For 83 years, the Sandhills Cattle Association has been holding its Annual Membership Meeting, but over the years, we’ve added a trade show, cattle contests, educational speakers, and entertainment. Due to changing times and other reasons, we decided to make things a little different this year! On June 15th, at the Cherry County Fairgrounds in Valentine, NE, we held our 84th Annual Convention and Banquet! We started the evening with a cocktail hour by Corner Pub and viewed all of the silent auction items. Then the Executive Board held the Annual Membership meeting. We updated our members on what the Sandhills Cattle Association has been doing this past year and welcomed Rick Marlatt as our 23-24 President! After that, our delicious steak dinner was ready to be served! Thank you to Dave and Brenda Masek for grilling and serving our dinner. It was some of the best steaks we’ve had and our banquet wouldn’t have been successful without them!
Clay Patton, Farm Broadcaster with KRVN, was our emcee for the evening and spoke about the markets and some very humorous stories! After Clay finished, we welcomed Elliot Dennis, UNL Assistant Professor – Livestock Marketing. Elliot educated us about the cattle markets and what to expect in the future and gave us some insights on programs and options on how to profit more from our cattle. Finally, Ryan Adamson, SCA’s Past President, talked about our Sandhills Cattle Association Scholarship Program and how we have given over $125,000 dollars to students over the last 30 years! Then we awarded our 2023 Scholarship Recipients! Tucker Stagemeyer from Page, NE, and Brooklyn Buell from Bassett, NE, were both awarded a $2,000 SCA Scholarship. Jake Connell from Hyannis, NE, was awarded the $1,500 SCA Scholarship. Elizabeth Wilkins from Ainsworth, NE, and Megan Amos from Stapleton, NE, were both awarded a $1,000 SCA Scholarship. Megan Amos was also awarded the $500 Howard Wright Memorial Scholarship! Finally, Lance Jones from Stapleton, NE, was awarded the Buzz Kime Memorial Scholarship. This group of kids was absolutely excellent and we can’t wait to see what they do with their futures!
We then ended the evening with our Live Auction and Silent Auction. Clay Patton did a great job getting the crowd involved, and we raised over $11,000 for our Scholarship Program! We couldn’t be more thankful for the donors that gave us items to be auctioned off and all of the generous people that purchased items! We would only be able to continue our various youth programs with everyone’s help.
We thank you all for supporting us and the youth of the Sandhills! Until next year!