbers by two or three each year. We have some members who don’t raise cattle, but who hope to in the future.”

Every year, the Jefferson County Cattlemen gather for a banquet where they recap the year and name the Producer of the Year. This year’s banquet was held in January at the Fairfield Elks. The recipient of the Producer of the Year Award went to Rick Coffman, a Van Buren County residents who works closely with local cattle farmers in artificial insemination. Moritz said that the group plans to honor two producers per year in the future, an older person and a younger person.

One of the youth projects that the cattlemen are helping to launch is a youth judging team, which met for the first time on Sunday, April 23. The judging team is multispecies and covers beef, pigs, sheep and possibly goats. Moritz said it will be run through 4-H, and that the lead organizer is Keeli Rubey, with coaches Drew Johnson, Dave Lock, Justin Reed, Wade Stremsterfer and Dan Delaney as the cattlemen’s contact. Moritz said the initial meeting of the judging team attracted 19 kids, so she hopes it will be a success.

For that first meeting, the cattlemen’s association grilled hamburgers. They had some extra burgers, so they took 10 meals to staff at the emergency room at the Jefferson County Health Center.

“That was very well received,” Moritz said.

The Cattlemen have already gotten out their grill this year, and they plan to do so a few more times during the warm months. They grilled for the Business After Hours for Jefferson County ISU Extension and Outreach and 4-H last year, and did so again this year. They plan to grill at a few Little League games in Fairfield, and to grill ribeye sandwiches and hamburgers at the Greater Jefferson County Fair like they always do. All youth exhibitors receive a free hamburger courtesy of the cattlemen.

In conjunction with the county fair, the cattlemen put on the “Carcass Challenge,” where kids can bring their beef animal to get a scan to determine the quality of the carcass. In addition to grilling on the Saturday of fair week, the cattlemen will serve a hamburger meal on the following Monday during the premium sale held at the fairgrounds.

The cattlemen will join the Jefferson County Pork Producers in grilling at the emergency personnel picnic on July 15 at Maasdam Barns, and the Barnyard Bash planned for September. The cattlemen also plan to show heifers at Maasdam Barn’s “Babies at the Barns” courtesy of Hannah Peck.

The group has been helping with a new program through Jefferson County ISU Extension called “Ag in the Classroom,” where beef producers have filmed videos of themselves working with their animals and answering questions about their operation for students in Fairfield and Pekin.

Lastly, Moritz said the cattlemen are offering a scholarship available to students in the Fairfield, Pekin and Cardinal school districts.

“We’d like to emphasize ag and animal science, but the ag world is so big, that they don’t have to be directly related,” Moritz said. “Really, if you eat, you’re involved in agriculture.”