Takingskies
One Major County Farm Bureau member flies high to help farmers and ranchers protect crops, pastures and ensure a safe food supply for fellow Oklahomans as a second-generation aerial applicator
Innovating a legacy of achievement
OKFB's YF&R Achievement Award winner strives for agricultural innovation
Where passion meets the pasture
The winner of an OKFB Foundation for Ag scholarship focuses on veterinary medicine
Making it to market
OKFB's newest member benefit connects ag producers with new markets
on an Eligible New1 Ford Truck or Ford Blue Advantage™ Certified Used2 Vehicle. The Farm Bureau Exclusive Cash Reward1 is now
1 Available on the purchase or lease of an eligible new 2024/2025/2026 model year Ford Maverick®, Ranger®, F-150®, Super Duty or F-150 Lightning®. Not available on any other Ford or Lincoln vehicles, or F-150 Raptor®, F-150 Raptor R™, Ranger Raptor or F-650® and F-750® Super Duty. Vehicle eligibility may change at any time. Available to U.S. residents only. Place a new retail order or take new retail delivery from an authorized Ford Dealer’s stock by 1/05/26. Limit of five purchases or leases per household during the program offer (PGM# 32524). Offer subject to dealer participation. May not be used/combined with most other Ford private offers. See an authorized Ford Dealer, or go to www.fordrecognizesu.com, for complete details and eligibility (PGM# 32524). Due to high demand and global supply chain constraints, some models, trims, and features may not be available or may be subject to change. Check with your local dealer for current information. Offer subject to confirmation of eligibility.
2 Available on the purchase of an eligible 2020-2026MY Ford Blue Advantage Gold, EV (F-150 Lightning only), or Blue Certified, Ford Maverick, Ranger, F-150, Super Duty or F-150 Lightning with under 80,000 miles. Not available on any other Ford or Lincoln vehicles, or F-150 Raptor, F-150 Raptor R, Ranger Raptor or F-650 and F-750 Super Duty. Vehicle eligibility may change at any time. Available to U.S. residents only. This offer is not eligible for customers purchasing a vehicle in the state of Texas. Take delivery from an authorized Ford Dealer’s stock by 1/5/2026. Limit of five purchases per household during the program offer (PGM# 32678). Offer subject to dealer participation. May not be used/combined with most other private Ford offers. See an authorized Ford Dealer, or go to www.fordrecognizesu.com, for complete details and eligibility (PGM# 32678). Due to high demand and global supply chain constraints, some models, trims, and features may not be available or may be subject to change. Check with your local Ford Dealer for current information. Offer subject to confirmation of eligibility.
Volume 78 No. 4
Fall 2025 (ISSN 1544-6476)
Oklahoma Country is published four times per year in January, April, July and October by Oklahoma Farm Bureau, 2501 N. Stiles, Oklahoma City, OK 73105-3126 Telephone: (405) 523-2300.
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WEBSITE
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OKLAHOMA FARM BUREAU DIRECTORS
Rodd Moesel | President
David VonTungeln | Vice President
Leon Richards | Secretary
Jim Meek | Treasurer
Jimmy Taylor | Director
Kerry Givens | Director
Gary Crawley | Director
Roger Moore | Director
Stacy Simunek | Director
Mike Leverett | Director
Thad Doye | Executive Director
EDITORIAL TEAM
Dustin Mielke Vice President of Communications and Public Relations
Mickinzi Ferguson Communications Specialist
ABOUT OKLAHOMA COUNTRY MAGAZINE
ON THE COVER
Major County Farm Bureau member Matt Regier stands with his Air Tractor spray plane at the Fairview airport during the busy 2025 agricultural spray season.
Rachel Havens
Assistant Director of Media Relations and Advocacy Communications
Kate Jackson Publications Specialist
Oklahoma Country magazine is the official magazine of Oklahoma Farm Bureau, mailed to Farm Bureau members four times a year. Oklahoma Country magazine shares the story of Oklahoma agriculture and our rural communities through the eyes of Farm Bureau members, programs and activities.
ABOUT OKLAHOMA FARM BUREAU
Oklahoma Farm Bureau is Oklahoma's largest general farm organization, dedicated to supporting the agriculture community to improve the lives of Oklahomans. As a grassroots, member-led organization, OKFB gives a voice to family farmers and ranchers through advocacy, outreach, leadership development and supporting the future of agriculture.
Photo by Dustin Mielke
County Farm Bureau member Matt Regier continues a family tradition of agricultural aviation as he helps area farmers and ranchers.
latest Young Farmers & Ranchers Achievement Award winner is blazing his own trail of
NOTICE OF ANNUAL MEETINGS
To all members of The Oklahoma Farm Bureau, Inc., and all affiliated county Farm Bureaus of Oklahoma Farm Bureau, Inc.: You are hereby notified that Oklahoma Farm Bureau, Inc., will convene its regular annual meeting of the members and the delegate body on Friday, November 7, 2025 at 1:30 p.m. at the Omni Oklahoma City Hotel, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and the first business session of The Oklahoma Farm Bureau, Inc., will begin on Saturday, November 8, 2025 at 9:30 a.m. All affiliated county Farm Bureaus should make certain that your delegates are properly certified in attendance to represent your membership. This meeting will continue until all necessary business is transacted.
— Board of Directors
Notice is hereby given that the annual meeting of the Policyholders of Oklahoma Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company will begin at 8:45 a.m. on Saturday, November 8, 2025, during the Oklahoma Farm Bureau annual meeting. A report will be submitted of the activities of the company during the past fiscal year, together with a report of the financial position of the company. Any and all other activities of the company may be presented and considered.
– Board of Directors
OKLAHOMA FARM BUREAU INSURANCE
THE OKLAHOMA FARM BUREAU, INC.
OKLAHOMA FARM BUREAU MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY
Presidentially Speaking
Insights from Oklahoma Farm Bureau President Rodd Moesel
Rodd Moesel President Oklahoma Farm Bureau & Affiliated Companies
Proud to serve, proudly Farm Bureau
It is amazing how quickly eight years can pass by when you are busy doing something that you love.
It was eight years ago – November 2017, to be exact – when Oklahoma Farm Bureau members gave me the opportunity to serve as the organization’s president and bestowed upon me the opportunity to serve as the leader of our beloved grassroots organization on behalf of Farm Bureau members around the state.
It has been an honor and a joy serving our state’s farm and ranch families with fellow Farm Bureau leaders and my wife, Dona, by my side at every step.
I am so proud of the many achievements and accomplishments we have earned together as OKFB members during my time as president.
either our center in Guthrie or anywhere in the state with the center’s traveling program.
Our most recent youth endeavor has been kickstarting the ongoing effort to create a Frank Lucas Endowed Chair in Ag Policy to help support future generations of agriculture students at Oklahoma State University.
As we have worked to create opportunities for the next generation of Oklahoma agricultural leaders, OKFB’s leadership groups themselves have been hard at work to support Farm Bureau members.
There are so many unique programs, exciting opportunities and new friendships we have forged since 2017 that have served as a constant reminder of how amazing Oklahoma agriculture — and Oklahoma agriculturalists — have been and will continue to be.
The leadership I have been able to lend to Oklahoma agriculture is a product of my own involvement in 4-H as a student. That is why I have been so passionate about OKFB’s numerous youth programs that we have continued to develop and grow over the past eight years.
From adding innovative, new youth programs such as OKFB’s Capitol Camp and FFA Communications Conference to bolstering existing ones like our Oklahoma Youth Leading Agriculture leadership experience to our State Fair Livestock Judging Contest, Farm Bureau has been a proud partner in helping our youth prepare for a lifetime of leadership in agriculture. Our continued support of Oklahoma FFA as a platinum sponsor in addition to sponsoring the Oklahoma 4-H Safety Scholarship will continue to pay dividends into the future.
Over the past eight years, OKFB has created a Washington, D.C., internship program where we support Oklahoma students learning about national agricultural policy and regulatory work through congressional and other D.C.based internship experiences.
We also partnered with Oklahoma State University and Oklahoma 4-H on the awardwinning ATV Safety Facility where students can learn how to safely operate an ATV at
Our Women’s Leadership Committee has grown their important educational and advocacy efforts with Oklahoma Agriculture in the Classroom in addition to numerous programs they have started and developed to share the agriculture story far and wide. I am especially proud of their efforts, in collaboration with our Young Farmers and Ranchers Committee, to start conversations about mental health in agriculture through our multi-year Cultivating Healthy Minds webinar series, which even gained national interest from American Farm Bureau.
Our YF&R committee has grown their programs substantially, and in my time as president we have seen several of our own Oklahoma YF&R superstars serve on the AFBF YF&R Committee. OKFB YF&R members have taken on new challenges and expanded our Collegiate Farm Bureau chapters substantially over the past several years as they bolster the involvement of existing chapters and have started new chapters at colleges and universities around the state.
During my presidency we also added our Generation Bridge program, which provides OKFB members coming out of the YF&R program with a place to, stay connected and involved with OKFB on the state level. Farm Bureau members now have more opportunities than ever to plug in and stay involved with our organization beginning at a young age as ag youth and lasting all the way through their careers in agriculture.
I have also seen our agricultural advocacy work through the OKFB Foundation for
Agriculture grow tremendously as the foundation has created numerous grant programs, natural disaster relief funds, expanded their donor base and more. All of this goes to support our friends and neighbors in agriculture and even our urban friends as we help others understand the importance of our industry. Our Farm Bureau members have been partners in this important work through increased voluntary contributions during membership renewal billing, additional private donors and even the opportunity to include the foundation in estate planning.
Our members’ enhanced donations have also bolstered our OKFB Legal Foundation, which now stands more ready than ever to jump into the legal arena to protect Farm Bureau members’ rights when legal challenges arise. From work on annexation issues to emerging concerns about energy development and rights-of-way, I am proud of the work the foundation has taken on over the years, and I believe its work will become even more important to agriculture in the future by defending our members, and our industry, in legal battles.
Of course, OKFB’s grassroots policy development and advocacy efforts have consistently represented the interests of Farm Bureau members at the state Capitol and in Washington, D.C. From federal priorities including farm bills, taxation issues and now the new world screwworm to state issues including private property rights, supporting OSU’s land-grant mission through extension and veterinary programs, and energy development, our Farm Bureau members and staff have been steadfast in ensuring legislators and the public know the needs and concerns of agriculture and our rural communities.
OKFB also entered a new era of supporting our rural communities over the last few years as we have embarked upon new rural development efforts including our Oklahoma Grassroots Rural and Ag Business Accelerators program where we help rural innovators take
their ideas and prepare them for launch. Already, we have graduated four full classes of accelerator participants who will return to rural Oklahoma and continue to innovate and grow. These efforts, along with other programs that support both new and existing businesses, will help ensure our rural communities are a great place to grow and live for generations. We are even beginning the process of partnering with rural businesses through capital investments as part of our new rural venture fund with our program partners. Together, we are putting our money where our mouth is in rural Oklahoma.
Of course, the heart of Farm Bureau is our members and the county Farm Bureaus where they lead and serve locally. I am proud to say that we have more county Farm Bureaus taking an active role in promoting agriculture in their local communities than we did eight years ago. By keeping our county Farm Bureaus strong, our organization proudly has an impact from our local communities all the way to the halls of Congress and beyond.
Believe it or not, this is just the beginning of what we have accomplished over the past eight years. There are so many unique programs, exciting opportunities and new friendships we have forged since 2017 that have served as a constant reminder of how amazing Oklahoma agriculture – and Oklahoma agriculturalists –have been and will continue to be.
While we as Farm Bureau members have achieved so much for agriculture and our rural communities through generations of rural advocacy, we must diligently continue the ever-important work of sharing our stories and advocating for the life we all love.
Thank you again to the innumerable Farm Bureau members who have stepped up to lend their voices, share their skills and talents, take on leadership roles and make numerous contributions to help make OKFB effective and Oklahoma agriculture vibrant for the past eight years, and who will carry on the torch as we support our state’s agriculture community. It has been one groovy ride.
Executive Outlook
Farm Bureau and agriculture commentary from Oklahoma Farm Bureau Executive Director Thad Doye
Intentionally learning, continually growing, constantly leading
Farmers and ranchers are always growing. Not only are we growing crops, caring for our livestock and raising our families in rural Oklahoma, our state’s agricultural community thrives on innovation, adaptation and rising to the occasion.
If I may take a moment of personal privilege, I want to say how excited I am that my son, Chasen, will be representing Oklahoma Farm Bureau – an organization that means so much to my family – at the 2026 American Farm Bureau Federation convention in Anaheim next January as OKFB’s Young Farmers and Ranchers Achievement Award winner.
I have had the privilege of watching Chasen grow his own agricultural enterprise, building upon generations of hard work and innovation our family has invested in our southwest Oklahoma farm. Chasen, like so many other young farmers and ranchers, finds himself in an industry vastly different than the one my wife and I operated in when we were YF&R Achievement Award winners years ago.
Today, we can grow crops on our family farm that we would not have even considered a generation ago thanks to improvements in plant genetics. The price of inputs, including fertilizer and fuel, are much higher than before. The world market and how geopolitics shapes our trade opportunities continues to evolve. And sadly, while we have experienced price fluctuations throughout the years, the price we are receiving for our crops has not changed much since I was setting out on my own farming adventure.
All of these factors means Chasen and his generation face challenges I did not have when starting out on the farm, which requires our young agriculturalists to try new production methods, adopt new practices and forge their own path in agriculture.
Of course, these changes not only affect our young producers, but they impact everyone who makes a living from the land or who is involved in growing and producing food.
That is why it is critically important for all of us as Farm Bureau members and agricultural leaders to be informed and aware of what is going on in and around agriculture so we can be the leaders our industry needs.
From the federal Make America Healthy Again movement, which has far-reaching implications that could fundamentally change the way we farm, to the ongoing tariff and trade discussions and beyond, news comes at us quickly, and the sands of change seem to be evershifting for family agriculture.
For Farm Bureau to be effective and stay poised to lead agriculture and our food system forward, we all need to seek out news and new ideas on issues that affect us and even explore a wide array of viewpoints to expand our horizons and focus our thinking.
How do consumers – agriculture’s customers – think about our food system and how we grow food? What are the issues and challenges facing agricultural producers in other states, or even other nations, that could find their way to our farm gate? What do other farm groups and organizations think of Farm Bureau’s policy stances, and how can we find common ground to stand together as one agriculture?
All of these questions – and more – are worth devoting time to investigating and considering. While it may not be researching new seed varieties or the latest farm equipment releases, researching issues and studying agricultural viewpoints has just as much of an impact on what the future holds for farming and ranching.
The future of our industry – and future generations of agriculturalists – depends on today’s agricultural leaders to know the issues, understand the implications, and stand together as one voice for our industry.
Thad Doye
Executive Director
Oklahoma Farm Bureau
Your future self will thank you.
When it comes to planning for the future, sometimes getting started is the hardest part. That’s where we come in. From life insurance and annuities to retirement planning and more, we’ll help you get started and stay with you every step of the way.
Contact your local Farm Bureau agent, and together, we’ll make your future self proud.
tothe
Takingskies
Major County FArm Bureau member Matthew Regier provides timely air support to help protect crops and pastures for farmers and ranchers.
Story and photos by Dustin Mielke
If you look off into the distance
toward the skies in western Oklahoma during the agricultural growing season, you might catch a glimpse of a bright yellow-and-blue plane skimming along the horizon then quickly jumping back into the air for a quick turn that is reminiscent of an aerial acrobatics team in order to line up and once again descend, floating gently near the ground.
A glimpse of an agricultural aerial applicator at work flying across the sky as they apply crop protection products to fields and pastures can make even grown adults excitedly peer through their vehicle’s windshield with childlike wonder. For Major County Farm Bureau member Matthew Regier, that is just another day in the office – or rather, the cockpit.
Matthew is a pilot and the Fairview branch manager for Central Custom Ag Aviation, a company with several locations in Oklahoma and Texas that provides timely application of products that
help ensure crops and grasslands are protected and productive.
A second-generation spray pilot himself, Matthew works from the Fairview airport from where he and a team of fellow pilots load, take off and return. While Matthew’s plane may be based in Fairview, on any given day he might be flying low over fields anywhere across the region, including Major, Garfield, Blaine, Alfalfa, Woods and Woodward counties.
Matthew is somewhat of an agricultural Superman: flying quickly through the skies of western Oklahoma, swooping down to come to the aid of farmers and ranchers during critical times in the growing season to help defeat their crop- and pasture-threatening foes.
In the late summer and early fall of 2025, Matthew was busy saving the day from the threat of armyworms, which hit fields in full force after a rainy summer. With the pests able to decimate fields of soybeans, alfalfa and more, the ability for Matthew to act as an armyworm-eradicating
quick-strike force helped save the hard work and money agricultural producers around the region had invested in their crops.
Armyworms are not the only threat to crops and grasslands that Matthew helps control from the air. From controlling brush in pastures and grasslands, which use up water that beneficial grasses need, to keeping fungal diseases in wheat and rye at bay to controlling common weeds in crops and pastures to treating grasshopper and other insect infestations, Matthew’s careful, timely applications of crop protection products help ensure farmers and ranchers are able to produce food products for Oklahomans.
“We understand farmers’ and ranchers’ role in agriculture, and we are a tool in their toolbox to fix issues and fix problems,” Matthew said. “We both need each other to succeed. I feel like we’re part of the food chain and that we help feed the American people. We’re not the ones delivering the crop to the elevator, but we’re the ones protecting it, helping producers get to that point.”
A FAMILY OF PILOTS
Matthew’s love for airplanes and aviation started at a young age as he and his two brothers grew up around the Fairview airport where their dad, Junior, based his ag spraying business, and his mom, Theresa, helped run the operation.
“My dad just loved airplanes,” Matthew said. “When he got out of high school he started working for somebody who ran a mechanic’s shop working on airplanes. Then he got his pilot’s licenses and wanted to fly, and so he started the business.”
Matthew’s dad started Regier Flying Service in Fairview in 1982. Matthew’s uncle later joined the business as a pilot and eventually retired in 2007. Matthew said his dad hired various pilots throughout the years to help with the spraying, but it was not long before Matthew and his brothers set their eyes toward the skies.
“My brothers and I grew up here at the airport,” Matthew said. “I always joke with people that I spent more time at the airport than I did at my house when I was growing up. The school bus even dropped us off here after school.”
Junior earned a reputation for quality work, and even earned a place in Oklahoma film history by appearing in a scene in the 1996 movie “Twister” where he flew a spray plane for the film as the movie’s iconic, red Dodge pickup drove along a wheat field.
With a love for airplanes and a passion for aviation developed throughout their childhood, all three of the Regier brothers earned their pilot’s licenses in their teens. Matthew said that in their family there was less stigma about the boys flying places than some families might have about their teenagers driving. He even recalled a time when his oldest brother flew the three of them to Blackwell and back to watch a high school basketball game.
Today, all three Regier brothers are
pilots themselves, and each has a career in aviation.
“Flying is just something we do,” Matthew said. “My older brother flies – he sprays, and his company also does aerial fire fighting in northeast Colorado. I do the ag flying and run the place here. My little brother flies jets for a big corporate leasing company. So my older brother and I fly low and fast, and he flies really high and really fast.”
Matthew started his own agricultural aviation career in his hometown of Fairview in 2015 working alongside his dad and older brother. When Matthew’s older brother moved to Colorado to work for an aerial spraying and fire fighting company in 2017, Matthew and his dad continued to operate Regier Flying Service out of the Fairview airport. Everything changed for the family in 2021 when Junior’s spray plane fatally crashed in a field near Seiling. After Junior’s death, the family decided to sell the business in 2022, and Matthew became the branch manager for the Fairview location of Central Custom Ag.
Today, Matthew is in his tenth year of his ag spray pilot career, and he oversees the day-to-day operations required to ensure product is available to spray, fuel is ready to pump and planes are ready to fly.
Success starts on The ground
Before an airplane propeller ever turns, every spray job begins with relationships and research.
“We ask the farmer and grower a lot of questions about what’s around what we’re spraying when we’re doing herbicide work,” Matthew said. “We ask if there are people with gardens or other crops that are in the area so we can make plans according to what we’re spraying. We want to know what’s going to be around us before we get out there so we don’t have to turn around or run the risk of hurting somebody else’s crop or garden.”
Matthew said oftentimes his crew is working spray jobs for long-time customers: farmers or ranchers who are also friends and neighbors, whose fields and pastures the Regier family has sprayed for decades. Other times, the spray planes are called in by new or infrequent customers as a back-up in wet years or when weed or pest situations are critical.
A custom map is made for each spray job detailing the location of the field and any obstacles a pilot needs to be aware of. Matthew said he gets up early to make sure maps are made, which requires time spent looking at satellite views of fields and other reference materials to list potential aerial obstacles.
“We do as much research on where we are going to be applying before we
get there just so there are as few surprises as possible,” Matthew said. “That includes asking growers what’s around, whether it’s a wind turbine or a power line.”
Weather is also a key consideration. Matthew said he is constantly checking his phone for weather conditions including wind speed and direction, any approaching storms, dew points and any possible temperature inversions. Each chemical label includes wind restrictions specific to that product, and the pilots make sure they are within those limits.
Of course, every chemical Matthew and his team apply has a governmentregulated label, which details allowed uses and any considerations that need to be taken into account when preparing or applying it.
Matthew said not only do the pilots study labels and make sure they are judiciously applying products, but they also communicate with their customers to make sure agricultural producers understand important postapplication instructions such as intervals between application and harvest to keep agricultural products safe for consumers.
“Knowing what’s on the label and doing it correctly is a big part of what we do,” Matthew said.
Add to that the day-to-day tasks of equipment maintenance, ordering and maintaining a stock of spray products depending on the season and needs, making sure enough airplane fuel is on-hand at any given time and even
washing windshields, and Matthew has plenty of chores to keep him busy on the ground.
FLYING AND APPLYING
Once the engine starts and the propeller spins on Matthew’s Air Tractor 502XP and the plane – clad in the classic, yellow crop duster livery – taxis for takeoff, it is time for the part of aerial spraying that brings awe and wonder to anyone lucky enough to catch a glimpse of Matthew and his fellow pilots hard at work.
Traveling from field to field at speeds up to 167 miles per hour, Matthew applies crop protection products at speeds of 145-155 miles per hour, helping agricultural producers beat the clock against pests and weeds.
Matthew said that while he can apply products to a flat, easy-to-access quarter-section of 160 acres in about 25 minutes once he arrives at the field, what makes the spray plane so helpful to farmers and ranchers is its ability to spray places where ground sprayers, or “ground rigs” as he calls them, cannot trek.
“The big thing on our range and pasture spraying is that most of it is native grass and native country with rolling hills, canyons, trees and all sorts of obstacles,” Matthew said. “It’s ground that can hardly be traversed with a side-by side or four-wheeler. So there’s no other opportunity out there for spraying that pasture other than with an airplane because it’s not traversable with a ground rig.”
Even when the terrain is not challenging, Matthew said some producers prefer to use an aerial applicator to avoid spray-rig tracks in a field or, in the case of 2025, the ground is too wet for a sprayer to drive across a field or pasture.
Sometimes it is just easier to spray by plane due to the quick out-and-back time interval between fill-ups of product and fuel. Matthew said he and his fellow pilots can easily cover farflung fields that would require hours of driving for a ground-based sprayer.
“The big advantage for us is that we can cover so many miles so quickly,” Matthew said of traversing the countryside by air. “We’re more timeefficient in the pace we can get across the acres.”
Matthew’s 2022 model-year Air Tractor 502XP can carry up to 500 gallons of product per load, and each pass applies a 70-foot-wide swath of product. 70 feet at 150 miles per hour makes quick work of tough spray jobs.
Matthew said that during the spray season, the two or three pilots operating out of the Fairview airport average between 70 and 80 flights per month. An average spray job lasts approximately 1.5 hours from takeoff to landing. During a full spray season, a single pilot can log around 350 hours of air time, according to Matthew.
With the planes flying low to ensure the spray efficiently reaches the crop, Matthew and his fellow pilots aim to apply products approximately seven to 10 feet above the top of the crop. The low flight height during application
combined with nearby hazards means safety is a primary consideration for every job.
“It’s just about trying to do the best job and not getting too close to things,” Matthew said. “No little corner is worth not coming home for or tearing up a piece of equipment or having an accident. And there are some jobs we just say, ‘no’ to because there are too many obstacles and it could be too dangerous of a job. Or we might tell a farmer, ‘There’s going to be an area over here in this corner that we’re not going to be able to get.’”
Safety efforts include sending planes flying at the same time to jobs that are located in opposite directions from each other to ensure pilots are not operating in the same air space. Matthew said he also attends industry conferences to brush up on safety practices and protocols.
“Last year in Ft. Worth I sat in a full-day meeting just learning about power lines and how they’re marked, how their insulators look when a wire is pulled a certain direction, how the guy-wires would look on a certain power line when it turns a certain angle,” Matthew said. “Just so that from the air we can visibly see – and comprehend what we’re seeing – to know where the dangers are so we can avoid them.”
Matthew said that farmers and ranchers have always been understanding, and the pilots use both their flying skills and air drafts to ensure even, proper coverage, even though sometimes finishing a job means not reaching every last part of
“We work with farmers and ranchers in the food chain where we’re at. We’re trying to help them solve issues — that’s what we do — we are a problem-fixer.”
— Matthew regier
a field due to safety considerations.
“Honestly, ever since my dad passed away from doing this job, I have probably left more corners off than I did before or not have gotten half a pass closer because there’s no reason to,” Matthew said.
A PASSION FOR COMMUNITY
Being part of the agricultural community is a generations-long tradition for the Regier family. From past and present generations of Matthew’s family being involved in farming and ranching in Oklahoma to the 43-year family tradition of helping farmers protect their crops and pastures in the pilot’s seat, Matthew is proud to be part of agriculture as he provides a critically important service to friends, neighbors and customers.
“This is what I know, and it’s what I’m good at,” Matthew said. “It’s very fulfilling for me to go out and spray a field and do it well and enjoy doing it and want to do it again the next day. It’s a dangerous-enough job that if I didn’t enjoy it and didn’t love doing it, I’d do something else.”
From the thrill of flying to the satisfaction of helping customers, Matthew said he enjoys being part of the agriculture community.
“There’s some families of people that we’ve been working for going on 40-some years,” Matthew said. “We’ve sprayed for two to three generations and have been over those farms many times for them. And that’s a testament to the type of work that my dad did for his career and that I try to continue on. We love those repeat customers –
we work with them, they work with us, and it’s a relationship that’s been going on for a long time now.”
Matthew’s passion for agricultural aviation has led him to serve fellow agricultural pilots through his involvement with the National Agricultural Aviation Association. He currently serves as the NAAA committee chair, and he is also the current president of the Oklahoma Agricultural Aviation Association.
Whether it is from the air in the pilot’s seat, on the ground working with customers or in a board room helping lead his industry, Matthew said he looks at his career in agricultural aviation as a way to serve and help the farmers and ranchers who put food on tables as they partner together to care for the land and natural resources.
“We work with farmers and ranchers in the food chain where we’re at,” Matthew said. “We’re trying to help them solve issues –that’s what we do – we are a problemfixer. If a farmer has weeds in his pasture, we go out and spray it. If they’re being overrun with insects and it needs to be sprayed quickly, we go out and we eradicate the bugs. If there’s rust moving into the wheat or the corn, we go put a fungicide on.
“We’re a tool in the toolbox of things they can do and use on the farm. We do our best to provide them with great service and do the best job possible.
“I love being able to help people. I love being able to help farmers and take care of issues for them and be able to do it well.”
a of Innovating
ILegacy achievement achievement
a young Comanche County Farm Bureau member blazes his own trail of achievement on his family farm.
f you ask Comanche County Farm Bureau member Chasen Doye the definition of “achievement,” one answer quickly comes to his mind.
Chasen strives daily to implement new farming practices and test new ideas on his southwestern Oklahoma farm, keeping him ahead of curveballs that pose challenges to the young farmer’s crops.
Chasen’s innovations and unique approach to farming land that his family has worked for generations earned him recognition as Oklahoma Farm Bureau’s 2024 Young Farmers & Ranchers Achievement Award winner.
While today he implements agricultural innovations such as cover crops, minimal tillage and strip tillage into his operation near Hulen, Chasen’s passion for discovering and using new ideas started at a young age.
Chasen grew up on his family’s farm with his parents, Thad and Marla, and two sisters, Cortlin and Christann, along with both sets of grandparents who lived nearby. Growing up as a farm kid, he enjoyed working with the family’s cattle herd, which consists primarily of Herefords.
Chasen began his farming career around the age of nine plowing fields. He said that as he worked alongside his family, the Doyes made some upgrades to their farm equipment, which sparked Chasen’s passion for farming.
Story and photos by kate jackson
Chasen doye 2024 yf&r achievement award winner
“If you’re not sitting and trying to learn something, you’re not going to gain anything.”
“I’ve always been into farming, but it comes with ups and downs just like anything else,” Chasen said.
As a teenager, Chasen began implementing his new ideas on the farm, which included planting cowpeas and corn into the family’s crop rotation instead of the traditional wheat-on-wheat cultivation that is common in the area.
“I always had interesting ideas when I was a kid,” Chasen said. “I didn’t know about ever implementing them on the farm because the surrounding farmers have stuck to the same thing they have always done.”
While he recognizes that starting new practices on the farm does not happen overnight, Chasen has seen success with innovative crop rotations and using cover crops.
Throughout his career as a young agriculturalist, Chasen has kept an open mind to learning and growing, whether it is from input and advice provided by older farmers in the area, his grandpas or his dad.
“If you’re not sitting and trying to learn something, you’re not going to gain anything,” Chasen said.
He spends time researching and studying articles about new agricultural practices other farmers have tried that he thinks would fit into his operation.
“If I read something that has worked for someone else, I’ll try to implement it on the farm,” Chasen said. “It can be kind of hit-or-miss because it depends on the climate and our soil type.”
As he researches and implements new approaches to farming, he also considers the efficiency these practices provide to benefit his operation.
Chasen said using a minimal amount of tillage on his fields by plowing fields only one time before planting turns the weeds into mulch, creating a protective layer on top of the soil to preserve water, similar to the benefits of a cover crop.
“With the minimal tillage, I’m not having to work my equipment as hard or use as much diesel,” Chasen said of the efficiencies the practice has helped him achieve.
Aside from using minimal tillage, Chasen implements innovative crop rotations throughout his operation to retain soil nutrients and break up the crop disease cycle.
“Crop rotation has helped my yield out tremendously,” Chasen said. “Going from one crop to the next helps to break up the disease cycle.”
Chasen’s crop rotations consist mainly of cowpeas and corn, with the addition sunflowers, sorghum sudangrass and a traditional wheat crop.
In addition to reducing the number of times he tills a field to improve soil health, Chasen also implements cover crops to provide a cover for the soil between planting seasons.
Chasen said he has planted native sunflowers to use as a cover crop and hired out a neighbor to harvest them to use for a dove-hunting food plot.
He tries to use the cover crops to retain moisture, and he uses the residue from the leftover cover crop to create an armor to protect the soil.
“To me, everything can be a cover crop.” Chasen said.
Chasen said that by using both cover crops and
“Farming is amazing. there are all kinds of new things compared to the past, but there’s only so much that can work for you.”
developing a crop rotation, he adds micronutrients into his soil, which allows him to minimize the amount of commercial fertilizers needed to maintain soil fertility.
“I am trying to stay ahead of the curve if we are ever limited on spraying our fields,” Chasen said.
He also takes a natural approach to eradicating weeds, which he likes to call “selective weed control.” By using minimal tillage before he plants a crop, he disks the weeds right back into the soil to use as organic matter.
Chasen also uses strip tillage, which tills the field in strips, leaving alternating strips of worked and unworked soil throughout the field. He said this allows him to plant into the tilled portions of each field, leaving the untilled strips to serve as a cover crop.
Although his way of farming may seem unconventional to some, he has made a positive impact on his operation by being open to trying anything that can help make his operation successful.
Although he has seen success resulting from his cuttingedge farming practices, Chasen said the biggest challenge posed to him and his crop is the weather. Chasen uses a versatile planting strategy that enables him to have multiple options with each crop including turning it into hay, letting it become a cover crop or turning his cattle in on what is left, depending on what the weather does.
“I have been happy to have cover crops to use during the droughts we’ve had,” Chasen said. “My cows will have a bare pasture, then I turn them out on the cover crop, and they can graze whatever they want to.”
The combination of these strategies allows Chasen to easily pivot his crop plan depending on growing conditions. He works to find a way that his crops can be used no matter what the ever changing weather does.
He can easily turn a crop into hay for his cattle rather than harvesting it, or he can use it as an armor for the soil that later becomes organic matter he can plant into.
“No one should know your ground better than you,” Chasen said. “It’s up to you to manage it how you want to. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution.”
Chasen will have the opportunity to showcase his approach to production agriculture as he represents OKFB at the 2026 American Farm Bureau convention in Anaheim, California, as he competes in the AFBF YF&R Achievement Award contest against fellow young agriculturalists from around the nation.
Chasen is not the only member of his family who has represented Oklahoma agriculture as a statewide Farm Bureau award winner. He is actually the second generation of the Doye family to win the OKFB YF&R Achievement Award, an honor his parents earned when Chasen himself was a kid.
Winning statewide recognition is simply a result of Chasen doing what he loves most – finding new, innovative ways to continue the family tradition of earning a living off the land as a farmer and rancher.
“Farming really is amazing,” Chasen said. “There are all kinds of new things compared to the past, but there’s only so much that can work for you.”
PASSION
PASTURE W
Ayoungveterinariandevelopsapassiontoprovideveterinarycareforrurallivestock
hen Texas hill country native Jacob Fuller began his college education at Northwestern Oklahoma State University in Alva, he found what he feels is his life’s calling.
With a background of competing in FFA livestock events back home in Texas, Fuller said that once he started college, he quickly discovered a love for veterinary medicine, and specifically, caring for large animals including cattle and horses.
“It wasn’t until I began my undergraduate education when becoming a veterinarian sparked my interest,” Jacob said. “I began shadowing a rural mixed-animal veterinarian and learned what large-animal medicine was and what all it entailed, and I fell in love with it.”
He has navigated his way from Alva to Stillwater and now to Hugo, where he is currently working as a full-time veterinarian at the River Valley vet clinic in the southeastern Oklahoma town.
Jacob said that while he was growing up in his rural hometown community, he was an active FFA member, competing in livestock judging and range judging in addition to showing pigs. He said he has always enjoyed being around animals.
Jacob earned his undergraduate degree from NWOSU, then after his job-shadowing experience at a vet clinic, he began pursuing his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree at OSU. He said the program at OSU was mostly smallanimal focused with a small amount of large-animal programming, but he said that if a student had an interest in practicing large-animal medicine, they were able to take those courses as electives.
When it came time to begin looking for veterinary externships to gain hands-on experience, Jacob focused on clinics that were hiring a full-time veterinarian.
“We use the externships as a working job interview while in vet school,” Jacob said. “I was having a tough time finding a clinic that was looking for a large mixedanimal practitioner.”
Story and photos by Kate Jackson
PASSIONMEETS THE PASTURE
livestockowners.
He said most places are not willing to hire someone who is solely a large-animal practitioner, and when he did find a clinic hiring for such a position, most opportunities were either exclusively bovine- or equine-focused and not aimed at mixed large-animal medicine.
Jacob began his search for a clinic to join for his externship by visiting a clinic in Okmulgee that was hiring, and they suggested that he look into the River Valley vet clinic in Hugo. He shadowed Dr. Eastwood, one of the fulltime veterinarians at River Valley, and then later transitioned into a full-time position upon his graduation from OSU.
As one of three veterinarians at the clinic, Jacob plans to focus primarily on the large-animal portion of the clinic, specializing in equine and cattle.
“You have to be a lifelong learner and be teachable,” Jacob said. “I’m still looking up research papers throughout the day trying to figure out if I’m providing the best treatment or if there is a better option. We’re constantly learning and changing.”
Even though Jacob has found his dream position at a rural veterinary clinic, he continues to expand his skills and knowledge to grow as a professional. Jacob has expanded his education by completing a course at the Oklahoma Horseshoeing School. He is also planning to take an animal acupuncture course and has additional plans to take courses in chiropractic medicine and physical therapy for large animals.
As Jacob pursues his veterinary medicine dreams, he is not the only one in his young family with an interest in large-animal medicine. His wife, Siona, whom Jacob met at NWOSU, will graduate from Oklahoma State University in May 2026 with a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree.
Siona said she hopes to lean into the orthopedic side of large-animal medicine to be able to provide surgical care to rural patients.
“I got into a love for orthopedics when I worked for a doctor during undergrad,” Siona said. “I want to be able to
give rural patients the options of either performing the surgery myself or going to a specialist.”
Siona will join the team of veterinarians at River Valley upon her graduation from veterinary school in May. The Fullers plan to stay at the River Valley vet clinic in Hugo with a long-term goal of opening their own large-animal practice in the Forgan area where Siona grew up.
With backgrounds in rural areas, the Fullers want to give back to rural communities and help farmers, ranchers and rural residents through their veterinary care services.
Jacob said the kind of people who rely upon the services that large-animal veterinarians provide are the hardestworking people who often do not receive the recognition they deserve, and it is an honor and a privilege to work with them.
“Growing up in a rural community and not having access to any veterinary medicine is what put a passion in me to give back to rural communities,” Siona said.
Jacob is the inaugural recipient of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture's Large-Animal Veterinarian Scholarship. The OKFB Foundation for Agriculture seeks to address the decline of large-animal veterinarians in rural areas, which affects farmers and ranchers, by offering the scholarship.
The $15,000 scholarship is awarded to a student who is studying veterinary medicine at OSU, which is the state's only school of veterinary medicine, and who has intentions of working as a large-animal veterinarian in Oklahoma.
The Fullers are just the beginning of a new generation of large-animal veterinarians who want to give back to rural communities, and the OKFB Foundation for Agriculture Large-Animal Veterinarian Scholarship is helping Jacob and Siona do just that.
“I came from a small, rural town,” Jacob said. “I like the close community feel in a small town, but I also wanted to be the valuable person that comes with being in a small town.”
Making it to market
Oklahoma Farm Bureau's newest member benefit aims to expand market opportunities for Oklahoma farmers and ranchers with an innovative online marketplace created for agriculture.
Bryce Everett is not aware of an ancestor who has not been a farmer or rancher. A descendent of two families who settled in Oklahoma during the land run, Everett, a Canadian County Farm Bureau member whose family farm and ranch is located in Kingfisher County, said he knows directly of five generations before him who have farmed, and family ancestry research keeps turning up agriculturalists in the family’s line back into the 1700s.
As long as Everett’s family has been farming, they, like all farmers and ranchers, have hauled their agricultural products to a nearby town, grain elevator or depot to sell livestock, grain and other fruits of their labor.
While this centuries-old sales strategy is widely considered “just the way things work” in agriculture, Everett has his eyes set on widening the scope and reach – along with the price – that individual farmers and ranchers can capture when agricultural producers go to sell their products.
Everett, along with a team of agricultural market experts and technology integrators, has developed URMRKT, an online platform that brings together buyers and sellers of agricultural products and inputs, which is preparing for a full launch.
“What I want people to know is that this is being built for them, as a tool for them, so that they can do business the way they need to do it,” Everett said. “All farmers do business differently, and this platform gives them the ability to buy and sell as they see fit.”
Whether a farmer is buying fertilizer to apply to their fields, a rancher is looking to sell hay or an agricultural producer is wanting to find a better price for their grain, Everett said URMRKT allows buyers and sellers to easily connect using a robust online platform, vastly expanding the circle of available market options for agricultural inputs and products.
Everett and his team are preparing for a statewide roll-out of URMRKT in Oklahoma focusing on seven common agricultural products that the state's farmers and ranchers buy and sell: corn, wheat, milo, soybeans, fertilizer and off-road diesel.
Everett said URMRKT will allow users to list products that they have for sale in these seven categories and connect them with fellow users looking for the same products. The platform will offer filtering to ensure buyers can refine their search to more easily locate exactly what they need.
The URMRKT team builds in pricing transparency to the platform’s listings,
Story and photos by Dustin Mielke
URMRKT CEO and Farm Bureau member
Bryce Everett
ensuring buyers know exactly how much the delivered cost of the product will be before they make a purchase. Since agricultural products are often sold by the truckload or truckloads, Everett said the ability to know the final, delivered price of bulk agricultural products is a key feature.
With the quantities that farmers, ranchers and agricultural suppliers need to keep their operations running, Everett said building trust into the platform is a central focus to the URMRKT user experience. From user reviews to a built-in payment system where buyers’ money is deposited and then paid out in a stepped process as products make their way to final delivery and inspection, URMRKT works to build trust in the agricultural community.
“We’re doing all we can to instill the trust needed to make the transactions happen,” Everett said. “It’s difficult to change the status quo to a new age. Farmers are very good at adapting, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.”
As the platform grows, additional agricultural product categories will be added, and the URMRKT team has plans to expand the platform’s presence across the region and even the nation.
Agricultural producers, including Everett and the generations of farmers and ranchers before him, have long conducted business with a handshake and a promise. Everett said that while the local, in-person transaction model may be the tradition, the ability for farmers and ranchers to find new markets for their products and new suppliers for their inputs is important to keeping family farms and ranches profitable into the future.
“I’m all about building relationships, but I’m
“I’m all about building relationships, but I’m also about running agriculture as a business and getting the margins that are needed to achieve sustainability.”
– Bryce Everett
Be the first to know when urmrkt launches
Oklahoma Farm Bureau members can sign up to receive early access to URMRKT's innovative online buying and selling platform created for farmers and ranchers.
To sign up, simply visit urmrkt.com/okfb and enter your information.
OKFB members will also receive an exclusive 10% discount on all transaction fees and can also earn referral bonuses once the platform launches.
Scan this QR code or visit urmrkt.com/okfb to learn more!
also about running agriculture as a business and getting the margins that are needed to achieve sustainability,” Everett said.
Everett was able to build the online sales platform with input from fellow farmers and ranchers thanks to OKFB’s Oklahoma Grassroots Rural and Ag Business Accelerators program. Everett is a graduate of the program’s AgCelerate Oklahoma agricultural innovation pipeline, and went through the program’s comprehensive business curriculum focused on helping rural innovators succeed.
“You can go through many accelerators –there are various accelerators that people can do – but I don’t think I could go to any of them and find that feeling of, ‘These people genuinely care what’s going on here,’” Everett said of his experience in AgCelerate Oklahoma.
The feedback URMRKT received from fellow farmers and ranchers across the state as part of the accelerator program helped the platform refine and hone in on meeting the needs that agricultural producers have when it comes to selling the products they work hard to bring to market while also buying necessary inputs.
As URMRKT prepares to launch, the platform is offering Farm Bureau members an opportunity to sign up for early access for the platform so they can be added to URMRKT as soon as it launches. With the URMRKT member benefit, OKFB members will receive 10% off the site’s transaction fee along with a referral system.
“We want Farm Bureau members to know that we’re in to help them and create something for them.
“We want to see them do well – I’m a farmer, and farmers are my people.”
klahoma Farm Bureau members are set to gather Nov. 7-9 for the 2025 OKFB Annual Meeting at the Omni Hotel in Oklahoma City.
This year’s annual meeting theme, “Elevating Agriculture,” showcases the spirit of grassroots members around the state who work tirelessly to represent family farmers and ranchers by elevating our state’s agriculture industry in their local communities, at the state level and across the nation through their work at every level of Farm Bureau.
By representing Farm Bureau, family agriculture and our rural communities throughout the year, OKFB members elevate agriculture in the public eye by raising awareness of the positive impact agriculture has in the lives of all Oklahomans.
During convention, members will elevate agriculture by recognizing a year’s worth of Farm Bureau achievements through awards, competitive events, giving opportunities and more.
November 7-9, 2025 • Oklahoma City
Pitch the Plains
New for 2025 is the first-ever Pitch the Plains competition. A collaboration between OKFB and Launch Rural OK, the event is designed to celebrate bold ideas and spark entrepreneurship in adults and youth across rural Oklahoma. Youth and adults alike will have the opportunity to pitch a new or innovative idea in front of a set of judges for the chance to win cash prizes, and the winner in the adult category will pitch to the OKFB membership during the annual meeting’s opening session on Friday, Nov. 7.
Elections
This year, OKFB members will elect a new president as Rodd Moesel wraps up his eight years of service as the head of the organization. Additionally, members from districts three, six and nine will convene to elect new grassroots leaders to represent their respective districts on the state board of directors.
The OKFB Women’s Leadership Committee will meet to vote on representatives for districts three, six and nine. The OKFB Young Farmers and Ranchers committee will also elect leaders from districts three, six, and nine, as well as a committee chair, an at-large representative and a Collegiate Farm Bureau representative.
Speakers and Guests
Farm Bureau members will have the opportunity to hear from a full slate of speakers and guests throughout the weekend, including United States Sen. Markwayne Mullin, who will kick off the first general session on Friday, Nov. 7. Other slated guests include newly appointed Farm Service Agency directors Eddie Fields and Zac Swartz, Environmental Protection Agency’s Scott Mason, and Oklahoma Broadband Office Executive Director Mike Sanders.
Grassroots business meetings
OKFB members will gather for two business meetings throughout the weekend to consider and vote upon grassroots policy proposals. The policy proposals presented at the annual meeting originate at the county level and
Annual Meeting Schedule
Thursday, November 6
Schedule subject to change
make their way through the state resolutions committee throughout the fall. These policies serve to guide the organization in 2025 at the state Capitol and beyond.
YF&R competitive events
The OKFB YF&R committee will host their annual Collegiate Discussion Meet and YF&R Discussion Meet on Thursday, Nov. 6 and Friday, Nov. 7, respectively.
Winners of each division, including the High School Discussion Meet held separately, will be recognized on stage throughout convention.
Entertainment
Farm Bureau members will have the opportunity to take a trip back to their childhood days with an evening of fun and fellowship during the OKFB carnival on Friday, Nov. 7. Carnival enthusiasts of all ages are welcome to try their hand at classic carnival games for the chance to win prizes and bragging rights at the first-of-itskind event for the organization.
All events and speakers are current as of press time. Visit the OKFB website for the most up-to-date schedule.
Friday, November 7
3:15 p.m. ................................Breakout: Pitch the Plains Youth Competition
3:15 p.m. .......................................................Breakout: New World Screwworm
3:15 p.m. ........................................................ Breakout: Topic to be Announced
4:30 p.m. ............................................................................. WLC Business Meeting
4:30 p.m. .............................................................................YF&R Dinner & Caucus
5:30 p.m. ................................................................................................... WLC Dinner
7 p.m. ......................................................OKFB Carnival & Entertainment
Saturday, November 8
7 a.m. .............................................Credentials Committee Breakfast Meeting
7:30 a.m. ................OKFB Foundation for Agriculture Flapjack Breakfast
7:30 a.m. ...........................................Financial Committee Breakfast Meeting
7:30 a.m. ..................................... Resolutions Committee Breakfast Meeting
8 a.m. ............................................................................................Registration Opens
8:45 a.m. ......................................................... OKFBMIC Policyholders Meeting
9 a.m. .......................................................Trade Show and Silent Auction Open
9:30 a.m. ............................................................................ General Session
11:45 a.m. ....................................................................... WLC Advocacy Luncheon
12 p.m. ..........................................Credentials Committee Luncheon Meeting
1 p.m. ....................................... OKFB District Caucuses (Districts 3, 6 and 9)
1:30 p.m. ............................................................................. General Session
5:30 p.m. .............................................................................Farm Family Reception
5:30 p.m. ................................................................County Presidents Reception
6 p.m. .............................................................................Ag Community Reception
7 p.m. ................................................................Dinner & Awards Program
Sunday, November 9
7:30 a.m. ................................................................County President Coffee Talk
7:30 a.m. ..........................................................................................WLC Coffee Talk
7:30 a.m. .........................................................................Public Policy Coffee Talk
8:30 a.m. .........................................Worship Service & Group Breakfast
OKFB hosts fourth-annual Capitol Camp legislative experience for Oklahoma agriculture youth
More than 100 high school students headed to the state Capitol to learn how laws are made and how they can be involved in the policymaking process throughout their lifetimes.
More than 100 4-H and FFA members from around the state gathered at the Oklahoma state Capitol Sept. 3-4 for Oklahoma Farm Bureau’s fourth-annual Capitol Camp.
Capitol Camp is an immersive two-day experience for high school juniors and seniors to learn about Oklahoma’s legislative process and how bills become law through a mock legislative experience. This year, students had the opportunity to present, discuss and debate their own bills on the floor of both the Oklahoma House of Representatives and the Oklahoma Senate.
The event began with attendees electing fellow students to serve as the event's speaker of the house and house floor leader in addition to a senate president pro tempore and senate floor leader.
“This was my second year at Capitol Camp, and I was elected as Senate Pro Tempore,” said Tylor Aary of Miami FFA. “Capitol Camp has allowed me to grow in several ways and has
given me a passion to be an active member in the government system.”
Throughout the event, students had the opportunity to present a piece of legislation they wrote about an issue important to them and then helped guide it through the legislative process. Bills were first heard in committees, and bills that passed their assigned committee were heard and voted upon in the House chamber and Senate floor.
During day two of Capitol Camp, students had the opportunity to experience first-hand how the Oklahoma state legislature operates as bills that passed in the Senate and House swapped chambers and were heard and voted upon by the opposite mock legislative body. Bills that passed through both chambers were either signed into law by the Capitol Camp governor or vetoed and sent back for a potential veto override.
“Capitol Camp was truly an amazing experience,” said Katelee Martin of Alva FFA.
Above | Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt meets with the more than 100 4-H and FFA members from around the state who attended Oklahoma Farm Bureau's fourth-annual Capitol Camp, which was held Sept. 3-4. During the camp, students had the opportunity to present bills on the floor of both the Oklahoma House of Representatives and the Oklahoma Senate.
“As speaker of the house, I couldn’t contain my joy with every tap of the gavel that passed a bill.”
Students had a special visit from Gov. Kevin Stitt, who addressed the group.
Students also heard from several legislators and agriculture industry leaders during the two-day event, including OKFB President Rodd Moesel and Oklahoma legislators, including Sen. Brenda Stanley, Rep. Scott Fetgatter, Rep. John Pfeiffer, Rep. Judd Strom, Rep. Steve Bashore and Rep. David Hardin.
In addition to the mock legislative activities over the course of the two-day event, Capitol Camp attendees took time at the end of the event’s first day to complete a community service project at the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, enjoy dinner and fellowship at Dust Bowl bowling alley and then concluded the day with a nighttime tour of the Oklahoma City National Memorial led by OKFB President Rodd Moesel.
OKFB hosts fifth-annual FFA Communications Conference in Edmond
FFA members learned communications skills and gained experience to help them share their chapters' stories in the coming year.
Oklahoma Farm Bureau hosted nearly 100 FFA members at the organization’s fifth-annual FFA Communications Conference Monday, July 21, at the Hilton Garden Inn in Edmond.
The one-day conference gave FFA members the opportunity to learn from agricultural communications professionals in several segments of communications to ignite students to share their FFA chapters’ stories through communications work.
FFA members were split into four breakout sessions including graphic design, photography, videography and social media.
The design session was taught by Elizabeth Perdue, marketing assistant for Ruth Inman Creative Services. She taught students how to use the design platform Canva to make social media graphics and flyers for their FFA chapters to use to promote events and activities across their audience.
Ruth Inman of Ruth Inman Creative Services led the social media session, where she taught students how to post effectively across all social media platforms. She also advised students on what content to post for the most engagement with their audience versus content that viewers outside of the agriculture industry would not engage with.
The photography session was taught by Mitchell Alcala, photographer for Oklahoma State University Agriculture. He taught students about photo composition, the “why” for taking a photo and how a photo can tell a story.
JD Rosman, vice president of communications for the Oklahoma Youth Expo, taught the videography session. Rosman taught students how to create a short video reel and gave them the opportunity to create their own reel to show them how they can use videos to engage their audience on their FFA chapters’ social media pages.
During the morning session, FFA members heard from Oklahoma FFA advisor Scott Nemecek about the importance of telling the FFA and agriculture story with those who are not directly involved with agriculture.
Kylee Deniz, executive director for the Oklahoma Pork Council, spoke to students about how they can build their personal brand.
OKFB’s own Dustin Mielke presented the final session at the FFA Communications Conference, where he shared with FFA members how to combine all the skills they learned into a cohesive messaging strategy to effectively share the FFA story.
Above | FFA members capture footage as they create a short video to practice their video production skills.
Below | Students share a story that they created using supplied photos as they learn messaging skills.
Below | Students work together to finalize a project during OKFB's 2025 FFA Communications Conference in Edmond.
Above | Students discuss the importance of communication during a session led by State FFA Advisor Scott Nemecek.
OKFB Young Farmers & Ranchers travel to Sulphur for YF&R Summer Conference
More than 70 Oklahoma Farm Bureau Young Farmers and Ranchers members gathered in Sulphur for the 2025 YF&R Summer Conference July 25-27.
Farm Bureau members ages 18-35 toured local agricultural facilities, heard from guest speakers and networked with fellow farmers and ranchers during the three-day event.
Jaclyn Darling welcomed the group Friday evening for dinner at the Southern Oklahoma Livestock Auction sale barn in Ada, where members heard from Robert York, CEO of National Livestock.
Saturday morning kicked off with John Kane, weapons of mass destruction coordinator for the Oklahoma Federal Bureau of Investigation, who visited with attendees about agroterrorism.
The tours began at Buchanan Family
Pecan Farm near Ardmore, where members had the opportunity to tour the grounds while learning about the family’s business.
Members also had the opportunity to visit the Washita Valley Sod Farm where Keith and Mary White gave members a tour of the sod farm and showed the group their cattle herd with e-collars. Mary uses the e-collars for rotational grazing with her cattle herd. With the e-collar she is able to set up a boundary for where she wants the cattle to graze instead of moving poly-wire fence daily.
Members stopped for lunch at the Noble Research Institute, where they heard from Charles Rohla as he shared Noble’s work with using the cattle e-collars for rotational grazing.
Members wrapped up the afternoon with a tour of Coffey Ranch from rancher Chuck Coffey himself.
Members learned about the ranching operation and how wind turbines on his property have impacted the usage of his ranch by constructing gravel roads throughout the ranch, which enable the family to travel around the ranch easier.
The full day of tours wrapped up at Doc’s Food Truck Park in Ada, where members played cornhole and listened to live music as they had the chance to visit with fellow YF&R members, share ideas and fellowship.
Eddie Wollenberg from Southern Oklahoma Livestock Auction led the group Sunday morning for a vespers service. Kinsey Westwood, OKFB senior director of public policy, wrapped up the morning by sharing with members legislative updates from the 2025 Oklahoma legislature.
Above | More than 70 Oklahoma Farm Bureau Young Farmers and Ranchers attended the 2025 YF&R Summer Conference in Sulphur.
Above | Members learn about the different varieties of pecan trees from Carl Buchanan, owner of Buchanan Family Pecan Farm.
Above | (L to R) Allison Theis, Lincoln Muller, Garrett Haskins and Clint Curtsinger enjoy the trailer ride tour of the pecan grove.
PLAY BY THE RULES.
Ignoring the rules can cost you big. Stewardship isn’t just good practice — it’s the game plan to protect your yields and preserve the power of CoAXium for seasons to come. Chasing short-term gains is a losing strategy. Follow the CoAXium rules to stay in the game:
● Plant certified seed
● Spray only with labeled rates of Aggressor AX
● Rotate crops and herbicide modes of action
Cut down the weed seed bank. Prevent resistance. Protect the CoAXium system.
OKFB YF&R Shotgun Shoot raises more than $12,000 for OKFB Foundation for Agriculture
The Oklahoma Farm Bureau Young Farmers and Ranchers held their annual shotgun shoot fundraiser Friday, Aug. 15, at Silverleaf Shooting Sports in Guthrie. More than $12,000 was raised for the OKFB Foundation for Agriculture to continue to support Oklahoma agriculture and promote agriculture throughout the state.
More than 50 teams with a total of 200 shooters participated in the sporting-clays-style tournament across 12 stations that tested their skills with real-world hunting scenarios.
Awards were presented to top teams and top shooters in youth, collegiate and open divisions. The winning team
in the open division received $100 for each shooter and a shotgun shell pouch. The winning junior and collegiate division teams also won $100 for each shooter and a shotgun shell pouch.
The top shooters in all three divisions received a soft gun case and $100. The second-place team received $50 for each shooter and the third-place team received $25 for each shooter.
The top team in the junior division was the Farm Credit Dusters from Beckham County 4-H with Landon Lohberger earning the top shooter award in the junior division. The top team in the collegiate division was
Murray State College with Dakota Sliser achieving the top shooter award in the collegiate division.
The open division was won by the Cardiovascular Health Clinic team with Holden Brown from the Collinsville Team One receiving the top shooter award in the open division.
Proceeds from the event were donated to the OKFB Foundation for Agriculture, which supports Oklahoma’s farming and ranching community through philanthropic efforts while providing educational resources and opportunities to increase awareness and knowledge of Oklahoma agriculture.
Farm Credit Dusters High School Division
Murray State College Collegiate Division
Cardiovascular Health Open Division
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During the course of reviewing your application for insurance coverage and deciding whether or not to underwrite the insurance policy for which you have applied, and, if we issue a policy for you, during the course of providing services to you as required by the policy, we collect and evaluate information from the following sources:
• Information we receive from you on applications or other forms;
• Information about your transactions with us, our affiliates, or others;
• Information we receive from consumer reporting agencies; and
• Information we receive from state or federal agencies.
It is important for us to collect and use this information to properly provide, administer, and perform services on your behalf. We could not provide optimum service to you without collecting and using this information.
Information We May Disclose
We regard all of your nonpublic information as confidential. Therefore, we do not disclose any nonpublic personal information to anyone except as permitted by law.
In the course of conducting our business dealings, we may disclose to other parties certain information we have about you. These disclosures are only made in accordance with applicable laws, and may include providers, consultants and regulatory or
JOINT PRIVACY NOTICE
governmental authorities. Furthermore, certain disclosures of information will be made to our personnel authorized to have access to your nonpublic personal information for the purpose of administering your business and providing services to you.
We may disclose the following categories of information to companies that perform services on our behalf or to other financial institutions with which we have joint marketing agreements:
• Information we received from you on applications or other forms, such as your name, address, social security number, county Farm Bureau membership number, assets, income, and beneficiaries;
• Information about your transactions with us, our affiliates, or others, such as your policy coverage, premium, loss history, and payment history; and
• Information we receive from a consumer reporting agency, such as your creditworthiness and credit history.
We may disclose nonpublic personal information about you to the following types of third parties:
• Financial service providers, such as life insurers, automobile insurers, mortgage bankers, securities broker-dealers, and insurance agents;
• Nonfinancial companies, such as retailers, direct marketers, airlines, and publishers; and
• Others, such as nonprofit organizations.
These entities with which we share personal information are required to maintain the confidentiality of that information. We do not authorize these parties to use or disclose your personal information for any purpose other than for the express purpose of performing work on our behalf or as required or permitted by law.
How We Maintain the Confidentiality & Security of Your Information
We carefully restrict access to nonpublic personal information to our employees, our independent contractor insurance agents, our service contract providers, and our affiliates and subsidiaries. The right of our employees, our independent contractor insurance agents, our service contract providers, and our affiliates and subsidiaries to further disclose and use the information is limited by our employee handbook, agent’s contract, applicable law, and nondisclosure agreements where appropriate. We maintain physical electronic and procedural safeguards that comply with federal and state law to guard your nonpublic personal information.
Your Opt-Out Right
We reserve the right to disclose nonpublic personal information to a nonaffiliated third party. However, if you prefer that we do not disclose nonpublic personal information about you to nonaffiliated third parties, you may opt out of those disclosures, that is, you may direct us not to make those disclosures (information
sharing which is permitted by law includes sharing information with our affiliates and nonaffiliates about our transactions or experiences with you for business, administrative, and other legal purposes).
If you wish to opt-out of disclosures to nonaffiliated third parties, you may mail or fax the attached OptOut Notice to us.
Your opt-out form must reach us within 30 days of your receipt of our Joint Privacy Notice. Your opt-out request will take effect on the 7th day following receipt of your request, to allow for notification to all applicable affiliated or nonaffiliated third parties. If you share your account with another person, either of you may opt-out of disclosures (other than disclosures permitted by law) for both of you. Please indicate on the Opt-Out Notice form if you are opting-out for one or both of you.
Conclusion
If you have any questions or comments concerning this Joint Privacy Notice or our privacy standards and procedures, please write us at Post Office Box 53332, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73152-3332. Our functional regulator is the State of Oklahoma, Department of Insurance. If we cannot resolve your concerns or answer your questions, feel free to contact our regulator. This Joint Privacy Notice describes our privacy policy and practices in accordance with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, 15 USC §6801, et seq., and with Oklahoma laws and regulations.
OPT-OUT NOTICE
| |I prefer that you do not disclose nonpublic personal |information about me to nonaffiliated third parties |(other than disclosures permitted by law, which |include sharing information with our affiliates & |nonaffiliates about our transactions or experiences |with you for business, administrative, and other legal |purposes). In order for an opt-out notice to be valid, |all required information must be completed.
| | Clip & mail this form to:
| Oklahoma Farm Bureau Insurance, | c/o Opt-Out Notice
| P.O. Box 53332, Oklahoma City, OK 73152-3332
| Fax Number: 405-523-2581
Oklahoma Farm Bureau hosted nearly 2,000 4-H and FFA students comprising 230 chapters and clubs for the 2025 Oklahoma State Fair Livestock Judging Contest on Monday, Sept. 15, in Oklahoma City.
Students in third grade through 12th grade evaluated eight classes of cattle, sheep, goats and hogs. They also answered a set of questions about a class of cattle and a class of goats.
The top three individuals in the junior 4-H division were Wade Richey, Altus; Hake Herrel, Minco; and Garrett Griswold, Ripley. The top three teams were Lomega, Hartshorne, and Chickasha.
The top three individuals in the junior FFA division were Sage Baird, Waynoka; Reid Dorman, Lindsay; and Katie Dismukes, Checotah. The top three teams were Elgin, Lomega, and Lindsay.
The top three individuals in the senior 4-H division were Zoey Powell, Wilburton; Kayla Venable, Grady County; and Baler Lott, Hydro-Eakly. The top three teams were HydroEakly, Fort Gibson, and Hartshorne.
The top three individuals in the senior FFA division were Aiden Rexwinkle, Wagoner; Kobi Scroggins, Tuttle; and Baylee Rogers, Vanoss. The top three teams were Wagoner, Checotah, and Hartshorne.
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OKFB members kick off grassroots policy development process with August Area Meetings
The ideas discussed by members marked the start of OKFB's policy development season.
Oklahoma Farm Bureau members gathered for a series of 11 August Area Meetings to discuss issues, challenges and opportunities facing agriculture and rural Oklahoma in preparation for the organization’s grassroots policy development season.
More than 450 members and guests attended the meetings where top issues raised by OKFB members included the new world screwworm, ad valorem tax, the MAHA movement, energy policy, diesel exhaust fluid, county road maintenance, black vultures and foreign land ownership.
OKFB members also heard organizational updates and reports from district Young Farmers and Ranchers representatives, Women’s Leadership Committee district representatives, various OKFB department staff and organizational leaders.
Farm Bureau members will now take the ideas discussed during the meetings and craft policy resolutions to present at their county resolutions meetings.
Resolutions that are passed by county Farm Bureaus will be presented for consideration at the OKFB state resolutions meeting, Oct. 21-22 in Oklahoma City.
District Eight • Pauls Valley
District Seven • Enid
District One West • Woodward
District Two • Lone Wolf
District Nine • Kellyville
District Four East • Ardmore
OKFB names Knight WLC and membership engagement coordinator
klahoma Farm Bureau recently named Megan Knight as the organization’s new Women’s Leadership Committee and membership engagement coordinator.
Knight will coordinate OKFB WLC events and activities along with OKFB membership activities.
“I’m honored to step into this role and build on the strong foundation of the Women’s Leadership Committee,” Knight said. “I am excited to support and engage women in agriculture across the state.”
Knight joins OKFB from AgHires agriculture recruiting with a background in community engagement. She also served as a field representative for Congressman Frank Lucas, serving the western part of the state.
Knight is no stranger to OKFB; as a former Oklahoma Youth Leading Agriculture participant, she has had a full-circle experience with the organization.
Originally from Boise City, Knight earned her bachelor’s degree in agricultural communications and agricultural business from Oklahoma State University. She and her husband, Cody, have one son, Kohler, and they reside in Edmond.
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OKFB WLC awards three nurse’s training scholarships
The Oklahoma Farm Bureau
Women’s Leadership Committee proudly awarded three $500 scholarships to students from Farm Bureau member families who are each pursuing a career in nursing.
The scholarships were awarded to Jenny Kijac of Jay, Cheyenne Kahoe of Mooreland, and Kate Burghart of McLoud.
“The Women’s Leadership Committee understands the challenges students face when financing their education,” said Mignon Bolay, OKFB WLC chair. “We are proud to support these young ladies throughout their educational journeys to provide quality healthcare across rural communities.”
Kijac, a Delaware County Farm Bureau member, is currently studying at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M to become a registered nurse. Kahoe is a Woodward County Farm Bureau member studying at Northwestern Oklahoma State University to become a registered nurse. Burghart is a Pottawatomie County Farm Bureau member studying at University of Central Oklahoma, where she is in her third semester with the goal of becoming a registered nurse.
The OKFB WLC provides their annual nurse’s training scholarships to help Farm Bureau members complete their education in nursing so they can provide much-needed healthcare services to fellow Oklahomans, and especially those in rural Oklahoma. Applicants must be enrolled half-time or more in a nurse’s training program at an accredited college, university, technical school or trade school.
Two Farm Bureau members appointed by President Trump to serve in USDA state director roles
wo Oklahoma Farm Bureau members were tapped as Oklahoma’s United States Department of Agriculture state directors by President Donald Trump on Thursday, Aug. 21.
Eddie Fields of Osage County was named state executive director for Oklahoma’s Farm Service Agency, and Zac Swartz of Canadian County was appointed as state director for rural development in Oklahoma.
Fields is a third-generation cattleman and agricultural producer from Wynona. He has served as chairman of the Oklahoma Ethics Commission and has served on the Oklahoma Mining Commission. He is also a former state senator and state representative, serving the people of Oklahoma from 2008-2018.
Swartz is a native of Sulphur and has worked as an advocate and a leader for rural Oklahoma in numerous capacities, including his time as the coordinator of OKFB’s Young Farmers and Ranchers program and as a member of OKFB’s public policy department from 2015-2023.
“We are thrilled to have two Oklahoma Farm Bureau members appointed as USDA state directors,” said OKFB President Rodd Moesel. “Farmers, ranchers and rural residents around the state rely on programs and services administered by FSA and rural development that enrich families and rural communities. The expertise these two leaders bring to their positions will be an asset to rural Oklahomans from every corner of the state.”
FSA state directors help implement President Trump’s America First agenda and execute the USDA’s policies in planning, organizing, and administering FSA programs through state offices across the country. Rural development state directors help affirm the mission of the Trump Administration by focusing on finding ways to empower rural America and unleash economic prosperity.
Eddie
OKFB district five state director reappointed to serve on Oklahoma Conservation Commission
klahoma Farm Bureau District Five State Director Gary Crawley was reappointed as the Area Five Conservation Commissioner during the Monday, July 7, Conservation Commission meeting in Oklahoma City.
Crawley will continue to serve as the area five commissioner through another five-year term, and he will also act as the district director on the Pittsburg County Conservation District board. Crawley was first appointed to serve as area five commissioner in 2020.
Crawley will represent the conservation districts of Pittsburg, Okfuskee, Checotah, McIntosh, Hughes, Haskell, Latimer, LeFlore, Pontotoc, Coal, Johnston, Atoka, Talihina, Pushmataha, Marshall, Bryan, Kiamichi and Little River.
Crawley and his wife, Wilma, run a cowcalf operation near Savannah. Crawley also serves fellow rural residents by conducting land appraisals and property inspections on a contract basis.
Oklahoma Conservation Commission board members guide and support the state’s conservation districts in protecting natural resources as they coordinate and oversee conservation programs, assist districts in program planning and implementation, and resolve conflicts between programs. Commissioners also help develop and approve budgets, monitor progress, and ensure accountability through standardized reporting, auditing and annual reviews. Their role ensures that Oklahoma’s conservation efforts are unified, effective and responsive to both environmental needs and community priorities.
Conservation Commission board members are appointed by the governor. Board members concurrently serve as conservation district directors during their term as commission members. At least three members of the Oklahoma Conservation Commission must be actively engaged in farming or ranching, earning a majority of their income from production agriculture.
Farm Bureau members will receive a 33 1/3% discount off nationally
Gary Crawley • OKFB District Five Director
Your dollar helps fuel champions!
2025 Boys Basketball Champion
The Oklahoma Beef Council is educating the next generation about beef nutrition and promoting beef through its partnership with Oklahoma high school sports. From state tournaments in football, basketball, and sofball to coaches’ clinics, the Oklahoma Beef Council proudly showcases Beef. It’s What’s for Winners. while sharing the winning nutrition of beef with athletes, coaches, and fans alike.
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All Around Oklahoma
Farm Bureau news, events and programs from around Oklahoma
Comanche County Farm Bureau hosts third-annual Farm Field Days in Lawton for area students
Comanche County Farm Bureau hosted their annual three-day Farm Field Days event Sept. 2-4 at the Comanche County Fairgrounds in Lawton.
More than 1,500 elementaryage students from schools around Comanche County and surrounding counties attended the agriculturefocused event.
The event gives elementaryage students a hands-on learning opportunity about the many facets of the agriculture industry from local industry professionals.
The Sullivan family, Comanche County Farm Bureau
members, coordinated the event with help from local agriculture community members.
The event featured a variety of agriculture-focused stations including animal husbandry, farm equipment, aquaculture, grain commodities, forestry, working equine, farm services and landscaping.
Attendees were fed a hamburger lunch sponsored by Comanche County Farm Bureau. Each day of agriculture stations wrapped up with a guest speaker and a live dairy cow milking demonstration provided by Southwest Dairy Farmers.
OKFB WLC attend Women in Agriculture conference in Edmond
The Oklahoma Farm Bureau Women's Leadership Committee attended the Oklahoma Women in Agriculture Conference in Edmond on Thursday, Aug. 7.
WLC members hosted a booth to share the Farm Bureau story and WLC activities with the women who attended the conference. Members also spent the day in breakout sessions and networked with industry leaders and conference attendees.
OKFB members discuss water issues during third OKFB water working group meeting
Oklahoma Farm Bureau’s grassroots Water Working Group joined together for the group’s third meeting Tuesday, July 15, at the OKFB home office.
OKFB members representing all nine OKFB districts gathered to hear from guest speakers, learn about legal and regulatory frameworks, and discuss possible water rights policy action.
Members began their morning hearing from Travis Tripp, Oklahoma Conservation Commission land management director, and Dan Dvorett, Oklahoma Conservation Commission technical programs director.
Members also heard from two surrounding state Farm Bureaus on their water issues, including Kent Askren, Kansas Farm Bureau public policy director and water resource specialist; Jarvis Garestson, Kansas Farm Bureau member and irrigator; Jay Bragg, Texas Farm Bureau Association director of commodity and regulatory activities; and Robert Gordon, Texas Farm Bureau member and irrigator.
Members closed out the meeting with a roundtable discussion on current and upcoming water rights issues.
OKFB hosts farmhand activities event at 2025 Oklahoma State Fair
Oklahoma Farm Bureau hosted the Farmhand Activities event Saturday, Sept. 13, at the Oklahoma State Fair.
More than 100 fairgoers participated in activities that paid tribute to real-life farm chores and tasks.
The event gave children and adults alike an opportunity to have fun by participating in a host of agriculture-based activities to connect the public with Farm Bureau and Oklahoma agriculture.
Noble
County Farm Bureau hosts annual ice cream social
Noble County Farm Bureau hosted their annual ice cream social, Monday, July 14, at the Noble County fairgrounds in Perry.
Noble County Farm Bureau members gathered to enjoy ice cream, homemade desserts and hear from local legislators and candidates running in elections in the coming year.
The Noble County Women’s Leadership Committee provided a variety of homemade desserts with ice cream and all the fixings for members to enjoy.
Legislators in attendance included current House District 38 Rep. John Pfeiffer, Attorney General candidate John Echols, and House District 38 candidate Madison Bolay.
OKFB Director of Public Policy Gage Milliman shared the accomplishments and achievements Farm Bureau won in the 2025 Oklahoma legislative session along with a preview of the organization’s grassroots policy development season.
OKFB
hosts summer public policy
intern
Oklahoma State University student Luke Tate joined the Oklahoma Farm Bureau public policy department during Summer 2025 as an intern.
Tate, a native of Ninnekah, Oklahoma, is a junior studying agricultural business with a pre-law option at OSU.
During his internship, Tate assisted with OKFB events, legislative research and other policy-related projects.
“This position is teaching me how to better advocate for agriculture and share the agriculture story to those not closely related to the industry,” Tate said.
Tate plans attend law school after graduating from OSU in the spring of 2027.
OKFB WLC members attend National Ag in the Classroom conference in Minneapolis
Oklahoma Farm Bureau Women’s Leadership Committee members, along with Oklahoma Ag in the Classroom teachers, traveled to Minneapolis for the National Ag in the Classroom conference June 23-26.
WLC members and Oklahoma teachers attended numerous breakout sessions where they learned about new accurate agriculture books, received new curriculum to use in their own classrooms and participated in hands-on workshop activities.
WLC members had the opportunity to participate in
traveling workshops during the conference. Members followed the journey of milk to the Square Deal Dairy where they learned about milk production. Members also toured Galewoods Farm, which is an educational farm that provides visitors with a hands-on learning experience about food and animal production.
The final traveling workshop took place at the University of Minnesota College of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resource Sciences where members learned about extension education programs in Minnesota.
Oklahoma County Farm Bureau recently provided four schools with Bushels for Books baskets and also donated $5,000 to the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma.
Oklahoma County Farm Bureau presented their four local Bushels for Books baskets to Cynthia Johnson, a school counselor at Willow Brook Elementary School in Midwest City; Prairie Queen Elementary; Sooner Oklahoma County Farm Bureau presents Bushels
Elementary; and Choctaw Elementary School.
The Oklahoma County Farm Bureau board also presented a $5,000 check to the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma for the Food for Kids matching program.
The Oklahoma County donation is matched to be $10,000 and turns into 30,000 meals for underserved Oklahomans.
Peace of mind for life.
Peace of mind for life.
Doug Hauserx Agent Kingfsher 405-375-4421
Annelise Pool Agent Lawton 580-353-5173
Broc Mcguire Agent Madill 580-795-3418
Sam Barrick Agent Marietta 580-276-3246 Scott Abbottx Agent Muskogee 918-682-2091 Heather Kiser Agent Nowata 918-273-2957
Darrell Davidx Agent Oklahoma City 405-912-5021 Kent Washburn Agent Oklahoma City 405-912-5021 Travis Hammerx Agent Oklahoma City 405-912-5021 Mickey Adcox Agent Pauls Valley 405-238-7366 Amanda Marshall Agent Pryor 918-825-1122 Max Whipplex Agent Pryor 918-825-1122
Brian Bensch Agent Seiling 580-328-5519
Karley Fewel Agent Seminole 405-382-0304
Bobby Johnsonx Agent Skiatook 918-396-3149
Jonathan Holloway Agent Tulsa 918-369-9990 Brian Kelly Agent Vinita 918-256-5531 Christie Yoder Agent Wagoner 918-485-5538
Rick Roberts Agent Stilwell 918-696-7227
Dean Wiles Agent Tishomingo 580-371-2488
Jef Baumannx Agent Walters 580-875-3290 Terri Shefeld Agent Waurika 580-228-2941 x
Bulb planting season is here: prepare for a burst of color
By Trisha Gedon, Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service
As the summer gardening season ends, brightlycolored flowers are fading, as if saying goodbye. While the vibrancy of a summer garden slips quietly away, gardeners can prepare for next spring’s vivid colors in the landscape by planting spring-flowering bulbs now through early November.
David Hillock, Oklahoma State University Extension consumer horticulturist, said planting bulbs in the fall gives them time to establish a root system before the winter cold sets in.
“Bulbs need a chilling period to bloom in the spring,” Hillock said. “Planting the bulbs at this time of year will provide that and help ensure the bulbs will grow into a strong plant next spring. Be aware that planting bulbs too early will result in premature sprouting.”
Hillock suggests visiting the local garden store soon to have the best bulb selection. Gardeners may also opt to order from their favorite seed and bulb company. Online ordering often provides gardeners with a broader selection of bulb varieties. Quality bulbs make a significant difference, so look for firm, plump bulbs void of mold or soft spots.
As with all aspects of gardening, selecting the right place in the landscape is crucial. Choose a site that drains well because bulbs don’t like soggy conditions. Many Oklahoma gardeners can attest that the abundance of clay soil is common, which means less-than-desirable growing conditions. Planting on a slope can help with drainage issues. Also, select a site that has full sun exposure. It is helpful if there is protection from heavy winds that can damage the flowers once they’ve emerged.
“Good, well-drained soil is a must for gardening success, and preparing the soil before planting is important,” Hillock said. “Bulbs sitting in water-logged soil will develop root rot. Mixing in organic matter, such as compost, will help with drainage issues in clay soil.”
Parts of the state also feature sandy soil, which is not suitable for gardening. Amending clay soil with compost will help it become more workable and improve drainage. Compost helps enhance water retention in sandy soil.
Gardeners who do not have great soil in the landscape can opt for raised beds. Gardeners can fill the beds with the best soil, but raised beds are also easier for garden tasks like weeding and fertilizing.
“Be sure to read the directions on the bulb package and follow the planting guide,” Hillock said. “Plant at the correct depth, smooth over the soil and tamp it down slightly. Bulbs are typically planted at a depth two to three times their diameter. A 2-inch bulb should be planted 4 to 6 inches deep. Also, remember that bulbs should be planted with the roots facing down. Irrigate until the soil is moist but not soupy. Finally, cover with a 2- to 3-inch blanket of mulch to protect the bulbs from Old Man Winter.”
When planting bulbs, do not be shy. Planting generously provides a lot of visual interest in the landscape. Plant tulip bulbs in groups of 20 or more with about a foot between each bulb to create a big pop of color.
“Daffodils provide a fantastic display when organized in swaths, much like a lazy river,” Hillock said. “Also, mixing different species and varieties of species will provide a longer display of blooms in the landscape. Consider other spring-flowering bulbs such as hyacinths, snowdrops, Siberian squill, Spanish bluebells, fritillaria, and crocus to add visual interest. There are early, mid- and late-season blooming varieties, so mix and match for the best effect.”
Do not forget about protecting against pests and diseases. Gardeners put in a lot of work planting a garden, and it can be frustrating when pests and diseases wreak havoc. Be vigilant in scouting for pests and treat accordingly.
“The work gardeners put in this fall will pay big dividends in the spring when the landscape is full of beautiful, flowering bulbs,”
Hillock said.
Above | Be sure to follow the label directions when planting spring-flowering bulbs. Bulbs are usually planted at a depth two to three times their diameter. Place the bulbs in the rows with the roots facing down. (Photo by Mitchell Alcala, OSU Agriculture)
Above | Putting in the effort to plant bulbs in the fall will provide vibrant color in the garden next spring. Shop early for the best selection at the local garden store.
(Photo by Mitchell Alcala, OSU Agriculture)
