Recently, the American Sheep Industry Association (ASI) held its 2019 convention, and the result was election of new officers and a revamped executive board to lead the industry into the new year.

Benny Cox of San Angelo, Texas, succeeds Mike Corn as president. Cox started in the livestock industry in the late 1960s after joining Producers Livestock Co. while attending high school. He earned a bachelor’s degree in ag economics in 1975 at Angelo State University. Today, he remains with Producers Livestock as the sheep and goat sales manager. Cox is a past president of the Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers Association and has been a member of ASI’s Lamb Council.

Cox is joined on the executive team by Susan Shultz of DeGraff, Ohio, who was elected vice president after serving as secretary-treasurer for two years. Shultz operates Bunker Hill Farm, a fourth-generation diversified family farm, working with her husband, Bill, and son, Joe. The operation breeds black-faced Suffolk terminal sires for the Western range commercial industry. She was co-chairwoman of ASI’s Production, Education and Research Council, chairwoman of the Roadmap Productivity Improvement Committee and chair of ASI’s Let’s Grow Committee. Shultz is retired from a 35-year career in education, where she was an education coordinator and teacher for gifted students.

Brad Boner of Glenrock, Wyo., was elected secretary-treasurer after serving the past year as the region seven representative on the ASI executive board. In addition to working with Mountain States Rosen and the company’s lamb cooperative, Boner is a sixth-generation rancher. The family runs a diversified operation that includes Rambouillet and Targhee sheep, as well as cattle.

There were four changes to the ASI executive board. Steve Clements of South Dakota was elected to represent Region 4 as Jeff Ebert was not eligible for re-election due to term limits. Randy Tunby of Montana was elected in Region 7. Region 8 elected Sarah Smith of Washington, and Bob Harlan of Wyoming stepped into the National Lamb Feeders Association position on the board. Returning ASI executive board members include: Don Kniffen of New Jersey, Region 1; Jimmy Parker of Alabama, Region 2; John Dvorak of Minnesota, Region 3; Bob Buchholz of Texas, Region 5; and Steve Osguthorpe of Utah, Region 6.

Policy planning
The ASI Lamb Council crafted grassroots policy on the industry’s response to current and emerging alternative sources of protein, including laboratory-cultured proteins. Having closely monitored the development of these products and the evolving regulatory framework, members of ASI weighed in to support the administration’s approach of joint oversight between the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The policy clearly states that the association opposes any efforts to mislead consumers or disparage traditionally produced natural lamb in product promotion, advertising or labeling. ASI will remain at the forefront of this conversation as the development, regulation and marketing of these products moves forward. America’s sheep producers are proud of the healthy lamb they raise, and they only aim for a level playing field to ensure that consumers have the information needed to make decisions that are in their family’s best interest.

‘New’ markets
After a record-breaking year of soaring wool prices, producers were treated to more good news on that side of the industry, as representatives from the U.S. Army were on hand to discuss the return of the service’s “pinks and greens” uniform. A throwback to the Army dress uniform of the World War II era, the new uniforms will feature American wool in everything from the jacket and pants to the shirt and socks. “It’s not a new uniform, but it’s our best uniform,” said Clay Williamson, a program manager for soldier clothing. He was tasked with providing Brooks Brothers-quality dress uniforms, because the Army felt that every soldier “deserved it.” The uniforms were previewed late in 2018 and will begin to appear in regular use this year.

During its meeting, the group also presented Mike Conaway, former House Agriculture Committee chairman, with the industry’s Joe Skeen Award. Conaway drafted a farm bill which ASI called one of the most favorable to the sheep industry in more than three decades.

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